This And That

The last "This and That" for 2013. Where did the year go? I will be giving a Top 10 moments from yours truly sometime before January 1 and it won't be the horsecrap TSN gave us. Who does their top 10 stories and their top 100 bloopers and plays of the year.

 Say what you will about him, but the fact Jon Cornish won Canada's male athlete of the year award and was the first CFL'er to do that in many years deserved a spot on the top 10 stories of the year. Was the emergence of Canadian Anthony Bennett as the #1 pick in the NBA draft really a top 10 story of the year? Was the Leafs mammoth Game 7 collapse to the Bruins really the number 2 story of the year amongst Canadians. Cmon!!!! Don't feed me that stuff!

We then go to the top 100 plays of the year. There were a lot of great plays in the CFL, but I didn't see a lot of them in the top 100. Am I just being overly biased or is the Darian Durant fumble that went right into the hands of Kory Sheets for a big gain at GC 101 not one of the top plays of the year. How can the missed snap by Henry Burris and the utter look of confusion from Hank not be in the top 100 bloopers of the year. I really thought TSN missed the boat on the CFL for some inane reason. Oh well!

If I am going to roast TSN on their plays of the year, I will compliment on their hockey coverage and they have brought their Grade "A" game with them to Sweden for the World Junior Hockey Championship. Its an event they will be hanging their hockey hat onto for the next several years seeing the NHL and Rogers have basically shut them out of the equation. They always do a great job in breaking this event down and they arguably may be the reason this tournament gets the amount of press it does these days. This year is no different. That being said, I did not get up at 730 on Boxing Day morning to watch the game against Germany. Its Germany! If they can't win that game in one-sided fashion then we are in trouble. I'll watch the repeat.

Am I the only one who didn't hear the massive explosion at the refinery on Xmas Eve?  If the truth be told, no I wasn't the only one because those in a south end grocery store didn't hear it either. After dropping off some gifts, the little Scruffette and I had to pick some stuff up at the request of Mrs. Scruffy. We did that and when we came out to our car, nothing had changed but I did notice some people looking towards the upgrader and talking. Moments later, my "tire pressure" light came on in my car and moments after that I discovered I had run over something and had a big-time flat tire. A quick fill of that tire managed to get me home without problem and that's when Mrs. Scruffy told me about this great big boom. It wasn't until I saw Jill Morgan at 5 doing the CBC news that I realized what had happened. Thank god to all involved this wasn't more serious. We don't need something like that especially on Xmas Eve. Can we all just agree that we might have seen a Christmas miracle!

How much turkey is too much? You have your fill of bird for Xmas dinner and then you have leftovers on Boxing Day for lunch, but after that can one expect to have turkey again for supper. I'm not one for the same thing three meals in a row. That being said, I could go for a re-do of bacon and scallops. If one can o-d on that, I definitely can.

Watching the Little Caesars Bowl from Detroit on Boxing Day, the kicker for the University of Pittsburgh had the last name of "Blewitt". Is that the name you really want for a kicker?!

Tony Romo likely won't play for the Cowboys in a must win game and Aaron Rodgers will play for the Packers in a must-win game. I bet NBC is wishing they wouldn't have been so quick on the trigger as to what game they wanted Sunday night. The Bears-Packers game should be a great tilt. I don't think the Eagles-Cowboys game will and I'd have said that with Romo playing.

Week 17 NFL Lock of The Week ---Eagles over Cowboys
Week 17 NFL Upset of The Week ---Buccaneers over Saints

The fan throwing his Oilers jersey onto the ice after Saturday's 6-0 beating at the hands of the St. Louis Blues has the organization and a lot of people talking in Edmonton. Head coach Dallas Eakins certainly let the fan in question have it with his comments and there is a clear sign now the fans aren't happy with the lack of movement this team has. I surely can't be the only one to see the constant in all of this has been Kevin Lowe. Why is he still employed? Lowe has been a failure and many moves made have been a failure. I even believe its time to get rid of one of the young guns in a trade. I don't want Taylor Hall or Jordan Eberle to go, but I do believe the team could get a good deal for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I still say drafting Nail Yakupov ahead of Ryan Murray was a huge mistake and that it hurt the team in its rebuilding efforts. This team has to start doing something and it has to begin right now. There is no way the Oilers are making the playoffs this year much to the disgust of many including myself but they have to start building for next year right now. An off-season of roster movement won't do it now. Start finding some bodies, get them playing together so they are ready to roll going into 2014-2015.

I have talked about a lack of fan support at Pats games this year. I guess its all over the WHL. I was surprised to see league attendance is down 13 percent from this Christmas break to last one.

Western bias and Saskatchewan bias is showing again, but I would vote Graham DeLaet a thousand times over for Canadian male athlete of the year ahead of Milos Raonic.

Does the NBA basically owning Christmas Day do anything positive for the league? I saw perhaps 10 minutes of the 5 games shown yesterday, but I am guessing there are many who watched every game or at least had the TV onto that channel.

A big thumbs up to radio stations like "THE WOLF" for playing the music they play 365 days a year on Xmas Day. Yes, there were some Xmas tunes sprinkled in, but it wasn't all Xmas music. There's only so much Xmas tunes one can take.

How the hell did Jesse Kotsopoulos end up with Becky? How?

Dear Best Friends, I always have fun when you're around, Thank you.