A bit of newsy stuff before the fun: The NBA schedule is supposed to be out Wednesday. And you know what that means.
Jonathan gave us some nice props for our Obligatory Fun With Babelfish feature (welcome back, man), and wouldn’t you know it: We get to play tonight! An embarrassment of riches, in fact. Behold the marathon session:
–Jeff Giuliano and former Sound Tiger Doug Nolan*** are off to Dynamo Minsk. The latter, a 32-year-old defender, “was (drafted) in 1994 Toronto [Meypl] of [Livz], but in [NKHL] to play a little with it was not brought. Then the hockey player has the large experience of the appearances in another North American (league). In the past the season Of [nolan] it protected the colors of the Austrian of “[Gratsa]”. In the composition of Alpine guard on the calculation of hockey player there were 39 matches, 10 (2+8) points even 90 minutes of penalty.”
(I presume the stuff in brackets is stuff it doesn’t think it can translate. All the better, ’cause then we get stuff like L.A. being called the “Kingz.”)
Enjoy Belarus.
–On, then, to the Land of the capitalized Noun, where Ben Simon was obligated by Iserlohn, to join Steve Stirling. Poor Stirls, garbled by Computer: “‘Ben Simon is with Player Types such as Jimmy Roy or Ryan ready to compare’, says Roosterscoach Steve Stirling. It terminates each Check, gives no Puck lost and fights up to falling down.”
That’s the way to live your life.
(Babelfish doesn’t recapitalize nouns; I’ve taken the liberty. I’ve taken the liberty of not recapitalizing Ryan Ready’s last name, just for the shock value. Sorry, Ryan.****)
–And then there’s Eric Healey. He’s off to Mora, whose release is in, hard to believe, Swedish. Ah, Swedish. UnBabelfishable, so Germanic and yet so painfully opaque. The cheap-as-free (but heavily ad’ed and pop-upped) translator I use for Swedish… well, I think the Swedish was more easily translated than the translation. “Eric Healey had wonder they three latest season wherein a poängmaskin and vunnit the inmates poängligan in they law he act in AHL.” Uh-huh. In brighter news, “Eric Healey affiliate to troop next week.” After that horrific injury he suffered — almost nine years ago now, wow — where he took a skate-gash to the arm, and came back at such a high level, we wish him well.
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Catching up with Daniel Tkaczuk in the Barrie Examiner.
Pascal Rheaume signed with Lowell, as did three others.
Mark Hardy, who had one of the great palindromic NHL careers, is a new assistant in Los Angeles; had not heard that Chicago wanted him to coach Rockford at first. Here’s the LADN Q-n-A from Rich Hammond. Meanwhile, for the new Rockford coach, the Hogs are “pretty much on the back burner,” Bill Peters tells the Register Star. (He has another week as Canada’s U18 coach.)
In the fine tradition at The Dugout (see Buck O’Neil and Cory Lidle), a fine job and a fine touch for Skip Caray.
Much Little League to come this week. We’ll see what happens.
*-Try to think of Minsk without hearing this, if you’ve heard it before. Especially try thinking of Tomsk without hearing it. Or Petropavlovsk**.
**-Me, neither.
***- Still the most-capped Tiger without a home game to his credit, seven games. That list should lose a member this year: Chris Lee. I’m pretty sure it only gained one this year, Aaron Johnson.
****-I’m reminded of the night our buddy Sean Spillane was in attendance and noted that the Phantoms had Ready and (Ben) Eager in the lineup. Yeah, I said, but (B.J.) Abel is scratched… Bridgeport won.