Buffalo Beats Toronto To Host 2015, 2016 NHL Scouting Combines

The NHL has announced that Buffalo’s vaunted HarborCenter will host both the 2015 and 2016 NHL Scouting Combines, beating out Pittsburgh and Mississauga, which is near Toronto.  Commissioner Gary Bettman and his lapdog Colin Campbell gave all 30 NHL cities an opportunity to make a case for the event before eventually settling on Buffalo.

Buffalo was chosen both because of the resources and amenities the $172 million HarborCenter has to offer, but also because the Mississauga facility looked like “the inside of a rotten burrito.”

“When we went up to Toronto, we were told not to expect much,” said Bettman.  “But their VIP Hotel Package was Toronto Sun reporter Steve Simmons’s couch.  There were newspapers from 1967 strewn about and it appeared that a Josh Gorges Maple Leafs jersey had been burned in the corner.

“The entire city of Toronto looks and smells like someone took Flint, Michigan and farted all over it,” said Campbell.  “They have all the pretension of a Kardashian and all the class of that one dirty abandoned sock you see on the side of the road.  The prevailing theme to the city is inescapable failure.”

“I’m actually writing a dystopian novel about hockey,” added Bettman.  “It was originally set in downtown Tampa, but I’m thinking of moving it to Toronto.  Hell, I’m thinking of moving the Maple Leafs to Seattle now as a humanitarian effort on behalf of the players and coaches.”

The Scouting Combine joins a long list of things that Buffalo has beaten Toronto in, among them Josh Gorges, affordable living, hockey 1970-Present, cleanliness, happiness, being in America, and amazingly enough, media acumen.  When we pressed Toronto Mayor Rob Ford for comment, he tried to snort my phone and then asked if he could lick my hair.  Every single Torontoan I met tried to do the same.

We barely made it out alive.