“In baseball, the object is to go home” – George Carlin
Yes George, that’s true. But not just in baseball. In all sports, the goal of all participants is to eventually compete on behalf of the home team. Even in real life, everyone knows that nobody ever left their home with the intention of never going back. Screw you, Thomas Wolfe. Not only can you go home again, you will go home again. In sports, it’s especially true. It’s the ultimate. The only reason Derek Jeter is retiring as a New York Yankee after this season is because he’s finally lost faith in the viability of New Jersey’s Peaquannock Township as a potential site for a Major League expansion team in the future.
With that in mind, it’s a foregone conclusion that Edmonton Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins will eventually be the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
If you don’t believe that, consider the following TRUE FACTS:
- Even though he spent no significant time there whatsoever, Eakins was born in Dade City, Florida!
- Dade City was annexed as part of the Tampa Bay area by the local media upon the ascension of Dade City native Jim Courier into professional tennis!
- After the most acrimonious departure in the history of a player leaving a team and four seasons in Miami, LeBron James is returning to play in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio!
- Steven Stamkos favorited a Tweet from Adam Proteau with a link to a story Proteau wrote speculating that Stamkos could sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs when his contract is up in 2016!
- Everything that happens on Twitter means something! (EXAMPLE: The other day, a friend of mine Tweeted, “OMG Bowling! So much fun!” and it totally is.)
- Stamkos’s home town of Markham, Ontario is only about 29.9 kilometers from Toronto!
- Distances between cities in Canada are measured in kilometers, not miles!
- 29.9 kilometers is 17.95763 miles!
- 17.95763 goes into 91 (Stamkos’s number) exactly 5.067483849483479 times!
- Proteau’s article is reminiscent of dozens of articles over the years out of Montreal that speculated that former Lightning forward Vincent Lecavalier would end up with the Canadiens, something which never happened… yet!
- Yesterday, I saw a cat walking backwards!
If you stir that all up, rattle some bones, pour it over a Ouija board, put on your favorite gris-gris and remove a couple of lobes from your brain, it all becomes clear: Dallas Eakins is destined to become head coach of the Lightning. Oh, and Stamkos is going to the Leafs. It doesn’t matter that Eakins is under contract with the Oilers through 2017. It doesn’t matter that the Lightning already have a head coach in Jon Cooper. This is bigger than him or them or all of us. This is destiny. It’s happening.
I know what you’re thinking. None of this might mean anything or all of this might mean nothing. I sincerely believe that at least one of those things is true. But what about this? In the ten minutes since I came up with this theory and started writing about it without telling anyone, not once has Dallas Eakins himself ever denied it! There’s no stronger confirmation of something that doesn’t exist than when an individual who doesn’t know about it fails to deny it.
Personally, I’m hoping that this happens soon enough that I can claim credit for it (thereby upping my “cred” as well as my number of Twitter followers who may be gullible sophisticated enough to purchase my book, even though I’m not above resorting to such hacky comedy gimmicks as striking through text). If it doesn’t happen, I’m hoping that the non-occurrence happens so far off in the future that this is all long forgotten, as most of this baseless speculation that is becoming more and more annoyingly prevalent deserves.
