Otherwise sane and well-spoken Calgary Stampeders’ head coach Dave “David” Dickenson began spouting nonsense this week when he stated the team needed to “get on a mini-heater”.

Context for the “mini-heater” comment appeared to be provided by Mr. Dickenson when he explained that “we can’t just win one then lose two.  We’ve gotta win multiple games in a row and create some momentum.” 

Winning multiple games in a row is typically referred to as a “hot streak”, but Mr. Dickenson appeared to distance himself from “hot streak” with the use of the novel “mini-heater” phrase. Perhaps a mini-heater would be something better than a hot streak, but this would not explain the use of the word “mini”. Mini-heaters are also notorious for providing uncomfortably high levels of heat in a confined manner, leaving, for instance, half of one’s body with third-degree burns while the other half remains frozen solid. For those who have never gone camping or spent a few nights at your parents’ place while passing through town, this is a bad thing.

In order to better understand the sudden rejection of the well-known and widely-understood “hot streak” term, the writer immediately googled mini-heater and was inundated with “about 101,000,000 results” in “0.95 seconds”, all of which were actual mini-heaters.

Next, the terms “mini-heater” and “slang” were run through the google machine, which resulted in a comparably disappointing 715,000 results in 0.56 seconds, all of which, again, were actual mini-heaters. 

Finally, the terms “mini-heater” and “sports slang” were googled, resulting in a mere 754 results in 0.54 seconds.  Again, the results were an endless list of actual mini-heaters, but this time the writer was politely admonished by google with the borderline sarcastic “It looks like there aren’t many great matches for your search” and then provided with some passive aggressive advice you might give to a 10-year old imbecile:  “Tip Try using words that might appear on the page that you’re looking for. For example, ‘cake recipes’ instead of ‘how to make a cake’.” Cake? Fuck you, cake.

All of this, of course, is google-speak for “stop wasting my time and get back to googling disgusting and bizarre porn search-term combinations you sick bastard.”

The writer’s sudden apparent interest in mini-heaters means he can look forward to weeks of mini-heater advertisements in all the websites he regularly visits (Minecraft, Roblox and Porn Hub) as the logarithm robots assume his interest in mini-heaters has inexplicably spiked.

Undaunted, the writer turned to old faithful:  Urban Dictionary.

While gratified to find that “mini-heater” is not some ghastly sex position or activity that would leave the writer with nightmares (that’s the best-case scenario), the writer was nevertheless traumatized to discover the slang meaning of mini-van, mini-muffins, mini-wheat and even the comparably tame mini-fridge.  The term “mini-slut” seemed to be somewhat of a no-brainer, albeit with some surprising twists.

Observers have indicated the weird language used by Mr. Dickenson is a reflection of the stress Mr. Dickenson is under as a result of coaching a team as unexpectedly crappy as the 2021 Calgary Stampeders.

“If he had ever coached, say, the Roughriders or the Argonauts for any length of time, he would understand that CFL teams are not just automatically good just by showing up,” said one commentator who declined to identify himself but might just be the guy who is writing this post. “Coaching a team that stinks is simply not in Mr. Dickenson’s wheelhouse or personal experience, so on some subconscious level, he is lashing out at the world.”

The Calgary Stampeders are widely expected to get pounded into dirty by the Saskatchewan Roughriders this Saturday at McMahon Stadium, prompting speculation that Mr. Dickenson will start inventing new words or even an entire language.