Have you ever wished there existed a one-stop-emporium for all things hockey enforcer related? Well, there already are a few hockey fight fan pages, but we’ll be adding a more humorous, personal bent to the pugilistic passtime. None of them are written and maintained by a minor league employee with a wit as sharp as a CCM blade, either. I’ll be helping out with the project and adding it to the mountain of partially-finished web projects now teetering on my virtual desk. It’s a great idea, a great domain name and I’m therefore proud to unveil:

www.goonblog.com

We’ll be clearing the benches towards the middle of next month, and I hope you’ll all get a kick out of it once it’s up and skating. I’m showing it to everyone now because as soon as I post it here on Pye In The Face – the sooner the search engines follow the link through and spider the domain. Jesus H. Christ I’m a dork.

Most hockey fans don’t need another reason to count Bobby Orr amongst their hockey heroes, but Sunday he gave them one anyway: “Our sport is in danger of becoming irrelevant unless both sides immediately put an end to this nonsense.” He’s referring of course to the complete lack of a hockey season this year, stemming from a stalemate which ultimately boils down to reasons of business (greed). Bureed. Grisness.

Bobby’s been quiet thus far regarding the labor dispute, publically putting trust in National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow to resolve their differences and do what’s best for the game. Well not no more. Since the lockout’s inception on September 14th, the two men have met nearly 40 times to try and reach an agreement – and now Orr feels more drastic measures are in order:

“Owners and players should demand that both sides continue to meet until they emerge with a deal or a statement that they can’t resolve their differences and are stepping aside.” Orr is obviously not alone, but the buzz his column is generating on both sides of the border might finally push something through should either of the major players in the negotiations wish to keep their souls.

According to Mike Brophy, “Bettman, the sixth man in charge of running the NHL since 1917 has taken hockey from heaven to hell to non-existence.” Even the best Zamboni can’t smooth things over in that kind of heat, boys. Let’s just please wrap this up so I can stop pretending to like baseball. Much appreciated.

One of my co-workers has been chatting with his parents on and off all morning behind me. They live in Hawaii and apparently his poor mother was admitted to the hospital over the weekend, hence the multitude of calls. The one-sided versions of the conversations I’ve been privvy to started off normal enough, but have gotten progressively weirder as he must have been able to tell – because he just came over to tell me what was going on with mumsie.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn sticks out among my childhood memories for two reasons. It was the first VHS tape we rented at the video store after getting a VCR in 1982. The second reason being the awful scenes involving Ricardo Montalban placing slugs into the ears of various prisoners thereby controlling their minds. “Mind-controlling Ceti Eels” to be exact. Please believe me when I tell you I had to look that up. There’s a party in my ear, and everyone’s invited.

So this guy’s mother wakes up Saturday morning with a narsty headache. After a few hours some blood begins to drip out of her ear and his father rushes her to the hospital where they learn she’s hosting an uninvited skull-guest. They’re taking it out later today and still don’t know exactly what it is. He seems to think it’s a cockroach as they’re apparently way too common in Hawaii. I think someone needs to track down Mr. Roarke immediately – the safety of the Reliant, the Genesis project and Dog the Bounty Hunter may depend on it!

People like to Google themselves. I’m no exception. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though – Google as a verb means to look something up using the search engine of the same name. It’s not a euphamism for feverish masturbation. Although most people I know enjoy that as well. Myself? Well, some days I don’t even leave the house.

This site gets hits for “david pye” and “dave pye” every single solitary day. They can’t all be looking for me. So I decided to sniff around and see what some of the few folks I share my name with have been up to. Are Dave Pyes Googling themselves and finding me? Are there Dave Pyes of considerable notoriety out there somewhere? Nobel prize winners? Astronauts? I decided to have a wee look.

There’s Dave Pye the power lifter. Dave Pye the math teacher. Dave Pye the sound engineer. Dave Pye the software COO. Dave Pye the electrician. Dave Pye the distributor. Dave Pye the DJ (he even refers to himself as “Pyeman”) – and the list goes on. The other thing all these cats have in common is that they’re English. Apparently we’re a dime a dozen on the haunted isle. Am I the only colonial Dave Pye? Do others exist? If you find this, let me know. It would appear we’re on the brink of extinction here in North America. Act now and Sally Struthers will send you a bundt cake.