The Toronto Maple Leafs recently acquired Dion Phaneuf from the Calgary Flames in exchange for a bag of pucks and several of my linemates from beer league hockey (and Ian White). There has since been much speculation about who Dion will be paired with on the blue line. Or, if you want to be grammatically correct, there has been speculation about with whom Dion will be paired… There, are you happy fancypants? Now try to stay focused.

While there are several possibilities, pundits generally agree that Mike Komisarek is the logical choice for a linemate (or would have been were it not for a recent season-ending injury). For Dion and Mike share many of the qualities that NHL franchises look for in a defensive player. They both play a gritty, physical game. They both have powerful shots from the point. And, perhaps most importantly, they both dated this girl:

Yes, there’s nothing quite like sharing a locker room with a guy who ploughed your girlfreind before you arrived on the scene. Not only does it give you a chance to find out exactly what STDs you’re exposing yourself to on a nightly basis, but it also allows you to find out the best way to pleasure your lady from someone who has first-hand / first-penis experience.

From the Leafs’ perspective, pairing the two Elisha-rogerers together would also inject some much-needed aggression into the their playbook. Who cares if the two of them end of fighting each other in the corner - at least there will be something worth watching on the ice. They could even work out secret phrases for on-ice plays that would baffle their opponents. Plays like “Going (Knuckle) Deep”, or “Dump and Pump”, or “Elisha Still Dreams of Me While She’s Doing You”, or “Threesome with Jack Bauer’s Daughter“, or “Backdoor with The Girl Next Door“, or “Does This Smell Familiar?”… Anyway, you get the picture.

Sadly, Mike is out for the season, so Leafs fans will have to wait until next year for the dynamic duo to take to the ice. However, there is always a chance that Cuthbert will dump Dion for her 4th professional hockey player in as many years (if you count Avery as a “professional”), so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that she picks a fellow Leaf. My money’s on Kaberle…

I, like every other fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, live a life of misery. I foolishly devote myself to a franchise that goes to great lengths to crush the spirits of its loyal fanbase purely for sport (4 decades and counting!). Indeed, it often seems as though the Leafs invest their league-leading revenues in finding new ways to disappoint (take, for example, Saturday`s unprecedented loss of a 3-goal lead in the 3rd period…). I feel like Krusty the Clown betting on the Generals - they’re due! 

 Of course, recent years have been easier than most due to the distinct absence of what the French like to call “le hope”. For the most part, the Leafs’ ranks have been staffed with functionally retarded school children who have difficulty skating backwards. But now the franchise seems bound and determined to even suck at losing… Over the weekend, Messrs. Dion Phaneuf and Jean-Sebastien Giguere became the newest members of the Leafs organization. Some would think this would be good news. After all, they are good players. Very good players. But there`s the rub. For a Leafs fan, hope is a horrible, horrible thing…

Dion Phaneuf at the Leafs’ New Training Facility

So what does the future hold for our beloved Leafs? Well, if history has taught us anything, the answer is fairly simple:

• Phaneuf and Giguere will arrive in Toronto with all the pomp and circumstance of a stripper returning to the stage for an “encore”;
• The Leafs will win a few games, and the franchise will prematurely declare the team “Stanley Cup contenders”;
• Immediately following this proclamation, the team will death spiral in an agonizing frenzy of pointless losses;
• Unable to take the pressure of the Big Smoke, Phaneuf will retire from the NHL to take up ice dancing. Giguere will move to Northern Quebec to make cheeses;
• In an effort to stop the bleeding, the Leafs will spend their remaining cap space on Brett Lindros and Brent Gretzky;
• I will die a little more inside as the team misses the Playoffs for yet another year…

Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.

It’s Monday. It’s January. It’s raining. God bless us, everyone (except that little shit, Tiny Tim). Join us once again as we stroll through the anus of history in remembrance of the January 25ths of yesteryear…

1791– The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, continuing its streak of brilliant foreign policy decisions. Next stop: panicked withdrawal from India…

1879 – The Bulgarian National Bank is founded, signalling the end to global concerns about the stability of Bulgarian currency (which I believe is moussaka).

1881– Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company. With no one else to call, they spend the next decade re-enacting crank calls to one another using puppets.

1942 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom, prompting both nations to immediately respond with gross apathy (coupled with mild concern for the dwindling supply of lady boys).

1996 – Billy Bailey became the last person to be hanged in the United States of America. Unfortunately for the music world, the deceased turns out to be a different Bill Bailey, allowing Axl to continue his work on the greatest scam of all time. 

2006 – Three independent observing campaigns announce the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb through gravitational microlensing, the first cool rocky/icy extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star. Nerds of the world rejoice, and immediately update the Wikipedia entry for “January 25″.

I was watching Star Wars, Episode I the other night (because that’s just the kind of cool guy I am), and I was struck by how truly bad-ass Darth Maul was. He was like a mute ninja clown with crazy face tattoos (and horns). I was also struck by how overly douchey it was to kill him off in the space of about 20 minutes, before the audience could really get a sense of the depth of his bad-assness… Nice work, Lucas - at least you preserved a spot for Jar-Jar in the sequels.

In any event, following his premature on-screen demise, I started to ponder where he would rank among the great villains of the Silver Screen (probably somewhere between Yentl and Zohan). In so doing, I realized that I was duty-bound to our loyal readers to produce the definitive list of movie villains. Oh sure, AFI made a poor attempt at compiling such a list a couple of years ago, but they lacked the one resource that we here at Food Court Lunch possess: four lonely shut-ins with a collective encyclopedic knowledge of crappy movies (mostly from the 80s). And so, without further ado, here are the 15 greatest movie villains of all time (in descending order of villainy):

1. Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin - Arnold’s greatest role.
2. The Blair Witch - he/she still haunts my nightmares (and gives me motion sickness)
3. El Guapo from Three Amigos - he raped horses and pruned hedges!
4. Nick Nack from The Man with the Golden Gun - I kept waiting for the plane…
5. Dark Helmet from Spaceballs - “Keep firing, assholes“
6. Benjamin Button (I fell asleep, but I assume at some point he turned evil…)
7. The Ice Cream Guy from Student Confidential  - cinematic gold
8. The Crazy Village People from Gymkata
9. Lizard Man in a Unitard from Star Trek - his villainy is matched only by his blinding speed
10. Bennett from Commando (he edged out Sully…) - Alyssa still looked hot… what?!?
11. The guy who framed Roger Rabbit
12. Mama Fratelli from The Goonies
13. Minnie Driver in everything she has ever been in - including this video… Terrifying!
14. The principal from ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ in Howard the Duck
15. Dr. Evil 

There you have it - the definitive list of movie villains. We defy you to disagree… “Challenge!” (said with an awkward French accent)

As most people with dial-up access to the interwebs are well aware, Senor Gilbert Arenas has been charged with one count of carrying a pistol without a license following his spat with fellow Wizard, Javaris “Gandalf” Crittenton. Much has been made in the media of late about whether professional athletes are heightened targets for muggings and encyclopedia solicitation, such that carrying a weapon has become a necessity for these poor souls. After all, if a super-duperstar of the likes of Delonte West needs to carry no less than three loaded firearms when he is rolling on his three-wheeled scooter and cutting off police, imagine what real athletes must feel compelled to carry around on their person…

But here’s the thing, professional athletes of the world - there is likely no need for you to risk jail time to protect yourselves. First off, we suggest that if you are going to carry a weapon that is legal if properly registered but carries a 5-year jail term if not registered, perhaps you should spend the 6 minutes to register it… Better yet, let the good people at Food Court Lunch register it for you - you just relax and fire up the old x-box. We will fill out and file all of the necessary paperwork on your behalf (for a reasonable sum, of course).

But’s that’s not all! We here at Food Court Lunch are willing to do it all for you (and I do mean all - especially Gourmet Spud). If you want to carry an illegal firearm that defies registration, whether because it makes you feel more gangster or simply because it is a family tradition, that’s cool too! We will carry it for you. Hell, for the right price, we will carry anything for you! Got weed? Give it to us! Child pornography? Toss it over here for safekeeping. Naked photos of your mom (or someone else’s mom) that you would prefer not to become public? We don’t mind - we’ll just claim it’s our mom.

“We will carry your shit…” 

Our firm offers 24-hour service, regardless of whether you’re on the road or just sitting at home. If you are driving around with contraband and are pulled over by the cops, just throw everything in the backseat - we will be there to pick it up and claim exclusive ownership (I can usually be found behind your passenger seat - I am quite petite). Time for a shootout in the locker room? Butter Chicken will be in the showers waiting for you with whatever you desire (i.e., pistols, soap, tube steak, etc.). Going clubbing and feel the need to just fire off a few rounds? We’ll be there (provided you can speak to the bouncers on our behalf - we are not very good about getting into nightclubs, not because of the guns so much as our hideous physical appearance and our penchant for wearing Zubaz).

The important thing, uber rich athletes with dream jobs, is that you don’t throw everything away through sheer stupidity. You are wealthy. Disgustingly wealthy. Simply put, you can afford to pay other people to go to jail for you. That is why the leagues pay you so much - they expect you to do stupid things. After all, let’s not kid around - you weren’t drafted from Mensa. But the great thing about being you is that you can use your wealth to send others to prison for your mistakes. That’s called justice. And that is where we come in. We look forward to working together…

Dear Team USA,

“Congratulations” on winning the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championships earlier this week… I am sorry that it took me so long to write, but I needed time to collect my thoughts after the game that took years off my life… I wanted to be sure that my missive captured the true spirit of my emotions. I had considered firing off an immediate “Fuck you and your functionally retarded mothers” e-mail on the night of your big win, but I decided that was too impersonal. You deserve better. At the very least, your victory merits a full-fledged nonsensical rant, replete with expletives and impotent rage. So here we go…

First off, what the fuck happened to the game plan!? I thought I had made it pretty clear in my pre-game message that Canada needed this victory. A lot. We’ve got nothing else up here but ice, cheap pharmaceuticals and polite conversation, jerkstores! Why did you have to fuck with the cosmos by stealing our bread and butter?! What, are we supposed to seek solace in the sultry sounds of Celine Dion, or the comedy stylings of Leslie Nielsen? I think not… We had an agreement, Team USA. We dominate hockey and curling, you dominate all other social, economic, athletic, political and cultural spheres. That was the deal. And you almost lived up to it. Remember this moment? Yeah, so do I… Everything was going according to plan until you fucked it all up with your overtime goal.

Well, my friends, prepare to pay the price. You have awoken a sleeping giant (or some sort of passive-aggressive hibernating bear). You think you can just take our beloved hockey without paying the price? Think again, knob gobblers! Time to pay the piper… You took from us, so we take from you. Effective immediately, the Great White North formally invokes the following sanctions:

• all exports of British Columbia pot to the U.S. will be suspended
• all exports of Bryan Adams and Cory Hart will be tripled
• no more poutine, back bacon or nanaimo bars
• we officially take back the letter “u”
• Rachel McAdams, Natasha Henstridge, Emmanuelle Chirqui, Elisha Cuthbert and Estella Warren shall all be extradited back to their frozen homeland
• construction of all igloos south of the 49th parallel is suspended indefinitely
• we shall unleash all of our pet beavers
• residents of Washington - keep your heads up

See you in Vancouver in a couple of weeks, Team USA - hopefully you will have learned your lesson by then…

Tonight officially marks the end of the Canadian Holiday Season as the World Junior Hockey Championships draw to a close. It has been a long road for the Canadian team, having narrowly avoided elimination by edging the European triumvirate of hockey: Latvia (16-0), Slovakia (8-2) and Switzerland (6-0 and 6-2: we had a re-do of the first game just to drive the point home).

Of course, Canada was also pitted against a young upstart nation of colonial rebels and anti-monarchists on New Year’s Eve… Apparently the Yanks did not learn their lesson from 1812, and decided to come back for more. The result was largely the same (except instead of burning down their capital city, we took a more subtle approach this time by narrowly escaping with a shoot-out victory). For those that missed the shoot-out, it’s worth a watch…

Tonight’s gold medal game will be a re-match of the New Year’s Eve battle. Before the puck drops, however, we would like to have a few words with our friends south of the border:

Hi Team USA - how’s it going? You’re looking well. Say hello to your mother for me. So, what’s the deal? You looked pretty quick out there in the last game. A little too quick, some might say. What the hell are you doing?! You know the deal - we get hockey and curling, you get unparalleled dominance in every other sport. That was the agreement. I thought we made it pretty clear.

Look, we admittedly flew a little too close to the sun in the early 1990s by toying with your national sport with our back-to-back World Series championships, but let’s not kid around - there were no Canadians on the Blue Jays at the time. Our Dominicans simply bested your Dominicans. That doesn’t breach the terms of our arrangement. Besides, we made up for it by “letting” you win our most recent international basketball showdown…

Look, Team USA - we need this. It’s cold up here. Really cold. We haven’t seen the sun in weeks. To make matters worse, we’ve got nothing to do up here except speak French and abuse our universal health care system. We’ve got one road, 3 cities and declining fish stocks. Throw us a freakin’ bone, USA. Please. Besides, 99.9% of your country doesn’t even know this tournament exists - they won’t care that you settled for silver… Conversely, if we lose our nation will death-spiral into chaos. Look, if this is what we do after we WIN the first round of a playoff series, imagine what happens when we lose a gold medal game:

Thank you for your time and consideration. I trust we have an understanding…

 We here at Food Court Lunch receive a lot of “fan mail” over the course of the year, usually in the form of love letters (cleverly disguised as death threats written in newspaper clippings…). As 2009 draws to a close, we felt that it would be appropriate to respond to those among you who have burning life questions, as well as to those suffering from burning genitals. 

One question that we invariably receive from our inquisitive readers concerns the Toronto Maple Leafs and their almost comical inability to secure a Stanley Cup victory since 1967 (as well as their general inability to compete in the NHL). Many are particularly curious as to why the most financially successful team in the NHL is perennially one of the least successful on the ice. The answer to this question is by no means straightforward. It involves many variables, several intangibles and a whole hell of a lot of bullshit…

We believe, however, that the short answer to this query is found in the Leafs’ lackluster training regimen. In particular, the franchise has foolishly moved away from its intensive pre-season golf and knee bend exercises, and replaced them with the less effective post-season golf regimen… Indeed, many of the players are simply unable to match the stringent physical requirements of yesteryear, namely the mandatory 20 push-ups and sit-ups. Perhaps this pre-season missive to the players from 1962 will inspire the organization to return to its fitness roots:

We’ve all heard the Canadian stereotypes before - we eat beaver for breakfast (true), we are polite (false, asshole), we live in igloos (true), we have no idea what we’re talking aboot most of the time (true?), we are insatiable sex machines (true, assuming “insatiable” means “disappointing”), we have sex with snowmen (true six months of the year). Of course, the most often cited stereotype involves the notion that Canadians live and breathe hockey. For the record, this is an utter falsehood (just look at 3 of the 4 members of this so-called website…). I don’t know where people come up with these preconceived notions of life in the Great White North, but they are wholly misinformed. It’s not as though the nation is salvating over a bunch of unknown 16 and 17 year-olds in practice jerseys in anticipation of finding out which acned teenager is going to make the Canadian Junior Team… Ok, perhaps we are.

You will note that the journalist described the 2000 fans in attendance for this year’s first inter-squad practice skate as “sparse”. Admittedly, the Jays would kill for an attendance of 2000 fans over the span of an entire season, but I suppose everything is relative. After all, this was a practice game held in downtown Regina, Saskatchewan. That’s basically the Canadian equivalent of the Rose Bowl (with fewer cheerleaders and more dog sleds).

For those not familiar with the World Junior Hockey Championships, they are as fundamental to the Canadian Holiday Season as Santa, backbacon, maple syrup and inappropriate touching. The competition begins on Boxing Day (or as it is known in the U.S., the “day that follows Christmas but has no particular designation of any significance”), and continues into the New Year. The WJHC also mark the only time of the year when I am permitted to express my passionate love for 17 year-old boys without being subject to censure… God bless us, everyone.

And so if you happen to find yourself in the greater Regina and/or Saskatoon area this Holiday Season, get out. If you cannot, I encourage you to partake in the WJHC festivities and to scream randomly at young boys. It may be the only time in your life when you can pull this off without facing criminal charges…

 Happy Holidays, everyone.

In the history of broadcast media, there have been identifiable moments of greatness when the entire world stopped to hear the deepest, darkest secrets of the famous and the infamous:

• Frost’s riveting interview with Nixon
• Michael Jackson’s tell-all with Oprah
• Dan Rather’s insightful probing of Saddam Hussein (and I do mean probing…)
• Evander Holyfield’s interview with God
• Miss South Carolina’s interview with U.S. Americans

At the risk of over-stating things, these interviews pale in comparison to what will undoubtedly stand as the greatest interview in the history of Mankind, brought to you by the good folks at the Phoenix Pub. Enjoy!