The Morning Bell for Monday February 20, 2012

Today's Ringer: Jeremy Lin

The man is a virtual nobody a few weeks ago and now he's handed the keys to the franchise. This is the most unbelievable out of nowhere rise to stardom I can imagine. Even Tim Tebow had some kind of mini-status, although that was a remarkable run too, praise be Jesus.

The Lin story made it into the opening SNL skit which was a thing of beauty and somewhat racist, but in a good way.

I'm happy there was no game on Saturday because I needed the entire day to watch the Whitney Houston funeral. If you missed it you can watch Funérailles Whitney Express on RDS. It should take about 6 hours.

The Habs had some shitting of the bed to do last night as they once again missed an important opportunity to make a dent in the standings. Like we said, now it's over.

Why the Leafs continue to lose to make this thing interesting is beyond me, but I suspect it's all part of Toronto's plan to stick it to the man. I don't know what that means. Frankly, I think it's tremendously disrespectful that the Devils played a game on the weekend of the Houston funeral. I mean really, show some class, Lou. Sport is so irrelevant in times like these.

This week, as we lead up to the Academy Awards, we will conclude this bell with a daily comment on a motion picture film that is in the running for an award of some sort.

The film: The Descendants. My spirits descended to depression after watching this film, which according to me is the second best film of the year. But what do I know. I have a 10-month old and have been to less movie theatres than Paul Reubens since he was born.