Doktor Kosmos

I've been listening to Leonard Cohen this evening, and I started wondering... He was born and raised in Montreal... Does anyone know if he's interested in hockey at all?

Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur!

Please, people, would you stop calling Kovalchuk "Kovy"? There is only one "Kovy" and that is Kovalev. kthnxbye

The Pensblog Oy vey!

Hilarious! Bet the Cryer fans are sobbing themselves to sleep tonight.

Oh cool.

Where exactly are you going, if I may ask?

When my girlfriend (who lives in Pittsburgh) flew to Sweden, she booked her tickets on http://www.travelocity.com/.

Last blog entry. Dahntahn Pixburgh.

Cathedral of Learning.

Pirates win! Pirates win!

Message board potluck. On Saturday July 17, the day after we returned from Philly, we had a picnic out in North Park with a couple of people from the message board where Melissa and I first got to know each other. It was a lot of fun to see people in real life and how they compared to on the message board.

Thanks. Hehe, and yeah, of course I had to get a little reminder of home. It was awesome. Best three weeks in my life. We visited Gettysburg on the way back from Philly. ADD: Oh and I have tons of pictures left to post BTW. I took nearly 2000 photos alltogether (gonna post about 150 of them).

Road trip to Philly.

The Cheesecake Factory and the Duquesne Incline.

The first couple of photos from my visiting my girlfriend Melissa in Pittsburgh PA, July 3 - July 25.

Interesting that the South American teams have been doing so well. The quarterfinals are going to be very exciting. Brazil - Holland Uruguay - Ghana Argentina - Germany Paraguay - Spain Too bad I'll be on a plane when the third and fourth quarterfinals are played.

There's a lot to be read about Van Persie today in Swedish media. Apparently he was pissed off when he got sub'ed and gave the coach a piece of his mind. I don't get it. What's wrong with the Dutch? It's like they always have to find something to get screwy over. Always with the brewing scandals. If there's no controversy, they'll create it. Whackjobs.

Arrivederci Italia.

That's absolutely insane. I've never heard of a tennis match taking that long before.

Adieu Raymond Domenech. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Somebody's gonna expect a Spanish inquisition tomorrow I'm sure.

I'll go with Argentina. Messi's one helluva player, currently the best in the world in my opinion. It's hit or miss with the Argentinians tho, so we'll see. I don't think Spain is going to go all the way this time. I also don't expect England to go all the way. They are always hyped and never accomplish anything. I'd say the chance that Rooney gets a red card is much greater than the limeys winning the whole thing. It's going to be very interesting to see how the African nations will do, this being the first time the World Cup is being held on the African continent. I also wonder what it's going to mean to Africa in general and South Africa specifically, hosting this World Cup. I doubt giving the 2008 Summer Olympics to China did much to promote democracy and basic human rights to people then, I doubt it's going to accomplish much now. I'm very excited the big showdown starts today! The soccer World Cup is the biggest sporting event IMO.

SIXTY-SEVEN!!! * The only thing that has sucked more than the entertainment level of these Finals has been the refereeing - in fact the zebras were so bad they even had Glean Healy & co. saying that "they're getting it all wrong - they're calling penelties that aren't there and they're not calling the obvious penelties" or something to that effect. That's a really bad sign IMO because the commentators rarely seem to call the refs out as often as they should if they (the commentators) were doing their jobs right. Some random thoughts: * They say goaltending wins championships, right? Seems to me this year, the Hawks won it despite of goaltending rather than because of goaltending (and had the Flyers won I would have said the same thing). Leighton didn't look good, but I don't think Niemi did either. During the last or second-to-last game of the Flyers-Habs series, they were talking about how the Flyers had paid like $11,000 or something to pick up Leighton on waivers and they mentioned a couple of other items one could buy if you had $11,000 to spend. I think one of the things mentioned was either a signed Michael Jordan basketball shirt or a signed Gretzky jersey or something like that. I would have easily spent my money on the shirt/jersey. Disregarding possible after-affects of these playoffs and the chance that some stupid/half-desperate GM will be stupid enough to take a chance on him, I wouldn't be the least if he gets shipped right back to whatever minor league from whence he came. Same thing goes for Boucher and Huet BTW. And Niemi... Wow. Chris Osgood was light years ahead of this guy IMHO. * Speaking of the price certain players came at... What did the Flyers get in return for Sharp and Eager, respectively? I think former Flyer defender Kim Johnsson should also get his name on the Cup, he played 60 games in the regular season for the Hawks. * If you look at the playoffs as a whole, Toews is a deserving winner of the Conn Smythe. He may not have scored any goals in the Finals, but he has scored some points and he's played well and been a face-off-winning machine. He's fought hard and led his team like a captain should. Yes he's had a lot of backing up from the rest of his team - at least Chicago's first line picked it up after that horrible start. Can't say the same thing about the object of Pierre McGuire's sexual fantasies. It wouldn't surprise me if Toews has been playing with an injury. And even if he hasnt, I won't fault him for not playing at the same level as the first three rounds of these playoffs. He's the second-youngest capitanovich to win the Cup and I remember one or a few or the Hawks talked about how nervous they were going into Game 1 of the Finals. Crosby and Malkin have sort of taken turns of shining in the Finals one year and stinking up the place the next. It took some time in the Finals for Toews/Kane/Buff to get going again - Richards/Carter/filler just disappeared entirely. At least Toews made a difference. Carter didn't look like he even broke a sweat in the Finals. * Booing the winner is lame. Booing the Conn Smythe winner is lame. Booing the Captain who gets to hoist the Cup is lame. Hell, I'm even starting to think booing Bettman is getting lame and certainly old. * Kane's goal there was a probably the weirdest winning moment I've ever seen in the Stanley Cup. Looked like he was the only one who knew it went in and it took a while for the rest of the world to catch on. The refs didn't call it at first, there was no goal light that came on - I didn't even see a good replay of the puck going into the net. * Last but not least, congrats to any Hawks fans out there. My advice is for you to just enjoy the moment. ###### the future, worry about tomorrow some other day. It may be another 50 years before the Hawks win again so enjoy this victory while it lasts and worry about the cap some other time.

I disagree. Young Swedish hockey players don't dream about the Olympics or the World Cup anymore, they dream of the Stanley Cup.