Cheers and Jeers – July 13th

It’s Friday. So we close out the "Week That Was" with our latest volume of… "Cheers and Jeers!"

This week, we fold on Janssen, Hasek and Jets fans, while we give an Ace on the river to Luongo, Selanne and Shane Doan’s agent.

JEERS to Cam Janssen for his complete, homophobic idiocy during an interview with an internet radio show. Personally, the specific comment that I found most offensive (and there were others) was, when talking about opponents, "If he’s sucking cock, he’s getting his ass kicked." Disgraceful, disgusting, and just wholly unacceptable.

Janssen has proven pretty clearly  that he’s nothing but a neanderthal. Of course, he tried to apologize via a Devils press release that was no doubt written by their PR department, and a statement with the You Can Play team (you can read Thomas Drance’s take on that here) I’m not buying it, Cam. You’re a gross pig and your empty apology is lost on me.

CHEERS to Teemu Selanne for doing us all a huge favour by returning to play one more season in the NHL. What’s even better than the fact that he’s coming back is *HOW* he and the Ducks announced that he signed a one-year deal. You can watch the video here. Just awesome.

JEERS to Dominik Hasek for trying a comeback… a MULTI -YEAR comeback. I am a fan of NHL favourites continuing their careers, so long as their skills are up to par (such as Teemu, who is still playing well above par). But Hasek is 47, didn’t play pro hockey at all last year, and played his last NHL game on April 16, 2008. Despite that, Hasek is looking for a multi-year deal with an NHL club. MULTI-year. If Dominic is really trying to come back for the love of the game, he’d be groveling teams for a one-year, minimum contract or a PTO. But he is clearly looking for money, because there is absolutely no chance that Dominik Hasek will be a top 30 goalie in the NHL next year.

CHEERS to Shane Doan’s agent, who is doing WORK for his client. There has been a free agent frenzy around Doan over the past week, now that a few of the bigger UFA names have signed elsewhere. Now there are a dozen teams who are clamoring to sign a veteran player (he turns 36 in October) whose stats have been tumbling the last 3 years. Apparently, an Eastern Conference team has now offered down a 30 million dollar contract over four seasons! 30 million for a 35 year old who scored 20 goals last season! You GOTTA appreciate his agent for amping up the hype that much. Performance of the summer? (h/t cheers to @jptruman for the idea for this cheers.)

JEERS to Jets fans, who clearly have the thinnest of thin skins. Yesterday, our friend Bart Byl (@33to22) sent out a tweet yesterday following the Selanne contract news: "Selanne still hasn’t lived up to the potential he showed in his rookie season. Will this be the year he breaks 76 goals" This is quite obviously a tongue-in-cheek joke paying homage to Selanne’s stellar career.

As such, our own Thomas Drance retweeted to share with his own followers. WELL! That set off Jets fans who occupy the twitterverse on a tirade of angry, nasty, moronic replies. Most of these ridiculous responses and messages today were some variation of "Yeah well I have as many Stanley Cup rings as the Vancouver Canucks!" Really, Jets fans?! REALLY Winnipeg hockey fans?! Your first incarnation of the Jets left and are now the COYOTES. That’s the franchise Teemu played four seasons for. Augment your sarcasm detectors, drink an iced coffee and calm the hell down.

CHEERS to Roberto Luongo for hanging in there at the 2012 World Series of Poker. The Strombonian Sensation is into day 4 of the poker tourney and edging very close to walking away with money (the top 666 players earn money; Luongo started today at #639 with 92,000 chips. Meanwhile, he’s being schooled by his younger brother Fabio, who is sitting at #186 with 360,000 chips. For more on the poker playing brothers, here’s a video from PokerListings.com with Roberto and Fabio.

JEERS to my friggin’ luck this week. I broke my ankle on Tuesday when I fell while hiking and spent all of Wednesday afternoon at the hospital getting a cast set. Then the alternator died on my van on Wednesday, which also happened to be my anniversary. Given that today is Friday the 13th, I am fully expecting a 16-ton weight to fall on my head, a la Monty Python.

AND FINALLY, SPEAKING OF FALLING…

CHEERS to Mason Raymond for avoiding arbitration and signing a one-year deal with the Canucks. It’s a win-win for both sides. Raymond is eager to prove he can get his career back on track following his gruesome back injury. The Canucks sign a low-risk contract at a low dollars, in hopes that Raymond returns to a 20-goal campaign.