Plan, plan, plan!

As a Visionary, sometimes things don't always go your way the first time. There are many ways to overcome these setbacks, such as creating a scapegoat on the team, firing the coach, forming junior teams, giving away chili at Wendy's, or creating other scapegoats. With this being the week of the OSU-Michigan game, I have a week to come up with one. I'll need a few hours to watch practices and video, check with my spies to see who is not paying attention at my motivation meetings, and before you can say Todd Marchant, the fans and the press will be screaming for the ass of the new scapegoat. Right now, I'm testing the waters with Bryan Berard. He isn't playing right now and I have been feeding The Dispatch lines about how much we miss him on the power play. They're not smart enough to ask if we miss his defensive liabilities, but one day they might catch on.

So I called Bryan Murray last night. I brought up how bad things are for him up in Ottawa and what I could do to help him. I know he is trying to move players, so I talked to him about trading Berard for Alfredsson, straight up. Bryan got a little testy with me and said no f*cking way. I don't think he likes talking to me that much since I succeeded him in Florida that year and took the team all the way to the Cup Finals. He actually believes that he was the one who built the foundation for that team and that ownership jerked him around and fired him too soon. I don't really care if he thinks that way because it's history and nobody in Columbus even knows that Florida has a hockey team.

But as a Visionary, I need to quickly come up with some kind of trade or signing before this season is flushed all the way down the toilet. Can't these players get it through their heads that I will trade them if they don't start winning? There are plenty of guys digging potatoes in PEI that would love a chance play for me in the big leagues. Maybe Ling is still looking for a chance to play. Is there some kid in Cleveland that we could dress so the fans would overlook the standings and get all misty-eyed about an Ohio-born player?