(This is an actual t-shirt, you can buy through Grilli himself)Like most things in life, I can draw direct parallels between one event, and Mighty Ducks 2. The 2008 Detroit Tigers are no exception.
1. THE TIGERS ACQUIRE NEW TALENT. Edgar Renteria, Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera, Jaque Jones, Denny Bautista.
MIGHTY DUCKS ACQUIRE NEW TALENT. Julie "the cat" Gaffney, Dean Portman, Luis Mendoza, Russ Tyler, Dwayne Robertson and of course Olympic gold figure skater Ken Wu.
Jacque Jones has had a very Ken Wu like season so far.
2. DETROIT TIGERS picked to win world series by Sports illustrated.
MIGHTY DUCKS FAVORITE FOR PRESTIGIOUS JUNIOR GOODWILL GAMES GOLD MEDAL.
Tigers sell record number of season tickets, some question if it's the greatest offense in Detroit history.
Mighty Ducks for some ungodly reason put on cover of Wheaties cereal. Hendrix, their chief sponsor, promises a future of action figures featuring the players.
3. TIGERS BUY INTO OWN HYPE. After starting strong against D2 (GET IT!) Fla. Southern, they coast through spring training with an unimpressive 15-14 record
MIGHTY DUCKS GET COCKY. They beat Trinidad to start off the tournament. Bombay starts attending posh L.A. parties with Kareem Abdul jabar and Wayne Gretzky and dreams of the day that the "Air-Bombay coaching loafer" is sold in stores.
Coach Bombay: Haven't you guys been training in the off-season?
Lester Averman: You know, I knew we forgot something.
In this case, the Trinidadian Junior hockey team is the equivalent to the Fla. souther Moccasins. Tigers beat moccasins 17-4, Team Trinidad goes down 12-1.
Also, the story of Team Trinidad being one of the top Junior hockey teams in the nation is something that is completely overlooked. I mean, I think Canada didn't even make the field. This, and Connie Moreau scoring the first goal against Iceland in the Championship kind of puts the Miracle on Ice game to shame.
4. TIGERS SUFFER HUMILIATING DEFEAT, LOSING TO CHI SOX 11-0
After the game, Leyland tears into the team like only a 145 year old man can and calls out much of the team. Ozzie Guillen, former MLB turd takes great pleasure in beating his rivals.
TEAM USA DOWNED BY TEAM ICELAND 12-1. Led by phenom and ex-city guys star Gunnar Stahl, Team Iceland dominates and embarrasses Team USA. EX NHL goon Wolf "the dentist" Stansson's team overmatches Bombay's squad. Bombay responds with emergence of his alter ego, captain blood, and makes them skate until they aren't HAVING FUN ANYMORE.
5. INJURIES TAKE A TOLL ON TIGERS. Along with numerous other injuries, Granderson starts off the season on the DL with a broken finger. Granderson is the definition of a 5 tool player. And, I mean tool in a good way this time.
ADAM BANKS INJURED. After watching this movie a couple hundred times, i'm convinced Bank's AKA cake eater is the only one with actual hockey talent on the team. All other players have one gimmick move such as skating fast (Luis), slap shot (Fulton), knuckle puck (Russ), Cowboyism (Dwayne), being a whiny bitch (Charlie), etc. Anyways, Banks hurts his wrist after a vicious slash. "2 Minutes?! Vell Vorth it."
Anyways, word is that Granderson took BP today relatively pain free and could play very soon. Banksy wakes up one day and the pain is gone. Crazy, right?
I am eagerly awaiting the Detroit Tigers real life similarity of the street puck game played on the mean streets of Los Angeles. It will probably involve wiffle ball and Clete Thomas beating the piss out of a 9 year old in the suburbs of Detroit after a dispute over if his ball completely cleared the tree for a HR, or simply landed in the tree, thus making it a live ball.
"eating ice cream with the enemy, huh, coach?"The Tigers have had two great comeback wins against Minnesota (THE IRONY!). I've had the great pleasure of following these games through MLB gameday because Comcast likes to defecate on my soul as often as possible. So, things could start to turn around, and hopefully like D2 ends we will have the Tigers sitting around a campfire as Jason Grilli strums "we are the champions" and Leyland leads the team in a celebratory romp.
Oh, and if you haven't seen Mighty Ducks 2, I apologize for this mess of words. Just for you, and only you, here is Joel Zumaya drinking directly out of keg.
