See, kids? Remote learning can be fun. Just ask Amanda K. Fletcher.
Fletcher is a teacher at Columbia Secondary School in New York and decided to spice things up earlier this month during a Spanish lesson over Zoom. Near the end of the lesson, Fletcher decided to have a snack of spaghetti with an unidentified shirtless man. Shortly after partaking in the pasta, Fletcher then began to suck on one of the man’s nipples and gyrate back and forth. Again, this all happened in full view of her students and anyone else who may have been watching. Why did she do it? Who knows? She reportedly refused to be interviewed by her superiors and has been “reassigned” pending an investigation while continuing to make her $105,588 salary. That noise you hear in the background is Jeffrey Toobin.
Anyway:
It’s only one game
Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals is trying really hard to become the next Matt Cooke and is succeeding on an almost-weekly basis. There’s a difference between being tough and being a right you-know-what and Wilson is in the latter category.
Wilson needs to have an attitude adjustment of some sort and Georges Laraque was just the guy to jump in and offer it. The last great enforcer of the National Hockey League – not goon, enforcer – put forth an offer to the New York Rangers to straighten out Wilson. Recall that Wilson thought it would be cool to drive Pavel Buchnevich’s head into the ice and then throw Alexei Panarin to the ice without his helmet on. All it cost Wilson was $5,000 while the Rangers decided to let the NHL know how it felt about the whole thing and got drilled with a $250,000 fine.
The offer from Laraque? A one-game contract. He goes out, takes Wilson out and everyone’s cool. I certainly would be. I would have crowdfunded to help pay Laraque’s one-game salary if there was a chance he was serious. I don’t think he was because he added “LOL” before posting it but would’t that have been awesome? Wilson is good at the cheap shot and there is no way he would even come close to pissing around with Laraque, even though Big Georges is in his mid-40s. It’s kind of like back when Harry Neale was asked how many goals Maurice Richard would have scored in the 1990s and Neale replied about 15 or 20 because he wasn’t getting any younger.
‘Tis a shame we won’t get to see Laraque twist Wilson into a pretzel.
The sport of juice pigs
The Kentucky Derby is my favourite one of the Triple Crown races to watch. Not only does it have the absolute best atmosphere going but it sets the tone for the two races which follow: the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.
Horse racing can also be a very dirty business and that includes doping. Yes, we have ourselves a juicing scandal involving Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 race on May 1. It would appear that Medina Spirit’s first pee-pee test came back a wee bit spiked - positive for some sort of performance-enhancing substance - and now there’s genuine controversy. The horse’s trainer, Bob Baffert, who’s one of the sport’s legendary figures, has been suspended pending the results of a second test. If that comes back positive, Medina Spirit will be stripped of the title and the prize money, which will be given to Mandaloun, the runner-up.
Naturally, Baffert is saying the whole thing is a lie and has denied all allegations against him. He deserves the presumption of innocence, like anyone else accused of breaking the rules, but even the mere mention of drugs in sport is enough to kill a career. The thing I question is why people would drug an animal to win a race? That sounds a lot like animal cruelty and if it’s proven that Baffert stuffed zingers up his horse, he needs to be thrown out on his ass.
And finally …
Good Idea: John Tortorella behind a bench.
Bad Idea: John Tortorella out of a job.
One of the best coaches in the National Hockey League is now looking for work and in a perfect world, he won’t be out of work for long.
John Tortorella and the Columbus Blue Jackets mutually agreed to part ways earlier this month and it wasn’t a surprise to me. He took that team as far as he could take them and a change was needed. He leaves as the team’s most successful coach ever and not like that wasn’t hard to accomplish. The Blue Jackets haven’t exactly made the greatest of decisions when it came to coaching over the years but Torts took a mediocre team and turned them into something half-competitive.
So where does he end up? Buffalo could be one place but there’s the Jack Eichel situation and knowing the way he throws his toys out of the pram on a daily basis, Torts will probably rip his head off by day three. Detroit, Montreal and Vancouver are possibilities but you can scratch Vancouver off the list. We all know how that went last time Tortorella coached in San Francisco North.
If I’m a betting man – and I love a flutter or two – John Tortorella will be your next head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.
Until next time, folks …