The Luney Bin: H. Wade Minter

I participated in three Yahoo! fantasy hockey leagues this year. I won a league back in 2002, but haven’t done much since then.

This year, however, I cleaned up.

Jack Spencer Invitational League

This is a small league set up by Jack Spencer for folks who sit up in section 328 of the RBC Center. I ended up finishing third in that league, and missed out on making the championship game by losing a tiebreaker in the semifinals.

Let’s Go Canes League

This is a league for participants in the Let’s Go Canes message board. I finished with the #2 seed in the regular season, and won the playoffs!

ComedyWorx Hockey League

The league I set up for ComedyWorx players and alumni. I finished the regular season in 1st with a .600 winning percentage, then won another championship!

So on the season, I got a 1st, a 1st, and a 3rd. A great year for fantasy hockey. If only some other teams could have had similar success.

Until next October!

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Yes, the whole family has been in the blogging doldrums for a few months. Is it the winter months? The children? Work? Hockey? All of the above?

I finally got tired of dealing with Typo, since the software seems to be mostly unmaintained these days, I’m not hacking on the Rails part, and the server that it sits on at SkilTech could use the extra CPU cycles. So I punted in favor of a fairly standard Wordpress install. Thanks to some scripts on the interwebs, migration was mostly painless. Mostly. So maybe having a new toy will inspire me to get back into the groove.

I had a kickass improv show at ComedyWorx on Saturday. One of those where everything falls into place, aside from a couple of odd technical errors on my part in the show intro. Packed house, which always helps too. And speaking of improv, big congratulations to Ted Hobgood for producing his 50th Cagematch show over at DSI. Ted’s an extremely creative guy, and he’s done great things with that format.

The Hurricanes made a big trade today, sending Cory Stillman and Mike Commodore to Ottawa for Joe Corvo and Patrick Eaves. I’m really sad to see both players go, especially Commie, who was one of my favorites. But it’s probably a good thing. The Canes’ hockey doldrums have been even worse than my blogging ones, and both players were due to hit the free agent market this summer and probably command hefty pay raises. This move will either shake up the locker room and get the players back on track, or replace two players we may have lost with two who could stick around. And Corvo especially fills a need as an offensive defenseman who can score on the power play.

I’ll probably do a post soon recapping my Election 2008 predictions from a couple months back. The summary version: I did pretty well on the Democrats and not good at all on the Republicans. We’ll see if I can figure out why.

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It’s been a fairly hellish summer.

Not with the family, as Holly and the kids are fine. Work’s good too, if busy. No, I managed to get myself into another job.

Holly and I somehow manage to get the shaft any time we try to help people out. A year or so ago, Holly agreed to serve on the board of a Mom’s club as well as her sorority’s UNC chapter advisory board, at which point everyone above her promptly quit and left her holding the bag on both. She was pregnant with Kate at the time, so that was hassle she did not need, and it took her months to get everything straight. After that, she said “Never serve on a board again.”

I didn’t listen to her. At the end of the spring, when Hayley’s preschool was running elections, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to volunteer to be board president. How bad could it be? It was a great preschool, two teachers, a new site on the way. Well, I quickly found out how bad it could be, when the new site fell through and both teachers quit right after the school year ended. So I got stuck with a preschool with no teachers and no building.

The parents were insistent that one teacher in particular return, so I spent lots of time trying to talk to her on the phone during her European vacation to get her to come back. All the while, as her return was unclear, parents were dropping out left and right. I finally did get the teacher to agree to return for the 2007-2008 school year, but by the time she committed, we were down to around 7 kids. Then the teacher made some more demands and wanted to reconsider, and we dropped to 4 kids. Finally, a week or so ago, she decided that she really did want to retire.

Fortunately, I had been working on a backup plan, and managed to find a great teacher willing to step in and teach, along with a very enthusiastic assistant. And I managed to get us another half-year in our current building, and one of our parents has a great lead on long-term space. So on the whole, aside from the enrollment, things are finally looking up. There’s a great teacher with some awesome ideas, a lower time crunch on finding new space, and an amazing lead on land we could use for years to come. The biggest pain was that while the old teacher was hemming and hawing about her decision, we lost a ton of kids. Now we’re set as far as plans go, but the enrollment has suffered.

So that’s been my summer, pretty much. Living with a constant stomachache as I try to keep things in line until things are set to move forward. And they are now, which is good, but I’m still suffering the after-effects. Without the help of a couple of parents who have really done a ton to help, I don’t know if we’d have made it through.

So the lesson is: “Don’t volunteer for boards.” I’ll remember that next time, Holly.

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After hearing Ross, Moser, and others talk about it for nearly a year now, I finally made it out with the guys last night to catch GOUGE wrestling at the Stem Fire Hall in the tiny town of Stem, NC.

We were supposed to meet up at 7:30 for the 8pm show, but I managed to get horribly turned around in the wilds of Granville County before realizing “Hey, the Mini has a GPS system that allows me to select a city and get directions.” Yay me. I finally rolled into the firehouse around 7:55pm, following Ross, Ben, and Bill by about 5 minutes.

Now, Ross and Ben are apparently well-known by the group for their regular attendance and smart-mark heckling, so even though the place was sold out, the promoters pulled up four ringside chairs for us. Thus, I got to experience the GOUGE event from close enough to lean over and touch the ring.

Now, GOUGE is a little different from your normal indy promotion. As they say on their website, “It’s all about the gimmicks!” As such, they’re not concerned with primarily putting on a wrestling clinic, instead opting for over-the-top characters and silly entertainment. It’s an interesting touch, and appears to be working very well for them.

To warm up the crowd, the security guy, “Security Bob,” was walking around with signs that said “Stem Sucks” and “Security Bob Rules.” This served to get the crowd ready for the show. Bob had initially neglected to put the “r” in his second sign, leading us to call him “Secuity Bob” for the night.

After initial ring announcements, it was time to start the show:

• The Brotherhood came out to cut a promo. The Brotherhood consists of former ECW wrestler “King” Chilly Willy (the only “name” wrestler on the show, doing a King Booker T style gimmick), Scab (doing a Raven’s Flock-esque gimmick, with a cabbage patch kid in a Baby Bjorn), Major Debeers (doing a South African military gimmick, though with a thick Southern accent), and manager Count Grog (who appears to do a Dracula/Eastern European gimmick, but tonight was just in a suit and sunglasses). They came out to set up their matches tonight, rile up the crowd, and toss some smack our way.

• J.P. and Stoney Hooker vs. Boom Boom Simpson and Drew “MacDaddy” Maelrath. – Simpson, a chunky effeminate guy, and Maelrath, a skinny guy in hotpants with musical notes tattooed down his ribcage, were doing a gay gimmick, with Simpson shooting a miniature “Badd Blaster” in the crowd while nancing around. The Hookers appeared to be high school kids, with matching flames down their pants. Simpson provided the comedy, while the other three provided the wrestling. Decent speed moves from the Hookers, who ended up pinning Simpson for the win. Winners: J.P. and Stoney Hooker

• Ace Crusader vs. Leroy Zybysko. – Crusader is doing a superhero/Batman gimmick. Zybysko is a dreadlocked black heel with ski pants. Crusader appears to be the most muscular guy in the promotion, while Zybysko mainly did a cowardly heel schtick while wearing ski pants to wrestle. The ski pants got some chants from our group. Zybysko got the win, though I don’t remember how. Winner: Leroy Zybysko

• Tennessee Ernie Nord came out. I gotta say, for whatever reason, the concept just kills me. Nord is doing a crossed-up redneck vs. John Nord’s “Barbarian/Bezerker” gimmick. Think a really fat bearded redneck in overalls, fur boots, and a viking helmet. He came out and challenged any audience member to a dance-off. A fairly goth-looking high schooler took him up on it. Nord won, because let’s face it, everyone wants to see the fat guy dance.

• Exotic Aloyisus Street vs. El Mariachi. – Street is a black guy with a pimp cane and fur coat, who apparently also goes by the name of Freakshow. Mariachi was a masked guy, who may actually have been Hispanic, wearing a belt that looked like it had seen use from the “Bedazzler.” Decent matchup between the stocky Street and tall Mariachi, ending when (I believe) Street hit a Buff Blockbuster for the win. Or maybe it was a Side Effect. I didn’t write down finishes. Winner: Exotic Aloysius Street

• GOUGE North Carolina Title: Scab (w/Count Grog) vs. Seymour Snott (Champion) – Snott looked exactly like what would happen if you took Ace Crusader, exchanged the mask for glasses, and put him in a shirt and tie. Funny that. Ross spent most of the match saying “He has the same moveset as Ace Crusader! He has the same weaknesses as Ace Crusader! I feel like I’ve seen him before!” We took to renaming all of Scab’s moveset for him (“Scabziguri! Scabline! He’s going for the Scabbage Patch Kid!”). Both guys were working hard, with Scab/Grog’s cheating vs. Snott’s face comebacks. In the end, Scab caught Snott up top and powerbombed him, putting the feet on the ropes to get the pin. Winner, and new GOUGE NC champion: Scab. Post-match, I had fun showing the referee my picture of the “illegal pin” on the digital camera, and he played right along, saying “Wow, but I didn’t see it.” Awesome.

• GOUGE Tag Team Titles: The New Age Sheepherders (w/Felicia) vs. The Urban Legends (Champions) – The Sheepherders are, well, an homage to the original Luke & Butch Sheepherders (though they’re billed as from Australia instead of New Zealand). The Legends are Luther Thesz (a big black guy with a name that recalls wrestling legend Lou Thesz), and Cowboy Willie Watts, a bigger black guy doing a cowboy gimmick. The Legends came out to “A Country Boy Can Survive.” A decent power-vs-cheating match, as the Sheepherders and their manager tried to use shenanigans to outwit the much stronger Legends. They managed to hold their own for a while, even using their manager in a double-battering-ram. The Legends, however, were really playing to our section, dedicating our favorite moves to us. Not just the deadly backrake, not just the punishing frontrake, but at one point they said “This is for you” and did a combined back-and-front-rake. Woot! The end came when Watts speared a Sheepherder to retain. Winners: The Urban Legends. Post-match, the Legends brought out the other two black guys (Street and Zybysko) to join their stable.

• Butner Bullrope Match: Major Debeers (w/Count Grog) vs. Trailer Park Heat. – Another grudge match set up at the start of the show, it was the heel Debeers vs. a large masked redneck, Trailer Park Heat. The idea was that both participants would be strapped into a bullrope (with attached cowbell, of course), and the winner would have to touch all four corners in succession to win. Unfortunately, they kept having equipment problems with the rope breaking, and resorted several times to taping it to the wrestlers’ arms, with minimal success. One fun moment came when Debeers (who was having a lot of interaction with us) missed a punch, leading us to say “Strike One!” He then whacked Heat solidly with the cowbell, leading us to call “Home Run!”. He then came over and stuck his hand out to me for a high-five, which I delivered. Our crowd then started saying “Wade made the hot tag!” at which point Grog asked me “You want to get in there with them?” I said “No, I don’t have a gimmick.” We though we had a finish when Heat hit the fourth corner, but his rope had broken right before he did, so in the confusion, Debeers got a chair, whacked him, and touched the corners for the win. Winner: Major Debeers. Post-match, Debeers told us he was going “old school” and hit not one, not two, but three heart punches on Heat, causing him to get stretchered out.

• GOUGE Heavyweight Title: Jaheem The Dream vs. King F’n Chilly Willy (Champion) (w/Count Grog) – Main event time. Jaheem is a rotund white guy carrying a KFC bucket and doing a white rapper-esque gimmick. Willy stalled before the match, insulting the crowd and demanding that nobody call him “Burger King.” He eventually snapped, lost the fake British accent and insulting the crowd in a Southern accent. The match featured Willy working the leg to keep the much-larger Jaheem down. Jaheem was making the face comeback when the Brotherhood ran out to distract the referee, leading to Grog throwing the BABY POWDER OF DOOM in Jaheem’s face. Willy then rolled him up for the win. Winner: King Chilly Willy. A post-match beatdown on Jaheem resulted, until Trailer Park Heat returned from the heart punches to make the save. That set up a Stretcher Match next time between Heat and Debeers, as well as a match between Scab and Jaheem.

All in all, it was a very fun night. The wrestlers were all working hard to put on a good show, and the campy gimmicks let everyone have fun. It was well worth the $10 admission. For those in the area, I highly recommend catching a GOUGE show. There are upcoming shows on their website, including two (Raleigh and Stem) in March. You can also check out the pictures I took from ringside on Flickr.

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In a move that has been rumored for years, it seems, the Hurricanes made a trade for the stretch run, picking up winger Anson Carter from Columbus.

I’m not particularly surprised by the move – he’s a guy that the team has had their eye on for a while, if the rumors over the past few years are to be believed. What is surprising is what we gave up to get him – a fifth-round pick in next year’s draft. That’s it. Especially when you compare it with what Atlanta gave up for Keith Tkachuk today – a first round draft choice in 2007, a third round draft choice in 2007, a second round draft choice in 2008 and forward Glen Metropolit (plus Atlanta’s 2008 first-rounder if Tkachuk re-signs with the team). Granted, Tkachuk has about twice as many points (43 – 20/23) as Carter this year (27 – 10/17), but Carter has the potential (33 goals last year with Vancouver). After hearing all week how expensive the trade market is this year, and seeing evidence of it with the Tkachuk deal, I’m thrilled we got Carter for essentially nothing.

I’ve been a fan of Carter’s style for a while, though his inconsistent production is troubling. He seems to have the skill to be a 30-goal-scorer year over year, but has his ups and downs. Being on his 8th team in his career doesn’t help either. Still, for his potential and the low cost, it was a great move by Rutherford.

We still have a logjam on defense, with the fairly useless Dennis Seidenberg and sub-par Andrew Hutchinson as regular scratches, forcing the more-talented Anton Babchuk down to the minors, so I’ll be interested to see if we move one or more of them for more scoring help before Tuesday.

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Leading a fairly boring, married, child-producing life as I do, I don’t tend to socialize much outside of work and my couple of hobbies (improv, hockey). In fact, there’s really only one night out of a given year that I have people outside of family over to my house. And that night was last night. Super Bowl Sunday. Or, as I refer to it, the Chili Bowl.

My Super Bowl party started during my first winter at ComedyWorx (then ComedySportz) – I had about 10 people over to my apartment in Cary, cooked a pot of chili, had some snacks, and we watched the Rams/Titans Super Bowl. Since then, it’s been an annual event, only missing the 2003 Super Bowl (the Tampa/Oakland blowout) due to Hayley being born four days earlier.

The party is generally a fairly low-key affair, with 10-12 people showing up. There must have been something in the water, though, because last night had 23 people, including Holly, Hayley, Kate, and I. Good thing we moved into the bigger house this year – I don’t think we could have fit that many people in the old house!

I think people had a good time – I cooked up two double-pots of chili and Holly made quesadillas, we had the standard shrimp pizza, crackers, chips, and such. A couple of folks brought other desserts. Holly even had a special treat – the Spencer Trifle. It’s an amazing chocolate dessert made famous by the Spencer Family at ComedyWorx Christmas parties. Needless to say, that didn’t last long before being devoured.

As for the game, I didn’t really have a horse in the race. I was pulling for the Bears, mainly for Moser’s sake, but also because I don’t like Peyton Manning and still hold a grudge over the Colts bolting Baltimore in the Mayflower vans 23 years ago. I am glad to see Tony Dungy win, though, since I think he’s a class act and a great coach. I’m somewhat surprised that the Bears’ defense was as porous as it was, and that they Bears did so poorly in the bad weather. I would have thought that would play right into their hands. And poor Moser had to watch it go from an opening kickoff return and early lead into “Bad Rex” and an inability to stop the Colts.

The commercials, which are half of the fun during the party, were fairly sub-par. Very few of them got the coveted thumbs-up from most of the voting crowd.

Hayley was great during the game, spending a lot of time with Larry and Candice, which was especially amusing because for her first couple of years, every time Larry would come near her, she regarded him with a very suspicious look. Now she has a great time when he’s around. Kate was also very good, spending a lot of time asleep, a significant portion of it on Amanda’s date. I even found time to take some pictures.

It’s time to put the chili pots away until Chili Bowl ’08. Thanks to everyone who came by!

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For the Hurricanes fans who were at the RBC Center for tonight’s game, yes, that was Holly and me up on the Jumbotron during the “Kiss Cam” skit, with me wearing an Atlanta jersey and Holly cross-checking me out of the picture.

Was it live, or was it “Memorex”? I’ll never tell, but I will say that I was at the game with Hayley, and Holly was at home with Kate, if that helps.

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Caught this nugget while reading the TSN.ca RSS feeds – the LA Kings have placed both of their starting goaltenders on IR, so they’ve called up Yutaka Fukufuji from the AHL to be their backup.

A Tokyo-born goalie named “Fukufuji” in the NHL. Awesome.

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My blog was wonky earlier this week, so I didn’t get a chance to post about it at the time. Due to a depleted defense corps and a role that was becoming surplus, Hurricanes forward, Alternate Captain, and my favorite player, Kevyn Adams, got 0111145309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001”>traded to Phoenix.

Adams was a popular player for his hard work and tenacious play. He was a wizard on the penalty kill, with his play and oversized noggin generating “So I Married An Axe Murderer”-esque chants from 328 of “Heeeeeeed! Shorty! Now!”

At least he’s probably getting to live out every hockey kid’s dream of playing for Wayne Gretzky. And now, I guess, my #14 jersey is a collector’s item. Good thing I got him to autograph it a month or so ago at the Season Ticket Holder’s party.

Good luck, Kev!

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In an effort to break the Hurricanes’ “No Goals Yet In 2007” streak, Jack Spencer, the sectionmaster of 328, put forth a decree. Last night’s game against the Islanders was “Alternate Jersey Night”. Those of us in 328 were to wear any jersey OTHER than the Hurricanes’, in an attempt to break the bad juju.

I’d say around 10-15 people heeded the call:

• I wore my ECHL Hampton Roads Admirals jersey
• Jack had his Slap Shot “Charlestown Chiefs” jersey
• Dan had Jack’s ComedyWorx jersey.
• D-Rock was sporting the hideously awesome Mighty Ducks’ 3rd jersey – the one with “Wild Wing” leaping out of the ice.
• Flanagan had a personalized Quebec Nordiques jersey.
• His wife had a Charlotte Checkers jersey.
• Shaw had a Colorado Avalance Patrick Roy jersey (goalies – go figure).
• Roger had borrowed Shaw’s nice San Jose Sharks Arturs Irbe jersey.

• Other people in the section were sporting a Grand Rapids Griffins jersey, an East Carolina college hockey jersey, and another alternate Mighty Ducks jersey.

Did it work? I’d say so. We’re glad to do our part to help the team. Back to the Canes jerseys next game.

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