The NHL and foreign names

As anyone who watches the NHL knows, North American hockey broadcasters don't have the faintest idea how to pronounce European names. At first I thought it was simple ignorance, but I was wrong: in fact, the travesty of language we European NHL fans are used to cringing at comes courtesy of the NHL Pronounciation Guide. You can find the 2002 copy here. We'll do an exercise: I'll give you the NHL "pronounciation", you try to figure out who the hell it is. Answers in the hyperlinks!

suh LAH nee (answer)
nih tee MAK ee (answer)
NEE nuh muh (answer)
huh LEHN ee uhz (answer)

These are 2002 examples, but I assure you, the quality of the product hasn't changed one bit. My Russian isn't nearly good enough to comment, except to say that my guesses have been better than the NHL's, but here's a Swedish example:

SHOH struhm (answer)

Yeah, you probably guessed that one, but seriously, even surly Finnish teenagers flunking compulsory Swedish class know better than that.

For any readers who don't speak Finnish or Swedish, take my word for it: the people behind that "pronounciation guide" don't have the faintest idea what they're doing. But it's not just that the league and the broadcasters don't know how to pronounce European names, it's that they're deliberately disseminating, almost mandating, the incorrect pronounciation of those names. In the information age, frankly, it's offensive. It cannot be beyond the league and the broadcasters to find out how players' names are actually pronounced. That they refuse to do so is, quite simply, racist.

There is, of course, a political side to this. The most notable exponent of mispronounciation is, unsurprisingly, Don Cherry, whose renditions of European names are, well, wrong. He's admitted to doing it on purpose, because he's a racist. That isn't surprising, but it was a little surprising to read this tweet from Adam Proteau of the Hockey News, one of the more liberal voices in hockey:

So remember this: according to Proteau, pronouncing foreign names correctly is racist. I have to admit, I don't even know what to say to that. On reflection, I suppose it shows how deeply internalized the racism is. Even to a liberal commentator who regularly calls out Cherry and his ilk for their racist and misogynistic nonsense, the notion of finding out how to pronounce a foreign name is so repulsive that he creates a convoluted, MRA-esque pseudo-logic that makes respecting a foreign language racist. I don't think I'm going to be able to read his columns the same way again.

We, at least, can try to be constructive about this. To avoid being racist against our North American friends, I suggest that if Finnish readers want to refer to the creator of the NHL "pronounciation" guide, broadcaster Mike Emrich, they pronounce his name miik umrääk. Be sure to respect hockey journalism and avoid racism by carefully enunciating Adam Proteau as älän prötöö, and Don Cherry's robustly Canadian name is correctly pronounced reimond luksuri jätst. Remember: they would want you to say it like that. Because the "correct" way would be racist.

The worst summer ever for hockey

According to his Twitter account, when THN writer Adam Proteau broke the news of the plane crash that killed the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team to Chicago's Jonathan Toews, Toews said: "This is the worst summer ever for hockey."

It's hard to disagree. On May 13, New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard was found dead in his apartment in Minneapolis. He hadn't been able to play since December 2010 due to a concussion, and died accidentally from a combination of oxycodone and alcohol.

On August 15, Winnipeg Jets forward Rick Rypien was likewise found dead in his home. After a ten-year battle with depression, Rypien had committed suicide.

Just a few weeks later, former NHL enforcer Wade Belak was found dead. According to the Star, he had hanged himself.

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As if all this wasn't enough, this Wednesday the Yak-42 passenger jet carrying the KHL's Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team crashed on takeoff, killing the entire team except one forward, Alexander Galimov, who was in critical condition at the time of writing.

This was the third plane crash to hit a major hockey team. On February 13th, 1975, a plane carrying Frölunda players crashed near Gävle in Sweden, leaving seven players injured. In 1950, a Li-2 transport plane crashed near Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union, killing the whole Soviet Air Force hockey team.

Among the dead in Wednesday's crash are one of the four first Russian players to ever win the Stanley Cup, assistant coach Alexander Karpovtsev, also a 1993 world champion.

Coach Brad McCrimmon, a Stanley Cup winner with the Calgary Flames.

2005 world champion and 2006 Stanley Cup champion with the Carolina Hurricanes, Josef Vašíček.

2006 Olympic gold medalist and world champion Stefan Liv.

2010 world champion and two-time inline hockey world champion Karel Rachůnek.

2010 world champion Jan Marek.

2000 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner Pavol Demitra.

2003 Stanley Cup finalist and NHL veteran Ruslan Salei.

NHL veteran Kārlis Skrastiņš.

32 other players, coaches, staff and airline crew also died in the accident.

I was planning on writing a season preview for the NHL, but I ended up having to write this. This has to be the most tragic off-season and beginning of the new season ever in hockey. It's simply terrible how many people have died. Our thoughts and condolences are with the nearest and dearest of everyone who passed away.

One of a kind

Last friday 2011-05-13 Finland's Mikael Granlund scored a nifty goal against Team Russia at the Ice Hockey World Championship:



The goal has caught the attention of hockey fans around the world. TSN, Canada's sports leader, has an article on the goal.

TSN: FINLAND'S GRANLUND SCORES POSSIBLE GOAL OF THE YEAR

Early in the second period of Finland's semifinal win against Russia, Granland gathered the puck deep along the end boards in the Russian zone, stick-handled past a defender and behind the net, flipped the puck onto the blade of his stick, and flung it into the Russian's net, lacrosse style, to give the Fins a 1-0 lead.

TSN then goes on to make a strange claim:

Twice before has a goal like Granlund's been scored. In 1996, the University of Michigan's Mike Legg defeated the University of Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament with a similar goal, and in 2006 Sidney Crosby scored one just like it while with the Rimouski Oceanic in the QMJHL.

Twice before? That stretches credibility, as this move is quite popular in junior leagues around the world. And indeed, a quick look on the Web yielded several more instances.

Bill Armstrong has apparently scored a goal like that several times (two examples at 1:28), and claims to have pioneered the move.



As you may have gathered, those two goals came in the same week, so for him it wasn't a one time novelty move.

Mikael Granlund himself has scored a similar goal before in Finland's junior league.



And in 2008 U18 contest, though for a reason unclear to me that one was disallowed.



His brother Markus also scored a "lacrosse-style" goal in Finnish junior league.



And it's not just junior league stuff; "Zorro" goals have been seen in professional leagues as well. Here's Jani Lajunen, also a member of 2011 Team Finland, deciding an SM-liiga game on OT.



That was in 2010. If Granlund's goal is the goal of the year in 2011, that just means 2011 was slow. There was another high-profile lacrosse goal in 2010, in the playoff finals of Swiss league by Thomas Déruns.



So, yeah, twice before. TSN didn't even qualify that number in any way. I'm afraid the claim doesn't reflect well on TSN's hockey knowledge, or counting skills.

They do give Granlund's goal one distinction over Crosby's and Legg's.

But what made Granlund's goal extra special was that while both Legg and Crosby scored their goals standing still behind the net, Granlund pulled it off at full speed.

Much like Rob Hisey in SM-liiga. That's the reason Finnish play-by-play for Lajunen's goal called it a "Rob Hisey".



It's very unfortunate that Canada's series don't boast soft hands like that. Oh, Rob Hisey did it in another professional league as well, this time in Austria.



Of course, cool lacrosse goals seem to be his thing.



You'll note the clip is from TSN, so they can't really claim to be unaware of the guy.

Frankly, I expected better from TSN. The Finnish media is, predictably, going banana over Granlund's goal, which seems a little unwarranted as it's not all that unique, but I would have thought Canada's sports leader would have a little better sense of hockey history.

Quality Time

The NHL All Star Weekend is over, and it was great fun (as always). But I'm not here to talk about hockey, I'm here to talk about parenting.

Quality time, as Wikipedia informs one, is "an informal reference to time spent with loved ones (e.g., close family, partners or friends) which is in some way important, special, productive or profitable." Some parents feel the need to fill this time with programmed activities, thinking that they are better parents if they take their offspring to more exciting places and give them "experiences", maybe to make up for the limited amount of time they have to spend with their children.

Well, during the All Star weekend the players bring their kids to experience the weekend with them. They meet stars, they are in the middle of a great event, and maybe a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yet when asked which star's autograph was the best Martin St. Louis' son says, "my daddy's."

And Danny Brière's son's reply when asked what the best part of the weekend is?

"Just hanging around with my dad."

Bob Probert 1965-2010

Former NHL-player Bob Probert died on July 5, at the age of 45.

Probert is mostly remembered as a fighter and enforcer, and his penalty minute total of 3300 is sixth highest in NHL history, but it shouldn't be forgotten that he was also a damn fine hockey player. During his sixteen NHL seasons with Red Wings and Blackhawks he recorded 384 points in 935 games.

His best season was 1987-1988 with Detroit Red Wings. He did set the franchise penalty minute record with 398, but he also scored 29 goals and a total of 62 points in 74 games. In sixteen post-season games he added 21 points, the highest on the team. He was also selected to the All-Star team.

He was an exceptional player, and he will be missed.

2012: Nostradamus

Have we been watching 2012 "documentaries" on the History Channel? Yes.

Are we going to do a series of posts on "the 2012 phenomenon"? Yes.

So, did Nostradamus predict the events of 2012? No.

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Seriously, he didn't. Not a single Nostradamus scholar said or wrote anything about this whole 2012 thing until it was invented a couple of years back. It's only lately that they've jumped on the 2012 bandwagon, cheerfully helped along by the (pseudo-)History channel, who keep running rubbish "documentaries" on the topic.

However, there's one thing we're thoroughly convinced Nostradamus did make several astonishing predictions about, all of which have come true: the National Hockey League.

Take, for instance, the very first quatrain of them all. Century I, quatrain 1:

Tripod seated at night in secret study
Only resting on the aerian saddle:
Tiny flame leaving the solitude
Make prosper what is not vain to believe.

It's clear that "tiny flame" refers to that diminutive Calgary legend, Theo Fleury.

He recently tried to make a comeback to the NHL, or in other words, "leave the solitude". On September 10, 2009, he was reinstated and allowed to make a return in a meeting with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, and league doctors. Notice that's three; Bettman, Daly and the doctors: a tripod has three legs.

They must have done some thinking and research before this meeting, but they couldn't reveal their conclusions beforehand: hence, secret study. I'll bet they didn't get much sleep, apart from what they caught on a plane trip, or, as Nostradamus would put it, "on the aerian saddle".

Fleury's comeback didn't pan out, but he was made to prosper, as his autobiography, published at the same time, did sell quite nicely. A mystery remains, though: is Nostradamus saying that it was vain to believe in his comeback, or is he saying that the allegations Fleury made in his book are "vain to believe"? We don't know. He did.

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Even more momentous is the third quatrain.

When the litters are overturned by the whirlwind
and faces are covered by cloaks,
the new republic will be troubled by its people.
At this time the reds and the whites will rule wrongly.

Can he be any more plain? When the litters are overturned by the whirlwind; like maybe a hurricane? This clearly refers to the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup; their jerseys were, at the time, red and white. Seriously, he couldn't make this more explicit without just coming right out and saying that the Canes will win the Cup, and as we all know, prophets just don't do that.

The "new republic" here is Canada, which became a (quasi-)independent state later than the United States, and many Canadians were quite upset when the Oilers lost to the Canes in the final! Astonishingly, Nostradamus knew the Hurricanes were going to win the Stanley Cup over 400 years before it happened.

Again, Nostradamus is telling us something we didn't know beforehand, too: the reference to "ruling wrongly" seems to suggest that the Canes shouldn't have won the Cup! Was there some terrible officiating mistake that cost the Oilers the Cup? Should some other team have represented the Eastern Conference in the finals? Frankly, we don't know. He did.

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In quatrains 12 and 13, Nostradamus predicted the vicissitudes that the NHL Players' Association would face in the 2000's:

12

There will soon be talk of a treacherous man, who rules a short time,
quickly raised from low to high estate.
He will suddenly turn disloyal and volatile.
This man will govern Verona.

13

Through anger and internal hatreds, the exiles
will hatch a great plot against the king.
Secretly they will place enemies as a threat,
and his own old (adherents) will find sedition against them.

The "treacherous man" is clearly Ted Saskin, who became executive director of the NHLPA after Bob Goodenow's resignation ("quickly raised from low to high estate"). He was fired after the NHLPA members found he had masterminded a campaign to hack into players' e-mail accounts. So instead of representing the players, he had "suddenly turned disloyal and volatile".

We remember Verona from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a city riven by factional strife; not a bad description of the NHLPA at any time! Quatrain 13 details Chris Chelios's campaign to dethrone Saskin, who was forced to resign in 2007.

But wait, there's more! Quatrain 23:

In the third month, at sunrise,
the Boar and the Leopard meet on the battlefield.
The fatigued Leopard looks up to heaven
and sees an eagle playing around the sun.

In the 1995-96 season, the Florida Panthers made it to the Stanley Cup finals. To make a long story short, as is common in prophecy interpretation, the Latin name for the leopard species is panthera pardus, a panther. The Panthers were pretty fatigued by the time they got to the final, where they lost to the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs are based in Denver, Colorado, and the seal of the city of Denver has a bird and the rays of the sun on it. Coincidence? We think not.

What about the boar? Well, wild boars are mostly found in Europe. The Cup-winning goal was scored by Uwe Krupp, who's from Europe. So this time around, Nostradamus knew that the Panthers would make the finals, but lose to Colorado! Over 400 years before it happened!

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Nostradamus also predicted some unpleasant things. Quatrain 26:

The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.
An evil deed, foretold by the beare of a petition.
According to the prediction another falls at night time.
Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany.

It's obvious to us that this quatrain refers to Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard. Savard was Boston's number one center, a "great man". He was blindsided by Matt Cooke, which is to say he took a hit that he didn't see coming, like a thunderbolt. You don't see those coming, either. Our Penguin Dictionary of Symbols identifies the thunderbolt in Celtic mythology with the hammer of Sucellus, the "hard hitter"; how unambiguous is that?

This hit was definitely an evil deed, and it was foretold by a petition. In fact, there have been numerous petitions to ban head shots in the NHL for years, but nothing has been done. To cap it off, the Bruins-Pens game on that day was at 3 P.M.; in the day.

Cooke wasn't penalized, and that weekend, on Hockey Night in Canada, it was predicted that more players would be injured unless the headshot rule was implemented immediately. And according to the prediction, another reckless hit left Brian Campbell injured just days later. The NHL may not have known that another player would be injured if they didn't react; Nostradamus did.

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These examples are more or less randomly selected from just the first century of Nostradamus's prophecies. We believe that they are entirely convincing PROOF that Nostradamus was a true prophet, who could indeed foretell the future. Here is evidence enough to convince even the most hardened skeptic.

Most excitingly, it stands to reason that the remaining quatrains contain many more of hockey's secrets. More likely than not, locked away in his prophecies is this year's Stanley Cup winner! We leave the search for this answer up to you. Don't read it here first; read it there yourself. The Prophecies are available on Wikisource: the future is in your hands.

There's no such thing as Christmas

Now that it's the Christian holiday season, it's a good thing to remember that there's no such thing as Christmas.

The word Christmas comes to us from the Old English Cristes mæsse, Christ's mass, and Christmas is supposedly a celebration of Jesus's birth. Indeed, on last weekend's Hockey Night in Canada, Don Cherry reminded us that Christmas is Baby Jesus's birthday, and no matter how much we like Santa, we musn't forget that Christmas is all about Baby Jesus.

No it isn't.

First of all, we don't know that Jesus existed at all, but that's a longer story. Suppose Jesus did exist, though, and suppose the Gospels are a more or less correct account of what went on in Palestine around the time Jesus was born.

The traditional Christmas story everyone knows or has at least had to endure is mostly based on the second chapter of the Book of Luke. Here in Finland, Luke 2 is the "Christmas gospel". Here, the shepherds are being told about the birth of Jesus:

"8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.""
-Luke 2:8-12 (New International Version)

Here's the problem: if the shepherds are out watching their sheep, then it can't be winter. In winter in Palestine, sheep weren't kept on the fields. If the Gospel of Luke is correct and the story of the shepherds is true, then Baby Jesus's birthday can't be on the 25th of December.

None of the gospels themselves give a date. The whole idea of December 25th being the day Jesus was born dates back to the year 221 A.D., when Sextus Julius Africanus published a reference work for Christians where he recommends celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25th. The custom became widespread in the Roman Empire, and modern Western society inherited the date from the Romans.

Why December 25th, though? December 25th falls conveniently close to the winter solstice, which has been celebrated in many human cultures and all over Europe as the darkest day of winter; from the solstice onward, the day starts to become longer again. Especially in Northern Europe, where the change in the length of the day is significant, the festival is especially poignant.

The Romans celebrated December 25th as the winter solstice, known as Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birth of the unconquered sun. The day of Sol Invictus was preceded by the Saturnalia festival, the biggest wintertime festival of the Romans, and one of the most popular celebrations on the Roman calendar. Saturnalia commemorated the Roman god Saturn, and was celebrated by copious eating and drinking, giving and receiving presents and wearing the pileus, the freedman's hat.

Early Christians had, in fact, celebrated the birth of Jesus either in conjunction with the Epiphany, in January, or on the vernal equinox. This practice didn't become popular, and eventually Christmas replaced Saturnalia and Sol Invictus on the Roman calendar.

In more northern Europe, Germanic tribes celebrated Yule on the day of the winter solstice. After Roman Christianity had decided on the winter solstice as the day of Christmas, Yule was suppressed with the forced conversion of the Northern European peoples to Christianity and replaced with Christmas. Those Christmas customs that don't come from the Saturnalia festival are based on the old Germanic Yule celebration.

In short, there's no such thing as Christmas. If Baby Jesus was born at all, he certainly wasn't born in the Winter. When businesses shut down at midwinter, people give each other gifts and everyone eats, drinks and makes merry, we're all celebrating Yule and Saturnalia. The floppy red hat Santa's elves wear is the Roman pileus. Giftgiving was a Saturnalia tradition, and the gifts are put under a spruce tree, a Germanic Yule tradition. The whole of Christmas is a Christian bastardization of an older tradition, a clumsy and unsuccesful rebranding of one of the oldest festivals of mankind.

Christmas isn't Baby Jesus's birthday. The "real" idea of Christmas is the winter solstice, and the winter solstice will be around for as long as humans are able to tell the changing of the seasons. It was around long before Christianity and will be around longer than Baby Jesus.