The Ship Has Been Righted

Hey Everybody,

This is starting to fall into the wrong pattern but I do have a good reason. I haven't been putting out a blog and speaking my mind lately and I'm sure you really miss me!!! OK...maybe not but hey I can dream right? Truth is I love speaking my mind when it comes to sports and anything else I'm passionate about...like my family! This leads me to why I haven't been blogging much lately and it has something to do with the blog title...my family ship has finally been righted. We have moved out of our 1300 sq ft house on one of the busiest streets in Kanata. We have moved into a 2700 sq ft house on a quiet street in Stittsville. Very busy with the whole move thing since the middle of September and there's still a bunch of work to do...but you don't care about that!!

So let's talk about one of the other ships that has been righted! The Sens have been going down a horrible stretch since the All-Star Break. Truth be told it's been going bad for quite some time. Hard to believe these guys were good enough to get to the Stanley Cup Finals last year! I guess Mike Comrie and Tom Preissing were really that good!!! Or is Bryan Murray that good? When he took over the GM job and assigned John Paddock as head coach I thought that wasn't a bad move! Bryan's been a very successful GM before and John had successfully coached the majority of the Sens stars while he was head coach in Binghampton!!! Besides, he's inheriting a phenominal team that any coach would dream of guiding to the finals again. Well....not so fast people!!! According to Liam Maguire, John Paddock is the first coach in the modern-era to coach in the all-star game and be gone before the end of the season. There's a lot of finger-pointing as to why this happened and the Ray Emery distraction seems to be at the centre of it all. He was a distraction from the beginning and John didn't handle it properly. He subsequently lost the players in the room. Enter Bryan Murray! The re-entrance of Bryan Murray should right the ship of this team and make them contenders again...that is, if one of the goalies can get it going!!!

Another ship that has been righted is the FaveQuest Nasty Hockey Show. For those of you who don't know I have been hosting a show with different co-hosts for the past 6 weeks at Philthy McNasty's in Kanata. Some of my guests have included Liam Maguire (http://liamslament.blogspot.com/), The Sensquatch (http://www.mefeedia.com/tags/sensquatch/), Shredder from The Sens Underground (http://sensunderground.com/) and Angela Grant Saunders from Saunders Farm (http://www.saundersfarm.com/). All video footage is posted on favequest.com (http://favequest.com/) and is pretty good entertainment if you have some time to check it out. We tape every Saturday at around 5:00pm for about a half hour but we'll be taking some time off to plan for the playoff run. The Nasty Hockey Show will return on Saturday, April 5th so circle that date on your calendars and try to make it out. Liam Maguire should be on hand to handle any trivia questions and to alert us of any "Gutless Pukes" that may have made it to the playoffs...he loves to speak his mind!!! Now the reason why I say this ship has been righted is quite simple...believe it or not this show is starting to attract an audience! Every week the hits on FaveQuest have steadily increased. For me it's a feeling of accomplishment as I have never done anything like this before in my life...but I love it! What a rush it is to be able to talk to passionate hockey fans over a couple of pints as it is being recorded and sent out on the internet! We are creating content and people are finding it interesting!!! Very cool!!!

With that in mind I hope you get a chance to check out the websites I've included. It should give you some insight into the fun you may have been missing...then you can right your own ship and check it out live on April 5th!!

CHEERS!!!
The Rokpig

Going Live And On the Internet

I know it's been a while since I blogged but I guess life's been keeping me quite busy!!
We've sold our house and bought a new one (well...new to us...it was built in 1984). We'll be moving for basically the last 2 weeks of February, which means we've been packing and purging quite a bit lately.
I've also been consumed by the Facebook world which can pull you in and keep you there for longer than you planned. That being said the Facebook world is very dynamic. You can generate your own application and host it on Facebook. This is a great idea for people who want a large audience to try out their latest fun ideas.
One such application is called FaveQuest. This app will show you videos that you may like based on your Facebook profile. You don't have to go to search engines and type in what you like...this application will do it for you.
Now, as some of you may know, I'm a huge sports fan. Not much of a trivia guy but I love watching sports. Especially the NHL!!! I have noticed that there seems to be a shortage of video content available on the internet for a lot of things I want to see. I like post-game shows with honest talk from the players...not the same old gibberish that they spew out for every interviewer. I also like to see shows that offer opinion from fans and not what sport's shows think the fan wants. As much as I like listening to the Hockey Insiders they don't supply the channels for me to ask my own questions. Hopefully all that will change...at least in a local context anyway.

This brings me to the significance of the title of this blog. Starting this Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 4:30pm...Philthy McNasty's in The Kanata Centrum will be home to the launch of the FaveQuest Nasty Hockey Show. This show will be hosted by yours truly and Liam McGuire. We are planning to run this every Saturday at 4:30pm for at least 8 weeks. I encourage all who read this to come out and have your voice heard. Ask questions, start debates, offer opinions, make a statement...just make yourself be heard!!! This show will be videotaped live in HD and posted on the internet for the world to see. This will be a perfect forum for the regular hockey fan to make his case for what he truly believes in and to see who else agrees.

For example:
Was Bobby Orr the greatest player to ever strap on the blades?
Will the Toronto Make-Beliefs ever get an NHL team?
Can the East beat the West in the 2008 All-Star Game?
Why does Gary Bettman look like Pee-Wee Herman? Are they related?

Those are just some of the things swimming around in my cranium...there's a bunch more which will most definitely come out at some point during these hockey shows.

I hope to see you folks at these shows...you can even think of some questions to try and stump Liam!!! My money's on Liam!!! We will also be trying to get some Sens players to say what's truly on their mind! Can't gaurantee that for this Saturday but we should have something lined-up in the next couple of weeks...I hear Heatley has some down-time for the next 6 weeks or so.

Also, if you have something on your mind that you want to be brought up at this show just reply to this blog or email me at rokpig@yahoo.com and I'll make sure it gets brought up. Make it good though!!!

See ya Saturday folks!!!

CHEERS!!!
The Rokpig...