The great Red Kelly: cat lover, hockey superstar…new-age spiritualist? Well, not quite. As with everything here at Church & Carlton, the truth is stranger than fiction.
My Patreon is here if you want to throw a couple of bucks my way. Today’s episode references a previous episode on Ned Hanlan – I think they make nice companion pieces to one another.
Full transcript under the cut. See you in two weeks!
E.C.
A dramatic reading of last year’s Christmas post, “Honky The Christmas Goose” tells the story of my favourite piece of Leafs esoterica. You can hear the original song here.
My Patreon has already helped me to buy a nice pair of snow boots (Thanks!), so from here on out, it will mostly be funding my research trips to the Toronto Archives and the Toronto Reference Library (subway fare, printing costs, caffeine, etc…). If you’d like to donate, you can do so here.
Happy Holidays to you and yours.
-E.C.
Today’s episode is a salute to one of my personal heroes, the legendary Frank Mahovlich, King of Sass.
If you like what you hear and want to help your girl buy a new pair of winter boots, you can donate to my Patreon here. For just three bucks an episode, you can help your favourite Leafs-loving human disaster keep making podcasts.
Tonight’s episode focuses on the uniquely Canadian intersection of hockey and faith through the story of Fr. Les Costello, the promising young Maple Leaf who gave up a hockey career to become a wildly unconventional Catholic priest.
On the subject of Irish Catholicism, I’m loath to ask for money, but if you want to give me tremendous pangs of Catholic guilt, you can support me on Patreon.
Jeff Ferguson, 45, expresses confusion after LGBT Blue Jays fans tweeted their disappointment in Kevin Pillar for using a homophobic slur.
TORONTO – A contingent of confused local men named Jeff took to the streets last night to protest the reverse-homophobic treatment of Blue Jays’ CF Kevin Pillar at the hands of some special snowflakes on Twitter. Pillar, who was caught on camera uttering a homophobic slur during Wednesday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, has become an unlikely rallying point for Jeffs who would otherwise be slightly uncomfortable around Jewish people.
“I personally don’t see an issue with saying that word in a moment of frustration,” said Jeff Anderson, 45. “I called the office copy machine a f****t just last week.”
“The trouble is that this generation is too sensitive,” his friend Jeff Benson, 45, added. “When I was young, we got offended by important things like Janet Jackson’s right nipple and songs that might subconsciously remind people of 9/11. Nowadays, kids want you to apologize every time you say something demeaning and offensive to vulnerable minorities. I mean, am I gonna get thrown in a concentration camp next time I make fun of a cab driver’s accent?”
Jeff Carson, 45, choked back tears as he rallied the crowd with a powerful speech about diversity and inclusion in baseball. “Jackie Robinson didn’t become the first black guy to pull himself up by his bootstraps and make it to the big leagues just so we could discriminate against heterosexuals and I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with me!”
“It’s outrageous,” said Jeff Davidson, 45, when confronted with accusations of homophobia among the protesters. “How could I be homophobic when I took my wife Suzanne to see that Michael Bublé at the Living Arts Centre?” When informed that Bublé is, in fact, straight, Davidson mumbled “Coulda fooled me,” and looked down at his Dockers slip-on loafers.
The protest ended in chaos as former Walrus editor Jonathan Kay sat cross-legged in the middle of the intersection, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match to protest this shocking act of cultural Marxism. “Such a tragedy,” said Jeff Ericsson, 45. “This is the saddest thing to happen since that George Michael guy died of…I don’t know. AIDS, probably.”
Leafs play-by-play announcer Joe Bowen calls his 3000th Leaf game tonight. In light of this astonishing achievement in masochism, I have decided to honour one of the most prolific and influential sportscasters in hockey history with the best game I could hastily make in Microsoft Word.
Crank up your AM radio, crack open a beer, and play along as the great Joe Bowen and his stalwart sidekick Jim Ralph call the game like a hoser Timon and Pumbaa.
Nazem Kadri first voiced his disapproval of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban in November of 2015:
“I think he’s pretty delusional. But his opinion’s his opinion…[T]hat being said, I’m lucky to live in a country like Canada, where people of political stature don’t say those kinds of things to make people feel out of place.”
I met James Reimer once. It was at last year’s outdoor practice and all of a sudden he was maybe two feet away from me and I had to say something. Except I didn’t know what to say so I said “You’re very popular with lesbians.” He started laughing really hard and I didn’t know what to do so I started laughing really hard and we both stood there in -30 degree weather laughing until we both started coughing from the cold. He smiled the now-famous crooked smile and said “Thank you” and his face was that fire engine shade of red that it gets during shootouts. It was awesome.
It’s true though: he is very popular with lesbians. Well, bi girls, ace girls, and non-binary people mostly, but my brain had entered Emergency Shutdown Mode and the only word I could come up with was “lesbians.“And our weird little encounter is something I’ve thought about a lot since, mostly because he seemed so genuinely delighted to be very popular with lesbians. Continue reading
“That’s horseshit,” says Terry. “Geese don’t fuckin’ have noses.”
“It’s for kids,” Johnny says. ‘Kids don’t care whether geese have noses or not.”
“But how does he honk then, if he’s got a fuckin’ nose? Geese honk with their beaks. I seen ’em.”
“And reindeer don’t have red noses, Terry. No one cares about this stuff at Christmas.”
“It’s not so much the nose thing that concerns me so much as the general narrative structure.” Frank slicks a wad of Brylcreem through his black hair. “The chorus implies that Honky’s central conflict will be his struggles with his weight but the verses deal primarily with the problems caused by his honking.”
“Mahovlich,” says Terry. “You’re the biggest fucking fruitcake I ever met in my life.”
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