Hockey season starts tomorrow...

...and holy shit am I excited. I'm 30 years old now and I completely realize that with each passing second I have less and less to look forward to. I won't have this beautiful mane of hair forever. This amazingly toned body will one day fail me. All of my friends will soon fall victim to a wife imposed exile from fun. I won't even have children to help ease me into my twilight years because I fucking hate kids and I'll never have any of my own. Gwar may even break up someday. But hockey will always be here. Always. Like syphillis and The Price is Right. It will always be right there waiting to put a smile on my face with dudes taking bitchin' slapshots and deking the dogshit out of each other. With goalies doing back flips to stop pucks and grown men checking each other into different time zones. With George Parros' ridiculous Deadwood mustache and Alex Ovechkin's butthole sized tooth gap. This will all be here to help widdle away the hours until it's time to buy the farm. As the vice grip of time gently squeezes the will to live out of you and your life becomes so fucking pointlessly boring that keestering a bleach covered rag seems like the only fun left, hockey is there.

It fucking baffles me how people invest their time in following football, basketball or...gulp...fucking baseball. Granted, this is all being said with the full understanding that sports themselves are inherently retarded. They're just another in a seemingly endless line of shit to distract us from dealing with our own terrifying existence. On that level, they're completely necessary. But on a fundamental level, they have no bearing on our survival as a species. They offer nothing in the way of answers about our origins or our purpose in the universe. Sporting events rarely have a satisfactory outcome for everyone involved and generally end up just being another reason to wake up in a shitty mood. But life being as god damn awful as it is, we do need distractions. And if you choose to have sports be that distraction, why you would choose anything but hockey is beyond me.

Let's start with baseball. First off, you can't legally punch members of the opposing team. That's a huge red flag. Why even watch a sporting event if there's not a fairly good chance that someone is getting punched in the face part of their head? Second, there's no defense. People get emotionally invested in their sporting heroes because they're willing to put themselves through pain that we at home could never even imagine. And for our entertainment, no less. Baseball players may occasionally get hit in the arm with a wild pitch or take a grounder to the balls but there's no physical contact between players. There's no battle of wills. There's no six foot eight, 250 lb. Russian dudes trying to dislocate your asshole. Third, 160 fucking games a year? Are you serious? Every time I see people at a bar cheering for a baseball game in August, I feel the same way I do when I see an Asian person eating at LeAnn Chinn. It's like "Really? Aren't you sick of it by now? How could that still taste good to you?" I like seeing chicks get naked and rub their boxes together but if it happened in front of me every day I'd kindly ask them to get off of my lawn and go fuck in the woods like adults. Fourth, any game that has a designated time to stop and stretch while singing a song that even Raffi thinks is too childish, is not a sport. It's just an excuse for all the players to shower together and wear black eye make-up.

How people sit through more than five minutes of a basketball game is anyboydy's guess. Any sport that you could relatively dominate without having any legs is just a circus game. I understand that they run around and slap each other on the asses under the guise of "defending" each other but let's face it, if Leiutenant Dan could sit on the court and sink three pointers all day, he could potentially be the greatest player of all time. That says a lot about your sport. Also, if simply being freakishly tall is looked at as a skill, then it's not really that hard of a game. Running and accurately throwing a ball at a stationary target with nothing obstructing it is about as exciting as fucking your couch. Only somehow sadder.

I really don't have any fundamental problem with football other than the fact that it is so mind numbingly boring and slow. Guys are trying like fuck to hurt each other and I respect that but the whole "stand around for five minutes then play for four seconds" thing just erodes your patience. Plus, why are there so many god damn people on each team? If your whole team can't fit on one commercial sized airplane, then guess what? You're two teams. Hockey teams are only allowed to dress 20 players, including their goalies. If they lose two defensemen the other four are getting double shifted the rest of the game. There's not ten other dudes jerking off on the sidelines waiting to come and fill in. How many motherfucking dudes does it take to stand there and not do shit while the other team pretends to make a strategy for throwing the ball over their heads? And out of all pro sports, NFL players seem to have the most trouble not going to jail. If you make seven million dollars a year for playing a couple minutes of grab ass every sunday, why would you even go to a night club? Fucking build one in your own house. And how come so many NFL players get busted for smoking weed in public places? Smoke that shit in your giant house, moron. I know it takes a lot of determination and intestinal fortitude not to kill your girlfriend while she's pregnant but give it a shot. Or better yet, stop barebacking hoodrats you met while smoking weed in a night club.

I would bring up Golf, Tennis, UFC, Nascar and Soccer but I don't know much about them because I don't have a gay younger brother or a businessman husband to explain them to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that here's my predicitions for the winners of all the major NHL awards for this upcoming season. We won't know for another nine months how accurate these picks are but one thing is for sure: my hockey boner is ready to explode right now.

TEAM AWARDS

Presidents Trophy: Washington Capitals

Campbell: Detroit Red Wings

Wales: Washington Capitals

Stanley Cup: Pittsburgh Penguins

PLAYER AWARDS

Hart Trophy: Steven Stamkos

Conn Smythe: Sidney Crosby

Art Ross: Ilya Kovalchuk

Rocket Richard: Alex Ovechkin

Norris: Drew Doughty

Calder: PK Subban

Vezina: Martin Brodeur

Selke: Ryan Kesler

Lady Byng: Pavel Datsyuk

Masterton: Marc Savard

Lindsay/Pearson: Sidney Crosby

Twin Cities Tank Origins

Pete and Brent met in 2004 when they formed a band by the name TANK!

TANK! was rumored to be the greatest band in the history of all music, spanning genres and generations, blending milky melodies that pleased the ear, tickled the heart, and created mind movies of such beauty that they would make corpses rise from their graves, only to envision the masterpieces in their lifeless brains before they became overwhelmed and cried themselves back to death.

Unfortunately TANK! broke up before their first show.

Bonding over the breakup of TANK!, Pete and Brent spent the following years drinking beer and starting other projects like Dragon Bruiser (AKA The Oklahomos) until 2005 when they started Metallagher: a combination of Metallica music and the Comedy of Gallagher.

Being in Metallagher forced Pete and Brent to start trying to be funny by writing jokes and bits. The popularity of this band grew like a horse's bladder, waiting to be emptied into a porn star's butt.

Around this same time, podcasts were beginning to appear on the internet. People listened to them religiously and obeyed the commands of all that was contained within these audio and video releases.

The world population was soon under control of the most powerful podcast in the universe: Captain Elroy's Sea Friendly Fishing Boat. Human's helplessly and dronishly fetched fish out of the ocean until the ecosphere was completely vanquished and unrecognizable, causing the earth to heat up from lack of acidic fish pee in the oceans.

When the planet was in its dying hour, two comedic heroes started a chain of events that would rescue the planet and restore society to the greatest era in human history. Those men were Pete and Brent, and the beginning of that chain was the Twin Cities Tank podcast -named from the origin of their meeting, and the fact that they both love drinking and armored vehicles. Captain Elroy no longer had a stranglehold on society as people began to rise up and listen to a new podcast with challenging ideas and glorious revelations that fulfilled the spirit and calmed the soul.

Time will only tell how much greater our society will be when they listen to Twin Cities Tank, but we are confident that this upward slope will continue until the universe explodes and we all die from our brains exploding after viewing the worm hole that sucks our nightmares out of our minds through our pores.

Please Enjoy The Show,
Mr. Tank

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The 10 Greatest Hockey Names of All Time...

In order to obtain a more broad public appeal, a lot of famous actors and actresses in Hollywood will publicly, and often times legally, change their names to something more memorable and/or less racially specific. For Example, did you know that Vin Diesel's real name is Vincente Fartpowder? Or that Jean Claude Van Damme was actually born John Rambo? With hockey players though, it's the exact opposite. Whatever your given name is, tack some Z's or Q's onto it, don't pronounce any letters the way you're used to and if you're from another country make sure when translated to english your name conjures up images of things we only do in the bathroom or onto our wife's face. For years the NHL has been helping to reinforce the theory that other countries either don't have an alphabet system or don't know how to use the one they do have. Here are the top 10 examples of why.

10. Radek Bonk

Well, he does have the word "rad" in his first name but any good will amassed from that is immediately depleted by the "Bonk" that follows. That's like being named Awesome Periodface, only less goth. There's nothing cool associated with the word "Bonk". Well, maybe the noise it makes when you punch a clown in the dick but that's more sad than awesome.

9. Kari Takko

Being from Finland I'm sure Kari Takko isn't even aware of the of existence Mexico or their deliciously diarrhea inducing food products. However, I find it hard to believe that in the 1980's there was anyone alive that wasn't familiar with the Dutch pop star Taco and his unnecessarily gay reimagining of the already overwhelmingly gay 1920's Irving Berlin hit "Putting on the Ritz". Regardless, Kari Takko has no right to ever be confused when someone stops him in the street to make fun of his stupid name.

Fun Fact: In 1990 Takko was traded to Edmonton for Bruce Bell in what would come to be known as the infamous Takko-Belle trade. You couldn't make that up if you wanted to. And believe me, you don't.

8. Jordin Tootoo

I probably don't even need to tell you this but Jordin Tootoo wears the number 22. I can't tell if that's a really clever inside joke or a really dumb outside one. Either way, his name means the same thing as those little pink dresses that ballerinas wear and there's nothing I could say about that that he hasn't already heard a thousand times as his head was being stuffed into a toilet full of human feces by scary Canadian bullies. Speaking of human feces...

7. Darren Puppa

Poor Darren Puppa. On paper it's not quite as embarrassing because there's still the glimmer of hope that it could be pronounced "Puh-puh". I assure you though, it's "POOP-Uh". NHL Broadcasters in the 1980's and 90's seemed to take great pleasure in pointing this out too. They would scream it like a safe word any chance they got. I'll bet Darren was one of hell of a rambunctious teenager though, if only because his father couldn't in good conscience give him the "I don't want you doing anything to tarnish the Puppa name...." speech. Too late, Dad. Too late.

6. Hakan Loob

Of all the players on this list Loob was arguably the most talented, racking up 429 points in 451 NHL games. That being said, did you notice that his last name is "Loob"? You know, that stuff that you slather on your dong when your wife's fun hole dries up like someone stuffed a ShamWow up it? I'm sure Swedes have their own word for sexual lubricant but my guess is that it's too long to fit on a jersey and it's so slyllabically challenging that by the time you figure out how to properly pronounce it, your dick needs a nap.

5. Frank Pieterangelo

How many god damn names does one person need? Every time the broadcasters announced Frank Pieterangelo making a save it sounded like an Italian father calling his three retarded sons to the dinner table. Strangely enough, his backup goalie was named Mike Jeffdave. Also, no it wasn't.

4. Ron Tugnutt

If you walked into your own house on your own birthday and found Ron Tugnutt masturbating on your own bed, that would still be your own fault. It's not like he didn't warn you. Not since Timmy Jizzlauncher has there been a player whose last name tried harder to warn you of his intentions to whack off onto your belongings. In fact, recent studies show that if you were born in the 1980's there's a 74% chance that it was a result of your mom doing the naked splits into a puddle of Ron Tugnutt's semen.

3. Miroslav Satan

When you play a sport as physically demanding as ice hockey and you have the same last name as the guy that runs Hell, it seems somewhat counterintuitive to disclose to the viewing public that in your home country it's actually pronounced "Shuh-tan". Then again, wikipedia lists Miro Satan's place of birth as Jacovce, TCH which besides being a spell check's worst nightmare is also a complete mystery to most Americans so it would be hard to verify that he isn't in fact the Prince of Darkness. Often times religious dorks say that the greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing people that he didn't exist. And with Miro's play in the 2008-2009 playoffs, he pretty much pulled that off. Hail Satan!

2. Darius Kasparaitis

In medical parlance itis refers to any ailment that involves swelling, which is exactly what Eric Lindros' balls did in 1998 when Kasparaitis knocked him out of action for 18 games leaving a Lindros shaped crater in the ice and the NHL with a new favorite Russian name to make fun of. To Americans his name sounds like a liver infection one gets from drinking out of Russian toilets but coincidentally, in Russia the real name for that disease is Gretzkytosis. Or at least it would be if they had actual hospitals with actual doctors in Russia.

1. Zarley Zalapski

If human names were baseball cards, this would be the Honus Wagner rookie card. You could live for a thousand years and never see a better use of consonantal alliteration or 14 letters constructed in a more pristine fashion. Though his name suggests he is from the moon, or even more likely, Narnia, Zalapski was actually born in Edmonton. From 1987-2000 he played for various NHL teams and probably had some success and maybe played well or something. To be completely honest, I have no idea since every second he was on the ice was spent staring at the back of his jersey in awe and wiping tears of joy out of my eyes. In fact, his name was so mezmorizing that all of his stat sheets are just blank pieces of paper covered in the scorekeeper's drool and semen.

Dirty Drawing

A few episodes ago I talked about the dirty sex drawings I drew as a child, and Brent asked me to draw one for the site. Well I had a few extra minutes this evening to draw you a quick sketch:

Click To Enlarge


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Quitting Drinking

Don't do it.

Love,
Pete

When I was 11...

...my mom sent me off to summer camp for a week with a bunch of rich kids I played hockey with. It was in Lutsen, Mn, which may or may not really exist. My fear of defecating in public hadn't developed into the crippling phobia that it is today but using any toilet away from home was still a pretty daunting experience. Side note, being poop shy and having IBS is the reason that the cause of death section on my autopsy report has already been filled in with "Butt Catastophe". Anyway, pooping at grandma's house or, god forbid, at school was one thing but shitting into a haunted outhouse in the middle of the snake infested forest in fucking Lutsen was a whole different animal. Actually, I can't really attest to that. Wanna know why? Because in the eight days I was at camp, I didn't shit. Not once. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I didn't have to. I had to take a duraflame sized crap the first day I got there but as soon as I saw the nazi death chamber they called a bathroom the game was over. An 11 year old boy is already a fully operational diarrhea factory but when you factor in a week long diet of sloppy joe's, jolly ranchers and gatorade that shit factory turns into a full on weapons grade nerve gas warehouse staffed by al qaeda's all star team. The first few days I was able to keep the PSI levels down by farting behind the camp chapel. By mid week though, my butthole was as plugged up as John Goodman's toilet on Thanksgiving. It might as well have had a manhole cover over it. No air was getting out without the entire dam bursting. The two things I learned from this experience were that the pain threshold of a pre pubescent young boy is a lot higher than you would think. The other is that bug spray makes a shitty deoderizer. It might be of some use if you just rocked a typical fart but when you're ass is clogged up with a week's worth of junk food, you are the fart. You're a walking, talking, living, breathing fart. And no amount of mosquito repellent can disguise that. Maybe that's why people stopped talking to me after about the fourth day.

When my parent's finally picked me up that saturday they took me to Champp's for a welcome home dinner. I ordered a cheeseburger and promptly pooped my pants right there in the booth. I excused myself to the bathroom where I emptied the contents of my pants, which used to be the contents of my butthole, into the toilet and swiftly through my underwear in the trash. Unfortunately it wasn't the last time in my life that a camping trip ended with me scooping poop out of my pants into the toilet at a suburban sport's bar. I should probably learn how to crap like an adult at some point in my life.