Dear Toronto Maple Leafs,

What’s up? It’s me, the General.

Leafs, we need to talk. Here, have a seat…

Leafs, you and I have been together for a long time, and it’s been fun. We have had some great times. I mean, remember the early 1990s?! Those were some fantastic years… If it weren’t for that damn Gretzky, we might have gone all the way! And we’ve certainly battled more than our share of heartache, too. Remember the Ballard years? Yes, I know we promised not to speak of them, but it had to be said - those were some tough times. But we overcame!

It’s just that lately I feel as though we’re not on the same page. Don’t get me wrong, I still love you! It’s just that I can’t help but feel that we’ve grown apart of late. We seem to want different things in life. I still yearn for that elusive intangible known as “periodic success”, whereas you appear to have lost your passion entirely. As your friends Les Canadiens would say, you’ve lost your ’joie de vivre‘. You seem content to wallow on the couch in sub-mediocrity, playing NHL’08 on the Xbox (I note that you never pick yourself, by the way…), while your new friends like Ottawa and Carolina go out and play. I miss that young go-getter I that I fell in love with, dammit!

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As any proud Canadian knows, our common values are the backbone of this great nation.  Our forefathers came to this great land and tamed the majestic wilderness that was Canada with resolve, hard work, and a healthy respect for God.  In doing so, our forefathers created a place that became a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.  As the years passed by, more and more families from across the world came to Canada in search of a better life, and found it in our majestic Rockies, our grassland prairies and our urban playgrounds.  By the 1950s, Canada was a prosperous nation where God-fearing boys and girls played without fear in our streets and dreamed of the day when they to could start families of their own, free from the menacing influence of foreigners.

But something happened in the 1960s that began to change Canada in a significant, and negative way.  Fat-cat politicians in Ottawa decided we had too much liberty and began to silently erode our rights and freedoms.  Hungry for more tax dollars, they opened the floodgates to hordes of clamouring immigrants from parts unknown, without concern for the protection of our Canadian Values.  (more…)

As you likely know, Sean Taylor, safety for the Washington Redskins, died recently from a gunshot wound to the leg that he sustained during an incident at his house. Little is known about the situation that led to the shooting of the once-troubled NFL player. Many have jumped to conclusions as to what may have precipitated this horrible act of violence. Not Peter King, though:

We don’t know much about the Taylor story yet. Random act of senseless violence? Doesn’t sound like it, but we don’t know. Simple burglary gone wrong? We don’t know. Sordid past rising up in some sort of revenge attack? We don’t know. So we have to be careful about jumping to conclusions with a story that is in its infancy.

That’s right, Peter. We don’t know. Here are some other things we don’t know:

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Warning: His first impulse is to run up on you and do a Rambo

We here at Food Court Lunch are huge fans of music videos. Given that our parents didn’t let us read when we were kids (”words are the devil’s tools”), we had to entertain ourselves in other fashions. Luckily, good old child-friendly TV was always around. We were avid viewers of MuchMusic, the Canadian version of MTV (Uglier VJs! Cheaper Sets! More Gowan and Luba!). One video we recall from our childhoods is Oran “Juice” Jones’ “The Rain”. We had not heard the song in a while, but our recollection was that it was pretty catchy. We could all sing the chorus despite not having listened to it in decades. This prompted a search for the video, which can be seen below. The funny thing is, we don’t recall it being as obviously pro-stalking and pro-murder when we saw it the first time around. It is as if the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman murders were actually a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. In this version, they didn’t die and the “real killer” made hot chocolate for Nicole instead:

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We at FCL loves us some “The Wire”.  It’s the best show in the history of television, and we feel qualified to make this assessment because the four of us all spent significant portions of our early careers working in the television industry (note: absolutely not true). 

The fifth and final season gets underway in January, and to say that we are all a-titter would be an understatement.  So it got us to thinking: if we somehow were put in charge of the show, and wanted to make it terrible by replacing its outstanding cast with professional athletes/sports personalities, who would we select to minimize the damage?  The list is below.  Omar’s at the end.

We think you will agree that the similarities, both in character and, in some cases, physical appearance, are striking.

1. Randy Wagstaff

Profile: Charismatic and intelligent, people are immediately drawn to Randy’s friendly demeanour and megawatt smile.  Unfortunately, and ultimately to his own detriment, he is not above selling someone out if it is in his own best interests.

 Played by:

…

…

…

Tiki Barber

Doppelganger rating: The smile is the same.  And as an old saying probably goes, “keep smilin’, stop snitchin’!”
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Yes, warm because of all of the blood dripping from your children.

Usually when you hear about violence at children’s athletic events, it involves parents attacking coaches or referees over something trivial. It’s sad, tawdry and, of course, always entertaining. In Canada, however, we do things a little differently. We like our embarrasing spectacles to be of the bench-clearing variety.

Police in Guelph, Ont., say criminal charges are possible after a brawl at a hockey game involving teams of eight-year-old players.

Six players and two coaches were suspended after Friday’s brawl between the Duffield and Niagara Falls novice triple-A teams.

Staff Sgt. Neal Young says after a fight broke out between players on the ice, both coaches sent the rest of their players over the boards to join in.

Young also said a member of the Niagara Falls coaching staff is alleged to have spit in the face of a Duffield coach.

Criminal charges seem a little severe. Let’s not forget the lessons the kids learned through their involvement in the brawl: standing up for what you believe in, supporting your friends, and spitting.

…are fucking whores. Or are they?

Grinding

Also Grinding

As detailed in a recent Globe and Mail article, a Columbia University professor has thrown a controversial spanner in the works of conventional thinking concerning teens and their sexual behaviour. Specifically, Dr. Munoz Laboy posits that “grinding”, “freaking” or whatever term you tend to use for sexually explicit dancing, is not necessarily a sign of or precursor to sexual activity. Bullshit, you say? Listen to the doctor, dear readers.

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This is simply too easy. It’s like Christmas on American Thanksgiving.

Celine Dion has just cancelled a concert that was scheduled for next August in Halifax, Nova Scotia. What was the reason, you may ask? A scheduling conflict? No, in fact, it is her illness that caused the cancellation. Celine is suffering from a severe bout of thin skin.

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The world of sports has always been dominated by heated debates grounded in inane hypotheticals and unanswered questions: Who was more influential in their respective sports, Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky? Who is hotter, Martina Navratilova or Martina Hingis? Who is a bigger douche, Barry Bonds or Ron Artest? Is golf really a sport? Do you have to enjoy the taste of a warm phallus in the morning in order to appreciate figure skating? Why don’t they televise croquet? What the hell is croquet? Is Gary Bettman Satan himself, or merely one of his minions (most likely Beelzebub, or possibly Mammon)? Does calling it “table tennis” really elevate ping-pong from a beer game to the level of an Olympic sport? When will they introduce the two-person-hot-naked-lesbian-inverted-luge to the Winter Olympics? [Food Court Lunch has already registered Regan Lauscher for the event, unbeknownst to her…]

Croquet is so “street”…

While all of these are great questions (especially the last one, IOC…), they all share one fatal flaw: they are without answers. Until now… Food Court Lunch has decided that it’s time to stop asking questions, and time to start looking for answers to these timeless gems. And so we present to you, our reader [yes, that was intentionally in the singular form… And thanks again for reading, Steve], the first in a series we like to call “Hey Asshole, The Anwer is X”.

And what better way to kick off our unfounded and wholly uninformed answers to age-old questions than by paying homage to the forgotten heroes of the sports world, the refs. So sit back and enjoy our definitive answer to life’s great mystery, Who Are The Toughest Referees in Sports?
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If only it was this easy to find out.

Ladies, here’s the situation: you are sure that your spouse is cheating, but you just don’t have the conclusive proof that you need to confront him. What can you do?

1) Contact the TV show “Cheaters”, get the evidence you need, and BAM! — confront the bastard.

UPSIDE - You’re on TV!

DOWNSIDE - There is a good chance that someone is going to be stabbed. Hopefully, the victim is host Joey Greco, but it might end up being you.

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