Thrashers, Atlanta were never given a chance
Thrashers fans tried hard to keep hope, season after season. But the deck was stacked against them. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
(Updated: 12:30 p.m.)
This is how it ends: With the weasel of a commissioner not stepping foot in the city, with another season passing without a playoff game, with a lying ownership group maintaining it did all it could to save a franchise that in reality it spent most of seven years wrecking.
Atlanta has lost an NHL expansion team to a Canadian outpost for the second time. The Thrashers are going to Winnipeg just like the Flames went to Calgary in 1980. A press conference was held in Winnipeg, while the Thrashers sent out this warm-and-fuzzy news release: “The Atlanta Thrashers announced today that they have entered into an asset purchase agreement with True North Sports and Entertainment …”
This isn’t about the fans or the market or certainly Gary Bettman’s fictional “covenant” with fans, which I believe he left in the same sock drawer with his conscience. It’s about greed and abandonment, plain and simple. It’s about a disingenuous ownership group, which had long lost any semblance of credibility, serving up fans swill and gruel and then wondering why the turnstiles sleep at night.
They’ll tell you they care. They don’t. They’re walking away with a fat check. While you mourn the loss of a franchise, they’re waving goodbye with one middle finger.
The NHL is leaving a city that never really was given a chance. It’s going back to a city that it left 15 years ago and that has grown by about 60,000 people and a couple of doughnut shops since. They will be discussing this decision one day at business schools, right after the sections on Charles Ponzi and Enron.
Atlanta didn’t fail. The franchise failed. But the NHL doesn’t care about that. This is a league that survives on franchise fees and relocation fees. It collected $80 million from Ted Turner for an expansion fee in 1997. (He joked in the Board of Governors meeting that followed that he could’ve saved $70 million by purchasing the Flames from Tom Cousins for $10 million. Nobody laughed.) The league reportedly will collect another $60 million for permission to move the Thrashers to Manitoba.
In five years, when another failing franchise wants to move into Philips Arena, Bettman will be happy to collect another fat relocation fee, and he’ll deliver the same canned, phony speech about how he always believed in this market. The guy has told so many lies, it’s a wonder he’s not an Atlanta Spirit partner. (One postscript: Bettman referred to them as the “Atlantic” Spirit on Tuesday.)
Now living in Calgary.
There are hockey teams in Tampa and San Jose and Raleigh, and I could go on. There’s still one inexplicably in Phoenix, which the NHL is floating for another year, maybe because Bettman plans to retire and open up a pawn shop there one day. Is Atlanta an inferior market to any of those cities? Or does product have something to do with it?
There was no reason to do this now. When the Phoenix-to-Winnipeg deal fell apart, the NHL (which owns the Coyotes) was out $170 million. Bettman panicked. So he crossed out Phoenix and wrote in Atlanta. But why couldn’t he have waited a year to see if another owner for the team
Now living in Winnipeg.
emerged? Winnipeg wasn’t going anywhere. Was Bettman that desperate for the $60 million?
“I have absolutely no doubt that this market can support an NHL team,” said Bob Hartley, a native Canadian, a Stanley Cup winner in Colorado and the only coach to get the Thrashers to the playoffs. “It’s a huge disappointment to see the Atlanta franchise leave before so many other cities in the league. I loved it there. My last two years in Atlanta were as exciting as what I went through in Colorado. We had only two [home] playoffs games but it was a Stanley Cup atmosphere. But Hoss [Marian Hossa] left, Kovy [llya Kovalchuk] left, I was gone. It felt like the organization was drained of its energy.”
First player: Damian Rhodes. First draft pick: Patrik Stefan. First coach: Curt Fraser. First general manager: Don Waddell. That was only the beginning. Eleven seasons: one playoff berth, no wins.
Turner was followed by AOL/Time Warner, a bad marriage that was followed by an even worse one: Atlanta Spirit, LLC. Hossa saw no future here. Kovalchuk, given so many misdirections by part-owner Bruce Levenson in negotiations, wasn’t even sure the team would stay. Both wanted out.
There never was a commitment. There never was hope. There never was a plan — at least not one that worked.
A city just lost a franchise. While you mourn, they laugh. It’s nothing less than shameful.
By Jeff Schultz
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1,115 comments Add your comment
paw
May 31st, 2011
9:51 pm
When do the Knight tickets go on sale?
I’m first in line!!
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
9:52 pm
And this is why my league will always be last…..we abandon large markets to move to towns with one traffic light……but man, that 60 mill sure is nice!!
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
9:56 pm
You know they wouldn’t be leaving the large market if the fans were turning up to the games and buying tickets. You had 200 bloody people at your save the team rally, that one traffic light town had 30,000 at theirs 16 years ago.
There are smaller market teams in America that do better, for that matter. if the fans are there the team will stay.
Will Stockdale
May 31st, 2011
9:59 pm
Michael Gearon, Jr….. You sound like a girly man. I’ll bet if you were in a fight, you would hit someone with your purse.
Ray B
May 31st, 2011
10:00 pm
Growing up in the north east, I am a huge hockey fan. When Atlanta got the Thrashers, I was very excited. However, year after year of inept ownership waned my interest. It is a shame. I was at the playoff games in ‘07 and the atmosphere was electric. Despite what moron Bettman may say, Atlanta IS a great hockey market. Go to a game….the fans still shout KNIGHTS during the national anthem. These are good hockey fans….but not stupid fans. They know a lemon when they see one. This fan base was never given a fair opportunity and Bettman the moron simply will not admit it (for 60 million good reasons). Congrats Bettman the moron…..you have lost this hockey fan….for good. Too many good Braves and Falcon games to care about….I was watching the Stanley Cop playoffs….but no more. Enjoy your time in Winnipeg….when you discover that that small market cannot support $100 per game tickets, you’ll wish you had stayed here.
Angie O'Plasty
May 31st, 2011
10:04 pm
The Thrashers sucked…see ya later !
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
10:04 pm
HistoricalFail: The fans need to be sold a car that runs and from a salesman that doesn’t have greasy hair and no ethics. As Ray B said above, this IS a great hockey town. But it has smart fans, and they could see the lemon for what it was. As another poster mentioned, tickets were $12 when Winnipeg last had a team. Let’s see those 30,000 fans show up each night if the product stinks and tickets are $100 a piece. Good luck with that.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:05 pm
Man, you guys really have your heads in the sand about what the Atlanta market really looked like, huh?
If you’re a fan of your team, and a fan of the sport, you turn up, through good and bad. Maybe if you understood that mentality, you’d still have your team. I used to feel sad for millionaire hockey players whenever i watched my team on television playing in your arena, because i couldn’t imagine how demoralizing it must feel to play to 6 or 7 thousand people in a 20,000 seat arena.
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
10:05 pm
HistoricalFail: What you fail to realize is that this was a new team…not the Canadians with a 100 year history. This team needed to build the fan base…and all the ownership ever did was ship out good players and sing us a tune. The league did NOTHING to ever help the situation. I’m telling you, in 2007, that building was sold out and jumping. But you cannot cut all talent, every year, charge $100 per seat, and expect SMART fans to show up…..maybe that formula will work in Winnipeg, but not here…..we have more than one source of entertainment in this city in which to spend our dollars.
Bill
May 31st, 2011
10:05 pm
@playmeortrademe
Excellent point about how the transplanted fans plan for their teams to visit way in advance!
Very true, and definitely something I saw a lot less of in the other cities, for better or worse.
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:05 pm
For those that say Atlanta’s attendance was poor, here’s the list per ESPN’s website:
2000-2001
#23 Atlanta (625,780 total / 15,262 avg.)
followed by: Blackhawks, Lightning, Panthers, Coyotes, Ducks, Hurricanes, NY Islanders
2001-2002
#28 Atlanta (560,404 total/ 13,668 avg.)
followed by: Coyotes, Ducks
2002-2003
#28 Atlanta (552,535 total, 13,476 avg.)
followed by: Coyotes, Predators
2003-2004
#22 Atlanta (619,965 total / 15,121 avg.)
followed by: Devils, Ducks, Capitals, NY Islanders, Blackhawks, Predators, Hurricanes, Penguins
2004-2005
no listings
2005-2006
#23 Atlanta (637,578 total / 15,550 avg.)
followed by: Ducks, Predators, Devils, Blues, Capitals, Blackhawks, NY Islanders
2006-2007
#21 Atlanta (665,862 total / 16,240 avg.)
followed by: Panthers, Predators, Coyotes, Bruins, Devils, Capitals, NY Islanders, Blackhawks, Blues
2007-2008
#22 Atlanta (649,081 total / 15,831 avg.)
followed by: Devils, Capitals, Panthers, Bruins, Predators, Blue Jackets, Coyotes, NY Islanders
2008-2009
#29 Atlanta (599,673 total / 14,626 avg.)
followed by: NY Islanders
2009-2010
#28 Atlanta (557,897 total / 13,607 avg.)
followed by: NY Islanders, Coyotes
2010-2011
#28 Atlanta (552,230 total / 13,469 avg.)
followed by: Coyotes, NY Islanders
We may not have been as high as we like to in all years, BUT you can’t argue with #’s putting us ABOVE “typical Northern US hockey cities” like Chicago, NJ, Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, NY, etc., for 5 of those years!
Also, just about every season Phoenix finished AFTER Atlanta (7 out of 10 times). So care to elaborate on how they care MORE about their team than we do?
Now, I won’t argue that in some places hockey is more popular of a sport than others…..HOWEVER, you can’t exactly blame the NHL for trying to get hockey more popular everywhere.
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:05 pm
“Fuddle
May 31st, 2011
9:40 pm
What amazes me is how your letters to the editor are like ours of 15 years ago .
When I was in university , I could buy Jets tickets for $12.00 a game . When Barry Shenkrow took the team over from Ben Hatskin , the prices went up, the Jets became insolvent , and Shenkrow cashed in and sold the Jets to Phoenix . Three issues bug me.
1. Winnipeg fans will not be thrilled in forking out $80 -$135 a ticket .
2 .I don’t believe for a minute that car-dealer-scheister Chipman is really paying fellow-weasel Gary Bettman 60 million dollars for a relocation fee .
3. In spite of his wealth , Chipman received a low interest loan from the Manitoba government the other day to execute this deal .
This is just SO-O-O sleazy .”
Nice to see others think that this “deal” needs to be looked @ closer!
soloman73
May 31st, 2011
10:07 pm
I am in agreement with a lot of you on here that we the fans should not support the ASG with our money. Hate that I won’t be watching the Hawks but as long as ASG has anything to do with them I will not be there.
Watch
May 31st, 2011
10:07 pm
Sounds like the writer never bothered to locate San Jose on a map. San Jose is the second most populated city in California and shares with San Francisco one of the largest tv markets covering the Bay Area. Also establishing a winning product while the bay’s basketball and football team put out poor products makes it easy to draw new fans and keep established fans.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:08 pm
BTW, I don’t live in Winnipeg, and I don’t have a vested interest in the team coming there. Perhaps that’s why I can see the situation a little more clearly?
As for smart fans, you’ve twice now let a team you claim was playing in a great market move away by staying away. How smart does that sound to you? I realize the ownership group has a lot to answer for, but at the end of the day, the fan support just wasn’t there. if it was, you’d still have a team, plain and simple.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:11 pm
Sorry mate, but those numbers are padded, by about 5-7 thousand depending on the season. Announced attendance is fudged at almost any sporting event, but in Atlanta and Phoeniz it’s gotten particularly bad, as far as the NHL is concerned.
jerry
May 31st, 2011
10:11 pm
The Thrasher were never last in attendence despite usually having one of the worst teams if not the worst. What can you say about a bunch of idiots who canceled an entire season and were led by Bettman? The NHL is a jungle of big market teams on the prowl and when there is money on the table, there is blood in the water. The ASG were nothing but little fish who jumped into a pool of sharks and that wasn’t too smart, was it?
Randal Patrick McMurphy
May 31st, 2011
10:11 pm
If Ted Turner wasn’t such a Jackass and insistent on building that rink downtown instead of Cobb or Gwinnett, they might have had a real chance at growing a fan base – even thriving. It’s a case of geographic logistics, plain n simple…
Bill
May 31st, 2011
10:11 pm
HistoricalFail
What zombie “mentality” are you talking about? Settling for mediocrity? You’ve got to be a Cubs fan with that line of thinking.
PT Barnum would have loved you!
These pro teams have to EARN our business! It is a business.You know that, don’t you?
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:14 pm
“HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:11 pm
Sorry mate, but those numbers are padded, by about 5-7 thousand depending on the season. Announced attendance is fudged at almost any sporting event, but in Atlanta and Phoeniz it’s gotten particularly bad, as far as the NHL is concerned”
Okay, so reduce everybody’s #’s by 5-7 thousand……results will still put us ahead of those locations.
playmeortrademe
May 31st, 2011
10:16 pm
@HistoricalFail,
If you like steak, but the new restaurant in town kept feeding you an awful tasting steak for $25 a pop time and time again, would you go back? It’ s not the fans fault the hockey product was lousy. I wasn’t going to send my hard earned money to ASG for them to piss away on lawyers fighting against each other instead of investing it toward a quality hockey product. It’s not “plain and simple”, it would be pretty stupid of the people of this city to waste money yon a bad product.
tom
May 31st, 2011
10:17 pm
The owners are the reason Atlanta lost the Thrashers. Leaving Waddell to fail season after season was key to the lost team.
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:18 pm
Oh, another bit of info: ASG did NOT have legal title ownership until Dec. 2010 – Jan. 2011.
How exactly can you look for buyers & try to sell over something you DON’T own? Normally, those that get caught doing that are put in jail for said activity.
Horsehockey
May 31st, 2011
10:19 pm
Atlanta has chunks of cities like Winnipeg in it’s stool.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:21 pm
Bill, that’s your problem right there, your team isn’t a “business”, it’s your team. You support them through thick and thin, through good and bad. Do you know what FC Barcelona’s fans did when things got bad? They went out and bought the team, they are fan owned, and they are now the best REAL football club in the world, in fact they just trounced the richest one in the champions league final. If you love your team, you support them, and you get rewarded in the end.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:23 pm
As for your team being bad, you didn’t come back this season, when they were on the cusp of becoming a really interesting team to watch. One or two pieces added to that roster, and you’ve got a team that will start contending. But I doubt it would have made any difference. As a few have already pointed out, the Thrashers aren’t the only pro team in Atlanta having trouble attracting fans.
Horsehockey
May 31st, 2011
10:25 pm
I can understand Atlantans coming on here and venting their frustrations about losing their team, but it takes a special kind of ####ed up to go mon another city’s newspaper’s site and gloat and rub people’s noses in it. Is the Peg really that boring that this is the best use of your time? I keep hearing about some big party at Portage and Main or the Forks or some such place. Must not be so great if the AJC comments section is a better alternative. Some of y’all need to find a girlfriend or something.
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:25 pm
For those saying Atlanta lost 2 teams, help me out here:
1. The Flames were 1 of the better teams in the NHL & had a great record with them.
2. The Thrashers had better attendance than many “traditional” hockey cities.
So, where exactly did we go wrong with either group? If it’s not about the playing or attendance, then………….?????
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:27 pm
Thrashers Fan, that would work if everyone’s numbers were fudged to that degree, but they weren’t. Some weren;t being fudged at all, namely the big teams (Toronto, Montreal, New York, etc) that have been keeping the small market clubs afloat for years now. You can hardly expect them to do that forever.
For what it’s worth though guys, I think Phoenix most definitely should have been moved before you. At least you’re not being forced by your local government to pay for a team you have shown no interest in.
playmeortrademe
May 31st, 2011
10:28 pm
did I have a previous post deleted because I badmouthed Birmingham, Alabama?
@ Fuddle…it does stink. $100 tickets + less corporate sponsors + potentially bad product + team not named “Jets” = hockey fail in Winnipeg and eventual move to Seattle or Quebec City, if teams in Phoenix and Miami don’t end up there first.
Bettman is second only to Bud Selig in ineptness, the southern expansion has generally been a failure in markets with two other pro teams, and the NHL has too many teams for the overall hockey talent and fan support. If a league truly needed to contract to improve the product, it’s the NHL.
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
10:33 pm
schmeckdawg: LOL….let Winnipeg have this sorry franchise…and they can all do whatever it is they do up there. I’ll take the ATL and our tried and true franchises any day (Braves and Falcons….can’t include the Hawks with their current ownership).
Bill
May 31st, 2011
10:33 pm
@HistoricalFail
Did you actually bring a SOCCER reference into a Southern blog?
Blasphemy! I got confused for a second that you were referring to that game with the black-and-white ball as “football”.
Sorry, Its soccer!
Seriously, I went to roughly 30 or so Thrasher games, as well as 20-30 games growing up when the Flames were in town. I supported my teams, and they both left. Dosen;t feel like much of a reward to me…
Thrashers Fan
May 31st, 2011
10:33 pm
“HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:27 pm
Thrashers Fan, that would work if everyone’s numbers were fudged to that degree, but they weren’t. Some weren;t being fudged at all, namely the big teams (Toronto, Montreal, New York, etc) that have been keeping the small market clubs afloat for years now. You can hardly expect them to do that forever.
For what it’s worth though guys, I think Phoenix most definitely should have been moved before you. At least you’re not being forced by your local government to pay for a team you have shown no interest in.”
I highly suspect that “fudging” the numbers is only done by a select group of teams in any sport. I have been to several sporting events both in the South & North where the attendance given is definitely in question.
& I don’t think there is a single person who’ll argue that Phoenix should NOT have been the team in this situation. After all, Phoenix Coyotes = Winnipeg Jets. So…..how did Atlanta become the victim in this deal? &, as numerous posters have mentioned, how quickly this “deal” was done to get no other result than relocation vrs. what support Phoenix was shown by the NHL.
Rob Allan
May 31st, 2011
10:35 pm
You clowns are the same people who make fun of Buffalo, where we sell out every Sabres game.
Can’t understand all the uproar now, you didn’t support the team, you lose.
That’s life in professional sports.
The .. Winnipeg Thrashers?
May 31st, 2011
10:37 pm
Needless to say I hope the new city thing fails and fails badly. First season will be good but afterward I’m talking attendance in the 1000K range … team in last place just playing absolutely horrible.
That would make the team moving at least a bit bearable and I would get an incredibly huge moment of laughter out of it
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:38 pm
Yeah, it’s not soccer, Bill, it’s FOOTBALL, you know, the one where the foot actually comes in contact with the ball on a regular occasion, not four or five times a game. It’s also the worlds most popular sport. Your version is a prissy rip off of another game, called Rugby.
The point remains, a team that now rakes in more than pretty much any American sporting franchise could ever hope to is owned and operated by fans, because they loved their team. Like I said, if the support is their, the team will be as well.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:40 pm
ThrashersFan, Phoenix has (inexplicably) at least had bites of new ownership interest from groups initially willing to keep the team there, I also believe their tv market is bigger, though I’m not sure on that one. Thoe would be two answers, though.
believe me, no ones unhappier about this move than Bettman. he does not want teams back in Canada, don’t believe that for a second.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:43 pm
BTW Bill, I get that you supported the team, and I legitimately feel for guys like yourself down south tonight, it can;t be easy. But the problem is that not enough people did, at the end of the day. The reasons for that are numerous, but you can’t take all blame away from the populace who never turned up.
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
10:43 pm
J-E-T-S…jets….jets….jets
Wonder if Bettman the Moron will hire Fireman Ed to chant at the games of his new 60 million prize?
Scr*w you Bettman
Scr*w you Winnipeg
Scr*w you True North
Scr*w you Atlanta Spirit
Scr*w you NHL
To all you Thrasher fans out there in Atlanta (you know who you are, and I can promise you we outnumber the population of Winnipeg)….it is not your fault this happened. This lies squarely on the NHL who decided to rescue Phoenix while ignoring us. Probably too embarassing to have the team that left Winnipeg go back there. This solely falls on Bettman the Moron.
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:44 pm
I sincerely doubt there are more than 630,000 thrashers fans. if there were, you’d still have your team, or would have at lest got more than 200 people out to your save the team rally.
Bettman the moron
May 31st, 2011
10:45 pm
HistoricalFail…get a clue….Bettman would move a team to Zimbabwe if it meant 60 mil in his pocket. His pathteic ownership groups su*ck so he makes his money through relocation fees.
playmeortrademe
May 31st, 2011
10:49 pm
Things is , the Thrashers had their chance to steal the spotlight in 2007 from the other Atlanta teams and failed. In 2006-2007, the Braves missed the playoffs, the Falcons had a 7-9 season followed by the Vick debacle and 4-12 2007 season, and the Hawks went 30-52 for their 8th straight year out of the playoffs. Thrashers had a chance to own the city the spring of 2007 but failed to win even one playoff game. Playoff hockey is exciting, even on TV. If that team could have won even one series and played 12-14 playoff games, it may have changed things as far as their place in the city’s pecking order, notwithstanding the awful ownership. As it turned out, the Falcons, Braves and Hawks all started to improve their product after that year, and the Thrashers became an afterthought
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
10:51 pm
If that were true, he would have let Ballsillie buy the Coyotes for the exorbitant sum he was willing to pay and move them to Hamilton, mate. Do you know what pays more than relocation fees? New Franchise fees. That’s what Bettman wants in Canada, it’s what he’s wanted all along in the US as well, which is why we have a bloated league with teams playing hockey in places that have no business housing a pro hockey team.
Bill
May 31st, 2011
10:51 pm
HistoricalFail
Enjoy your parts of the world where it’s called “Football”, you can HAVE it! It’s great exercise, but besides that…
Also, who gives a rip that it’s the most popular sport in the world!
Weak argument, and part of what makes America great is not caring what other countries think of us.
Football is “prissy”,huh? (interesting word) Ok, I’ll play along. Who is more “prissy”, David Beckham or Ray Lewis? I’ll give you a second to Google Ray Lewis, since you’ve probably never heard of him.
Wimps_ca
May 31st, 2011
10:51 pm
Butt-man IS a moron, but slamming the ‘peg is not justified, we didn’t slam Phoenix when the Jets moved there, so like I’ve said to Wpg trolls posting GROW UP and show some class.
.
LameLanta
May 31st, 2011
10:52 pm
Sorry, but even though the Spirit Group were awful and didn’t help fund new area rinks to help minor hockey in Atlanta like Dallas did, still no excuse to stop going to games…You go to root for your team win and the love of hockey and complain while you’re at the game. Any potential buyer will not want to buy a team that if they stop winning that suddenly everyone stops going to the games!! ASP, Waddell, players and yes…fans are all to blame
Not Surprised
May 31st, 2011
10:53 pm
Sad but not surprising. It is not surprising that a franchise that seemed for the last number of years to be acting as a farm team for the remainder of the NHL failed to secure enough support in its market. The number of outstanding players that came through the franchise and did not stay is staggering. That alone gives one a very good indication of the ownership’s commitment to putting a quality team on the ice.
The ownership got what they put into it. Nothing and we are all the losers for it….
BomberRiderFan
May 31st, 2011
10:54 pm
Hey Schultz… yah Winnipeg grew by 50 000. 50 000 hockey fans. Quit blaming ownership. If ya’ll wanted to keep the team then you should have went to the game. Oh and I think Winnipeg actually grew by 20 donut shops. Tim Horton’s… named after a darn good Canadian player!
Rod
May 31st, 2011
10:57 pm
I get your anger in the commentary but keep it focussed where it needs to be. Why blame Winnipeg for showing passion, for wanting a team?? Canadian outpost? More donut shops??
I’m a proud Canadian from near Vancouver who has nothing but sympathy for the plight of all of the fans of the Thrashers who were just shafted by the NHL but when you make it personal against a group of people as passionate as the so-called “outposters” in Winnipeg, it makes me hard to be as sympathetic as I would like to be.
As an equivalent, I could make an incredibly inaccurate statement about all the banjo pickin’ married to each other cousins down there. Get my point?
HistoricalFail
May 31st, 2011
11:04 pm
Tim Hortons Coffee is terrible. The donuts are alright, though.