JohnF

Nah. 3 1/2 litres. JF

Check with Doug or Daphne at Travel Sports on Wharncliffe. If it's available in Londom they'll know about it. JohnF

And the Juniors looked better this afternoon. There may be hope for them yet. JF

I'm with you on that. Even as a kid playing I asked why we didn't just have 10 minute shootouts in tournaments and get the whole shebang done if all the grownups were in such a rush to get going. I hated it even more when I was coaching little kids and we'd travel for miles and spend money to sleep in hotels and have it all come down to whether or not a team had a Gretzky to win the shootout. To do it with these dudes making millions of bux is ridiculous, but I guess it's what the new target audience wants. Doesn't matter that they didn't grow up playing the game, just that they've got the bux to buy it away. You'd think football, baseball and basketball would be enuf. Sorry if I sound anti-American here, but I really really hate the Broadstreet Bullies for what their masters did to our game. I don't even bother to watch the shootouts any more. They don't matter. The teams were equal on that given night. That's the way it was meant to be. What's so bad about one point? After all, it's what really happened. They could make it easier by just tossing a coin at the beginning of the game. Or have all the GM's meet in September to toss coins to determine who wins the Cup. That way there wouldn't be any high salaries, arena costs, tv contracts, etc. And we wouldn't have to watch the best hockey of the year in June. I don't care. I'm leaving for Mexico tomorrow and they don't believe in hockey there. I'll have to follow the Juniors on my laptop and the only sports I'll see will be the feetsaball jamming the airwaves, not to mention the 'Merkin fans making lotsa noise by the pool each afternoon till it's over. At least I get to join in on the tequila sipping celebrations. Do I sound just a tad bitter? Call me a hockey fan. JF

The advice I always give to anyone wanting to buy a business or a property in/on which they will open a business is to do a business plan first. Be honest with it, get help if you don't know enough answers, do your due diligence, then do some soul searching. Be brutally honest with yourself. Will it really support itself and the people who are going to be dependent on it? Is it a good investment or just something cool that I really really wanna do? Am I thinking with my head or my heart? If it can pass those tests, then see if it will pass a commercial lender's scrutiny, even if you don't need to borrow the money. It'll be a clue as to whether or not it's a decent investment. If a lender will only finance a very small percent that's needed ask why they won't put in more and consider their reasons. They have stats on attrition rates and probabilities of success/failure. They may even look at what you bring to the table other than just money and enthusiasm. It's surprising how many people get cold feet after going through this exercise. Oftentimes the failures are the folks who didn't do this kind of diligence beforehand. Good luck with it. Will you be offering OFC discounts? JF

Sometimes the easiest games are the toughest. You go in assuming you'll win, and might be a tad sloppy, and the other guys have nothing to lose so they go balls to the wall. It's fun to beat any team you aren't supposed to beat, so you tend to play your most inspired game against that opponent. It also helped that Canada had just been handed their a-- on a plate by Sweden. There's no surprise in a blowout turning into a blowup in hockey tournaments. Don't count Canada out yet. The talent's there to win as long as the boys all bring their A game. JF

I thought in the first few minutes of the third that both teams looked tired. Perhaps Sweden wasn't quite as tired they looked. They outshot our kids, and in the last part of the third, outhustled 'em. We need to get to the net with some shots, not just fancy plays, any kind of shots. Craig knows all that. Maybe the kids will believe him now. That last goal was a comedy of errors. The players on the ice didn't seem to know what they were supposed to do or they were just too tired to do it and they just let themselves get pushed back into their own zone. Hopefully it will serve as the proverbial wakeup call to the forwards to start producing. I'm looking forward to the rematch if it happens. JF

I agree 100%. I refuse to have Norton on any of my machines. It's the first thing I delete from every new machine we buy. Haven't used it in 3 years. Before that, out of frustration, I'd tried McAfee but wasn't happy with it either. I finally had enough when Norton jerked me around over a $20 rebate (may have been more) that I wouldn't give up on just on principle after the first attempt at sticking it to me over sending them exactly the right paperwork (It's interesting how many ways they can demand that you prove ownership and how many different names they can come up with for the various bits that they consider as proof, and how quickly the deadlines run out as you play tag with them). I finally got it, and they earned my undying enmity in the process. I wish I still had all the emails they sent me to show those of you who haven't had the pleasure how aggravating they can actually be. That aside, I agree that it bogs down the computer beyond the bounds of normal human patience. I'm not saying any of the Norton tools are bad, just overkill for most of us considering the free protection that's available between filtering at the server side and the free AV software that's available. I don't figure I need to check every outgoing email in detail for embedded viruses when I monitor what's coming into my machine fairly thoroughly. I haven't had any issues since I stopped using Norton and that's good enough for me. YMMV JF

The best gifts are often the ones money can't buy. Merry Christmas JF

I haven't been hanging out here for long, and I've only met a few of you in real life, but from what I've seen of the core group you're a very good bunch of people, and I'm looking forward to meeting a whole lot more of you in the New Year, hopefully near water. This virtual gathering is just one more example of the power of the internet, getting all of you together to form a fun, informative, and as we've seen here more than once in the past few months, even the last few days, a very thoughtful, generous, caring and supportive group. Many of you would have never met otherwise, just passed and perhaps waved from your boats one evening on the way out to your favourite Walleye spot. So, I wanted to get that off my chest, even at the risk of waxing a tad maudlin, because it's Christmas morning, and what better time to say something nice. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hannukah, or whatever sincere wish you like to offer to friends this time of the year, the same to you, and a very Happy New Year to all, filled with lots of joy, goodness and personal bests. JF

Spoken like a true old time Toronto fan - and well said. Hockey's the greatest team sport played today. I can't think of another team game that requires such high intensity total involvement requiring speed and physicality from everyone on the field of play. Perhaps I'm showing my atavistic side but it sure was fun to play. We need more old farts leagues, with medical care in attendance. JF

The best of the season to you both. JF

Old Big Teeth? Sounds like a story. JF

Merry Christmas Bill, and all the best in the New Year. JF

Not sure if there's any fishing there, but my wife saw snowmobiles out on Puslinch Lake today. JF

For what it's worth I think Simon has outlived his usefulness to the NHL, and for his sake and the league's he should be retired. I'm sympathetic to the case of tough guys though. I think they're part of hockey. But somewhere along the line, I think it might have been in Philly, the tough guys were suddenly promoted into the limelight and hockey hasn't been quite the same since. There have been a lot of rules, written and unwritten, that have evolved out of that promotion of the tough guys - like protecting the stars, no clutch and grab, checking from behind, bloodletting, etc. Another unfortunate aspect is that these high profile shenanigans have attracted the attention of the courts and we're seeing on-ice infractions being tried in court. What it amounts to is that the tough guy is becoming a dinosaur in the league and the pests like Ruutu & Avery are going to rule the ice. If people like McCown have their way, the tough guys will all be out of the game soon. I get the impression he didn't exactly grow up playing the game. I could be wrong. I think it's unfortunate because hockey was meant to be played tough and physical. The pests wouldn't be so pesky if they were fair game for some of the tough guys, but there's a move afoot to protect them, albeit inadvertently. Soon hockey's gonna resemble ice dancing with sticks & trash talk. JF

Sounds like the one I gave my son. It's never missed a beat. He knows nada about mechanical things unless they have guitar strings or speaker jacks but it always starts right off and runs great. You won't be sorry. Like the guys are saying there'll be times you'll be happy to have the extra power. JF

Can't argue with you on any of that. It's just that after 30 or years of my own experience and trying both big and small, for my own application small works fine. Technically I still own the big one so I could go and trade with my son today if I wanted to but I don't want the big one. If my use changed so might my opinion. JF

Seriously, bigger ain't always better - well, except for horsepower on our toys. Snowblowers are just tools. Be careful buying small though. Sometimes small equates to crap. It had never occurred to me to buy a CTC blower until I talked to two separate snowblower service type guys (not from CTC) who both assured me they'd looked at 'em all and dollar for dollar decided the CTC version was good enough for them. And they offer a 4 year warranty. Perhaps if we were clearing driveways all day long we might go for something commercial duty. I would. But I only use it a few times a week at most so why tie up $1,500 or $2,000 for something that I can get for $550 today and replace in 5 or 10 years for that same amount again. I'm still money ahead. A friend of mine just spent over $3,000 on a Honda for a driveway no bigger than mine, and then phoned me yesterday to see if he could borrow my little guy cuz he has an emergency at one of his rentals and he can't get the Honda over there without a truck or trailer but he knew how portable mine is. JF

Hey. The guy could be a Texan. JF

Looks like his buddies just gave him a pink belly. JF

Sure ain't gonna be wet wading for that. JF

Nice hat, Dude. ????? JF

Here's my two cents on it. I bought a 7hp Ariens about 30 years ago and it lasted 25 years without a hiccup. Then it died from terminal everything. Wasn't worth fixing all the things that suddenly went wrong. So I decided to go for HP and got a 10.5 HP 30" with a gazillion forward speeds and 2 reverses. It was great but it took up a huge amount of space in my tiny garage. I figured for sure one day I'd come home and my wife would have put a crease up the side of her new Caddy, so I gave it to my son for his huge driveway. He loves it. I went out to CTC on Boxing Day and picked up a 5.5 hp 20" one speed elect start 2 stage w/no reverse that I now love. It's so light I can drag it over to my Mom's at walking speed instead of driving it. I can lift it easily into the back of the Pilot (and close the hatch). It runs forever on a tank of gas. It doesn't chew through the heavy stuff like the big one but I just slow down and let it work at it's own speed. I have a smallish drive 35'x20' but I do my bro's place and my Mom's most of the time cuz they're both within a block of me. Their drives are about the same size as mine. This machine cost one third of what the big one did and does everything I need it to do. It doesn't throw the snow about a mile (which isn't really that important on my yard, or run fast over the ground (which doesn't really matter to me). It's got skinny little tires with no chains but it still claws it's way through the snow. Analyze, then buy. In the end you might be happier. In my case the smaller one is more practical. Admittedly it may burn out from overload a bit sooner but for $550 do I really care if it only last 10 or 15 years? JF

Man, I hated doing chains on the old Skidoos. I always tried to hide whenever someone brought a sled in for a new track or chaincase work. And to make matters worse it was always a rush job so I was working on a cold wet sled. Wasn't so bad if we could bring it in the night before and have it all nice, warm and dry for the next day. Of course warm and dry was never an option at the race track. JF