Sharks vs. Calgary Petro-Gypsies
By Editorial Staff
Usually a nice way to get into a match up and whip up a little passion pre-game is to single out the opposing team’s best (or other prominent player) and poke a little good natured fun at them.
If that fails, you can always just blatantly rip a player in a mean spirited way because you honestly and passionately hate their maggot sucking guts—like my feelings towards Steve Ott as an example.
Sorry…“Otter”
Moving on to tonight’s game, you could say, to get yourself really pumped for tonight’s showdown that the Calgary Flames need to still answer for that felonious Corey Sarich hit on Patrick Marleau.
Problem is, that hit was a million years ago and even pre-dates Twitter and bad-at-golf-Tiger Woods…or at the very least happened before LeBron James’ account was really active.
Also regarding “The Hit,” the San Jose Sharks, only days later, knocked Sarich and his entire band out of the Western Conference Quarterfinals that year, which was honestly better revenge than any haymaker or hack job could ever be. Granted, Marleau wasn’t sure what planet he was on for a while, but we eventually won that war. As for the patient, he even scored a few points over the next couple games to help end their season.
So, the “Big Hit” is out as a lightning rod of passion against the Flames, and Owen Nolan also isn’t there anymore either (wish he was here). Also, Darryl Sutter is out of Calgary now and the Tank boobird favorite, Dion Phaneuf, has shipped his Serie A flop act to Toronto.
Add to all this it’s Canada for crying out loud, and I have it on personal authority that Canadians (notice the spelling: Canadians) are some of the coolest people in the world to party with on the face of the planet. They invite you to Canadian Thanksgiving, they buy rounds of drinks almost reflexively when out, they laugh at your retread “Strange Brew” jokes, are awesome at beer league ice hockey (weird) and are just phenomenal stand-ins when your liver and heart don’t have the capacity to hang with, say any Brazilian friends you might know.
Finally, their best player, Jerome Iginla, not only has “Elvis” as one of his middle names, but also might possibly be the nicest, most grounded professional athlete in any sport on the planet. He married the girl he started dating in 8th grade, has three kids and donates $2,000 for every goal he scores to charity. When he isn’t lighting the lamp nightly for the Flames or, you know building homes for the underprivileged, he’s off serving as an ambassador for the NHL’s Diversity program—that jerk.
So, Sarich out, Canadians cool, no former Shark turncoats to rally against and their best player couldn’t make the Nobel Prize Award ceremony because he was pulling a three-legged kitten out of a tree.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, so time to go after the gypsies—“petro-gypsies” to be precise. Then, using this tiny slice of Calgary Flame fandom as a springboard, character assassinate by association the entire drink round buyin’ lot of them, and by further extension their beloved Calgary Flames.
It’s a stretch, but it’s a hockey blog for crying out loud…you want special teams breakdowns, go find Pierre LeBrun.
These filthy petro-gypsies would be the carpet bagging opportunists who have flocked to the lucrative Calgary oil sand fields, and in doing so, drove the cost of everything through the roof, spiked the population to uncontrollable levels, clogged traffic arteries to bursting points and introduced regular gang violence as a nightly plus.
Essentially, they have turned Calgary into San Jose—or as my two bashed out car windows suffered in the span of a week can attest—into San Francisco.
These petro-gypsies are also the same brand of douchery who rail against anyone not of their newfound economic status, drive massively overwrought SUVs and drop comments like, “jealousy rearing its’ ugly head over that drive-thru job again” when you ask them to explain why their wristwatch is the size of a small toaster oven and looks like something Buzz Aldrin might have used to navigate the Apollo lunar module.
To put it in local Bay Area terms, Calgary Petro-Gypsy Guy is basically Bay Area Hummer Guy…and everybody hates Hummer Guy except Hummer Guy.
So, tonight when you are watching your extremely bad a** San Jose Sharks trying to make it 6 straight (!) wins and beat up on St. Iginla and the rest of the Calgary Flames, remember that every fan you see on television at the Saddledome sitting in the lower bowl is Hummer Guy—Ed Hardy shirt wearin’, spiked hair and bleached soul patch havin’, sunglasses backwards on his head inside sportin’ Hummer Guy.
Feel the animosity percolate inside you when you imagine them giving each other high fives tonight after big hits on our boys or buying themselves rounds of Goldschläger after a decisive Flames goal. Let the anger flow inside you knowing that it would make this scourge of humanity very happy for the Calgary Flames to embarrass our blessed Sharks.
Unless you happen to be an actual Bay Area Hummer Guy Sharks Fan reading this.
In that case (awkward), the previous imagery is probably totally lost on you. Thing is, my tribal print friend, we rock the same love for the same team so for you I offer, in the spirit of fellow Shark loving brotherhood, a rousing GO SHARKS!…
…that, and just as a friend…Affliction tshirts don’t look good on anybody bro…even in teal.