It's All About TEAMWORK

OK, so the theme of today's Blog is all about teamwork.

Last night, the Sens needed some serious teamwork to survive the potentially-disasterous suspension to our #1 goalie, Ray Emery. While I still disagree with what I consider a rather harsh 3-game benching for my boy Ray after he shoved a Montreal crease-crasher in the face with his stick Saturday night, it looks the Sens might actually pull through this gut-check time after they trounced the Florida Panthers last night 4-0. That's right, Sharon...Martin Gerber not only got the win, he got the shut-out!!!

Now, to be honest, the game was not televised, so I really have no idea how this one played out. But 2 points are 2 points, and we took advantage of a Florida team that was playing it's second night of back-to-back games, and coming off a huge 1-0 victory over Montreal on Tuesday night. So granted, the Panthers were likely drained and an easy target for the well-rested Sens. However, with Gerber in nets, no game is ever a gimme, let alone a shut-out, so we'll consider this a huge moral victory, not only for Gerber but for the entire team! So now only 2 more games to survive without Rayzor - Atlanta and Edmonton. They will probably be much more challenging games, so fingers are crossed that the teamwork continues!

Over on FNL, it looked like the team unity of the Dillon Panthers had all but disintegrated after Smash and the other black players walked out on the team in protest of the assistant coach's unintentional racist comments. Coach Taylor was really at his wit's end, trying to decide if he should fire Mac or not. Mac beat him to it, though, presenting a letter of resignation, but the coach refused to accept it, further angering the black community of Dillon, Texas.

Now, you'd think dealing with this racism issue would be enough for Coach Taylor these days, but nope...he's also got a rebellious daughter on his plate. Julie's gone a little wild thanks to her recent friendship with Tyra, and the coach and Mrs. Taylor are struggling to deal with this new, saucy, bad-ass daughter of theirs. This week, Julie got her butt tossed in jail. OK, so it was just a Juvenile Holding Cell, and Matt, Landry and Tyra were all with her. And the only reason they were in the clink was because Tyra had to get something from her sister at the strip club, and Landry wandered off and got busted. And this all led to Jill's Favourite Moment of the Night: When the other parents bailed their kids out, the coach & Mrs. Taylor just hung in the parking lot for awhile after Mrs. Taylor explained that she wanted her "perp to sit in there and think about what she's done!"

On a good note for Julie, though...She and Matt made up after he bought her a beautiful pendant with her birthstone, and the he "officially" asked her to be his girlfriend. Not too cute!!

Back to this racism thing for a sec. I'll tell you one thing, Smash is a lucky boy. Why's that, you ask? 'Cause he's got a really good mother. Mrs. Williams is a tough-love kind of lady, but she's always got her boy's best interests at heart. She praises him when he's done good, and she kicks his ass when he needs a good ass-kicking. This week? Time for an ass-kicking. This Waverly chick he's been hanging with put all these notions in his head about how he had to stand up and be a role model for the black community, and prove a point that was above and beyond football. However, Smash's mom is a wise person. She knows that for her son, there is nothing above and beyond football for him. For Smash to have a future, he needs football. He needs football to get into college, to further his education, and to get ahead in life. So she basically sat him down and told him all that, and told him there was no shame in gathering the troops and going back to the team.

So Smash did, and he was welcomed back to the team with a terse nod from Coach Taylor. Then the football game got crazy and they had to end it after the third quarter while the fans rioted, with Dillon taking the win. For some reason, I guess because of this big walk-out thing, Smash was the target of their abuse, and even while en route back to Dillon, a couple of police officers stopped the bus and tried to take him in on charges of assault resulting from the on-field brawl. That's when Mac stood up to defend Smash, demanded a warrant from the police, and basically said, "You gotta go through me to get to him." Yep, folks, you got it...another FNL Hallmark Moment, brought to you by yours truly!

OK...So that's about it for today. Kenny, hope you enjoyed the FNL update, and everyone else, have a great day!