Sunday, August 3, 2008

Bruce McLeod, Greg Sheppard: Portraits in Buffoonery

From thesaurus.com:
Main Entry: buffoon
Part of Speech: noun
Synonyms: antic, bozo, buffo, clown, comedian, comic, droll, fool, harlequin, humorist, idiot, jerk, jester, joker, merry-andrew, mime, mimic, mummer, playboy, prankster, ridicule, stooge, wag, wit, zany
I wouldn't use the word zany or the phrase merry-andrew (because I hardly find their antics entertaining) to describe McLeod and Sheppard, but clown, fool, idiot, and jerk seem pretty applicable sometimes.

Gandalf has said the following:
  • Officiating, what can I say about the Sheppard family. Not much in the way of positive things really, which is kinda sad. That is not just for people named Sheppard though, Adams, Schmidt. I can't think of one on ice official who I really like in the WCHA, and by like I mean that I wouldn't want to see fired immediately.

  • On top of that, the WCHA is lucky enough to have Bruce McLeod, our fearless leader who guides the WCHA from his chair at Denver University. Bruce really doesn't do much, he created a standardized apology letter a long time ago to send out to schools like Wisconsin and St. Cloud when his officials make mistakes that could cost a team an NCAA berth or home ice in the WCHA 1st round.

  • Why does Bruce continue to allow the WCHA to be officiated by the biggest bunch of clowns this side of Circus World Museum?

  • Worried about losing control, Bruce McLeod didn't want a WCHA game transferred to the Herb Brooks Foundation who was looking to put the game together. Apparently Bruce missed the 2007/2008 season where he already lost control of several WCHA games including several involving Wisconsin, St. Cloud and Denver.

  • Chris at WCH adds:
    Basically what McLeod is saying is that if anybody is going to screw-up a WCHA game, Goddammit, it's going to be the WCHA. I'm not sure what the risk is here. Is McLeod afraid that if the Herb Brooks Foundation hires referees that completely blow a game-changing call, they won't issue a heartfelt apology letter like McLeod had to do multiple times last season?
    And finally, Goon asks, "Is there a bigger idiot than Bruce McLeod?".

    And let's not forget about Greg Sheppard making the LetsGoDU 2007-08 Bad Boyz List.

    So, I think it's pretty well established that McLeod and Sheppard have a tendency for buffoonery. You might wonder where I'm going with this. Well, I'll tell you. Surfing the web, I lately came across a fun little contest called "Gary Bettman Art Contest: Portraits in Heroism". Some of the entries were pretty funny, especially the ones that ignored the heroism part. You can find the artwork here, here, here, here, and here.
    Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do something similar with McLeod and Sheppard. I have no skills with photoshop, so I will not be submitting an entry myself. But I look forward to seeing what the rest of you come up with. You can email your entries to sixtymin@gmail.com.

    Here are pics to get started with, although you may want to go to the wcha website for McLeod's photo, as I appear to have a bit of a problem with pixelation when posting it here. (The Sheppard pic is cropped from photo taken by Goon which I have subsequently borrowed from his website. Hope you don't mind, Goon!)


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