Uhm, how long is indefinite?

With the new season on the horizon (well actually, its much closer than that), I figured I'd best chime in on the Flames and my opinion of how the boys look this season...

New guys?

I guess the first thing that everyone has been talking about for the last couple months has been the additions (re-additions?) of Olli Jokinen and Alex Tanguay...

I honestly can't complain about this too much, given the cap problems that the team has, and how much we ended up paying for them compared to the contracts they had in their previous tenures with the team. I'm not about to say that the Flames got them at a discount (since if they were worth more they'd most likely have gone somewhere else), but if they can recover some of their previous glory (obviously previous to their last stint in Calgary), then maybe they can be a functional part of this team. Of course, I also said this about Bertuzzi and his 'discount' season in Calgary. Uhm, nevermind...

Former Leafs, really?

Growing up in the heart of Ontario, and having lived at the Center of the Universe for the last 8 years, I've been subjected to way too many hours spent discussing things such as which Leaf is going to lead the league in scoring, what is the best Stanley Cup parade route, which NHL superstar is getting traded here next, what did Mats Sundin have for lunch, is Wendel Clark gay, and on and on...

Between that and the 'trade' back in 1992, I'm not exactly a Leafs fan, but for some reason I know every little detail about everyone who has suited up for them and why they either going to be great or awful. And it is usually the latter...

I am always hard-pressed to think of a single former Leaf who went on to greater things somewhere else. It seems that they were either stars coming in that faltered and then recovered, or they were never really destined to be stars at all...

So why do we have so many of them (and we seem to just keep on picking up more)?

Injury bug? More like injury elephant...

You know the situation is getting bad when you have to pick up a washed up former Canuck to round out the middle of the roster just before the season starts...

Langkow is out, Stajan is out, Kotalik is out, Moss is out. I mean seriously, we had cap trouble already and now we have to find a way to find replacement players before opening night? And we don't even know how long they are out for. But hopefully they can be back by November when Kipper actually starts playing...

Preseason? We talkin' 'bout preseason?

Well at least heading into the regular season with a bunch of injuries, we can fall back on out undefeated record in a bunch of glorified scrimmages. I mean, its good to see that we may finally have a little depth (well, not really), but I'd be a lot more confident going into the opener tonight with a full, healthy lineup. But at least our scrubs can beat the Oilers' scrubs...

Speaking of the Greasers...

The real season starts off tonight in Northern Alberta (to use the NFL's way of classifying cities), and the game actually gets a national broadcast on CBC. Albeit at 10:00 EST, which means I'll continue my current practice of staying up until at 1:00 in the morning for at least one more night. Who needs to be productive at work anyway (which is where I'm typing this right now)...

I don't know what to tell you about the greasers that you don't already know, or for that matter you probably know more about them than I do. But just wait until January, when I can tell you all about the Leafs...