THANK YOU BEN!

Hi everybody.

Ritch Duncan here, back at the helm of AHF, extending a hearty "Thanks a Bunch" to (previously) silent team member Ben Z who stepped up to the plate and guest-blogged his ass off over the last few days while I was on a much-needed vacation, far from the realms of wireless internet connections. I gotta learn how to insert those pictures he does.

But he did a great job, despite making me die a little inside by hipping me to that picture of Lindsay Lohan posing in front of the Stanley Cup at a party for Maxim magazine. Clearly, she's a hockey fan. In fact, bystanders were impressed by her reverence for the greatest trophy in the world when they overheard her telling one of the Cup's official handlers, "Thank God, my Scorpion Bowl is here! Oh, and HEY! Where the fuck are my straws!?"

Fuck her, and fuck the PR douchebag who thought that was a good idea.

To quote my pal Chris Regan : "I love reading Maxim, mainly because I have a crippling fear of real pornography."

I guess I think bringing the Cup to that party is an odd fit, mainly because the Stanley Cup is a bowl worth reading, whereas Maxim magazine is hardly worth reading on the bowl. And that's what you do with the Stanley Cup, by the way- you read it. It's more than a big trophy, it's a piece of living history with a million stories in it, and at least one great story for every engraved name.

But many thanks to Ben.

Great job.