Dispatches from Mordor Part 1

And I thought 2004 was rough.

It was.

In fact, the Calgary Flames improbable run to the Stanley Cup Finals that season likely took years off of my life.

It took nearly as many years off my life as the Edmonton Oilers similar, but heartbreakingly disappointing run to the Stanely Cup Finals two years later.

Now this.

So this is what feels like to live in the 9th Circle of Hell.

Jay Bouwmeester is now a Calgary Flame.

Next year he will be wearing the Flaming Gay C along with the likes of Dion Phaneuf, Robin Regehr, Jarome Iginla, and Mikka Kiprussoff. The Calgary Flames just took another step closer to winning another Stanley Cup. Just when I thought their small window was once again closing, Darryl Sutter found a way to keep it open for one more year.

OK, so apparently Darryl Sutter may have went golfing with Jay Bouwmeester's dad the other day, much like he allegedly did around this time last year with Curtis Glencross's dad. Hmmm...

Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province did a pretty good job the other day of summing up my feelings on Mr. Sutter's general approach of late to managing his hockey club. Although the piece is from primarily a Canucks POV, I think Oiler fans can certainly empathize or at least feel equally bitter. I do.

http://www.faceoff.com/hockey/teams/vancouver-canucks/story.html?id=1741068&add_feed_url=http://www.faceoff.com/scripts/SP6Atom.aspx?id=894638

Yesterday on The Fan 960 Sports Talk Radio in Calgary, the hosts discussed Mr. Sutter's lack of popularity among other NHL General Managers dating back to several trades and free agent acquisitions ago, including the aforementioned signing of Curtis Glencross (or GlenX as he is apparently now known), the burying of salary in the minor leagues during the stretch run, and a slightly suspicious seemingly one-sided trade with New Jersey which allowed the Devils to move up in the first round last weekend (compensation for signing Brent Sutter as head coach perhaps?). During the broadcast it was mentioned also that several NHL General Managers have approached Gary Bettman and the NHL in the past few months to complain that the Calgary Flames are over the salary cap.

And perhaps the greatest irony is that the Bouwmeester deal apparently was consummated earlier this evening in Bouwmeester's hometown of Edmonton.

City of Champions?

Please.

City of Chumps might be more accurate - especially if Danny Heatley refuses to waive his no trade clause. What a humiliating mess that will be - the latest in what has been a series of many.

If the deal does go through, then the Oilers will have finally landed a sniper the likes of which has not been seen in Edmonton (playing for the home team anyway) since the glory years. If you go by the old and overused truism "whichever team received the best player won the trade" then the Oilers may well come out on top in this deal in the end, but they gave up an awful lot of youth and talent and development, leaving the fan base scratching their collective heads and maybe even feeling as if they have been sold a bit of a bill of goods for the past few seasons.

I can see moving Dustin Penner and his inflated contract, but it does amount to basically admitting failure with the forays into the RFA market a few years ago. Put another way, it essentially admits that Brian Burke was right after all, which really pisses me off.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. "Ladislav Smid is going to be a superstar." Watching him come into his own in Ottawa is going to hurt given all of the "development" Oiler fans have had to put up with for the past few years.

The one that absolutely kills me is Cogliano. So what if he can't win a faceoff to save his life. This kid is going to be great. He was a big part of the hope for the future we all bought into when we thought the team was rebuilding. Now he's gone.

Heatley had better be good. I mean really good. 100 points good. And Hemsky, too. And Heatley had better want to play in Edmonton. And Steve Tambellini had better prove to be some kind of evil genius wizard Jedi tomorrow in terms of having several things up his sleeve to address the salary cap, the Center position, goaltending, and winning NOW!

Bring on the Battle of Alberta, because winning now seems to be what the Flames are gearing up to do.

HEYYY YOU GUYS!

Calgary Flames general manager Sloth Fratelli named his brother Francis as the team's head coach on Tuesday. Francis, who left the New Jersey Devils earlier this month, takes over from Chester Copperpot who was fired in May after the Flames (AKA The Goonies) lost in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. He is the fourth head coach in five years for the beleaguered NHL franchise. Francis' appointment brings the number of Fratellis working in the Flames organization to four, including Ma Fratelli, Jake Fratelli, Sloth Fratelli, and now Francis, but Sloth said Francis' last name had nothing to do with him landing the job.

The new assistant coaches Mikey Walsh, Clark "Mouth" Devereaux, and Lawrence "Chunk" Cohen have virtually no NHL coaching experience, but Mikey was most recently the head coach of the Calgary Hitmen in the WHL, "Mouth" was the coach of the Flames top affiliate for the past four seasons, and "Chunk", a former Flames goaltender, has been working in the Flames scouting and player development areas.

The new coach with the familiar last name intends to have his new team back playing a familiar style of boring, clutch and grab hockey requiring little or no skill but ample grit and toughness. “Defensive hockey for a coach is the easiest part to teach, it’s about everybody being on the same page. Defensive hockey isn’t just about how you play in your own zone, defensive hockey is about how you play in the neutral zone, defensive hockey is how you play in the offensive zone, defensive hockey is a about puck possession time. That starts in practice and you need everyone committed to doing it,” said Francis Fratelli. “A good defensive team doesn’t mean you can’t be a good team offensively either… Players can still flourish offensively but there is high responsibility defensively when you don’t have the puck in how you do things. That’s their job to make sure it’s implemented.”

Flames General Manager Sloth Fratelli sat next to his brother at the press conference beaming, unable to hide his pleasure and optimism about the team going forward, at one point donning a pirate hat and brandishing a cutlass, he blurted out, “Heyyy you guys!" Later, at a pivotal moment, he ripped his outer shirt open, revealing a t-shirt with the Superman logo underneath, and indicated that the S stands for Sloth before screaming, "Sloth loves Chunk!"