Into The Heart Of Darkness – Goulais Goulais, Goulais Goulais

Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro

Matty told Patty about a thing he knew.

Dani Heatley will cost you Gilbert too.

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais.

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais,

Goulais goulais.

Patty told Matty, "Let's don't take no chance.

Let's not be L-seven, don’t ruin the defence."

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais.

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais,

Goulais goulais

Matty told Patty, "It's the thing to do.

No guts, no glory, do you like to lose?"

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais.

Goulais goulais, Goulais goulais,

Goulais goulais

Thursday we pick up my eldest from her last day of kindergarten and hit the road.

Man are we hitting it.

To Sudbury and then Friday to Goulais for a gathering of the clan.

Here’s three things you don’t know about Goulais River.

Hell, who am I kidding? Here’s the first three things you’ll learn about Goulais River.

1/ It was founded in May 1878 by Frederick and Sarah Tilley who sailed across Lake Huron, into Lake Superior, looked around and decided that nobody would ever ever ever find them here. No word on whether they were wearing Tilley hats when they made their voyage.

They were wrong because soon a small trickle of settlers also concluded that the Bruce peninsula in the early 1880s was not isolated enough for them.

"TOO MANY PEOPLE!", they likely shouted when the mailman came by during his rounds. "WEREN’T YOU JUST HERE THREE MONTHS AGO?" (shakes fist)

2/ The actual Goulais River comes tumbling down out of the Algoma Highlands and then wends its way through the granite and spruce until it empties gently into Superior, passing under a bridge that allows the TransCanada to pass. On either side of the river a road takes off of the highway and heads down towards the lake and the town lies along these two roads. Near the mouth of the river a bridge joins the two again. As you drive along the northern road you pass a cottage here and a modern home there, the odd church and a ball field and then a beautiful ornate sign that reads "Welcome To Downtown Goulais River".

And there is a general store and then you have gone through downtown.

3/ People from the Soo call people from Goulais "Gouligans". And the Soo is a pretty tough town.
We’re up there for the weekend and then sometime Sunday, depending on the degree of hangover, we will begin the trek east. Its times like these that one wishes one lived in Belgium, a country that you could cycle the length of in a day. Of course there is a reason that the Germans and French and countless other hordes of invaders always rolled right through Belgium but never quite were able to do the same in the Russian steppes. Thousands of miles and you’re still not even halfway there. Canada too. What a country! The entire trip is going to be just under 5000km when all is said and done, 800 of that from Toronto to Goulais, 2200 from Goulais to the Island. And then the trip back once we’ve recovered from the journey out there. ;)

--------------------

We’ll be in the Soo for the draft and I might even be able to do a quick post Saturday morning – here’s hoping anyhow. Sunday and Monday we’ll be on the road so for selfish reasons I hope Tambellini doesn’t put the pedal down until the 30th but likely he will get something done before then.

This could be an amazing two weeks and at the end of it we could be looking at a vastly different league. The list of players who are free agents or rumoured to be on the block is a who’s who of NHL talent – the Sedins, Ohlund, Cammelleri, Pronger, Smyth, Gaborik, Frolov, Marleau (and any number of other Sharks), Bouwmeester, Vinny L., Hossa, Havlat, Kovalev, Koivu, Tanguay, Komiserek, Kessel, Briere, Gionta, Spezza, some guy named Heatley etc etc ad nauseum.
Not to mention the guys who we don't know about who teams may move in order to take runs at the aforementioned.

And rumours swirl. The latest, as noted by PDO in the last thread, has Horcoff going to Ottawa and Mike Fisher coming back along with Heatley.

Seems like pretty well everyone is in play.

I grew up when players played for one team, maybe two. Matt Fenwick did a post some time ago about players playing their entire careers with one club. This is rare now of course. And in the comments of that thread I brought up the Chicago club from '71, iirc. The majority of players on that team played for only Chicago in their careers. Another large group of them may have started or finished their careers elsewhere but usually (like Tony Esposito) it was a cup of coffee - these guys played a decade or more for the Hawks.

I miss that but of course that is also why I would be an absolute failure as a general manager. You think Lowe handed out beauty contracts to his veterans or hangs onto obviously failed prospects for far too long?

If I were in charge Marchant would still be centring Grier and Moreau and Floppy Neck Murray would be on an airplane back from Finland or Glasgow or wherever he's playing right now. (Outer Mongolia?)

That's my problem. In my mind these guys are like my beer league team. They're all terrific guys who are good friends and are fun to go out for beers with after the game. Trade one of them? Even if it meant getting better?

Shut yo mouf!

Having said that I draw the line at Horcoff.

And Fernando.

You don't want to see me beg, do you? Its an awful sight. Just ask my wife.

Ba dum ba.

Heart of Darkness, indeed.