It was a bad day for the hate America crowd, both foreign and domestic, what with the U.S. men’s hockey team taking down Canada in overtime to win the Olympic gold medals.

Imagine the angst among the sexually confused, blue haired, rings in nose types when Jack Hughes connected on the game-winning goal and shortly thereafter told an interviewer, “This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. I’m so proud to be American today.”

Unlike the soy boy stoners who opened these Olympic Games emphasizing they weren’t onboard with their home country on many fronts, or the various other leftist morons who for some reason landed spots on our Olympic team, the men hockey players, and presumably our women, don’t feel the need to apologize for being American, or for what we do as a nation.

This is why I love the game of hockey. It is filled with mentally and physically tough types who represent the traditional values we used to hold dear.

Hughes typified that. Earlier in the game he had some teeth knocked from his mouth by an errant stick wielded by a Canada player. Instead of whining for his mother, as so many of those paid protesters seem to do when the police actually arrest them for their misdeeds, Hughes soldiered on and, in the end, was triumphant.

Photos of Hughes skating after the game, an American Flag draped on his shoulders, his smile showing the missing teeth and blood on his remaining front chiclets, is as iconic as that image from Butler showing President Trump against a backdrop of our flag shortly after being shot in an assassination attempt.

Speaking of such things, it is ironic and appropriate that on the same day the Americans took gold, yet another lunatic was killed, presumably attempting to harm Trump.

The deranged fool was in Florida at Trump’s estate, but Trump was in Washington, D.C. Thankfully.

Our country is plagued by this type of cancer, and winning a gold medal won’t cure it. But, it helps one feel better as we wait for resolution.

Canadians already have taken to social media to whine and downplay the result of this game, as is their national wont. You can be pretty sure their Prime Minster Mark Carney (Barker) was whining, too, just not publicly.

As someone who used to cover sports for his daily bread, I will concede the Canadians carried play most of the game.

They also benefited from more than a minute and a half of 5-on-3 power play time, yet failed to score. As I had pointed out in a previous post, teams failing on such opportunities almost always lose the game.

For that, and many more aspects, I give full credit to American goalie Connor Hellebuyck. During the game he stopped Canadian stars Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini on separate breakaways, and also made a once-in-a-lifetime save with the paddle of this stick on a point-blank shot from the goal crease.

Hellebuyck, who is an accomplished goalie impugned for not coming up big in the crunch, was the reason the U.S. won. He was huge and Hughes made a point to note that in his postgame interview.

Although I have yet to see it, Canadians also can be counted on to whine that Sidney Crosby was out with an injury. It is of note they accepted their overtime win vs. the United States in the 4 Nations Face-off without mentioning Quinn Hughes (brother of Jack) missed that entire tournament due to injury and the Americans played the final game with key injuries to star forward Matthew Tkachuk and equally prominent defenseman Charlie McAvoy.

Just a reminder here, the United States beat Canada in the round-robin stage of that 4-Nations affair, and lost with an injury depleted roster in overtime for the title.

Now, the United States has beaten Canada in the Olympic Gold Medal Game, also in overtime. So, the United States has beaten Canada twice in the past three meetings between the respective nations’ best players.

Could be more of a trend than luck. Just saying.

There is one final point to be made before we put a period on this. I was among those questioning how the U.S. team left off some huge firepower in the form of Cole Caufield and Jason Robertson. Instead, the Olympic roster has two players from perhaps the worst team in the NHL this season, Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller.

It turns out Trocheck and Miller were key players on the penalty kill, which did not allow a single power-play goal in these Olympics, including killing off the aforementioned two-man advantage for Canada. Trocheck also was a key faceoff man.

In the final analysis, tip your hat to USA Hockey general manager Bill Guerin. The roster he put together won the gold. It doesn’t get any better than that.

The U.S. men’s hockey team plays Canada for Olympic gold very early Sunday morning in one of those athletic contests that transcends sports. And I am thinking of a former news editor, not a sports fan, who often told me that he couldn’t understand why people got so worked up over things that meant so little in the big picture.

I’d tell him back then just to think of it as tribal instincts writ large. You see it in politics, all manner of international matters, and, yes, in sports. Nothing is as intoxicating as identifying with a group – fanatically at times since fan is shorthand for that word – and indulging in us vs. them thoughts and actions.

There is a lot of that in Olympics sports, no matter the propaganda they spew about friendly competition. Already in these Olympics, we’ve had Canada men’s and women’s curling teams accused of cheating, a skating judge raising red flags over absurdly low scores for a U.S. ice dancing pair, some cross-country skiers banned for an illegal substance on their skis, and some male ski jumpers being accused of penile injections to increase size and help them jump further due to enhanced aerodynamics of the bigger crotch bulge in those skin-tight suits they wear.

I know all of this from reading the internet. I have watched only men’s hockey games and that U.S. women’s gold medal win – admittedly not all of that.

Mostly, I’ve avoided the Olympics because of the rampant hypocrisy of the Games and general overkill of the coverage.

But, to repeat, I do follow the hockey.

I prepped for this Sunday gold-medal game by watching the movie “Miracle,” a chronicle of the amazing gold medal run of the 1980 American men. Ironically, our men have not won Olympic hockey gold since. Meanwhile, the U.S. women hockey players have just grabbed yet another gold, their third since it became an Olympic sport for women in 1998.

It seems that in hockey, much as in soccer, our women’s national teams are threats to win it all and our men, well, they are threats to disappoint.

But, ever since last season’s 4 Nations Face-Off, an NHL production featuring teams from Canada, Sweden, Finland and the United States, there has been great anticipation of these Olympics.

That tournament, played at the height of tariff spats and Canada-United States friction, saw crowds in Canada booing our national anthem. That led to three fights in the first 9 seconds of a Canada-U.S. round-robin game, won by the U.S.

Canada bounced back to win the championship game vs. the United States, in overtime.

It was widely anticipated there would be a rematch for Olympic gold and, despite a few hiccups and near-misses along the way, both Canada and the United States made it.

I have a few wishes for this game, including the U.S. not to have yet another apparent goal wiped off the board due to infractions real or imagined. There have been three such examples already for the United States.

I’m hoping the referees won’t both be from Canada, as was the case in Canada’s dramatic, last-minute, 3-2 win over Finland in the previous round. Finland led 2-0, but Canada rallied, including one goal that was close to interference, then was gifted a late power-play to enable the win.

I’m praying American wunderkind defenseman Quinn Hughes quits getting his slapshots blocked by charging defenders, leading to odd-man breaks.

Mostly, I’m hoping for a clean, well-played game, with no strange calls or plays deciding the outcome.

Much will be made of this game being played on the 46^th anniversary of the Miracle On Ice win over the Soviets, but the similarities stop there.

First, that 1980 U.S. team had to go on to beat Finland in the next game to claim gold due to the round-robin format of the time. Also, those were true amateurs, a bunch of college kids, playing for the United States, against a team of professionals masquerading as amateurs for the Soviets and some other teams.

Now, we’re all sending pros, the Soviet Union is no more, and Russia is banned from these international competitions because some nincompoops think that will stop them from invading other countries. Spoiler alert: It hasn’t and won’t.

Both Canada and the United States have better squads than even in last year’s 4 Nations affair.

My heart says United States to win, but the head says Canada will find a way to eke out yet another victory.

Here’s hoping the heart is right.

I tried life as an Altoid Thursday regarding women’s Olympic hockey. It was tougher than expected, but rewarding in the end. Allow me to explain.

First, Altoids refers not the candy mints of the same name, but to fans of Altoona High School sports. Growing up in Johnstown, I was amazed at those fans. We called them Altoids, because it seemed they were not of this Earth.

They lived to bask in reflected glory of their sports teams and, in the end, it didn’t matter what the sport was. These were fans of winning. If it filtered all the way down to tiddlywinks, and Altoona was dominant, they’d show up wearing the colors.

I saw this, first as a student at Johnstown High School, with Altoona being our big rival, and later while working more than two decades, mostly in sports, for the Johnstown Woke Gazette.

Altoona had some great high school football teams through the years, but as far as I can tell, never won a state or WPIAL title. Johnstown, twice claimed WPIAL titles.

The Altoid fans progressed to boys basketball. Over a stretch of decades, Altoona had a string of eventual NBA players, from Johnny Moore through Doug West, Mike Iuzzolino and Danny Fortson. Yet, Altoona never won a state title.

Altoid fans moved on to girls basketball and finally got their Holy Grail, with state titles and even a mythical national title.

On the flip side, if Altoids were confronted with their teams losing, they rushed to exits before game’s end. Theirs was a curious take on the philosophical chestnut about a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear and whether or not it made a noise. If their team lost, but the Altoids did not witness the ending, then it never really happened.

I decided to try being an Altoid regarding the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team, which played Canada for the gold Thursday.

I never have watched a single women’s hockey game in my life, but in the best Altoid fashion, this was a chance to hop aboard the bandwagon and share their success. After all, the U.S. women were expected to continue dominating, even against their great rivals from the land of the Snow Peso.

Having sweated out the OT triumph of the U.S. Men vs. Sweden a day earlier, I was in the mood for some American domination.

Alas, the first period apparently was a showcase of women’s hockey, slow-developing plays and limited individual brilliance.

But, I endured into the second period, when the Americans coughed up a short-handed goal while on the powerplay and trailed, 1-0.

There are some basic hockey rules covering such things. First, teams with 5 on-3 advantages that fail to score a goal, usually lose. Along that line, teams that give up short-handed goals, also tend to lose.

I moved to watching a DVRd episode of the Charles Payne show on Fox Business, and made a phone call to straighten out a billing issue on my Medicare RX plan.

It was time to check back on the game and, imagine my surprise to find it tied at 1-1 and headed to overtime.

First, a thought on the 3-on-3 overtimes of the Olympics. The U.S. men, and now the U.S. women, have prevailed, but it’s a joke. The Olympics come around once every four years. Can’t we spare a few extra minutes to play 5-on-5 in overtime, with medals on the line?

The women’s overtime, unlike the breathtaking skill exhibited by the men with all that open ice, was more a comedy of errors with lost pucks, offsides calls and other assorted gaffes.

The U.S. wrote a merciful end with a semi-breakaway goal and it was time to celebrate.

U-S-A!

Now, I can’t imagine watching another women’s hockey game anytime, but it was fun playing the role of an Altoid on a rainy February afternoon.

I, however, am not willing to be an Altoid regardless of the team or athlete.

There will be no cheering from me for American Soy Boy snowboarders, “Pansexual” skaters and Americans competing for China because the money is better and due to Olympics loopholes, they apparently qualify due to once having eaten at a Chinese buffet.

I’m not about to embrace these Hate America types, even if they are wearing our colors as members of national teams.

With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it’s probably better that Canada led much of the game and the U.S. needed to score a late goal with its goalie pulled to force OT, just when Canada was sniffing an upset.

I’d liked to have been there with Canada PM Mark Carney (Barker) when that overtime goal was scored. Bet the dog got kicked more than once, eh.

On Valentine’s Day I did the right thing and took the wife out to eat and then ran her around on various shopping errands.

All the while, the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team was playing Denmark. But, never fear, I was DVRing the game to be viewed later.

Not to say I was overconfident, but I did suggest to more than one person that, considering Denmark sort of claims Greenland and we’d like to have it and easily could take it, we might settle the whole matter by ceding that great expanse of ice to the winner of this game.

Even after a U.S. defenseman had kicked the game’s opening goal into his own net Saturday, I was confident.

Later, as American goalie Jeremy Swayman gave up not one, but two goals from the next area code, my confidence wavered more than a little.

In the end, the massive offensive talent of this American team was too much for the Danes, who succumbed to the tune of a 6-3 final.

I read tales of great angst on the Internet regarding the game. If you judge only by the final score, it was closer than expected. If you look deeper, at the massive U.S. edge in shots on goal and faceoffs won, it was not all that close.

Again, what made it seem close was Swayman gave up two goals from the next county, shots most beer league goalies might have stopped.

I think this unimpressive outing has cemented that the U.S. must go with Connor Hellebuyck in goal in subsequent games. Hellebuyck is known for playing well in the regular season of the NHL, and having nothing extra to offer in the playoffs or events such as this.

Some saw Swayman as a goalie who could dazzle with big saves at key moments in big games. After his Great Dane Meltdown, forget that.

The U.S. plays again Sunday, vs. Germany, to see if the Americans can win their group ahead of knockout play.

Swayman ought to just watch this one, and subsequent games.

At least Saturday’s game unfolded without the ridiculous interventions of the previous game, which saw two U.S. goals wiped out by challenges, and also some uneven officiating.

Swayman personally deducted two goals from the Americans’ winning margin vs. Denmark. The officiating was just fine.

After two games in these Olympics, this seems to be a typical American hockey team, prone to stretches of absolute dominance offensively, punctuated by runs when it looks like they never saw a hockey puck before.

At its best, this team is a legitimate contender to win the gold. But, one of those sustained stretches of lethargy against, say, the Canadians, will doom the U.S. team to failure.

The U.S. could lose to Germany today, but probably won’t. This looms as a chance for the Americans to put together a complete game, which would be their first of these Olympics, and a good way to build momentum for coming single-defeat elimination games.

I tuned in to watch the U.S. Men’s Olympic hockey game Thursday afternoon and almost at once began to have flashbacks, to Olympic men’s basketball and September 1972.

Back then, I’d just turned 17 years of age, I’d started my senior year at Greater Johnstown High School, and most important, it was becoming more and more unlikely that I’d not be sent to fight in Vietnam since there was speculation the military draft was being ended.

In those simpler timers, I could afford to be concerned about such things as our U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team, composed entirely of college players, not the pros other nations sent to the Games back then. The U.S. never lost in the Olympic men’s basketball, despite all that.

And yet, this time we did lose, to a Soviet Union team of professional athletes listed as soldiers and the like. Worse, it seemed the Soviets got about a thousand chances at the end to hit the game-winning shot.

Okay, so maybe it was only three chances, but that was two too many. The U.S. protested and a five-member panel with two Soviet stooges onboard said protest denied. The Russkies got the gold and we got the shaft.

Imagine, cheating by referees and judges at the Olympics. Good thing that hasn’t continued. Oh, wait.

It was quite a lesson for this teenager, and one I never quite forgot.

Fast-forward to Thursday and I settled in to watch the U.S. face Latvia in the Olympic men’s hockey. I know, I know the U.S. women already have trounced Canada, 5-0, in a preliminary round game and are favorites to take gold medals among the women. Fine and dandy, but I’m more interested in the men’s games.

The good news is there is a considerable talent differential between our hockey team and Latvia’s, unlike the closely matched Soviet and American Olympic basketball teams from 1972.

That meant the U.S. could overcome some – shall we say – questionable decisions made by game officials today and still prevail.

Consider, the U.S. twice in the first period scored goals only to have them waved off after challenges from Latvia. I will concede the first play might have been offside, although any video evidence to that effect was not shared with the viewers. The second, well, it was not goalie interference in my book.

And then there was the phantom hooking penalty called against a U.S. player, giving Latvia a power-play opportunity. All this in the first period.

I paused the broadcast and rushed to the computer to find out exactly who these game officials might be. Turns out the two referees were Canadians. You might have heard, there is quite a rivalry between Canada and the U.S. in hockey, politics, and just about everything else.

I’m sure these two Hosers called it straight. But skeptics might struggle to accept that.

Unlike that 1972 basketball game, a possible finger on the scale for the opposition wasn’t enough to change the outcome of this hockey contest.

The U.S. ran away away with a 5-1 win and it wasn’t that close. Add back in the two disputed goals and consider the U.S. hit a crossbar and a goalpost — an inch or two either way and two more goals — and you’re looking at a 9-1 final.

My concern is, down the line when the talent levels are closer, having two goals taken away in a single period might be too much to overcome.

If, as anticipated, Canada and the Americans meet later in this affair, I’m hoping we get an even split when it comes to officiating breaks. No referees from Canada, please!

Back in 1975, when Saturday Night Live was new, and funny, and equal opportunity, it developed a catchphrase, Franco is still dead, to mock overkill news coverage.

In this case, the reference was to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who was in ill health. Networks, including NBC, repeated stories ad nauseam about Franco’s health. On slow news days, they led with reports he still was alive.

Eventually, this prompted SNL wiseguy Chevy Chase, on his parody weekend news update, first to report Franco’s death, then repeat weekly that Franco still was dead.

Not a lot has changed in intervening years, witness the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother and the cloying, insipid coverage it has inspired. For almost two weeks, the elderly, ailing woman has been missing and news types rush to their cameras hourly with breathless updates that basically amount to, we know nothing more than we did when she first disappeared.

Imagine my surprise Tuesday night when I attempted to tune in the Gutfeld show at 10 p.m. and instead found an insufferable Fox News talking head giving the latest Guthrie updates, which is to say nothing.

Eventually it came to light that some food delivery type, a “person of interest” had been questioned and released. For that I had no Gutfeld show.

To understand Fox’s idiocy on this, the network pre-empted its most successful, most well-done prime time show to run useless fluff and speculation, just because it could.

Allow me to speculate. Savannah’s mother is dead. Period. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t like the odds of her being alive.

Once you have arrested someone, get back to me. Until then, stop imitating Saturday Night Live with Franco is still dead updates.

It occurs me that it is curious that so much is allowed to be said about Savannah’s missing mother, but other topics, news happening even as we speculate about Mrs. Guthrie, remains largely in the background.

Were you stunned when it leaked out the Canada mass shooter was yet another trans type? I wasn’t. But such reality is not spoken about in polite company.

Similarly, we are to ignore that Josh Shapiro’s Pennsylvania government hands out CDLs like CrackerJack prizes, leading to carnage around the nation.

Voter ID, why that’s just discrimination. Yes, I needed ID — a driver’s license — to cash checks today at the bank I’ve used for about 50 years. Yes, I need such ID to board airplanes, enter federal buildings, secure a loan, buy alcohol, operate a car, carry a handgun, etc., etc., etc. But asking for ID from voters, that’s absurdly racist.

Pointing out widespread fraud in Minnesota, California, and other blue strongholds, that also is verboten. What’s a little fraud, especially when it supports left-wing radicals?

Olympians embarrassed to represent the United States, ridiculous Super Bowl political screeds passing as halftime shows, national politicians alleged to be on the payroll of Chinese interests, record low crime rates, massive job and income growth, all these seem to merit little or no mention. But give me the latest Guthrie non-update. Yes, please.

I long for a time when people tasked with reporting news understood what news was.

Those people are long gone, apparently, replaced with dull, largely brainless types who can spend an hour talking about stale developments and offering nothing new.

Because you accept this, you will get more of it.

Maybe in a year or so we’ll find out what happened to Mrs. Guthrie. But don’t hold your breath.

Behold, the Super Bowl, an in-your-face measuring stick for the cultural decline of this once great country.

Today is the 60^th installment of this NFL championship game, or LX if you opt for the pompous Roman numeral ordering system preferred by the league.

Like most 60-year-olds, the Super Bowl is showing its age, most evident by the pronounced leftward lurch by the league and this, its marquee game.

As most socialists/leftists, the NFL conveniently puts its ideological bent on the shelf when it comes to making money.

Sure, they preach that it takes all of us and to choose love, even as they dishonor our Flag and embrace just about any fringe left cause. Mostly, the league, its owners and its players, all grub for money. What do they want? More!

The league exists only due to an anti-trust exemption that allows this closed club of socialists to negotiate TV rights collectively.

They ought to have that message displayed on helmets, or stenciled around the edges of the playing field, maybe even at mid-field for additional prominence.

The smug, arrogant types who run the NFL see you as a captive audience, willing to endure their indoctrination in order to watch a few seconds of actual live action between those interminable commercial breaks.

Their television “partners” enable them with ever higher rights fees, which translate to 30-second spots on this year’s Super Bowl broadcast going for a cool $10 million.

According to a story on SI.com, the cheapest ticket to the game on Ticketmaster is $3,600. Some tickets earlier in the week were going for more than $50,000.

Forget Choose Love, Choose Greed!

The NFL is no different in its blatant hypocrisy than the perpetually adolescent songstress who co-opted a recent awards show to declare no one is illegal on stolen land. She had no such pithy observation regarding her mansion being located on what one Native American tribe denoted as stolen land, nor could she explain the gates, walls and other security she has in place to protect her bit of stolen land.

Did anyone else notice this twit seemed to be dressing for a costume party with her playing the part of Wednesday Addams?

Maybe “Wednesday” can make a guest appearance at the halftime show, the annual Wokefest the NFL inflicts on the country, alienating more than half of the audience if election results are to be believed.

If you squint hard, there actually is a football game somewhere amidst this morass of virtue signaling and political correctness.

It is somehow fitting that this Super Bowl is being contested in the aftermath of the pompous Hall of Fame electors opting not to select the game’s most successful coach in terms of winning these things – Bill Belichick – and team owner Robert Kraft, for Hall induction.

That says more about this pathetic exercise in political BS than having some wild hare singer doing the halftime show. I plan on tuning in the alternative halftime show.

During what little I will watch of today’s game, I will be rooting for New England, hoping the Patriots can stick it up the NFL’s pompous butts with a win. Alas, I expect Seattle to prevail.

And what better outcome to celebrate the NFL’s political bent than to have the title won by team representing a city of crazed leftists?

Allow me to share what I think is an amusing recollection on the occasion of this, the date the Washington ComPost has announced massive cutbacks, confirming running rumors that even billionaires such as Jeff Bezos get tired of throwing money into black holes.

To set the stage, in the early 1980s the Penguins held preseason camps in Johnstown and on one occasion the War Memorial Arena hosted a preseason game with the Washington Capitals, which I was assigned to cover, working as I was at the time for the local Woke Gazette.

I passed the evening in the press box seated next to a guy (don’t recall his name) from the Washington ComPost and we spoke of journalistic life.

Even back then, the sainted ComPost had seen its reputation sullied when DEI hire Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for a story about an eight-year-old heroin addict that she just made up. Still, the ComPost was a viable economic concern at the time and it was interesting to speak with someone on the inside.

The one thing he told me that is memorable all these years later spoke volumes about ComPost think. Specifically, the guy told me the toughest job at the ComPost was not covering the White House, or politics, or the international scene, but instead was covering the NFL team, then known by the lovably politically incorrect name of Washington Redskins.

I will paraphrase what he told me: Everyone at the place thinks they know more about the Redskins and could do a better job than the person currently covering the team, no matter who that might be.

This sort of delusional smugness helps explain why this publication has declined to the point of being downsized in an attempt to try to stop the money drain.

Returning to the Cooke tale, after the fact it was widely reported that many at the paper had questioned her story, but were branded as jealous types. And among the most sainted names of ComPost lore, Bob Woodward, is the assistant managing editor who submitted the story for the Pulitzer prize in feature writing. It should have been placed in the fiction category.

Did Woodward, he of Watergate fame, feel bad about it all? Apparently not.

Consider this from his statement on the whole Cooke mess: “It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.”

Nothing has changed through the years, with the ComPost and New York Times sharing a 2018 Pulitzer for the made-up Russiagate frenzy.

Leftist “journalists” have decided truth should not be allowed to diminish narrative. They are content to operate as well-paid propagandists, free to do so as long as someone else is picking up the tab.

For, you see, there is a declining market for such pablum, if there is a price to be paid for it. Bezos held his nose and paid the freight for a time. Now, even he tires.

And so, the smug ComPost, might want to consider changing the self-righteous masthead slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to something more appropriate, like “Propaganda Dies When it Meets Economic Reality.”

Punxsutawney Phil has become part of the virtue-signaling crowd, not a whole lot different than illiterates from the entertainment field who scream Fxxx ICE as routinely as average people say hello.

They play to their leftist crowd. Phil knows people, too. He recognizes that doom weather porn sells and, along that line, today he came across with his usual prediction of six more weeks of winter weather.

The meteorologist groundhog took the figurative temperature of the populace. Today was warmer and sunnier than it’s been, but the ground remains deep with snow, temperatures have dipped below zero on many recent nights, and are predicted to do so again in coming days.

Against that backdrop, tell the people what they fear, that harsh winter continues. If you’re wrong, and an early spring arrives, will people remember you were wrong, or be mad at you because of it?

Does Al Gore ever apologize for being wrong about climate catastrophes he’s predicted for decades, yet never seem to arrive?

I dragged myself out of bed around midday today (still ailing, unfortunately) to find granddaughter No. 2 home from school, suffering the same combo of flu and ear infection that put her sister, granddaughter No. 3, on the shelf last week.

I asked her for Phil’s prediction, interrupting the response to volunteer that it likely was six more weeks of winter. She confirmed that to be correct.

It’s not like I made a 50-50 pick. Phil predicts six more weeks of winter about 84 percent of the time, according to one article I read online. Phil is reported to have seen his shadow 32 straight years, from 1903 through 1933 inclusive.

That same online report indicated Phil has an accuracy rating of just 35 percent, as determined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You read that right, an agency of the federal government wastes its time and our tax dollars monitoring the accuracy of Phil and his fellow animal weather prognosticators.

NOAA says Staten Island Chuck is much more accurate, with a success rate for his predictions of 85 percent. Supposedly there is a bronze prairie dog statue in Wyoming, Lander Lil, with a 75-percent accuracy rating.

Based on those numbers, we should be happy with Phil’s pick, because it’s about a 65-percent likelihood to be wrong.

And here, NOAA uses more conventional methods such as computer modeling to weigh in with its own fearless prediction. Said long-range forecast is that most of the United States will experience above-average temperatures in February, March and April.

Sorry, Phil, but I’m going with NOAA’s bytes over the occasional bites you put on the fingers of your overly aggressive handlers.

Friday was the day from hell for me, and not because of that threatened strike by protesters of all things American.

It began early in the day, with gold and silver prices falling out of bed after having run mightily in recent weeks and months.

As I was sorting through that mentally, a monstrous decline that would see $40,000-plus shaved off my net worth on Friday alone, I went outside to shovel show, expanding the walkways and clearing my mind.

Then my wife dashed out on the rear deck and yelled that we had to talk.

It turns out she had gone downstairs to find our furnace spewing hot water from the pressure relief valve. She called our plumber, left a message, and sat around waiting.

Meanwhile, I called another local plumbing company, one that had done work for my mother over the years. They’d be happy to help — in about four weeks.

No, they were not participating in an anti-ICE strike. They just are extremely busy because this sustained cold snap (whatever happened to global warming?) means furnaces are breaking down in protest, much as mine had done.

I might add as an aside that granddaughter no. 3 had come down with an illness diagnosed as some strain of the flu about mid-week, had spent a couple of days here being watched by my wife and, yes, I was beginning to feel I had borrowed her malady.

When it rains, it pours. Or, at this time of year, when it snows, it’s a blizzard.

By Friday afternoon, I was desperate for a bit of good news. That came when the plumbing company my wife had called got back to us that a man was on the way. So, they weren’t on strike, either.

After about an hour here, he left with our old expansion tank in tow and presumably all was well. That relief valve might need replaced, though.

I don’t know what this plumbing visit will end up costing me, but it’s nothing compared to the Friday gold and silver massacre, and I’m sure I’d have paid multiples of the bill just to guarantee I had heat in the house on what was predicted to be a minus-7 night.

When I’d talked to the woman at the plumbing company that needed a month to get here, we’d discussed a potential problem of abnormally high water pressure as indicated by a gauge on the furnace.

It turns out I was reading the gauge wrong. But I stayed up until 4:30 a.m. Saturday, keeping track of the pressure and temperature of the furnace’s water supply.

The plumbing guys were back Saturday morning to replace the relief valve, but I took my wife’s word for it because I’ve basically been plastered to a bed in my son’s former room very sick and attempting not to spread it to the wife.

My feverish brain hoped against hope that the furnace would be fixed. I can worry about the gold and silver next week.

In a bit or irony, I saw I’d missed a call from my brother. I called him back and found out he’d had heating problems at his apartment, too. Misery loves company.

At about 8 p.m. Saturay night, it was as though a curtain had been lifted. Suddenly, after napping for an hour or so, I felt better and trudged down the stairs sorted though my mail and began to write this blog entry.

Trust me, if you had a bad day Friday, it pales in comparison to my day.

But, things are looking up now. I hope.