2005 Hockey Sports Pool

OK – I couldn’t get up any interest for an all-hockey pool either. So we are going to go with a mixed sports pool this year. Have your picks in by Friday 18 March 2005 at 5 pm EST – that is this week.

The Rules

A. US College Basketball – CBS Sports should provide all you need.

1. Name the final four teams in the mens NCAA championship. 5 points for each correct pick.
2. Ten points for the NCAA mens basketball champion.

B. Hockey – check TSN.ca for helpful household hints.

3. Name the winner of the Memorial Cup, Canada’s Jr A Men’s hockey championship. 10 points.
4. Pick four scorers in the Memorial Cup. One point for each goal or assist.
5. Pick the winner of the AHL’s Calder Cup. Ten points.

C. Fitba – try BBC Sports for information.

6. Pick the two teams in the English FA Cup Final. Five points each.
7. Pick the winner of the FA Cup. 10 points.
8. Pick the winner of the Scottish Premier League – not a Cup, #1 in the league table. [Ed.: Hint – it will likely rhyme with “Brangers” or “Beltic”.] Ten points.

D. Baseball –
Try the home web sites for Boston and the Yankees.

9. Who wins when the Red Sox and Yankees play on 11 April 2005? Ten points.
10. Who wins when the Red Sox and Yankees play on 13 April 2005? Ten points.
11. Who starts as pitcher for each team when the Red Sox and Yankees play on 14 April 2005? Ten points for each correct pick.

Comments? Other questions – other than my weight – you are interested in?

Beer is Bigger Than…

In Canada at least, with sales of $7,864,437,000.00 in 2003 is bigger than:

– Total attendance at movie theatres and drive-ins with sales of $1.2 billion in 2002/03: 15.3% of beer.
– All wheat at $2.47 billion: 31.5% of beer.
– The estimated budget of the Government of Nova Scotia for 2003 of $5.327 billion: 68% of beer.
– All charitable giving of $6,500,000,000: 71% of beer.
– Beer is smaller than the military, however, which has a $13.5 billion budget for 2006: 171% of beer in 2003.

The beer sales figures do not even include retail bar and restaurant costs, just the wholesale. They also do not include the cost of that bag of chips you had to go with the bee

Years

Two since we packed all the stuff and the kids and the cats and hit the road to come here. Didn’t get far as the transmission died in Moncton and I stayed in the Harry Potter room at Magnetic Hill. Eleven I got the gown and didn’t quite give the Queen an oath. Fourteen since a good pal died in a nasty car crash on his way home to the Prairies. Twenty soon since undergrad grad skipping the practice to have eggs on toast at the Ardmore Tea Room on Quinpool. I can still trace the arc of each of these days in my mind.

National Six-Pack X: Sgt. Major’s IPA, Scotch Irish, Ontario

sgtmaj

Finally the wee truck from Fitzroy Harbour up on the Ottawa River near Arnprior made its way down to Kingston giving us a taste of this excellent local ale. This is a hoppy that reminds me a lot of my recollection of the Dragon’s Breath Ale contract brewed and bottled by the old Hart Brewery of Carleton place about (without looking) 35 miles south of Fitzroy Harbour. Candy cane Goldings and grapefruity Chinook hops combine to provide quite a bit of a sour tang to this fairly lightly bodied clean ale. The finish is a nice combination of the slight rough edge of the hops and the light graininess of the pale ale.

The brewery has a pretty good web presence which provides the names of bars where you can buy a pint of tap. It also describes the Sgt. Major IPA as follows:

Our Sgt. Major’s IPA is our most intense ale to date. It’s a massively hoppy and quite bitter beer, yet one with a nice, full-bodied malt background. It weighs in at 5.5 percent Alcohol (balanced by its big body). It is hopped with lots of Chinook hops which impart a tasty white-grapefruit/spice/resin flavour and aroma (and a total of 68 IBU) making the ale wonderfully refreshing. Being at the low end of the alcohol range for the style, it’s as close to a supping pint as tradition allows. While the Sgt. Major’s rather considerable bitterness is nicely balanced by its full-bodied maltiness, this is overall a predominantly hoppy ale. The full body of our India Pale Ale comes from lots of English pale ale malt and crystal malt, with a very small amount of chocolate malt. Our all-natural draught ale uses no artificial additives or preservatives.

I don’t know if that means the bottled version does have artificial additives and preservatives. I would also think that the full-bodied characterization is pushing it a bit in a world where a drive as far south as this is north will get me a Middle Ages Wailing Wench or Druid Fluid. It is, for example, lighter but hopper than Propeller’s ESB from Halifax, one of the nicer bodied ales in Canada, but according to the standard scheme of bitters and pale ales a grade below an IPA. But this all is not to distract from the ale, just the adjectives. Like Mill Street Tankhouse Ale, the lighter mouthfeel I think reflects the apparent or possibly emerging Canadian style of pale ale, as opposed to my suggested putative style sweeter fuller Canadian amber but less hoppy. Both are a degree or two off the standard for an American pale ale or its amber sibling and different again from English ones.

Nevertheless, this is very good beer and a worthy addition to quest for the National Six-Pack. The quality of the craftsmanship makes me think a wee trip to the Manx in Ottawa is in order to try out the brewer’s draught only Session Ale, a rare ordinary bitter which – if true to style – should not hit 3.5% and ought to be as refreshingly quaffable as a good dark mild.

Spaceship House

Not that far from rocket house is spaceship house…or sombrero house…or mushroom house:

They are in the same neighbourhood – maybe it was oneupsmanship circa 1898:

Her: The Smiths are building a rocket designed in the Turkish style into their house, Jim. What are we going to do? What are we going to doooooooooooooo!?!
Him: Don’t worry, honey…your turret will look like a paella dish piled high with the most famous dinner of our homeland…with a sombrero on top…maybe.

However, we must ask from their future – what price pride?

New York: 46’er Pale Ale, Lake Placid Craft Brewing, Plattsburg

I bought at six of this  in Hannaford’s grocery store in Watertown, New York for $7.99. Customsman let it go. Declared but he no cared. It would be sweeter for that bonus but could it be? I really like this brew. Medium body. Lots of green hops almost to the point there is a green pea, mint and orange peel thing happening. Under that some crystal malt sweet and nice grainy pale malt. Some pear juice among the grain in the finish. Quality from the north country and just over the border. More as I think about it. Top cap design.

The next day: Lake Placid Craft Bewing is not in Lake Placid though it used to be. The brewery explains:

Founded in 1996, The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery began as a small brewpub, brewing less than 400 barrels each year for sale on site. Our great-tasting, fresh beer quickly grew in popularity and requests for our products poured in from area restaurant and bar owners. Production increased exponentially to keep up with demand, and we sold every last drop of beer we produced. In November 2001, the LPP&B; expanded to a second brewing facility in Plattsburgh, New York, known as The Lake Placid Craft Brewing Company, quadrupling our brewing capacity and adding bottles to our product lineup.

That is a success of scale and smart growth – and when it is on the Hannaford’s in Watertown shelf 200 miles west as well as on tap at the Blue Tusk (look far right) 350 miles south west, Lake Placid is making a mark for itself. They are smart, too, in keeping it to two bottlings this pale ale and the heavier, maltier Ubu ale which I brought back way back last spring. Just so you know, the pale ale comes in at 6% with the Ubu at 7%. My man Lew Bryson tells me they have a milk stout on tap at the brew pub as well as an even hoppier Frostbite Pale Ale. He also says:

A “46’er” is someone who’s climbed all forty-six “high peaks” of the Adirondacks..

I really do not understand the experience of the lower end of the beer advocate scale. Maybe they all had shelf stung bottles. Mine are definately fresh and displaying nothing other than loveliness. I would like to do a side by side with some Southern Tier IPA, maybe a Ithaca Flower Power and even a Syracuse Pale Ale to get some sense of the Lake Erie, Finger Lakes to Lake Champlain brewing arcing axis and what it all means.