Plus/Minus: It's a mad mad mad mad mad world

Just when you think things can't get any crazier, they do. I'm pretty sure that there's some kind of universal law about that, no? If there isn't, can we name it after me? 

PLUS

+ No matter, what, the Habs' yearly children's hospital visits always get a Plus. The players have so many roles to play, and sure, sometimes they don't have their best game, and sometimes they spit a few clichés at beat reporters and call it a night, but playing the part of a sick little kid's hero? That's not the kind of thing you can do easily, and you can't just coast through it or fake it. These guys step up every year, and the kids love them for it.

+ Congratulations to Frédéric St. Denis on his first NHL goal!
+ Angry Josh Gorges.
+ It hurts to congratulate a goalie you play against, but both Curtis Sanford and Roberto Luongo were great in their shootout wins over Montreal this week.
+ That being said, no one can deny just how important Carey Price is to this team. I don't even want to think about where the Canadiens would be without him. He's every bit as talented and composed as he needs to be - any more would just be gravy.
+ Last Monday, in a game against Phoenix, Jonathan Toews did everything that you could possibly want a star forward to do.
+ As a TV fan, I believe that a good Christmas episode should have you in stitches and/or tears, preferably both at the same time. My TV comedies were great at that last week: especially How I Met Your Mother and Parks and Recreation with the tears.
+ Taran Killam's recreation of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" video: pure hilarity, and proof that the people on SNL are funnier than you think they are.

MINUS

A week ago I'd have thought this was Photoshopped

- I’m kind of glad that Madonna being announced as the Super Bowl halftime performer wasn’t the biggest sports story of the week. Way too much whining about this as if it were a problem. It’s not a problem. There are two kinds of people in this world: people who like Madonna and people who lie.
- Sure, Spacek was an inconsistent, goofy, injury-prone big lug, but he was OUR inconsistent, goofy, injury-prone big lug. I wanted to keep him.
- Pierre Gauthier and Jacques Martin tried awfully hard to spin the Kaberle trade to appease Habs fans. I would have preferred honesty over blank praise. I know it's never going to happen, but I still kind of wish it would.
- Is it terrible of me to think that maybe Sidney Crosby wouldn't be out of a roster spot again if he hadn't started playing again when he did? People thought that his recovery was some kind of a miracle, and the greatest thing in sports or something. And I hate to Grinch all over it but maybe he was rushed back too soon, by doctors who may not have known that it was too soon, and maybe this just proves that we don't know enough about brain injuries.

- I have no idea what would motivate Pat Hickey to write such terrible things about Theo Fleury. But to think that he actually thought, and wrote, and then actually submitted these things for print is just awful. I can't even put it into words.

- If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen yesterday that I got mad at someone who made a rude comment towards me. I'd like to elaborate a little on that. I maybe got a little too angry, and tried to stoop to his level. In the words of Bob Gainey: "When you're being bullied, if you don't stand up for yourself... who's going to?" I'm sorry if the way that I expressed myself seemed immature, but I was upset, and I will never not be upset when someone tells me I can't or shouldn't do something just because I'm female.