The Chantastic Blog

I do a lot of stupid things make idiotic decisions frequently do a lot of unconventional thinking, but I think today may have been my finest hour.

I’m recovered from my flu of two weeks ago, but still dealing with the lingering effects of bronchitis that leads to excessive coughing. This cough is exacerbated by talking and taking deep breaths.

Since I’ve been sick, I haven’t done any physical activity in over three weeks, so my endurance - which had been slowly building up - is shot. Of all the unwise things I could have done, I think that playing both basketball and ball hockey in one day is at the top of the list. As I said, deep breaths aggravate my bronchitis cough. I’m already going to be sucking wind because I haven’t done any running in a long time. Then make the problem way worse by scheduling a basketball-hockey day/night doubleheader. Needless to say, I was ready to collapse after ball hockey tonight while nearly coughing up a lung.

Oh, and did I mention that exams are next week?

Came home from ball hockey the other night and my hand grazed my lip. I glanced at the part of my hand where it touched my lip, and it was blue. I was confused, so I went into the washroom and looked at my mouth, only to find that my tongue was completely blue. This, of course, was followed by 5 seconds of panic.

What the hell is going on?

(5 seconds later…)

Oh wait, I was drinking grape flavored Gatorade at ball hockey.

It’s times like these when I find it amusing that some people consider me intelligent.

The best part of the NHL draft last night was the crowd reaction to players celebrating with their families after they were drafted. Anytime the players hugged an attractive sister, girlfriend, or cousin, the crowd whistled…even if the girl was blatantly underage. This has never happened in all my years of watching the NHL draft but this year’s draft was in Montreal, and really, I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

On a related note, the funniest moment happened when a player was drafted and gave his mom a hug. However, the mom couldn’t restrain her enthusiasm and proceeded to give him a full three second lip-on-lip kiss, leading to the entire crowd laughing and cheering her on.

It’s pretty fitting that in the year the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, they use their first round pick on a guy named Simon. The only thing missing was having Mario announce the pick…

I’m watching the NHL draft, and I have to admit, the main reason why I’m watching is so I can hear team execs say, “We’d like to congratulate the Pittsburgh Penguins on winning the Stanley Cup” before every pick.

A tremendous job by the ESPN graphics staff and Dave Dameshek on this new sign that he wants to put outside Pittsburgh’s city limits.

I invented a new drinking game while I was out watching Game 7 of the Penguins-Red Wings series: any time they show Mario and his glorious beard on TV, everybody has to drink.  Simple enough, eh?

Anyway, watching the Penguins win the Cup was pretty freakin’ awesome, but watching Mario lift the Cup was even better.  And despite my fears of how I’d react to watching Le Magnifique with the Cup, I managed to remain conscious while keeping my pants clean when it happened.  A couple of rounds of celebratory shots were obviously ordered, though.  It got to the point that someone who was watching the game with me asked how much money I’d pay to sleep with Mario, and didn’t believe me when I said I’d settle for a giant Mario man-hug instead.

But now there’s news that Lemieux spoke to the team after their disheartening 5-0 loss in Game 5 and sent the entire team a text message before Game 7.  In an interview I saw on TV today, Bill Guerin said that after reading the text, he felt like he was in the movie 300 and was ready to run through a brick wall to win the Cup.

I might have to change my answer to that hypothetical question.