Not By Bob Costas

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA - Still smarting from the wounds of the 1994-95 National Hockey League strike, this past week, NHL fans reaffirmed their anger in regard to the insensitive comments of one Bob Costas, then a late night sports anchor for NBC. As it happened, Costas downplayed the significance of the potential strike in a manner that deeply angered many residents of Michigan, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, amongst others, and practically 100% of America's slightly more polar neighbor.

For the record, Costas noted that: " For many Americans, a season without hockey is like a Happy Meal without parsley ." in response to the possibility of the upcoming NHL strike, sometime in mid to late 1994.

In honor of the upcoming 10 year anniversary of Costas' remark, Calgary native Brady Anderson had this to say. "Maybe you lame Americans don't know what hockey is all a-boot, but here in Calgary, we've figured out the fundamental connection between playing/watching hockey and gaining deep spiritual insight into the human condition. I don't care if he's just pointing out a trivial truth amongst Americans, Bob Costas is a hoser and he can keep his fucking parsley, A ."

Detroit Red wings fan and McDonald's manager Roy Littleton, also expressed his dismay. "Bob Costas should know that we seriously looked into adding parsley to our tasty happy meal combos as early as 1992, but today, it just doesn't make economic sense any more, considering, amongst other things, the rising costs of parsley. It's like vegetable gold out there. In any case, he shouldn't say those kinds of things. He makes it look like we don't like Hockey, but my buddy Al and I always watch the Wings."

Littleton continued. "But at least it wasn't as bad as that stupid electronic streak they tried to add to the puck, which, amongst other things, made the game impossible to watch. They might as well have made the players hit the puck stuck inside the end of a very long sock."

"I hear that, A " said Vancouver Canucks die hard fan, Kamson Lai, who leads a group of hard drinking British Columbians who regularly lynch Costas in effigy. "We used to do it every year on the anniversary of his remark, but now we just do it whenever we need to let off some steam," explained, Lai. "And let me tell you, especially coupled with the recent shit we've had to take from America, lately, we've had to let off at least enough steam to power a fleet of small ships and maybe 6 or 7 locomotives, give or take a few of bowls of rice. As such, we've gone through a lot of Bob Costas dolls, which, for our convenience, are sold during home games right next to the Molson and Moosehead stands".

As it turns out, professional hockey players themselves, including Vancouver Canucks star Marcus Naslund, also still take issue with Costas. "I wasn't even in the league when he said those things," admitted Naslund, "but I still want to shove my stick up his Cost-ass and twist it until he recants that shit. And how tall is Bob Costas anyway? Put some skates on him and he's still not even half a meter tall...oh, I'm sorry, I mean 1 foot 8. I know it's not very Canadian to make fun of people because of their height, but in this case, I just really hate the fuck out of him. I swear, man, throw him out onto the ice and I'll check him into the boards so hard he thinks he's Pat O'Brien and Jim Nance."

Hating Hocky is Anti-Anti-American

In a gesture that some would call unwise, or even as far as "representing a serious threat to her safety", San Antonio bank teller Wendy Thompson made this counterpoint during her two week stay in Montreal . "I think Bob Costas should be the President of the United States . Just look at that smile. He would never lie to us about weapons of mass destruction. As far as the parsley comment, I don't know what people are getting so fussy about. I mean, the Brits and Aussies never got pissed off when Keith Olberman said that Cricket and Soccer were as boring as Shakespeare, or that Australian Rules Football was about as influential as Australian foreign policy. Basically, the rest of the world just has a lot of sucky sports, and they're just going to have to get used to the idea of Baseball, Football, and Basketball as the only legitimate ones. It's nice enough for us to kick all your foreign asses in the Olympics."

As of last Wednesday, Ms. Thompson's disappearance remained unsolved, although her hotel room refrigerator was found to be stocked with large quantities of a certain green vegetable, which the Canadian authorities simply denoted, "some kind of garnish" in their report. As to whether or not this represented an important clue for the case, Montreal mayor Jean Francois Charbonneau could only shake his head absent mindedly while pondering secession and softly muttering something about penalty minutes for high sticking in a silly sounding bastard version of French.  HSP