Unicorns Exist: It's Magic and Shit

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Solace of Loneliness #???

The wreckage of the canoe was all that was left of John's attempts to escape Camila Heights. The plummet from the Falls had utterly destroyed his water-borne transport to splinters. yet John mercifully remained more or less intact.

"Come, Stiny. We must away before..." John finally noticed his faithful squire Stiny's fall had been somewhat less miraculous than his own. The poor native boy was a crumpled mess, his arms bent at impossible acute angles and his chest reduced to pulp. It appeared that he had hit one of the rocks on the way down instead of finding the cushioned safety of blue waters. John, for the first time in his adventures in Camila Heights, felt a deep loss, one he did not experience when his company was lost in the cave-in nor when Constance Chandler had thrown herself from the foreman quarters. All of those fools had earned their grisly fates, be it from greed or from shame. The poor lad, however, had been nothing but loyal to Esterlise, and it had cost him dearly.

John rose to his feet, finding the task difficult due to not escaping the fall entirely unscathed. When he finally found his ground, he saw Cronbach standing at the pinnacle of the Falls, flanked by his loyal natives.

"I see you are no worse the wear, Esterlise," he observed, a look of grand satisfaction broad across his face. "Do not worry, old friend. I can look after all that. I am a doctor, after all."

Cronbach chattered the natives' language, and immediately they began firing their primitive Carcano rifles at John. Theirs were ancient firearms, and had the riflemen been armed with proper British Enfields and had the distance not been as significant, they surely would have struck their quarry. Instead, the shots flew aimlessly into the surrounding area, allowing John to amble behind a large rock that provided suitable cover.

"You'll pay in blood for this, Cronbach!" shouted John, feeling brave behind his stone guardian. "Chandler trusted you! You've betrayed us all!"

"A minor aside in the history books," he declared over the din of gunfire. "Chandler was wealthy and connected, but his noble upbringing made him weak. He never saw the potential that Camila Heights possessed. This is no place for a mere mining colony. This is the throne for a new empire!"

"You are a madman!" shouted John, angry that he had ever allied himself with such a sinister figure.

"Am I?" asked Cronbach apathetically. "That is disheartening to hear. However, I suppose it is the lot of great men such as myself to hear such pathetic mewlings from his lessers."

As Cronbach was speaking, John heard the footfalls of more of his men slowly working their way to a flanking maneuver. It was unnecessary, as John was helplessly unarmed. The end was drawing near, and all John could think to do was sit back against the cold stone and wait for the inevitable. He sat there, waiting for a native bold enough to dash around that corner and end it.

And just as he expected, a rather skinny fellow wearing a prog's leather vest rounded the rock, his rifle aimed directly at John's forehead. John closed his eyes.

He heard a shot. Impossibly, moments and eons later, he reopened them.

His would-be murderer lay dead, cut in half by some mysterious lead savior. A moment later, the entire forest erupted in fire, none of it directed at John, but instead aimed at his attackers.

“The Hugh! The Hugh!” they cried, launching death into the attackers above. Their fusillade forced the Cronbach Natives into cover themselves, allowing them to run into the clearing that John was once trapped in. They had the swarthy skin of the sons of Camila, but their khaki uniforms betrayed their allegiance to the King and the Commonwealth. The Royal Rifles had finally arrived.

Their superior Enfields were winning the fight easily, supressing the Cronbach Natives almost completely and hitting the few brave ones who would try to get their own shots off. The Royals rushed across the clearing and past John, pursuing the Cronbach Natives off the cliffs. Cronbach himself shrieked in anger and made off into the jungle, back to the colony.  As they passed, a white officer approached John calmly.

“I do say, chap,” said Colonel Percival Chandler, “I should have thought a pack of British boys would have been able to put a better show than this.”

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Custom Clay Regazzoni poster based on the other Rush movie posters.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Believe in Chris Kunitz

by AA

            Team Canada selections were announced today, and the move that is generating the most controversy is the choice of Chris Kunitz, best known as “that dude who scores a lot because of Sidney Crosby”. As is the norm for Team Canada Olympic squads since 1998, when NHLers were fire allowed to compete, the talent pool is so deep that someone deserving of a spot on the final roster is going to be snubbed. Only if the Canadians take home a gold medal will anyone in Hockey Canada be validated, and only until that moment will the questioning stop. But people need to calm their shit. While Chris Kunitz isn’t a slam dunk choice, it’s not one without its merits.

              The loudest argument from detractors of the selection is that Chris Kunitz is only good because he plays with Sidney Crosby and that anyone can score when they have the best player on Earth playing alongside them. First of all, who exactly do people think Kunitz will be playing with in Sochi? It’s not like Steve Yzerman picked Kunitz with any intention of playing him separate from Crosby. Minus Sid, Kunitz is probably not nearly Olympic material. But this season on a line with Crosby, Kunitz is sixth in overall scoring.

              More importantly, Crosby is first overall in scoring. Does anyone remember the 2010 Olympics? Crosby got seven total points in seven games, four of them against fresh meat teams like Norway and Germany. Until Crosby scored The Goal, even the broadcasters were thinking out loud that Sid would be scapegoated for his poor play. I don’t know if snubs Logan Couture or Martin St. Louis could play with Crosby. I would think so, seeing as they are superior players to Chris Kunitz and are both coming off massive seasons. But back in 2010, I bet a lot of people thought Rick Nash and Jarome Iginla would dominate on  a line with The Kid, but they mostly struggled together (again, Iginla got the lion’s share of his points in the massacre of Norway). However, it’s a pretty clear that Chris Kunitz and Sidney Crosby are a good match. Hockey Canada isn’t making an All-Star team. They’re making a hockey team.

              And hey, bringing NHL teammates together to play in the Olympics works. In 2010, Canada fielded the deadly Dany Heatley – Joe Thorton – Patrick Marleau line from the San Jose Sharks, and in the group stage they were the most dangerous group. Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry of the Ducks were united, and they scored a whack of goals. These teams have only a couple weeks to build some chemistry together before the curtain opens. Why not have some chemistry built into the foundations to begin with?

            The argument that Chris Kunitz without Crosby would still make the team is nonsense. Before he was sent to the Penguins to be the Scottie Pippen to Crosby’s Michael Jordan, Kunitz was an okay player at best. Without him, maybe Kunitz becomes a good scoring winger. But he certainly isn’t better than Couture or St. Louis. But the fact is he will be playing with Crosby, who cannot have a repeat performance from the last Olympics if Canada is going to win Gold. 

[unicorns-exist-blog]

The Movie Whisperer: Case #001 Deep Blue Sea

Who is The Movie Whisperer?

Find me a movie that fills three requirements:

1. The first is something that is a common movie trope. For example, something like “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” or “a team of underdogs” or “it’s based on a book”.

2. The second is something random and specific, like “at one point, the characters are in an elevator” or “everyone breaks out into song” or “the main protagonist tells his love interest she’s beautiful”.

3. The third is something that is the Whisperer’s own opinion, like “the soundtrack is awesome” or “it’s funny”.

  The Watcher picks these requirements and the Whisperer has to find a movie that has all of these things. The Watcher then writes about the movie specifically on the three requirements and how well the Whisperer’s movie fulfilled them on a scale of 1-10. There is a 10-point bonus for picking a movie The Watcher has never seen before, and one more 1-10 grade for quality of the movie.

  Things you cannot ask for are:

Specific actors, directors, or individuals

Specific release date, eg movies that were released in the 90s

Specific quotes longer than four words

  Here’s an example of this game:

THE WATCHER: I want to watch a movie! Whisperer! Help a brother out.

THE WHISPERER: Sure, brah. What are you looking for?

THE WATCHER: I want to watch a movie in which 1) someone is framed for a crime they didn’t commit, 2) someone is ambushed in an elevator, and 3) has a great twist ending.

THE WHISPERER: Well then, sir, might I recommend “Jack Reacher”?

THE WATCHER: Fuck you! 

Why are we doing this? Honestly, we just wanted an excuse to watch more movies.

Let's Begin.

The Watcher: AA

Requirement #1:

As my dad always said, your greatest enemy is always yourself, something that would often come up when I failed to lift heavy objects or open jars or bet against his heroes, the Manning brothers. However, I disagree: your greatest enemy is your friend who turns out to be your greatest enemy when you least expect it or when it is convenient to the plot. I want to watch a movie in which the good guy turns out to be the bad guy.

Requirement #2:

Another thing my dad used to say while pointing out my many flaws is “only speak when spoken to, because speaking is when Charlie gets you”. Therefore, I want to watch a movie that perfectly exemplifies what my dad learned in Vietnam apparently, in which someone dies in the middle of a speech.

Requirement #3:

Lastly, my dad will only watch political spy thrillers, which all have webs upon webs of intrigue. So I guess I want to watch a movie with a complicated plot.

The Whisperer: AD

Let me begin by saying anyone who accidentally puts another animal above us on the food chain is endangering all of humanity and thus is a BAD GUY in my books. Imagine a world where you no longer feel safe during a biathlon race because a bear with supersonic hearing and laser eyes can gun you down with his M14 from a mile away. This is the world that almost came to be in Deep Blue Sea. And the clear antagonist of the film is not the poor helpless sharks who are being experimented on in international waters in order to circumvent clear animal abuse laws. The nefarious villain of this tale is no one other than Doctor Susan McAllister, the one who created these super intelligent psychic hyper sharks. And we all hold this statement to be self evident since when she does finally get devoured by the monstrosity she created; we do not mourn her passing but rejoice that this no-good mad scientist gets her comeuppance. She is undoubtedly the villain and defiler of this deep blue sea.

McAllister villainy is juxtaposed against the valiant Russell Franklin who is butchered prematurely by one of McAllister demon shark brood during his moving sermon. Let us not forget that speech, though severed in its prime did deliver Franklin’s harrowing account of being caught in an avalanche and doing the unthinkable to survive. Some of that speech is paraphrased below for your benefit.

“When that avalanche came it took us a week to climb out. And somewhere we lost hope. I don’t know when we turn on each other. I just know that seven of us motherfuckers survived he slide and only five motherfuckers made it out. Now, we took an oath that I'm breaking now. Swore that we’d say it was the snow that killed the other two. Now I’d like that, but that shit aint the truth. Nature can be lethal. But it doesn't hold a candle to man. (...) so we’re all going to pull together and find a way to get out of here! (Eaten by McAllister monster shark)”

Moving words.

Some may doubt the assertion that Deep Blue Sea’s plot is complex but let me persuade you otherwise, that this film is a complex romp involving a menagerie of scientists and wicked leviathans of ocean. An underwater submarine facility that genetically modifies sharks in order to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease? That’s complicated shit. Throw in Samuel L. Jackson as a corporate executive and LL Cool J as a cook with a parrot sidekick and the complexity reaches unimagined levels that cause an elevator shaft to burn uncontrollably and possibly destroy a submersible.

The Watcher: AA

Hilariously, when I tried to find this movie on Netflix, I instead found The Deep Blue Sea starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston that came out in 2011. There are no sharks in this! Get out of here!

I’ve never seen the entirety of Deep Blue Sea. I remember seeing part of it on CityTV when I was a kid. There was someone peeing in the wind, and two sharks who killed another shark in a cage in an incredibly vicious fashion. Also, Samuel L. Jackson gets eaten by a shark, according to Dave Chappelle.

Another reason I haven’t seen DBS before is that I hate horror movies. The gore freaks me out, the acting is jarringly bad, and most of the time I want all the characters to die, which would be fine if it weren’t for my first point.

Anyways, let’s get to how well our Movie Whisperer did this time:

  Requirement #1: The good guy becomes the bad guy

Technically, the bad guys in DBS are the three super smart sharks since, y’know, they’re super smart sharks and even normal sharks are capable of great evil. However, if you really want to get into people who started out with a noble cause and subsequently not worrying about the means of which to attain their goals, then the main protagonist Dr. Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) sort of fits that bill. In an attempt to get enough brain tissue to harvest enough protein for an Alzheimer’s Cure, she increases the three evil sharks’ brain size. Obviously, this all goes terribly, and she doesn’t seem all that broken up about it even when it goes terribly. So I concede that this is a case of noble cause corruption and technically is a case of the good guy becoming bad, but it gets revealed way too early in the film to really fit this movie cliche. (7/10)

Requirement #2: Someone dies while making a speech

Yup.

(10/10)

Requirement #3: Complicated Plot

Don't let the science-based plot fool you, this is not a complicated plot. It’s more of a dumb one. As mentioned, Deep Blue Sea is about that scientist lady who wants to cure Alzheimer’s Disease, but she needs shark brain proteins (or whatever. Who cares?) to do it. In order to get enough of this protein, she needs to make their brains bigger, which leads to them getting smarter. Then the ocean facility where they're conducting these experiments gets hit by a storm and the sharks break loose, picking off the skeleton crew one by one. In a nutshell, lady tries to play God, God’s oceanic assassins strike back.

That’s not saying it’s a bad plot, in fact it is a pretty good basis for what a horror plot should be. It’s simple and it gets out of the way pretty early. There are sharks, they’re super smart, and they’re trying to kill all humans, all of which is conveyed within the first thirty minutes. That allows the bulk of the movie to be about evading these sharks, which is the point of this whole enterprise. It’s something that this genre should aspire to. If I have to know more about why these generic characters are trying to escape their inevitable demise, then you’ve failed.

But yeah, just because science is involved does not make it a complicated plot. Good day, sir! (2/10)

Quality of the Movie

Again, it’s alright as horror movies go. It has the same problems as most horror movies, especially older ones. The CGI sharks look pretty awful by today’s standards, understandably. The only characters whose fate I cared at all about are LL Cool J’s Preach and Samuel L. Jackson’s suit guy, and neither of them are anywhere near primary protagonists. Everyone else is cookie-cuttered from other horror movies or simply serve as extra shark chum. I didn’t like anyone enough to worry about them surviving, and I didn’t hate anyone enough to want them to die, which is a tragic flaw in these types of films.

But at least no one is particularly bad in the movie. Unlike most horror films today, every member of the ragtag main crew is portrayed by a decent enough actor or actress, and while they’ve been handed sort of awful characters, they are at least believably act like the doomed scientists they are rather than someone who wears the hell out of a bikini. (5/10)

  The Final Tally

Requirement #1: The Good Guy becomes the Bad Guy (7/10)

Requirement #2: Someone dies making a speech (10/10)

Requirement #3: The plot is complicated (2/10)

Movie Quality: It’s alright (5/10)

BONUS for unseen movie (10/10)

Total Score: 34/50

[unicorns-exist-blog]

DevDiary - v1.0.0.8 - Levelcraft

Hey pilgrims. Updates are slow but I am progressing in developing this game. I had to introduce a number of game mechanics involving the different types of blocks possible in the game world. In the previous update the player could only dig through dirt blocks which would just get destroyed upon digging and that was the entirety of the game back then. Now dirt blocks may reveal indestructible rocks when Dave attempts to dig through it. Stalactites were also introduced that adhere to gravity when their support on the roof is destroyed, and lastly water was added.

With this small set of blocks I was then able to create to two levels, both involving getting a stalactite to fall in your path so you may access the exit. The puzzle is pretty trivial at this stage, however I think with some more block types and mechanics a greater complexity can be achieved. The blocks I have imagined that are not yet implemented include the staple pushable indestructible block to be used for puzzles and what not, such as pushing the block onto a button on the ground to keep something open. An ice block would be interesting, where the block would be found on the water and would reform after some time if destroyed. In general I need to sit down and flush out some more ideas and draw some level ideas to see if anything worthwhile would come from it.

 Below is a screenshot of a portion of designed level demonstrating the different blocks currently available. I can admit that the block art at this stage are discordant and as my mom described, ‘Ugly’. I’m satisfied with the generic dirt brick for now but I find it hard to match the art of the other bricks to it in an appropriate way. For now I think I will postpone trying to get the best art detail and focus instead on making a few stellar levels showcasing the game’s potential.

From the image also you may notice a mob has been programmed. That little guy is a mole, the epitome of malice and terror, the antagonist of the first few levels. Well... how this story is shaping up it might just be Dave who is the real menace with his shovel of destruction, destroying the very world that the mole people live and flourish in. Eitherway, these little guys do not really interact with Dave at the moment. They walk left and right and fall off edges pretty much like the green Koopas in Mario but they don’t harm Dave at this moment. This will soon change for the worse for Dave.

So the list of things to see in the next update would be: mob damage, Dave health, new blocks, new levels, game menu. I have made a small demo and emailed it to some non-objective play testers who are just my old grad school office mates. I expected most of their complaints such as that no advice was given for the controls and that the mobs do not do anything. On the other hand, their utter confusion in what to do in a level made me realize I need to give at least some indication on how to progress in a level otherwise the player will wonder aimlessly until they give up on the game. This can be fixed with more small introductory levels explaining each of the current game mechanics individually, so that later the player knows what his arsenal is for tackling any particular problem. Or more directly by adding arrows to tell them where to go but that is to be avoided. Well, time to work work work work.

-SI out

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Good Bye, Roy Halladay

Toronto sports fans have become bitter these past 20 years or so. Toronto-based teams have not had very many elite players come through, much less an elite team to cheer for. And of those elite players, none of them left on very good circumstances. Chris Bosh went to play for the super team in Miami. Vince Carter basically gave up until he was traded to the Nets for a bag of beans. Tracy McGrady didn’t want to play in Vince’s shadow. Robbie Alomar didn’t want to sit around on a rebuild. Even the great Mats Sundin refused to waive his no-trade clause, leaving the Leafs nothing when he went to Vancouver. Now, because of all the bitter memories of being scorned by our heroes for other cities, when even minor players leave a Toronto team, they receive a toxic reception when they come back.

  The one exception to this rule is Roy Halladay, who retired today after signing a one-day contract with the Blue Jays.

  Roy Halladay is the best Blue Jays pitcher, and probably the best Blue Jay period, of all-time. During his 11 year tenure with the Jays, he won two Cy Young Awards (2003, 2010) and went to six All-Star games. He was one of those rare Toronto players who faltered badly coming out of the gate, got sent down to the bottom rung of the organization to rebuild, and actually came back to dominate. Every time he took to the mound, we had the rare privilege of watching a master in his prime at work. He won 148 games for the Blue Jays, was a 7-win player in his good years, and was the only reason to watch the Jays during many long, horrible seasons.

  Halladay had spent his best years waiting for the Blue Jays to be contenders, but after 11 seasons and with his championship window snapping shut, the Jays not close to being a winner, and his contract expiring, Halladay needed to be traded. In the 2010 off-season, new GM Alex Anthoupolos brokered a trade with the Phillies who were trying to build a dynasty coming off a World Series victory. The Jays got three high-end prospects in Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Drabek, and Michael Taylor (who immediately was dealt for Brett Wallace), and Roy Halladay got his chance to chase a championship ring in earnest.

  Unfortunately, the trade didn’t end as either side planned. The three prospects the Jays received did not pan out all that well (Drabek had issues with his temperament and is stuck in Triple A, Travis d’Arnaud got dealt for RA Dickey right as he became Major League ready, Brett Wallace was traded for Anthony Gose who is having trouble with his bat). Roy Halladay, although finally reaching the post-season and throwing one of the greatest post-season games ever against the Reds, never made it to a World Series.

  However, what Roy Halladay did win was the everlasting love of every single Blue Jays fan that ever had the pleasure of watching him pitch during his glory years. He was the reason to go to the Skydome for a long time. He never once complained about his position on a middling to bad team. No real Jays fan felt wronged when he left for Philadelphia. We all wanted the Doc to win his championship that he so deserved.

  As I watched Vince Carter lose his hops and Chris Bosh fall down in agony after losing to the Mavericks, I thought, somewhat maliciously I admit, “good. I’m glad this happened to you”. However, watching Roy Halladay last season lose several ticks off his fastball and his masterful control was like watching Superman fall.  It was sad, as it slowly dawned on him and on us that he wasn’t going to get that ring. I felt for him. I’m sure a lot of people did.

  And so, let me say farewell to thee, Roy Halladay. We will never see the like of you again, and we are all poorer for it. 

[unicorns-exist-blog]

My First NFL Game: Buffalo Bills vs Atlanta Falcons @ Skydome

by AA

I started playing Fantasy Football this season. I had played other fantasy sports before, primarily hockey, and had just come off an especially grueling Fantasy Baseball season. I had only paid cursory attention to the NFL before this season. As a resident of Toronto, I found that I could not get invested in a sport where my home city didn’t have a team to call its own. Let’s be serious, I have no reason to give a damn about the Buffalo Bills, not since they inexplicably benched Doug Flute for Rob Johnson that one time they made the playoffs many moons ago and have sucked ever since. And also, the CFL doesn’t count. With Fantasy Football, though, I actually have a team to root for; my team, The Fire Sails, the finest team in the land if you don’t count the two teams ahead of me in my tiny eight-team league. Therefore, I’ve actually been spending Sundays watching football instead of watching the first half of the first game and falling asleep or going to buy KFC or whatever. That’s why, last Sunday, I was actually interested in watching the Bills play the Falcons at the Skydome.

Once a season since 2008, the Bills have played one home game in Toronto at the Skydome. It’s probably incredibly shitty for the Bills players, who basically lose home field advantage which is actually sort of important in football (crowd noise makes it difficult for an offense to hear the snap count). It is, however, pretty cool for NFL fans in Toronto who probably will never see an NFL game live in their lives again. Here’s how the fans were divided based on team loyalty according to my official "from my foggy memory" jersey count:

30% Bills fans

40% Falcons fans

30% 28 other teams

Yep, there were more Falcons fans than Bills fans in Toronto. I’m not entirely sure how. The Michael Vick #7 jersey came back to prominence last night, which is surprising since he flipped the bird at his home team once and did all those terrible things to dogs. Heck, even kids who were far too young to remember the Michael Vick glory days when he’d look to Algae Crumpler and then tuck the ball and run 30 yards, were wearing his jersey. Deion Sanders aka Leon Sandcastle’s old Dirty Bird jersey even made an appearance. When the Falcons made a play, it would be just as loud as whenever the Bills managed to. How are there so many Falcons fans in Toronto? Did a bunch of Atlanta Braves fans lose the will to travel back home after the 1992 World Series and settle down here?

The Bills were represented well enough. I have a sneaking suspicion that half the people wearing the Bills jerseys bought them specifically for this game and aren’t really NFL people at all. I mean, do people really care that much about EJ Manuel right now? That guy with a Marcell Dareus jersey is definitely a hardcore Bills fan. Wearing the jersey of a sort-of-okay rookie QB at an out-of-town game feels like you’re wearing a Halloween costume. Anyways, there weren't all that many Bills fans, and it definitely sounded like a lot of the crowd noise during Falcons third downs was generated from the speakers (as I can attest to sitting pretty close to one). 

The part that makes an NFL game north of the border great is that you see basically every single team represented in jersey form. I saw someone wear a Peyton “Saving my Fantasy season” Manning Broncos jersey. I saw two buddies personifying the Jets-Giants New York rivalry, which doesn’t really exist outside the pre-season. I saw a Jimmy Graham-Drew Brees couple (of dudes). I saw a Darelle Revis Bucs and Tom Brady jersey couple. It’s like everyone was celebrating football. It was cool.

What wasn’t cool was the astoundingly depressing halftime show by The Beach Boys, or whatever was left of The Beach Boys. I think there were two original members left, and those guys are way too old to be working. Last year, the Bills got Psy to do the halftime show at Skydome. They put the stage at midfield, hired like a hundred dancers, and Psy did Gangnam Style at the height of its popularity and GTFO. This year, it was The Beach Boys who were shuffled off into the right field corner, a small group of Hawaiian shirt-clad dancers from like a church group, and a sound engineer who apparently forgot to make the mics loud enough for people to hear. It was sad, watching basically a Beach Boys tribute band try and get people to sing along to “Kohkomo” while a huge stadium wasn’t really listening. Also, they didn’t even play “I Get Around”!

I was surprised to find that the Skydome wasn't actually filled to capacity, or even all that full. The announced crowd was just above 39,000, well below the max capacity of 50,000. 39,000 is how much a Blue Jays game with Roy Halladay pitching would garner. Sure, it was a game between two pretty awful teams, but I would have thought the allure of professional football would have at least gotten the lower bowls completely full. I guess people aren't willing to pay six or seven times the price of a baseball ticket to watch one of the more inconsequential games of the week. It's a shame, because at the start of the season, the Falcons were tapped as NFC favorites.

Luckily, the game was surprisingly exciting for a contest between two teams already looking to next year. The Bills ran all over the Falcons, with the disappointing CJ Spiller breaking off some awesome runs while Fred Jackson continued to defy age and physics. The Falcons finally got something out of Roddy White this year, and the only player I had in this game, Tony Gonzalez, got me some decent fantasy points (I won my matchup by less than 2 points, by the way). The Falcons tied the game late in the fourth quarter, and then the Bills decided to not win. On the last drive of regulation, WR Stevie Johnson somehow fumbled the ball deep in Falcons territory and cost the Bills a win. His failure was then shared in overtime by Bills TE Scott Chandler, who somehow again fumbled the ball deep in Falcons territory. The Falcons recovered it and this time ran it back into field goal range, eventually winning the game on a Matt Bryant field goal. The home team lost. Half the stadium didn’t seem to really mind.

Would I recommend going to the Bills game in Toronto next year? If you like football at all, it’s a great chance to at least experience one real NFL game live and see the best players (or at least professional-grade players) play one of the most physically demanding sports around. Otherwise, the $75 price tag for nosebleeds and the lack of Mayor Rob Ford stealing a seat will probably stop you. 

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Indie Theater: Man of Tai Chi

review by AA

director: Keanu Reeves 

I stumbled in on a showing of Man of Tai Chi late the first time I watched it. I was coming back from a Nick Offerman book signing downtown and was looking to kill some time before dinner, and ended up missing the first thirty minutes of the movie. When I watched it a second time from the beginning, I realized I had essentially missed nothing. However, I still felt compelled to watch it all over again, because the fighting is so damn good. That is basically Man of Tai Chi in a nutshell.

Man of Tai Chi tells the story of Tiger Chen (Tiger Chen Linhu), a student of Ling Kong Tai Chi. Unable to embrace the more spiritual aspects of Tai Chi, Tiger decides to enter a martial arts competition to prove the martial value of his normally more meditative style. His prowess attracts the attention of generic billionaire Mark Donaka (Keanu Reeves), who offers him a lucrative job opportunity in “security”. This “security” job turns out to be an underground fighting ring, which is under investigation by the Hong Kong Police headed by Detective Sun Jing Shi (Karen Mok). It’s another version of the same plot that every Hong Kong martial arts movie seems to employ, and at this point it just feels lazy.

What never gets tired, however, is dope ass martial arts. Fight choreography was done by Yuen Woo-Ping of The Matrix and Drunken Master fame, and he single-handedly makes Man of Tai Chi worth watching. There are a dozen different fights in the film, all with varying fighting styles, and all shot basically perfectly. I’ll never understand shaky cams or directors’ new obsessions with having a zillion cuts and close-ups during fights, but there’s absolutely none of that in Man of Tai Chi. Woo-Ping makes every single flying kick and spinning punch visible and awesome.

  It’s everything around it that is sort of terrible. Man of Tai Chi is also Keanu Reeves’s directorial debut, and he makes some odd choices. There are parts where music will jarringly stop suddenly, or where the Chinese tech guy will speak weirdly enunciated English to another Chinese guy for some reason, or where Keanu Reeves says “You owe me a life” like four times within 30 minutes. However, it’s not a hopeless debut directorial effort, and Reeves at least manages to make Man of Tai Chi look like a serviceable martial arts flick, and makes a good half of the movie get taken up by fight sequences which helps to hide the weak script.

  As per usual with Asian films, the acting ranges from “passable” to “pretty bad”.  Pretty much every side character seems to be there to remind you that acting isn’t something anyone off the street can do. Tiger Chen is a great fighter, and does a decent enough job on the acting front (as far as I can tell at least. Judging acting in foreign languages is tricky). Keanu Reeves is pretty wooden in just about every scene, but maybe that’s by design? I guess he thought he'd be more mysterious if he talked like a robot, but it just makes him sound... like a robot. He also fights like one though, so maybe it's all a brilliant Keanu-ploy?

Everything other than the fighting is pretty average, but that’s alright! The fights are pretty incredible and there are a ton of them. If you want to see some of the best fight choreography you can find nowadays, Man of Tai Chi is worth a look.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

DevDiary.1 - New Beginnings

By SI

Hey everyone! Sorry that I haven’t posted in a long time but I’m glad that AA has been holding down the fort on his own for a while and not allowed UE disappear into oblivion. Having graduated from university for good finally I was supposed to start the real life and get a job, but instead I have decided to get back into the lucrative Unicorns-Exist blogging industry. We hit our one year anniversary sometime in October but since the activity on the blog was rather low it was not really a milestone worth celebrating.

In other exciting news that is not movie reviewing or drawing shameful pictures involving Ben Kingsley, I have decided to make a computer game. I originally intended to practice coding in C/C++ since I hadn’t had the opportunity to do so in a number of years. So I downloaded the Microsoft XNA tool kit and began programming in C# instead and started working on a platformer.

I began this project about two weeks ago and I am beginning to feel like this game idea I have is something substantial and worth pursuing for an extended period of time. I have some other projects going on the side so I am attempting to appropriately juggle my time between them. I do feel that the time I spend on this game specifically is the experience that is most immediately rewarding.

Well without further ado here is Dave, the tentative hero of this adventure.

  Dave is a pretty average hero. He can use his tiny feet and to walk both left and right and to do a double jump. Among the many things missing from this stage of development is sliding mechanics; sliding so that it takes some time for the character to slow down when trying to stop running. I am not exactly sure whether or not I will keep sliding after I implement it but it would have to be something I evaluate when combat is implemented and the mobs.

So what has been implemented at this stage you ask? Well I think I got the basics of what will constitute the core mechanics of the game: digging. Yup. Problem solving, combat, dungeon crawling and exploration will, to some extent, involve digging. All those brown dirt bricks under Dave in the previous screen shot are destructible at this stage, which allows Dave to build caverns like this:

In my opinion this ‘digging’ allows a certain creative avenue that is somewhat original. It kind of invokes a minecraft-like ascetic and impression (but in 2D); however ‘world creation’ is not the intention of this game. I intend it to be a proper platformer where the level design allows a certain degree of level destruction as a means of puzzle solving and combat. Implementing this properly is another story for another instalment of this devDiary.

Have a good one.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Indie Theater: Much Ado About Nothing

A confession before I actually get into this: I didn’t know anything about Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing before watching this Joss Whedon adaptation. The only exposure I’ve had to Shakespearean theater is MacBeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. Blame the Toronto education system. We read a lot of Canadian authored material here. This being the case, I’m probably not well-suited to watching the suddenly hot director Joss Whedon’s contemporary version of any of Shakespeare’s works. However, I did enjoy much of his filmography, especially his take on the horror genre in Cabin in the Woods. Maybe his take on Shakespeare would be revelatory.

That being said, Much Ado About Nothing was not all that entertaining. The script is Shakespeare’s play verbatim, and thus everyone is speaking Shakespearean English which is incredibly difficult for someone like me, a member of a generation that can’t be bothered to type whole words, to comprehend. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me,” swears Beatrice (as played by Whedon-favorite Amy Acker), in a language that sounds like English but more closely resembles nonsense when you hear it for the first time without ever reading it. It took me half the movie to realize that Much Ado About Nothing was a comedy and not a tragedy. English and theater majors definitely would have a far better time with the film than me. I couldn’t catch up with the language. It wasn’t quite the Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet “I SHALL REACH FOR MY LONGSWORD” kind of nonsense, but it still seemed alien to me. It’s all the more unfortunate due to the fact that Joss Whedon’s primary strength is his ability to write snappy dialogue and scripts in general, something that couldn’t be taken advantage of in a straight adaptation.

While I didn’t find much entertainment value in Much Ado About Nothing, I still think it should be held up as an incredible achievement in filmmaking. Whedon shot the film in 12 days while on vacation from shooting The Avengers. The cast comprised almost entirely of friends from past Whedon projects (and some from current) at a cost of probably a plane ticket. The set was his own house. The script was written around 400 years ago and cost Whedon zero dollars. He composed the music. Joss Whedon pretty much filmed this movie for fun. He made this movie because he could. In the end, he turned that into over $5 million at the box office, which is sort of amazing. 

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Leafs on the Wind: Takeaways from Game 14

Oh hey, I’m writing these again. I was away in London, England, where Leafs games don’t directly affect the mood of an entire city and also the games start at midnight, the same time when all the subways close. Here’s some thoughts from last night’s Leafs 4-2 victory over the Flames.

Toronto is becoming a frustrating team to face for the wrong reasons

"I felt that we had a good game," Flames coach Bob Hartley said. "We are not very pleased with the result, but I don't know what we could have done more. Offensively we generated a lot. Our forechecking was good. Our puck decisions in the offensive zone were very good, but Bernier basically stole the game away from us."

- Flames coach Bob Hartley following last night’s loss against the Leafs

 Ask any of the coaches who lost to the Leafs this season and they will say the same thing as Hartley: they felt their team deserved better, but the Leafs still managed to win (in some cases, handily). The Leafs were nearly doubled up in shots tonight by a total of 43-22. The Flames managed nearly as many shots in the second period (20) as the Leafs got all game. Teams are getting frustrated facing the Leafs, but not because they’re a particularly difficult / truculent team to play against, but because they are routinely controlling the game for long stretches of time, yet still losing.

You can chalk a lot of that up to goaltending. I’m not sure you can call it a goaltender controversy or even a battle anymore, because that usually implies that there’s some pressing need for stability in the net every night. However, James Reimer and Jonathan Bernier have been nigh unbeatable, combining for a ridiculous .938 save percentage on the season so far. Their combined shutout streak finally ended on the Matt Stajan goal in the second period, reaching a ridiculous 150+ minute peak. Generally, when you give up over 80 shots in the span of 48 hours, you’re expected to lose at least once.

You can also point to the thus-far exceptional special team play by the Leafs. The Leafs managed to be perfect last night against the Flames on five separate shorthanded situations. They even managed to score two shorties, one on a pretty brutal James van Riemsdyk goal with 4 seconds remaining in the first period that somehow fooled Karri Ramo, and then other on an empty net goal by Paul Ranger at the end of the game.  On their one power play opportunity, the Leafs managed to score just after it expired. That’s a three goal swing in special teams that was easily the difference last night and has been for most of the season.

 No room left for Lupul

With the RBC line being solidified and Nazem Kadri moving up to center the top line as has been his destiny, Joffrey Lupul is left abandoned on the third line with no offensive help to be found. Last night, he played on the wing of a line consisting of defensive specialist Jay McClement and NHL-AHL yo-yo Carter Ashton. While this is likely a temporary setup until Nikolai Kulemin and Tyler Bozak return from injury, it’s depressing to see a beast like Lupul hamstrung by guys not generally known for generating offense. Speaking of McClement, however…

 Without Jay McClement, the Leafs would be pretty boned

Last night, broadcaster Jim Hughes announced at the end of the game that the Leafs had won the majority of faceoffs that night. Needless to say, I dropped my monocle right into my cognac glass. And the reason for this tear in the space-time continuum that allows the Leafs to beat any team in faceoffs? Jay McClement took 28 of them. He won 21.

Jay McClement got 20:52 minutes of ice time last night, thanks largely in part by his 7:27 SH ice time. That means for 75% of the penalty kill, Jay McClement was out there, a penalty kill which by the way was 100% perfect (well, they allowed a ton of shots, but still). On a team that was so desperate for penalty killers that Nazem Kadri somehow saw some SH ice time, it would not be too far of a stretch to say that Jay McClement is the most essential player to the Leafs right now. 

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Leafs on the Wind: Game 5 Leafs vs Preds

In what was a rather boring affair, which I imagine could be said about most Nashville Predators games, the Leafs won 4-0 behind a shutout by Jonathan Bernier. Here are some thoughts:

Nazem Kadri started on a scoring line after a few nights centering Colton Orr and Troy Bodie, being paired with Joffrey Lupul and, well, I guess David Broll due to Nikolai Kulemin being injured and David Clarkson serving his suspension. The last spot on this line is basically a placeholder until Clarkson serves his time, as the line has been relatively ineffective so far this season.

Jonathan Bernier gets a second start in a row coming off the loss against the Avalanche. He didn’t play bad in the loss, despite allowing a rather ugly looking short side opening goal, but his play has been at least marginally better than James Reimer’s. I think that unless Bernier puts up some ridiculous, 40 save shutout, Reimer will be getting the start on Saturday. However, if Bernier puts up a win with a good game, a Reimer loss would pretty much settle the goalie debate for a while and this start carousel will end.

David Broll and Josh Leivo got called up to the big club while Jamie Devane and Spencer Abbott got sent back down to the Marlies.  TJ Brennan also got called up but was a healthy scratch.

David Bolland has been impressive so far this season. What is most impressive is, as an Etobicoke-born Leafs fan growing up, how he manages to not look down at the blue leaf on his chest every 30 seconds in awe. He didn’t do a whole lot tonight, however, and was toxic on the faceoffs at a 38% winning percentage.

At the halfway point of the game, I think I can safely say that this is an incredibly dull game. No goals, no great scoring chances, no chippiness, two other viable viewing options (Thursday night football, ALDS Elimination Game) on at the same time.

I’m not really sure why Tampa Bay passed on Seth Jones for really anyone. Jonathan Drouin is probably going to be a pretty good forward, but they have a terrible defense corps (with former draft sort-of bust Viktor Hedman) and Jones had been labelled as a franchise blueliner who probably could have been drafted first.

Finally there’s a goal, with Phil Kessel scoring off a faceoff. James van Riemsdyk got the puck out of the corner right after the faceoff and fed Kessel, who slammed it home from in front the net. Tyler Bozak didn’t end up with an assist, thanks to the fact that he didn’t actually win the faceoff that led to the goal. JVR, clearly a man of numbers, figured out that Bozak has won basically no faceoffs all night and just assumed the puck would end up in the Nashville corner. Kessel immediately gets doubled shifted onto the Kadri-Broll line.

As the 2nd period was about to end, James van Riemsdyk scores on a wrap-around goal after a nice Phil Kessel burst into the zone. JvR actually strips Pekka Rinne as the latter tried to cover the Kessel shot, which I find awful terrible but, since it’s in the Leafs favor, still sort of hilarious.

The game finally started getting interesting at the 13 minute mark of the third, as Nashville began taking some chances and forced Bernier to come up with some big saves, specifically on one against a wide open Seth Jones. It also led to a 3 on 1 chance followed by a 2 on 1 chances for the Leafs, both set up by some excellent plays by Morgan Rielly.  Jake Gardiner should probably start getting worried. Rielly played 18:56 minutes while Gardiner got 17:19 tonight.

Mike Fisher pushes Cody Franson straight into the stanchion and busts Franson pretty badly, with a ton of blood pooling beneath him from what I’m hoping is just a broken nose. It is the same area where Zdeno Chara broke a disc in Max Pachioretty’s neck, an injury that was as close as someone’s been to dying in a NHL game in recent memory. One shudders to think what may have happened to Franson there if they didn’t round the corner of that stanchion. Fisher was given a five minute major for boarding, and with five with less than seven minutes to go, this penalty basically ended the game.

Tyler Bozak scores the backbreaker on the boarding major, as Bozak tried to center the puck to JvR and ended up putting it off Seth Jones and in. This goal gave the top line a goal each, and is particularly important for Bozak as he had a rather terrible night on the faceoff circle going 43% on the draw. Immediately after, Joffrey Lupul scores the fourth goal of the night off a tip on a Jake Gardiner point shot.

Carl Gunnarsson gets slashed on a breakaway and gets a penalty shot, which he misses because he is Carl Gunnarsson.

Jonathan Bernier picks up a shutout, standing tall for the Leafs who were outplayed for the first two periods of the game. He picked up 36 saves on the night, and up until that boarding major was the clear key to the Leafs victory tonight. I would not be surprised at all if he ends up getting the next start on Saturday based on his success so far.

UP NEXT:

The Leafs host the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday, as Dallas Eakins returns to Toronto after having great success as the Marlies head coach. I hope we see the soon to be classic "Eakins Early Goalie Pull". Also, I will be hoping to see a game where there will be opposing players who can score.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Does anyone ever watch LeafsTV when there isn’t a Leafs game on? Leafs games don’t even get covered on my Super Sports Pack, which would allow me to watch the Winnipeg Jets versus the Minnesota Wild were I so inclined / addled. It just seems like a way to punish the people who can’t afford super cable packages but don’t know how to stream games on the Finnish illegal streaming sites.

It’s fun that Johnny Knoxville decided to make an entire movie solely about the part of Jackass I enjoyed the least in “Bad Grampa”. Meanwhile, Batman vs Aliens vs Predator lays ignored in the ideabook.

Mad props to Nashville’s deejay who played “Girls” by the Beastie Boys.

Buck Martinez of Blue Jays broadcasting fame was the color man on the Athletics-Tigers broadcast. Was this happening all series long? I stopped caring about baseball after the fantasy baseball season ended.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Leafs on a Wind: Game 3 Leafs vs Sens

In their home opener, the Leafs won the Battle of Ontario in a shootout 5-4. Also, Carlyle made the next two days extremely easy on the Leafs' beat writers, as nothing grabs headlines in Toronto like GOALIE CONTROVERSY OMG! Here are some notes:

James Reimer gets the start tonight as expected. Jonathan Bernier did outplay Reimer a little bit in his first game, but both played well enough to earn another start and Reimer as the opening night starter made sense tonight, not to mention he has a 9-1-1 record against the Senators (if that really has any meaning when you think about it).

Jamie Devane gets a start with Carter Ashton getting scratched. Devane can fight, and he had one of his better preseasons this year and makes sense a fourth liner when Ashton gets his face punched too many times.

With Mark Fraser out after getting blindsided by Jay Rosehill, Morgan Rielly makes his first start of the season. Remember that his pro contract will start after he dresses for nine NHL games before the Leafs have to decide whether to send him down to the WHL or to keep him and start the countdown from his first term of service. My money is on him staying, with Fraser being out for about a week at least and Jake Gardiner not winning the favour of Randy Carlyle so far this season. If Rielly ends up getting as many or nearly as many minutes as Gardiner in a game or two, expect him to stay for the long haul. He played with Franson tonight.

Spencer Abbott is also getting a start tonight with Nikolai Kulemin suddenly being out for a few weeks. I literally have nothing to say about Abbott. I probably spelled his name wrong.

Incredible shift by Troy Bodie, Dave Bolland, and Mason Raymond on the first goal. Bodie gained the zone and kept the play alive after a blocked shot, passed the puck out to Bolland, who saved a likely broken play thanks to the puck being tipped with a backhand pass to a wide open Raymond at the side of the net. All three of these guys weren’t on the team last year, and the way they’re going it looks like they’ll be critical additions (yes, even Bodie, who is proving to be a high end fourth liner / serviceable third liner while being paid like a unsuccessful minor league baseball reliever) by the end of the season.

Kyle Turris scores after the Senators dominate play inside the Leafs zone for about a minute. After excellent puck protection by Jared Cowan, he fed the disc to Turris who shot it through a maze of blue-socked legs.  

Cody Franson makes a brutal giveaway in front of his own net and Cory Conacher scores on a ricochet goal. Franson, who had been playing his way into a nice Joe Flacco contract situation through two games after signing a one year contract, got bumped by Conacher who put it away with ex-Leaf Clarke MacArthur sniffing around for a revenge goal.  

Nazem Kadri gets his first goal of the season after playing a rather bad first period, on a very brief 5 on 3 (which ended up getting scored as a 5 on 4). Mason Raymond made a great pass through the seam and found a wide open Kadri on the back door. I’m not sure what Raymond did to get himself thrown out of Vancouver (called Daniel Sedin “Henrik” by accident?), but he might end up being the best value free agent signing by any team this year.

Jared Cowan scores the third Senators goal after Reimer gives up a bad rebound and can’t get back in position for the follow up shot. There are five Leafs players standing within ten feet of one another when Cowan scores that goal. Immediately after that, Jason Spezza scores a really brutal short side goal and it ends Reimer’s night as Carlyle brings in Jonathan Bernier. Reimer gives up 4 goals on 21 shots, and looked a little shaky on rebound control all night. The first two goals, however, can’t be blamed on him and the early hook might just be a case of Carlyle having an excellent plan B in net this season.

Joffrey Lupul gets shifted to the Bolland – Raymond line as Carlyle starts to shuffle the deck after the Leafs fall behind by 2 in the second period. Lupul doesn’t look 100%, because a Lupul sighting where he is 100% is rarer than Hailey’s Comet. Kadri gets shifted to a new pair of linemates in Troy Bodie and Jamie Devane, and then with Colton Orr and McClement, so clearly that power play goal did not elevate Kadri in his coach’s eye. I’m sure all those giveaways did not help.

And hey, Joffrey Lupul scores a power play goal at the end of the second period with a quick wrister from the slot on a nice play with two Senators on top of him. I shudder to think what he could do if he could do with a fully functioning back and non-concussed brain. He looked pretty darn good in the third period, though.

James van Riemsdyk scores the tying goal after Phil Kessel does all the heavy lifting, literally using JvR’s stick as a backboard and gives the latter the easiest goal of his life. Kessel did a good job with Tyler Bozak gaining the zone, and the Leafs tie the game after playing miserably all night.

Mason Raymond and Tyler Bozak score in the shootout, with Bernier stopping both Sens shooters, and the Leafs win. Bozak might not be an ideal first line center, but he has been pretty good on the shootout. Being a shootout specialist has to be worth something, right?

I guess I have to add something for Jonathan Bernier, seeing as he came in as a replacement and ended up with the win. Bernier stopped all 15 shots he faced tonight and both shooters in the shootout, and made a bunch of nifty (that's right, NIFTY) saves. He basically took the inner track in the goaltending battle for the Leafs tonight in the most definitive way possible, but don't think that Carlyle won't go back to Reimer in a moment.

UP NEXT:

The Leafs face the Colorado Avalanche at the ACC on Tuesday. I expect by then for Patrick Roy, frustrated by his goaltenders failing to be Patrick Roy, will insert the real Patrick Roy in net. It will be a disaster.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

I wish I could have seen the thrilling finish live to this game, but I had to watch the highlights of the shootout on the internet as I PVRed the game and the three hour block set aside y CBC didn’t make it to the overtime. This is the second game in a row where my PVR missed the end of the game because it went on longer than it should have. The game against the Ducks went overlong because of the Parros injury, and this one went long because of the overtime and the ridiculous opening ceremonies. I thought “I’ll just finish watching the first season of Scandal before I watch the game”. Never forget to add an extra 30 minutes to your sports recordings.

Everyone got Toronto Maple Leafs scarves at the game tonight! Meanwhile, I got a Toronto FC scarf that I can’t wear anywhere without being laughed at. I guess the rich really do live better.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Game 2 Takeaways from the Leafs vs Flyers

The Leafs ruin the home opener for another team for the second straight night in a row with a 3-1 victory over the Flyers. Hey, why not better furbish the night’s recap a day later?

  Opening Video

 Two things to take from this opening montage by TSN last night:

1. Whoever cut the video is not a Leafs fan, since no Leafs fan could go back to that footage from the Meltdown and not have his eyeballs burned out.

  2. I can't wait for the inevitable downfall and Nickelback-like hatred that awaits Imagine Dragons.

  Jonathan Bernier’s opening night

I don’t think Jonathan Bernier could have scripted a better reply to Randy Carlyle snubbing him on opening night. Bernier came up big all night long, stealing a win with 31 saves on a ton of excellent chances for the Flyers. He also came up with a save on a penalty shot against Wayne Simmonds, who very audibly and visibly voiced his displeasure on the bench afterwards in a shocked-into-silence Wells Fargo Center.

  I think I know how Bernier ended up on the bench despite being known as a very good goaltender (other than Jonathan Quick being ridiculous): he makes all of his saves look very easy. There’s no glove flipping, no head snapping, no splits across the crease saves; he gets in position and gets his body on the puck. He was beat once tonight on a point-blank shot by Brayden Schenn set up by very good play by Vincent Lecavalier behind the net, although you could hardly blame him for that one.

  It was a near-perfect start for Bernier, who was by far the best player the Leafs fielded on a night where they were thoroughly outplayed by their hosts. However, it came off a good start by the incumbent James Reimer, who Carlyle made the de facto 1A 'tender by starting him in the first game, which means that Reimer will likely be starting the next game against Ottawa at home. Expect for a ton of alternating starts between the two until one manages to distance himself from the other.

  The Successful and Terrible Penalty Kill

The Leafs went 1 for 7 on the penalty kill tonight, their only slip up being on a bit of Lecavalier magic. So, it was a good night for the PK unit, right?

  If the penalty killers were all wearing four leaf clovers and horseshoes and thus were responsible for their incredible luck all night, then yes, it was a banner day. However, if we are living in a logical world where the law of averages exist, then the penalty killing was sub-par at best. The Flyers were buzzing on the PP all night, and would have scored at least two more goals were it not for a) shots barely missing the net, b) pucks bouncing over sticks, and c) Jonny B. Maybe if this wasn’t opening night, the Flyers PP unit would be a bit sharper and could hit the net or settle pucks and make the Leafs pay for their mistakes.

  The Leafs have a 91% success rate on the PK so far this year. Their PK was successful about 87% of the time last year, good for second in the league. They’re going to need to stay near that elite rate all year to make the postseason dance again. They’re not going to do that if poor Jay McClement has to play 18 minutes (he logged 9 minutes of shorthanded time against the Flyers) a night.

  Joffrey Lupul: Shutdown Specialist

With a one goal lead, Steve Mason on the bench for the extra attacker, and a faceoff in the Leafs zone, Randy Carlyle sent in Tyler Bozak as his faceoff specialist, Jay McClement as his defensive specialist, and… Joffrey Lupul?

  Last year, Carlyle would send Nikolai Kulemin out on shutdown assignments alongside Mikhail Grabovski and McClement, with Grabo being switched out for Bozak when the situation called for a faceoff win. However, that was also the line out on the ice for The Catastrophe that took place last season and shall never be mentioned again. Did Randy lose faith in Kulemin that fateful day?

  Lupul is no defensive forward. He logged a grand total of 0:00 shorthanded time, and he does not play regular shifts with the other two forwards.  If Kulemin, who logged the second highest PK time on the Leafs, wasn’t suitable, what about JvR or David Bolland? I’m not sure what the thinking behind sending Lupul out there to defend the late lead was.

  All I know is that it somehow worked. The Leafs got the puck back despite Bozak losing the faceoff, Lupul broke towards the Flyers zone sans goalie, and Kimmo Timonen had to hook him, taking a penalty and essentially ending the game, even before Bolland scored the Leafs’ third goal of the night. Maybe Randy is prescient. It’ll be interesting to see if this situation is handled in the same manner next time.

  Lupul as a shutdown specialist? Sounds as crazy as Lupul the fighter!

  To interns, “Bodie” does sound a lot like “Bolland”

As I was looking up box scores on espn.com (the only place that shows SH TOI), I came across this fine assessment of who the key players of the game were:

Notice something odd? I sure do! Jonathan Bernier as a star? Pssh! He didn’t score no points! Y’all don’t get a star unless you get yourself some fourth line stats!

  The Other Guys, Flyers notes

Peter Laviolette is apparently already on the coaching hot seat… Jay Rosehill has now knocked out two Leafs in consecutive games, with Mark Fraser getting blindsided tonight and Joffrey Lupul getting sandwiched by Rosehill late last season… Illya Brzygalov got bought out this off-season and is apparently about to sign with a Las Vegas-based ECHL team… Steve Mason looked pretty average last night, nearly letting in a disastrous goal from center ice. After Sergei Bobrovsky was run out of town due to being blocked by Bryzgalov, it’s going to take more than middling Mason to make Philly forget about shipping a Vezina winner to Columbus… ex-Leaf Luke Schenn got the last amount of time for Flyers defensemen last night, although his is probably due to the Flyers getting nearly three-quarters of a period worth of power play time… Wayne Simmonds blew a ton of scoring chances, not even including his blown penalty shot. He got four shots on net and missed the net at least that many times… Chris Pronger is still accounting for $5 mil a season on the Flyers cap despite him essentially being retired. So, that whole trading away Mike Richards and Jeff Carter for his sake looks sort of incredibly foolish right now…

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Leafs on the Wind: Game 2 Recap Leafs vs Flyers

On a night where 17 million people tried and failed to play Grand Theft Auto Online, the Leafs beat the Flyers in Philly’s home opener 3-1.

Here are some thoughts:

Poor Steve Mason, who will be performing as “another log for the Flyers’ goalie pyre” this year, gets the season opener in Philly with the preceding starter, Ilya Bryzgalov, exiled to free agency after the Flyers bought out the rest of his contract (and reportedly about to sign a contract with an ECHL team). Ray Emery is backing Mason up, which sounds like a disaster in the making.

The Leafs play their second game in two nights for some reason to start the season, also the second night in a row that they will be playing in their opponent’s home opener. With the Leafs returning to the ACC for their next game, be prepared for more pointless hour long pre-game ceremonies.  

Carter Ashton is wearing a cage on his mask tonight after taking a punch to the face against Jarred Tinordi last night. The fact that he fights at all is probably a sign that he is desperate to stay on the NHL team, as he is not generally known as a fighter and has failed to crack the lineup with just his offensive skills. With another start tonight, he has already two more than he had all of last season.

Phil Kessel got double shifted at one point onto the Joffrey Lupul – Nazem Kadri line, replacing Nikolai Kulemin. The shift ended on a fight between Lupul and Brayden Schenn, somehow.

With only 6.9 seconds left in the first period, Vinnie Lecavalier makes an incredible play behind the Leafs net and feeds Brayden Schenn for a powerplay goal. Schenn actually seemed to shoot it short side on Bernier, who seemed unlucky that it didn’t just happen to hit him with the placement being as bad as it was. It ruined a Leafs penalty kill that seemed destined to be perfect despite giving up three penalties in the first period alone.

A brutal giveaway by Cody Franson leads to a scoring chance and a high sticking penalty to Paul Ranger. Ranger has been rather disappointing so far this season, looking slow and making bad decisions with positioning. He’s probably exposing himself as the first man out should Morgan Rielly get a start. Bernier, by the way, saves the Leafs with a bunch of excellent stops on the Ranger PK. He also got caught standing still and gave Wayne Simmonds a penalty shot with three seconds left in the period.

Kimmo Timonen does pretty excellent work keeping the puck from leaving the zone on the Flyers powerplay. What really rankles me is that both Timonen and Scott Hartnell, two important cogs to the Flyer machine, were basically given to the Flyers by an at-the-time bankrupt Nashville Predators, who could not afford to re-sign them. In return, the Predators got a first round pick that they had traded to the Flyers in the first place to get a one-footed Peter Forsberg.

Phil Kessel scores on the first real scoring chance for the Leafs all night. Nazem Kadri, who was stapled to the bench for much of the second period and only got just over 11 minutes of ice time tonight, stormed the net and distracted Steve Mason by falling right into him. No giant season opening slump for Kessel this year, at least.

Jonathan Bernier gets the start on the latter game of a back to back and was rather excellent, keeping the Leafs in the game and stopping a Wayne Simmonds penalty shot that would have completely deflated his team going into the second intermission. He certainly made Dave Nonis look very good, making some excellent saves and being the main reason the Leafs weren’t blown out before the second period was done. Although I don’t think Carlyle starts him over James Reimer on Saturday, he definitely put the pressure on James to match this excellent performance. Simmonds, by the way, must have missed a half dozen scoring chances tonight, not including the penalty shot even.

Dave Bolland scores his first goal as a Toronto Maple Leaf while filling in for a benched Nazem Kadri on a line with Lupul and Kulemin. A good cycle play between Kulemin and Lupul left Bolland alone in front to score the go-ahead marker. Afterwards, the Leafs broadcast crew spend the rest of the game extolling the virtues of Bolland.

Colton Orr and Jay Rosehill get into an altercation after Rosehill blindsides Mark Fraser after the latter takes an elbowing penalty. Orr tackled Rosehill, who got more incensed than usual for whatever reason. In the end, it leads to a power play for the flyers. Mark Fraser didn’t return after the hit, which makes him the second Leaf that Jay Rosehill knocked out with a sort of shitty hit (the other being Joffrey Lupul at the end of last season).

Despite the Leafs killing a ton of penalties tonight, the actual penalty killing was lacking. The Flyers had a bunch of chances that were as close to sure-goals as possible that either missed the net, skipped over sticks, or were robbed by Bernier. The improved PK was the main reason the Leafs managed to vault their way into the playoffs finally last season. Any significant regression would be the difference between playoffs and golf.

Last shift of the game defending a one goal league, and Carlyle sends out Tyler Bozak, Jay McClement, and… Joffrey Lupul? I’m a little surprised that Kulemin or Bolland wasn’t sent in on what I imagined was supposed to be a shutdown shift, but it all works out magnificently in the end. Lupul draws a hooking penalty on Timonen entering the Flyers zone with an empty net, and Dave Bolland scores on the ensuing power play, sealing the game.

UP NEXT:

The Leafs finally get their home opener, starting this season’s Battle of Ontario against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

I like the new NHL 14 commercial, mostly because the music is pretty rad, and also apparently difficult to find on YouTube (when one only sort of cares about finding it, at least).

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Leafs on the Wind: Game 1 Recap Leafs vs Habs

Oh happy day, the hockey season started tonight. After a rough end to my fantasy baseball season, some nice, non-fantasy driven Leafs games are just what I needed. The Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens on opening night, 4-3. Here’s some thoughts on the game and other things too:

Carter Ashton played on the fourth line tonight while Troy Bodie started on the third line. This may seem odd, since Ashton likely has the inner track in terms of staying with the big club, it’s probably set up like this because when Clarkson returns, Ashton would be shifted to the fourth line anyways while Nikolai Kulemin is dominoed down to the third, while Bodie is sent down to the Marlies. Speaking of Bodie, people who say Bodie only made the team because he’s engaged to the president’s daughter either didn’t watch any preseason games or jump the conclusions faster than a detective on television. He forechecked very effectively all night and created a couple scoring chances.

Phil Kessel looked pretty darn good in the first period since his huge contract extension, flying in on the zone and creating chances. At $8 mil a season, he makes $700,000 less than the best player on earth, Sidney Crosby, which I’m sure will be mentioned every time the Leafs lose. However, I’m fine with it right now. Finding a legitimate scorer in free agency is near impossible these days, with most good players getting extensions early.

James van Riemsdyk scores the first goal of the game (and of the NHL season) on a 5 on 3 Leafs powerplay. JvR initially tried to make a pass across the blue ice to Tyler Bozak, but it ended up going off Carey Price’s pads and in. How two Leafs end up across from one another with no one in-between that close to the net is beyond me, even in a 5v3 situation.

Tough first goal against on James Reimer, as Lars Eller scores on a wide open shot after Paul Ranger blows his coverage. Good patience shown on the pass by Raphael Diaz, who saw the traffic in front, and held off from shooting and found the open man instead.

Brendan Gallagher scores the second goal for the Habs on a defensive breakdown by the Leafs that led to an odd man rush. The Leafs forwards got caught standing still after a faceoff and the Canadien forwards flew into the zone and executed perfectly.

Mason Raymond should be on the second line with Joffrey Lupul and Nazem Kadri, not Kulemin. Kulemin has utterly lost his scoring touch, and will only hinder two of the Leafs better scorers. Raymond had a great preseason and has had success as a scorer before injuries sidetracked his career.

The first period could not end fast enough for the Leafs, as the Habs created a half dozen chances on the second last shift of the night with their fourth line (with Eller) hemming the Leafs first line in their own zone.

The huge momentum that the Habs carried over from the first period is immediately extinguished by a dumb Too Many Men penalty. Luckily for them, the Leafs powerplay was unable to convert despite a couple great chances by the Raymond-Lupul-Kadri unit.

Colton Orr got into a tussle with George Parros, which Parros won rather handily. His moustache is still magnificent, as is his ability to fight.

Dion Phaneuf scores to tie the game 2-2. It was a great wrist shot by Phaneuf, who sniped the top corner on Price after a good drive by Kadri and a good pick in front of the net by Kulemin. Sure, I just said that Kulemin is a dreadful offensive weapon. I stand by that. He didn’t really do anything with the puck despite the assist he got on the play.

Kadri, who made a living off of forcing opposing players to take penalties, creates his first one of the season at the 10 minute mark of the second period. It’s too bad stats like that aren’t more closely kept (since its basically impossible to determine without a doubt that a specific player is the reason the opposition takes a penalty), as it would be interesting to see how Kadri ranks among the true elite players.

Andrei Markov takes a diving penalty, offset by a Kadri crosschecking penalty, in what is still the dumbest of penalty decisions. If a guy dives, how can it be a cross check. Call one or the other, stripes.

Mark Fraser and Travis Moen throw down minus helmets after Fraser pushed Brandon Prust in front of the net for knocking the stick out of his hands. There’s now a two-minute penalty for taking off your lid during a fight, which seems like a weird half measure. Mark Fraser wears a visor on his helmet after taking a shot off his face in the playoffs, and fighting with a visor is a faux pas. In order to fight properly, Fraser would have to take his helmet off, otherwise Moen would be punching a plate of glass. Of course, a true win-win would be if Fraser just didn’t fight at all, but as a fringe NHLer who is at least partly valued for his toughness, I don’t think Fraser can afford to take that aspect out of his game.

Tyler Bozak scores on the ensuing penalty kill after Markov commits a brutal giveaway. Bozak is the Leafs only good shootout shooter, and proved he hasn’t lost his touch on the breakaway. First game of the season, and the Leafs have already scored a PP, SH, and even strength goal.

I like the decision by Jake Gardiner not to pinch in the first minute of the third period with a 3-2 lead. No reason to take a big risk when you have the lead. Maybe it’s a sign of maturity for Gardiner, who almost certain would have pinched a year ago, and then try a spin move or something.

Carter Ashton threw down with Jarred Tinordi and got flattened. Ashton isn’t a prolific fighter, getting into 4 or 5 scraps a season despite a preseason where he collected two fighting majors. This fight lead to Orr-Parros II which ended immediately when Parros was dragged down by a falling Orr and hit his head hard on the ice. Parros got knocked out, and ended up bleeding badly on the ice. It was a scary moment, especially after Parros tried to get up and fell back down. He ended up getting stretchered off, and it looks like bad news for the Habs on the toughness front.

Mason Raymond scores the luckiest goal of his life on a 2 on 1 rush with David Bolland. Raymond attempted to pass to Bolland, but instead got the puck right back off of Boullion’s skate, giving Raymond a yawning cage to shoot into. The goal took the wind right out of the Habs sails, as after the Parros injury they had been dominating play.

Mark Fraser, after seven minutes in the penalty box for fighting, gets another fighting major at the end of the game when Prust takes exception to getting hit from behind. That’s five fighting majors in the first game of the season, so everything is going according to plan for ol’ Randy so far.

I PVRed the game today as I chose the absolute worst day possible to go help my sister with computer troubles. Thanks to the delay for the Parros injury, I ended up missing the last five minutes of the game. It looks like the Habs scored another goal to make it close, but whatever. In the end, the Leafs still win 4-3.

UP NEXT:

The Leafs play the Flyers in Philly tomorrow, as the Flyers attempt to bounce back from a rough season. Those tend to happen when you trade away your young leadership group for a guy who spent the entire season concussed. Hindsight is a cruel mistress.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Holy shit, Republic of Doyle is still on TV?

Who cheers for a referee injury, seriously? Calm down, little boys.

Hybrid icing makes total sense. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the fact that it took so long to implement.

The goalie pads are smaller this year, but they’re still all allowed to be white. For those who don’t know this little piece of hockey lore, Patrick Roy used to have white triangles on his goalie pads because it made a shooter think that the white was open ice rather than part of the goalie. Now, most of the goalies in the league use full white pads to fool opposing shooters. Quite frankly, all goalies should have to wear the cool Felix Potvin flame pads since they are the height of fashion.

Massive problems with the CBC broadcast at around the 8 minute mark, as instead of live coverage a replay of the start of the game was shown for about 30 seconds, and immediately after the second Habs goal, where they couldn’t seem to stop replaying the goal while the game went on. I guess it’s opening day for the production team too. Someone certainly didn’t have a good first day at work.

[unicorns-exist-blog]

Why do you think that if Morgan went back to Moose Jaw it wouldn't do him any good? He would be getting way more ice time then what he would be if he does stay with the leafs. He won't have to sit out and be a healthy scratch, which honestly as me being a Morgan fan since he was 15 would much rather see him go back to junior and get the ice time that he deserves and also improve his game better. Just saying but that's my personal opinion.

Rielly more or less accomplished all he could on a pretty bad Moose Jaw team last year, and is at the point where the best thing he can do for his improvement is face NHL caliber players. Assuming they didn't keep him in the NHL just to scratch him every night, he'll learn more in short minutes with the Leafs than in long minutes with the Warriors.