Teddy Bear Toss

Here's a story about a wonderful tradition practiced in the realm of minor league hockey: The Teddy Bear Toss.

While tossing hats onto the ice when a player scores three goals might be hockey's most famous tossing tradition, it simply doesn't compare to the Technicolor grandeur of 23,096 teddy bears and other stuffed animals blanketing the rink as they did at the Calgary Hitmen game on Sunday

There's more in the article about this act of glorious mayhem. There are a couple of videos, too. Go on and look. It will make you smile.

The Calgary Hitmen are not the only team to practice this rite. The collected stuffed critters typically benefit the children; going to hospitals, care facilities, child services, etc.

On the road to *spit* NJ today, again

We're heading on east to NJ today to celebrate Christmas Eve with my sister and her family and then Christmas Day with the Mother-in-law and my daughter. Lots of good food and family will be on hand.

Here's hoping you and your's have a very Merry Christmas, too.

Mark Steyn: World should give thanks for America

If you’ve got a few minutes, go over and read from Mark Steyn’s weekend column.

He starts off with some humor but soon gets down to the brass tacks of his piece which seems to be that the reason so many around the world (and even within our own borders) look askance upon our fine country is that we’ve been around so long.

But Americans aren't novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.

Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.

Add to the longevity factor some pride in who and what we are and the desire to be somebody—in a national sort of way and you really send some away scratching their heads.

So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Yeah. That’s got to hurt some European pride. Instead of swooping in to scoop up the booty, loot and pillage the natural resources of an inflicted and powerless country, the US armed forces are more likely to offer real aid like hospitals, medical care, water purification and the like. While the European nations have none of the manpower to do the same and so whip out the checkbook and write a check—usually for a tiny fraction of what the US is doing.

Iditarod results

Congratulations to Lance Mackey for finishing first in the Iditarod. Lance and nine of his dogs (16 started the race) pulled into Nome a tad after 10 P.M. local time. It took him 9 days, 5 hours, 8 minutes and 41 seconds to complete the trek from Anchorage to Nome.

Lance’s father, Dick, won the race in 1978 by just one second and his older brother, Rick, captured the title in 1983. Both of them were competing in their sixth Iditarod and wearing bib number 13. This being Lance’s sixth Iditarod, he, of course, chose number 13. Seems to have worked out just fine.

Second place went to Paul Gebhardt who finished third last year. This year’s third place finisher was Zack Steer and fourth place went to Martin Buser.

Nearly Half Way...

...in The Last Great Race, THE Iditarod

Sometime within the next 24 hours, the first musher will make his or her way into the ghost town of Iditarod. He or she will have succeeded in completing nearly half the 1122 mile race. From the checkpoint at Iditarod to Nome is 589 miles.

Already 10 of the 82 teams that started the race have had to pull out due to physical injury to the mushers and/or their sleds.

Because of different strategies as to pace and when and where to rest their dogs, it is difficult to identify exactly which musher leads in a long distance race like this. All have a mandatory 24 hour rest period ahead and all have a mandatory 12 hour rest period ahead. Some may stop at Ophir (90 miles short of Iditarod) and some will go on to Iditarod for their 24 hour rest.

Currently, Lance Mackey and Zack Steer are into the checkpoint at Takotna. (They moved on since I started writing this and are headed to Ophir.) Both seem to have large (16 dog) fast teams but both are looking over their shoulder at the positioning of Martin Buser whose 2002 team holds the record for the fastest Iditarod by completing the race in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds. Buser may not be the fastest on the first half of the race, but he has a distinct advantage over his competitors vis-à-vis the care and conditioning of his dogs. As tribute to his treatment of his racers, Martin was awarded the coveted Leonhard Seppala Award in 1988, 1993, 1995 and again in 1997 for the most humanitarian care of his dogs. And in this race, it’s the dog power that gets it done. He and his team are currently out of McGrath and on their way to Takotna. They could very well blow past the current leaders and move on to Iditarod for their long rest.

Phil Says: Winter will end early

We watched the live, internet broadcast of the whoop-de-doo that occurred on Gobblers’ Knob in Punxsutawney this morning. The traditional prognostication made by Punxsutawney Phil ended with his NOT seeing his shadow (something that would have been a miracle with the heavily overcast skies in western PA this AM) and, therefore, calling for an early end to winter.

As was noted however, this does not mean winter will end today or even next week, just that it will end early. It’s a good thing they included that caveat in their forecast, for this afternoon it began snowing again. Visibility is down to approximately half a mile and it doesn’t look to be letting up anytime soon.


At least it has warmed up a bit yesterday and today. Yesterday it got into the 30s and quite a bit of the snow on the ground melted. Today it is in the high 20s. Last week it was seldom above 20 but enough sunlight appeared to melt some snow on the roof and produce icicles.


I love icicles, as long as there are no gutters for them to weigh down and bend or break.


Now, when will this winter end. I've had enough.