What can Canada learn from America about holidays? What can America learn from Canada about holidays? What should Joe Thornton do if he wins the Stanley Cup? What do the Capitals do if they lose to the Penguins? You’ve got questions, we’ve got things that resemble answers. MAILBAG!
1. Canada vs. America
@davelozo Which Canadian holiday, spelling or tradition would you most like to see implemented in the United States?
— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) May 9, 2016
There are many similarities between our great nations. But there are also subtle differences, like the dates of our Thanksgivings, how we spell words like honor and honour, and how we both used to send NHL teams to the playoffs but now that’s just an American thing.
For me, I’d like to see the United States start something similar to the Canadian tradition of celebrating the Queen’s birthday.
Every April 21, Canadians honor their Queen — Elizabeth II — with a series of homages and ceremonies that celebrate living in a monarchy. Every city and town forbids the use of cars, as all citizens must travel on horseback. Offices remain closed until the conclusion of the Queen Elizabeth II parade that rides through Ottawa with all living members of the royal family and Mike Myers in attendance.
The Festival of the Queen continues throughout the day with various events throughout the nation. Women attend balls dressed as the Queen and each province names a Miss Queen Elizabeth at pageants designed to see who best embodies the spirit of the queen mum. Every city’s QE2 museum waves the usual $20 fee because pictures of the Queen on Canada’s money must not be disturbed and no moose can be hunted, for Elizabeth considers the moose her favorite animal.
Something like that would be great in America. Just swap out Queen Elizabeth II for George Washington and we could have something special down here.
2. Canada vs. America, Part 2
@davelozo Which United States holiday, spelling or tradition would you most like to see implemented in Canada?
— Travis Yost (@travisyost) May 9, 2016
We don’t really have a holiday like Canada does with QE2 Day, and most Canadian holidays are on par or better than what we have in America. Why can’t we have Boxing Day? Even the timing of their Thanksgiving is better.
But one thing Canada lacks that we have is the American tradition of celebrating a person’s 21st birthday.
You probably know some of it — a man or woman reaches drinking age and gets absolutely sauced with friends. You are asked to drink 21 shots of alcohol, which seems insane in hindsight, but this is just something people who drink do. What this day truly is about for drinkers and non-drinkers alike is an initiation into the American way of life as a full-fledged adult.
Just like in Canada, the day begins at 6 a.m. but there are no parades or balls or formal events. Your father, mother or legal guardian takes you to the local gun shop so you can buy your gun. You fire the gun at the in-store range until you no longer feel anything except full and complete arousal when you pull the trigger. This lasts until noon.
Then you head to McDonald’s and buy 21 cheeseburgers. To eat? No. To give to a homeless person? Of course not. You take the cheeseburgers into the woods, stack them in a pyramid and fire your new gun at the cheeseburgers until the cheeseburgers are destroyed.
After that, you go deeper into the woods and shoot an animal because you can.
The day ends when you stand in front of a library and laugh at everyone leaving it because they are nerds who are learning. You do so while eating a cheeseburger and wearing nothing but an American flag as a toga. Then you go home and watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians until you fall asleep with a bowl of ice cream on your chest.
These holidays and traditions are real. Don’t look this up to confirm.
3. Jumbo’s Cup
@davelozo if the Sharks win the cup, who does Pavelski hand it to first, Thornton or Marleau? or do they do a cute three-man cup raise?
— Zach Blumenfeld (@ZachBlumy) May 9, 2016
I know that Patrick Marleau has eaten a ton of crap in his time in San Jose and lost the captaincy too, but Joe Thornton has eaten twice the crap and had the ‘C’ taken away in an active attempt by Doug Wilson to shame him into waiving his no-trade clause after the 2014 playoffs. Seeing Thornton get the Cup and just mic drop it on the ice and retire on the spot would give me the greatest of joy.
Sometimes I think back to that series against the Kings and giggle at how an evaluator of talent watched it and decided it was time to blow up the team. The Sharks led 3-0 against what was by far the best team of that time period and yeah, Thornton was a non-factor in that series, but consider everything else that happened as the Sharks lost four straight:
- Marc-Edouard Vlasic, maybe one of the 10 best defensemen in the world and already a member of the Canadian roster for the World Cup, missed essentially the final three games of the series when he got hurt early in Game 5. Jarrett Stoll, who delivered the hit, wasn’t suspended.
- Logan Couture, one of the more important members of the team, took part in a #SetTheTone fight at the end of Game 6, broke his hand and was just about useless in Game 7.
- Antti Niemi had an .884 save percentage for the series.
Yet it was Thornton and Marleau, leading the team with three goals and seven points in the series, who were to be exiled. It was the laziest bit of scapegoating ever perpetrated by a team.
So yeah, I’d love for Thornton to take the Cup from Pavelski, offer a huge middle finger to the general manager’s box and walk off into the sunset.
Unless he wants to keep playing. This is just my fantasy here.
4. Drink Up
@davelozo Which NHL player is most likely to order an appletini?
— Go Nole (@Its_Allman_Doe) May 9, 2016
Sidney Crosby. Because he’s the best player in the league and an appletini is the best drink.
5. Bad To Good
@davelozo with all Canadian teams picking high this draft, which one will be most competitive in 3-5 years? #LozoMailbag
— Minnesota Fats (@ORGNL6) May 9, 2016
If Winnipeg misses the postseason next year, fire everyone. Patrik Laine should make them very good right away as long as one of their three goaltenders is just league average.
6. Peace, I’m outta here.
@davelozo Where does "My watch has ended" rank on the mic drop list?
— Michael Harary (@MikeH1123) May 9, 2016
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought the ending to the most recent Game of Thrones made no sense. Jon Snow has never been vengeful and always has been good and noble at heart, so he essentially kills his murderers out of vengeance and doesn’t even give two weeks notice. If he cared about restoring order to the Night’s Watch, why would he quit eight seconds after killing Olly? Wouldn’t he just quit and let the new Lord Commander dispense the justice?
So as far as mic drops go, this one wasn’t all that great.
Between Maester Pycelle farting and Tormund making a tiny wiener joke, this was the first time I felt like I could tell there were no more books from which to draw. I’m worried about the rest of this season.
Also, this is the best mic drop.
7. Capital [pun involving Capital]
https://twitter.com/rayneman9/status/729757326593265665
If the Caps lose in six or seven games to the Penguins, there’s nothing they can do but stay the course and take another run at it next year. When they lost to the Rangers in 2015, the Caps blew it. In 2010, they got Halak’d by Montreal and in 2011, they weren’t a complete team and lost to a better one in the second round.
This year, the Caps are very, very good but they are running into a very, very good team that is on fire. So you can go one of two routes — reinforce and go for it again next season or pull a 2014 Sharks and try to scapegoat your best players in an effort to appease fans, media or ownership.
Option 1 is the way to go but if it happens again in 2017, how many times can you say, “We ran into a better team” before you decide you’ll never have the better team with the team you currently have?
To me, you can do it one more year. Besides, the Caps are two wins away from never having to deal with questions about “makeup” ever again, so let’s wait on that.
8. It’s Not TV
https://twitter.com/crustybanana10/status/729752324369883136
Veep, and it’s not even close. It’s one more great season from exceeding Seinfeld.
And maybe it’s because it’s sandwiched between the two best shows on TV today, but Silicon Valley is killing me. I was fearful it would turn into Entourage But With Tech Nerds and that’s what it feels like now. Instead of “Will Vince Do The Movie?” it’s “Will Richard Do The Pied Piper?” and boy, do I not care. I’ve also seen interviews where the cast says they meet people in the tech industry who tell them the show is super realistic and that is a huge compliment and — again — boy, do I not care.
Veep is seemingly all about what is the funniest possible thing that can happen in this particular scene and yeah, at some point, we will move the story forward. It has a Seinfeld vibe where the writers don’t really care about making the characters likable and the best joke is all that matters, which is what makes it great to me. Just about everyone on that show is despicable in some way (except Amy and Gary) and it’s just fantastic.
If every scene in Silicon Valley was just Gilfoyle screwing with Dinesh, it’d be gold. But every week, it’s about Richard and his dream and I do not care if he becomes god-like rich or regular rich, so the show has lost luster for me. I still watch, but it’s really only because of its time slot.
9. World War E
https://twitter.com/weird_situation/status/729753073845854209
Considering how 29 NHL teams have spent the past nine seasons killing the Oilers, a team that has been dead on its feet for almost all of that time, I’d say there isn’t a team in the league that can’t survive a zombie uprising.