Sunday hits: Vandenbussche, Vinnie, Sundin, God

by Sean Zandberg on Jul 13, 2008 2:35 PM PDT Comment 0 comments

Former NHL enforcer Ryan VandenBussche was cleared of assault charges Friday stemming from a brawl outside a bar in which he admittedly punched a police officer in the face, threatened to kill another, and was Tasered three times and pepper-sprayed before being subdued.
VandenBussche's lawyer successfully argued that his client's history of concussions and a hard shove against a wall during the altercation legally rendered him a "non-insane automaton" that cleared him of criminal responsibility for his actions -- including a punch that broke a police officer's nose and orbital bone.

It's been 2 days since this news broke out, I know. But don't you smell the foul stench of bullshit from this ruling? Now a history of concussions can get you off the hook for beating on cops. Whatever happened to accepting responsibility for your actions? Oh right, lawyers who get paid huge dollars can take care of it.

The Lightning have signed Vinnie Lecavalier to an 11-year contract extension worth $85 million.The deal begins in the 2009-10 season and will pay Lecavalier $10 million in salary and bonuses for the first six seasons of the deal, then $8.5-million in 2016-2017, $4-million in 2017-2018, $1.5-million in 2018-2019 and $1-million and 2019-2020.
This deal will kick in after next season, as Lecavalier will make $7.167 milion this coming season in what would have been the final year of his contract.
I'm not sure I've seen a descending-scale contract quite like that before. "$1 million in 2019-20"? Well, I guess Vinnie will be about 40 years old by then. But what if he's a 40-year-old who can still score 25-30 goals? He'll be a steal!

According to our favorite guessing guru:

...I am being told more and more that Mats is going to return to the NHL and a source this morning told me that, "He will be Canadien by week's end, and the Habs know it. It is being kept quiet so the team can make the needed moves to clear cap space without teams being able to completely take advantage"

Anybody want to wager that this is NOT going to happen?

The guys at Holy Taco couldn't have put description of the clip below any better:

Since it’s Sunday we should all be reminded that our God is a vengeful God who will strike us down whenever he feels like it. As we all know, he doesn’t like coveting, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, murdering, working on the Sabbath (blogging isn’t work, right?), or gays. But now it looks like we can also add "filming rain storms" to the list of things that pisses God off.

The woman was fine. Apparently she said the lightning went through her left hand that was holding the camera, across her back and through her right hand that was holding a metal railing. No wounds suffered, she said, just a big zap. I'm not believing this story. If you get hit by lightning, you're going to feel more than just a zap.
But who gives a shit what I think, check out the clip. Pretty insane footage.