Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Snark break ...

Anyone who made a joke about Muntadhar al-Zaidi -- his name's not Shoe Thrower -- being signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a pitcher or by the Detroit Lions as a quarterback is officially worthless and weak. Making fun of the Lions got old weeks ago, making fun of the Pirates got old years ago, plus there is the whole issue about making light of a genocide.

Someone, please, should try to figure out what makes hockey people so obsessed about what athletes wear. Don Cherry goes on about the Sennies' Mike Fisher looking like a "thug," which he repeated it on The Hour last night. John Buccigross, who writes about hockey for ESPN.com, attacked Terrell Owens for his "Hogan’s Heroes jacket and his Fat Albert hat," and no, that's not the least bit disturbing.

Look at what's in someone's heart, not on someone's body, is that so hard?

Shorter version of TSN's quarterly report: "After school, you're dead, Sportsnet."

The Raptors are making people less angry about the Rogers/TSN2 standoff. It was a blessing to not watch that fourth quarter against New Jersey last night where "(Chris) Bosh and (Jermaine) O'Neal were dominated by a frontcourt of Brook Lopez, Ryan Anderson and Josh Boone" (to quote The Passion That Frustrates Us All).

This post was worth nothing, but this is worth noting

3 comments:

Duane Rollins said...

Would it be petty of me to point out that Kelley used the word "ironically" incorrectly in that article, or has that battle been officially lost now?

I long ago gave up having a rational discussion about fighting in hockey. My preference would be that it not be eliminated -- that ain't going to happen -- but further penalized. It's far too ingrained in the sport's culture to severally penalize players, but booting them for the remainder of the game that they are in would be fine by me. That would allow for the spontaneous fighting (because there wouldn't be a suspension) that puckheads tell us is vital and unavoidable, but it would probably eliminate the set-up, let's get the boys motivated, stuff -- which isn't missed in the playoffs and wouldn't be missed in the regular season.

In the conservative hockey world such a move will never happen. The sport is petrified of change and hyper-defensive about criticism.

So, I'm, to use another word that is almost always incorrectly applied, ambivalent about it. On one hand I think the game would be better off without it, on the other I don't think the game is open minded enough to actually hear the arguments, so what's the point in even bringing it up?

As a final thought, I'll tell you why I'm not a big fan of fighting in hockey. It's boring. There are few things in sport that I find less entertaining than the typical hockey fight. It's two guys hugging and pulling on each other's jersey until one falls down. If I want to watch a fight (which I quite enjoy, actually) I'll watch a damn fight. When I watch hockey, I want to see hockey.

Jordie Dwyer said...

I'd love to look at Jennifer Aniston's heart...if only that tie wasn't in the way....Ohhhh, that wasn't the topic...sorry...me bad

Tyler King said...

Sorry to disagree, Duane, but it's the old hockey adage - when there's a fight, you don't see anyone heading for the concession stands. You see them standing up and cheering. The idea that it's boring just isn't widespread enough to be a basis for its elimination/discouragement.