GoalieCon 2019

Dear Goalie,

Welcome to Halifax and welcome to GoalieCon 2019!

Please check your swag bag to make sure you have all the free goodies you’ll need for the 3 days of goalie-related events, including your complimentary bottomless pint glass (to be used at the Blue Paint beer hall in the conference centre - as much free beer as you can handle), an iPad Pro, and a gift certificate for a new Brian’s GSP1 Custom Goalie Stick. A special thank you to all the rent-a-goalies who donated their fees this past year to pay for the swag.

If you are a speaker or panel participant please check in early and be sure to adhere to the mandatory dress code for on-stage participants. Off-the-rack suits are not permitted, only tailored. If you need assistance with your attire please visit the complimentary pre-conference bespoke tailoring booth for an upgrade.

Here are some of the highlights of our lineup for 2019:

Saturday

After registration please enjoy a complimentary full breakfast by Chef Joel Robuchon, world-famous for having 28 Michelin stars and for throwing a plate at Gordon Ramsay's head.

Opening remarks by Ken Dryden. Theme: How to Talk to Forwards Without Lowering Your Own IQ

Guest Speaker and physicist Andrey Gromov presents “Using Quantum Geometry to Calculate Optimal Net-Covering Angles for non-NHL Dimension Ice Hockey Arenas”

Sunday

Scotch Tasting with Angus McCann of Glenora Distilleries, Glenville NS. Sample some fine local scotch with fellow like-minded goalies of discerning taste. No limit on samples.

A 2-hour on-ice training session with NHL goaltenders Carey Price, Frederik Anderson, Roberto Luongo and Connor Hellebuyck (thank you NHL All Star Weekend). Includes a full set of new gear and mask, so no need to bring your own. Not you, Frank D’Angelo.

Monday

Panel Discussion: Defensemen - Incredibly Skilled or Just Amazingly Talented?

Complimentary Massage by the Elite Swedish All-Girls Massage Team, making their third consecutive appearance at GoalieCon. Welcome back, girls! Thanks to Joe P. of the Black Aces HC for arranging the flight from Stockholm, by way of Bucerias.

Final presentation: full HD video of the Black Aces triumphant 3-3 tie with the first place Battlers. The Aces nearly tipped their post-season hand by thumping the ugly-shirted blue team 3-0, but eventually remembered to stick to the 'sandbagging' strategy and allowed their opponents to sneak 3 late goals to tie the game. 2 goals for Martin, 1 for Pete T.

Aces Victory Spawns Super Blood Wolf Moon

In a turn of astronomical events that astronomers are calling ‘astronomical’, the world witnessed an unexpected Super Blood Wolf Moon on January 20. The rare lunar eclipse was not scheduled to occur for another 7 months, but scientists have now confirmed that a 2 game winning streak by Toronto hockey team the Black Aces is in fact somehow responsible for the early timing of the event.

“Zis is most unusual, jah?” said Prof. Ernst Kagalhausenschiffsteinitzbergenvald of the Vienna Astronomical Society. “Ve normally do not see planetary bodies change zair position in space due to incredibly minor events here on ze earth. First it vas ze 3-0 vin against ze Vyse Guys, zen a 3-1 wictory over za Warriors. Why is zis happening? Nobody cares about zis team.”

As everyone is now aware, a Super Blood Wolf Moon is a larger than normal moon in total eclipse and appears blood red in the sky. What can skywatchers expect if the current streak of hockey superiority continues? Professor Kagalhausenschiffsteinitzbergenvald was kind enough to share his notes with me.

Aces Win a 3rd Straight Game:

Awesome Plasma Tiger Moon

• Appears twice normal size
• Black and orange stripes
• Insists on belly rubs

Aces Finish in First Place:

Unwieldy Vodka Vulture Moon

• Looms ominously on the horizon, unmoving for 24 hours
• Emits a foul smell, terrifies small mammals and the very elderly

Former Aces Players Return from DL:

Gigantic Whisky Gorilla Moon

• Moves to within 100 miles of earth
• Repeatedly calls and texts
• Earth has to get restraining order

Aces Win the COTHL for the 7th Time:

Humongous Tequila Dinosaur Moon

• Spins erratically in its orbit
• Picks a fight with Mars
• eventually killed by an asteroid

Aces Advance to NHL Playoffs:

Stupendous Kool Aid Godzilla Moon

• Bright purple colour
• Lands on earth, flattening Tokyo
• keeps shouting "OOOOhhhhh Yaaaaahhhh"

Aces Win Stanley Cup:

Ridiculous Antifreeze Zamboni Moon

• Moon collapses into a black hole, sucking the earth and everything else inside the orbit of Jupiter across its event horizon.
• Everyone dies.
• Ice at Phil White improves slightly

The fate of the solar system is in our hands, Aces. 

Forward Momentum

Yay!

Gather 'round, wingers and centremen, and listen to a story about a game of hockey.

Once upon a time there was a hockey team called the Aces. They were good friends and they were a good team and they won lots of games and even trophies. Then as time went by they didn’t win as much any more. They were still friends but now they had grey hairs all over and some Aces even had new pieces put in and couldn’t play any more, at least for a while. Other teams had new players who could skate fast and didn’t have as many grey hairs, and they won more games than the Aces.

Even the Baby Jesus was sad about this.

Then one week the Aces played the red team. The red team beat the Aces already before and thought they could beat the Aces again, but the Aces thought “fuck that shit” and played really really hard against the red team. By the time the red team woke up it was already 2-0 Aces, and even though they tried to catch up it was too late. While the red team was trying to cause trouble on the ice like bunch of a-holes and the refs were standing around with their dicks in their hands, the Aces were busy scoring again. The final score was Aces 3, red 0. 

And the Aces drank happily ever after, in contravention of municipal rules prohibiting the consumption of alcohol on city arena property.

The end.

For D's Eyes Only

Look away, non-defenseman types. There's nothing for you here.

Greetings fellow Defensemen! This week’s roundup of news and achievements, as always, is meant for your eyes only. Under no circumstances should it be shared with any forward or, god forbid, a goalie. Not that they’d understand it anyway though, amirite?

First up, let’s all congratulate Al H on his latest successful patent. This one is for a new keel design for high performance sailboats that virtually eliminates cavitation at high speeds. As you know this has been a significant problem for the sport and has prevented racing craft from reaching their full potential. This might be a good time to buy more stock in Al’s company, I think this could be another  winner.

Moving from sea to sky, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Chinese landing the Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon last week. What you didn’t hear about was the experiment that was on board, which included a sophisticated autonomous robot that will explore the surface and conduct soil sample analysis. That robot was built in his garage over the past year by none other than new Aces D-man  Mike M. Look for his technical paper in upcoming issues of both Scientific Canadian and Defenseman Quarterly. Well done, Mike.

Welcome back to Simon this week, who has been working on completing his PhD the past couple of weeks (the illness was just a cover story, we don’t want to alarm the non-defensemen on the team by using big words or “ideas”). He successfully defended his thesis last week, which as you know was about using tensor networks as a new tool to describe strongly entangled quantum many-body systems. Great stuff! Simon will be presenting his paper in May at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo.

I’m not sure I should even report this next piece since Pete T moved “up” to the forward line this week, but rumour has it that Mr T has just signed a deal with Penguin Books to publish his new autobiography. It’s part one of three and it’s called Pete T: My LIfe as a Fighter Pilot / Scientist / Mountain Climber / Drummer / Defenseman - That's Right, I Did All Those Things. There's no point in being humble when you're awesome, is there?

As for me, I’ve just secured second round investment funding for my new brainwave-controlled drone piloting system. We should be ready with an IPO by year’s end, so I’ll give you plenty of notice so you can alert your brokers. Same as last time. We’re going to make a killing.

And finally a big shout-out and thank you to Dr. B. Salming, ex-Leaf defender and now heart surgeon who operated on Rich W this past week. Thanks to Dr. Salming's skill and steady hands our Aces teammate and good friend is on the road to recovery and should be back in the lineup in no time.

That’s it for this week, guys. Don’t forget - this blog never happened and if a forward asks you about it just start talking about barbecue or NFL football. If a goalie asks anything, just grunt and smile and crush your beer can.

Wait, I almost forgot - Battlers 6, Aces 2. We were mentally ready for White, not Blue, so came up a little short. Something something steaks, "Grunt grunt" *crushes beer can*.