Today’s been a good day… Some good business got done, some good things are happening in life…

…And the Gruden/Allen ineptitude complex at One Buccaneer Place is history.

Check out Buc’Em for the latest blogging and discussion about the news.

Damian Cristodero at the Times reports that NHL official Stephen Walkom sees nothing wrong from last night:

Stephen Walkom, the NHL’s director of officiating, said the ruling that Lightning goaltender Mike Smith deliberately threw his stick to disrupt Milan Hejduk’s shootout attempt on Thursday was the correct call.

“It was a very tough call. It was a gutsy call. It was a call that was made in an instant, and I support the call,” Walkom said.

In a related story, Stephen Walkom is an idiot if he thinks this was a deliberate stick throwing incident:

(hat tip to Cassie at Boltsblog for getting the full video)

This is just a show of solidarity and among officials by standing by each other when one is wrong. Not just minorly, mistakenly wrong in this case, but completely batshit-crazy wrong that determines the outcome of a game without a goal being scored.

Got a post-mortem season poll for the Bucs up over at Sticks of Fire regarding the team’s direction. Please head on over there to vote, kvetch and all that jazz.

The site note I have to bring up is a change to the anti-spam plugin employed here at Boltsmag. I’ve just switched to the built in anti-spam Akismet plugin for Wordpress due to a conflict inspired by Spam Karma on my other blogs. The technical mumbo jumbo shouldn’t effect many (or any) on Boltsmag but if you suddenly find your comments locked-out, please get in touch with me over the problem.

John asked for my thoughts on the draft this weekend in regards to the Buccaneers. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I am simply sour on the local ball team ever since they won Super Bowl XXXVII. Here’s my roundabout way of expressing that:

John: Are you another Calvin Johnson acolyte or do you actually have some thoughts on things that we need instead of want?

Tommy: When Tony Dungy & Rich McKay were running things, i knew what they would do in the draft, and if i DINT know what they would do, I had complete confidence in their abilities to get the right piece of the puzzle.

Since then is another story. I can never tell what Gruden is thinking. And even afterward, i’m scratching my head on his picks. In addition, the end result is generally just average. They haven’t done a horrible job, but haven’t had any picks pan into a WOW, either.

So….

In summary, I’m just not gonna guess anymore, and will try not to be surprised at what they do.

It’s just not easy to get excited about the team with Bruce Allen and Jon Gruden running the show – I don’t understand the way they think. I’m wondering if the rest of the Tampa Bay is starting to feel like this?