Dogmesticikitty

The snow refused to charitably yield and continued falling for weeks on end, the resultant piles indeed insurmountable as commerce and education could no longer function.

Even the army was unable to clear the vast voluminous onslaught of flakes, and people were locked down in grim seclusion with no emancipating end in sight.

For some, it was plain old February the dead of winter putrid and zombified, it was just a matter of one more board game before the resolute sun would resplendently shine.

But this time it didn't, the unabashed snow snidely fell with blanketing tempestuousness, as emphatic worries gradually increased with distressing implacable disregard. 

It felt like the time of the caveman as cloistered hysterics began to erupt, and too much time had awkwardly passed to relieve the tension with play and song.

When, to make matters worse, domestic cats and dogs revolted. 

And forged wild hunting parties of their own. 

From which safe refuge could not be found.

It's utterly absurd.

Like our cherished pets would ever wildly revolt against us!

It doesn't make sense if contemporary logic is keenly taken into universal account.

Still, the scene where the gigantic pack of dogs vehemently descended on the ________ team, was crazy intense and filled with emotion through the creative use of traditional plays. 

I suppose it was a bit cliché to have the army taken out first, to make the film that much more harrowing as the snow continued to fall.

The battle at the sequestered nunnery between the sisters and the barrage of cats, was spiritually sinister in its death-defying bedlam, no doubt ill-suited to Sunday school.

Throughout, the bewildered Trundle family oddly observes the ancient imbroglio, scholastically endowed and academically inclined they can't explain the pestilent reckoning.

I loved how the hibernating animals emerged from their slumber to save the town, passionately criticizing the dogs and cats for casting off their traditional domesticity. 

Ending the film with the bucolic, Just another god damn February, left me somewhat overcome with joy, the bizarro crisis having been averted, not bad for animation. 

Some teams are built for the NHL Playoffs, some teams aren't.

Florida and Edmonton are built for the NHL Playoffs.

Think Edmonton doesn't want the rematch?

3 goals in the first 10 minutes tonight!

Incredible! 🏒

Cool to see Canada and Québec's Women's Hockey Team pick up World Cup gold again!

Amazing!

🏒

It's been wonderful to hear compelling tales about Guy Lafleur's life on and off the ice for the last week or so. Universally belovéd. Fare thee well in the next life!

Glad to hear Canada and Québec won the gold medal in women's hockey!

Outstanding!

Sad to hear the Canadian and Québecois men won't be winning gold in hockey at the Winter Olympics this year.

Ah well. One elimination game got away from them.

If it had been a 7 game series, there's no doubt in my mind that Canada and Québec would have won!

I was surprised that only 4 teams were eligible to make it to the World Cup of Hockey's elimination/playoff round in 2016.

Like most Canadians, I still think our B-Team can bring home Olympic Hockey Gold, but I also think it's unfair for NHL players to miss out on such an opportunity, especially considering it's likely a motivating dream.

Nice to see Canada win gold at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship again!

Not to mention another Spengler cup victory.

Yes!

Indian Horse

The legacy of the residential school system which afflicted generations of First Nations children still reverberates today.

A problem with taking religion too seriously, as noted by many others I'm sure, with institutionalizing it and using it to guide governmental policy, is that the people operating within such a bureaucracy don't think they derive their power from fallible mortal men and women, they believe it comes from an all-knowing supreme being, and if they think that they are correctly acting in the interests of a supreme being, that somehow they logically figured out what that being actually wants them to do, it's a completely different kind of managerial ego, because everything they do is sanctioned by perfection, and if their interpretation of his or her omnipotent designs is legally and politically considered to be nothing less than perfect, they tend to believe their actions are irrefutably just.

No matter how cruel.

The residential school presented in Indian Horse doesn't even teach the students real world skills like mathematics or logic, rather it focuses on meticulously studying the bible as if its compelling stories will help them learn how to become accountants or lawyers or doctors.

Thus, as multiple other sources have noted, many students didn't have the skills to find any job whatsoever after graduating, and since many of them had been systematically abused throughout their formative years, many fell into a dire cycle of drug addiction and alcoholism on the streets.

And were plagued afterwards by uninformed cultural stereotypes which developed.

It's not something you just shake off and forget about.

Indian Horse examines a colonized people doing their best to play with a deck stacked against them.

Racism ubiquitously assaults them as they boldly compete, as they regularly face daunting challenges.

One student is gifted athletically and seems poised to make a name for himself in the NHL (Sladen Peltier, Forrest Goodluck, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul).

But he faces internalized demons and mass cultural characterizations that turn the most thrilling time of his life into a harsh struggle.

He would have made a huge difference for any team that had signed him.

If the goal is to win hockey games, why does anything other than one's ability to help teams win matter?

Goon: Last of the Enforcers

It wasn't until I was much older that I realized there was something odd about fighting in hockey.

I began to slowly notice that other sports enforced much stricter penalties on athletes who decided to fight during a game, and that professional hockey's pugilistic characteristics were often regarded with astonishment by those hailing from far distant lands.

I admitted that, in comparison with football, basketball, baseball, and soccer, (okay, it wasn't until I was much much older that soccer was included in the list), it did seem strange that regularly squaring off during a game was culturally applauded, although, having matured within that very same culture, as a spectator, I found I didn't evaluate this aspect of the game that negatively, and instead tried to teach newcomers words and phrases such as, "bruiser," "goon," "toe to toe," "left hook," and "got knocked/laid the fuck out," in order to encourage their Canadian acculturation.

Some of them were also familiar with boxing, which made me think their transition to Canadian life may indeed be smooth, like learning to skate on a well-groomed ice surface.

Perhaps it was.

If they were still searching for more information concerning Canada's love of hockey fighting, I would certainly recommend Jay Baruchel's Goon: Last of the Enforcers, and also Goon, which I'm afraid I haven't seen.

Goon 2 uncritically captures Canada's love of enforcing the game, and a close study of its combative emphasis can likely assist roosted travellers in finding cozy ways to relate to their newfound Canadian brothers and sisters.

Had Mr. Baruchel known that his film would be functioning as an ambassadorial aid, he may have hired Mike Smith, Rob Wells, and John Paul Tremblay to help out with the script (they recently started writing new Trailer Park Boys seasons themselves and have scripted some of the best TPB episodes yet), which, although funny at times, struggles to generate long-lasting comedic momentum.

It does excel at emphasizing teamwork, family values, commentating, and friendship, absurdity bellicosely bromancing f(l)ights fantastic, but more time and care will be required to shoot Goon 3 into Don't Legalize It territory, not that it wasn't fun to watch, or hilarious at times.

Picnicface could play an opposing team coached by a scandalized Mr. D.

Erica from Being Erica could challenge Doug (Seann William Scott) and Eva's (Alison Pill) relationship by coquettishly introducing herself on the road in Moncton.

Bruce Greenwood could play the doctor with the magical cure.

Fred Ward's not Canadian but he could play a villain of some sort.

It's win win win.

Win win.

Win win.

With recurring curious comments from the recently moved Little Mosque on the Prairie family who at one point run into Ron MacLean in the stands who cheerfully explains everything?

What could function as a better unacknowledged integrational family friendly feature?

Like a grilled cheese for breakfast.

With blueberry crêpes on the side!

Red Army

A different approach to the cultivation of sporting legends was adopted by the former Soviet Union.

Notably in regards to hockey, according to Gabe Polsky's new documentary Red Army.

Constant training, living together in isolation for 11 months of the year, severe punishments for failure, patronizing management of all aspects of a player's life, a rigid system demanding strict and unyielding obedience.

Under coach Tikhonov anyways.

Coach Anatoli Tarasov had a different style, much more gentlepersonly, focusing on the artistic nature of the sport, the application of progressive thought to cohesive teamwork, balance, to equanimous belonging.

Both coaches succeeded, one was despised, one loved.

I never realized how crazy about hockey the Soviet Union was until watching this film, it was like watching Canadians discuss hockey, I didn't know Russians loved the game so much.

Tikhnonov's torturous regime did produce results, the Soviets going undefeated for 2 years in the '80s, Red Army even including footage of Gretzky in awe of their prowess, during his prime, the Russian Five of this period referred to by many as the greatest line ever.

They still hated their whiplashy coach.

I always understood that it's a source of National pride that we defeated the Soviets in '72, but I wasn't alive at the time and only ever really highly respected it because everyone who was alive at that point regarded it as a nation building moment, something much more elevated than just another international hockey tournament.

After watching Red Army, I fully understand why.

Even if Polsky exaggerates the Soviet Union's obsession with hockey, it still rivals our own, and to think that we beat them, winning 3 in a row on Soviet home ice to win the series, against a team that trained religiously, no pun intended, is astounding.

I always thought the Soviets were more well rounded when it came to sport, because their population was so much larger than Canada's, Russia's still is, thinking that with such a large population their athletic interests would be more like those of the United States, although I do recall them winning quite a few medals whenever the Olympics were held and they attended, in my youth, but don't ever recall them playing football, basketball, or baseball.

In Fareed Zakaria's Post-American World, whose title is misleading, he points out that the American economy was/is so dynamically multifaceted that it could/can pursue multiple goals simultaneously, and effectively, while countries with smaller economies have had/had to focus on a smaller number of things, many of which they elegantly pursue/d, but in terms of sheer diversity of excellence, no one could/can compete with the United States.

Perhaps that's why the Soviets focused so much attention on hockey.

They did finish 4th in the World Cup of Soccer in 1966 as well.

I've read a depressing number of articles recently about the lack of high-paying permanent jobs in the United States however, and it would be nice to read about that possible trend disappearing.

Red Army uses the example of Viacheslav Fetisov to offer insights into an individual's growth within a collective system, examining the pros and cons of that system from his own testimony, and that of others, thereby investigating how things have changed in Russia since communism fell.

He's perhaps not the best example to use since he spent most of his life on top, although it was a much less glamorous life than that experienced by exceptional professional athletes in North America or non-Soviet Europe, he still wasn't starving or sent to the gulag, and could hold his head high being one of the best in the world.

He still had very little freedom.

He eventually did play in North America, winning a Stanley Cup in his late 30s playing on a Russian line for the Detroit Red Wings, with one teammate from his former Red Army line (Igor Larionov).

Note that many players don't play that well in their late 30s in the NHL.

An informative tripartite examination of ideology, politics and sport, Red Army delivers a chilling look at objective efficiencies, the value of teamwork, and personal strength.

Unbelievable how many awards Fetisov won.

Good companion film for Foxcatcher.