Blog blast past: Top 5; How I Met Your Mother's greatest sports episodes

The 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother airs tonight. It promises to have singing and dancing — despite Marshall's chronic case of dancer's hip! — the WWE's Stacy Keibler playing a bartender at MacLaren's. From May 18, 2009, here is the series' top five sports-related episodes (as the title likely implies).

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (Season 2)

The gang has a tradition of getting together for Super Bowl Sunday. Ted and Marshall like it for the football, Robin and Lily enjoy the commercials and gambling addict Barney needs to keep track of his multiple wagers. However, their ritual is threatened after the owner of the bar where they hang out, MacLaren's, dies and his wake is at the same time as the game.

No one seems to have ever met the owner and Future Ted can't seem to remember his name in the retelling. Was it Mark or Mike? Carl, the bartender at MacLaren's whom Ted once believed was a vampire (because he always wear black and they only see him at night), guilts them into attending by saying they'll never be allowed back in the bar if they don't attend.

It turns out that memorial services are the one time when Barney does not "suit up." He tells everyone he plans on "going out of this world the same way I came in, buck naked; open bar for the fellas, open casket for the ladies." Unfortunately, they have to go a full 24 hours before they can get together to watch a Tivoed game, meaning they have to keep from learning the score while living in New York City, the media capital of the world.

This presents problems since (a) Robin is the media, as a news anchor at little-watched Metro News One; (b) Marshall is speaking to Lily's kindergarten class, and one of the scamps demands a bribe to keep silent about who won the game; (c) Ted has to go to a sports bar to pick up hot wings for the belated Super Bowl party and (d) Barney is a gambling addict.

Barney races around the city trying unsuccessfully to learn the score, even after bumping into Emmitt Smith. "The game was yesterday?" the NFL's all-time rushing leader says. "After you win two or three of them, you kind of stop paying attention."

Ted sets out to get the hot wings after using an old pair of sunglasses, headphones, a cereal box, duct tape and a hole punch to MacGyver up a device called the Sensory Deprivator 5000 that will prevent him from hearing or seeing the score of the game. Unfortunately, everyone's best-laid plans fail, and they all end up learning the score, but that doesn't stop them from having a good time.

LUCKY PENNY (Season 2)

Since HIMYM is a love story told in reverse, it's apropos to include an episode that is told entirely in flashbacks. Ted and Robin (at this point, they were dating) try to figure out who's at fault after he misses a flight to Chicago to interview for his dream job. They were late getting to the airport because Ted had to go to court to pay a ticket he got for hopping a turnstile at a subway station.

It turns out Ted jumped the turnstile because he was coming to the aid of Barney, who was stuck on the train after losing use of his arms and legs. It turns out that Barney, to win a bet with Marshall, ran the New York City Marathon without training, which comes back to haunt him only after he finishes the 26-mile, 385-yard race.

It turns out Barney ran the marathon after borrowing a bib from Marshall, who was injured and unable to compete. It turns out Marshall was given to rubbing petroleum jelly on his nipples to prevent chafing before going out on training runs. (Runners actually do this.) It turns out that Robin crashed at the apartment one night. In the morning, she opened the bathroom door, only to find Marshall, getting ready for his run, rubbing petroleum jelly on his nipples and repeating to himself in the mirror, "You are ... Marshall! You are ... Marshall!" to himself. Robin takes this to be a warmup ritual for another form of exercise and says, "Oh my god!" Startled, Marshall falls and breaks his toe.

It turns out Lily told Marshall about preventing chafing, so it's her fault.

INTERVENTION (Season 4)

Not a sports episode, but it addresses how HIMYM's Canada references are either uber-knowing or totally stereotypical.

Referring to a dirty Canadian sex act called an "Old King Clancy" is an example of the former. Robin Scherbatsky's TV demo reel including footage of her covering a bass fishing derby in the middle of a blizzard on a "snowy August first in Medicine Hat" is an example of the latter.

Marshall and Lily are moving out of the apartment they had shared with Ted and start discussing who should be responsible for what portion of their damage deposit. They point to the hole in the wall near the door, flashing back to the time when Robin got loaded on Molson and started acting really Canadian, re-enacting Game 6 of the 1994 Stanley Cup final while wearing a Roberto Luongo sweater and goofing around with a stick and a puck. The obvious setup is that she put the hole in the wall with a shot. Marshall challenges her to shoot the puck through the open door, but when she does, Lily catches it. The two exchange words, with Robin chi, "I'll give you summer teeth, some are here and some are there." Ted separates them, causing Barney to yell, "Ted! You never break up a girlfight!" — and punch a hole in the wall.

(Bonus points to the writers for putting Cobie Smulders, who's from Vancouver, in the Canucks' old black sweaters instead of their current blue ones, since it was a flashback.)

In another episode, Robin dates the sports anchor at Metro News One, an ex-hockey player named Kurt "The Ironman" Irons, who takes her to a Canucks-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. She comes back the next day all agog after her brush with Canadian celebrity.

Robin: "I met Mason Raymond ..."
Everyone: (stare blankly)
Robin: "... of the Vancouver Canucks!"
Barney: "What's the opposite of name-dropping?"

THE BRACKET (Season 3)

Throughout Season 3, Barney was plagued by a mystery woman who kept sabotaging his attempts to pick up women. This leads him to create The Bracket in the style of the NCAA basketball championship — "the top 64 women I've slept with, divided into four regions ... in order to figure out systematically which one has the most cause to hate my guts."

LITTLE MINNESOTA (Season 4)

Late fall is often a lonely time for Robin, the Canadian expat. (In the first season, stuck in New York over U.S. Thanksgiving, she and Ted try to fill the void by volunteering at a homeless shelter, but end up eating turkey dinner at a strip club with Barney.)

Marshall takes pity on Robin and invites her to a bar that is strictly for people from Minnesota, warning her that she'll be kicked out if they learn she's Canadian. Robin blends in extremely well, telling people she's from Bemidji and stealing Marshall's story about where he was when on Jan. 17, 1999, when Gary Anderson missed the field goal that would have sent the Vikings to the Super Bowl. (Whenever anyone in the bar is reminded of that day, they all say, "Damn!")

However, when she breaks Marshall's record on the fishing video game in the bar, that's the final straw.

Marshall: "She's Canadian! She's Canadian! She's not from Bemidji and she doesn't know anything about the Vikings."
Robin: "I do too."
Marshall: "Robin. In the 1999 NFC championship, which the Vikings lost ..."
Bar patrons: "Damn!"
Robin (a beat too late): "Damn!"
Marshall: "... who was the kicker who missed the field goal?
Robin: "... Rashad Tarkenton?"
Marshall: "Gary Anderson. Who is now retired and owns a fly-fishing business ... in Canada."

Robin sheepishly leaves, but not without defending Canada's honour (and ironically, this aired the day after the Bills in Toronto disaster).

"I'm proud to be Canadian. We may not have a fancy NFL team, or Prince, but we invented Trivial Pursuit — you're welcome, Earth. Plus, in Canada, you can go to an all-nude strip club and order alcohol. That's right. From Moose Jaw to the Bay of Fundy, you can suck down a 20-ounce Pilsner while watching some coal miner's daughter strip down to her pelt. Jealous?! In Canada, people don't care where you're from. As long as you're friendly and loan them a smoke or hand them a donut. I'm proud to be Canadian. I wish I was there right now."

Marshall then puts things right by taking Robin to a bar for Canadians called The Hoser Hut, where the patrons not only sport toques and hockey sweaters and act overly apologetic.

Marshall: "Wait, I bumped into him, and he apologized to me and gave me a donut?"

The episode ends with Marshall singing karaoke to Robin's early-'90s Canadian bubble-gum pop song, Let's Go To The Mall.

What most people don't know, and really no one born after 1976 should know, was this was not the first sitcom to satirize the Vikings' inability to win the Super Bowl. Apparently, a few days before the Super Bowl was played in 1975, there was Mary Tyler Moore episode where Lou Grant lost Ted Baxter's money after betting on the Pittsburgh Steelers to beat the Vikings.

Of course, the Steelers won that game and have gone on to become six-time Super Bowl champions. The Vikings remain stuck on zero.

And that, kids, is the story of why the Vikings are cursed. (Not really.)

(Here is the intro for the original piece.

Kids, back in 2009 there was a sitcom called How I Met Your Mother. Watching it was kind of a rear-guard action. The age where people watched a situation comedy on a broadcast network at a certain time every week had long become obsolete, but you still blocked out time for the season finale. It had relatable characters and the L.A. Times, a newspaper published in the now-underwater city of Los Angeles, called it the "most modern and consistently fresh traditional sitcom of the last few years." It also liked to weave in sports references, be it Ted Mosby saying the only thing he talked to his dad about was baseball, or your uncle Marshall playing "BaskIceBall," where he and the other males in his family of mayonnaise-guzzling Minnesota giants put on skates and pads and basically just whaled on each other. Sometimes, whole episodes even revolved around sports and as your Uncle Barney liked to say, it could be "legen, wait for it, dary!")

Celebrating 25 years of Shawn ... with 25 Shawns

It would not to do to ignore the Big Two-Five of the Official Brother of Out of Left Field. Shawn Sager is celebrating today, actually more like tonight. The forecast calls for this evening to be legen — wait for it — dary!

My brother Shawn hopefully will not mind a tacky birthday post. Of all the Sagers, Shawn is most comfortable with being on display, at least judging by the 937 photos of him on Facebook.

Shawn is a person whom everyone wants to know and good tends to come to people who have that kind of charisma. He is making his way in the world and whatever he does, his family is glad that he has seldom let them know a dull moment. He is also the one redheaded guy in the world who tans well.

A 7½-year age gap and being opposing tintypes — a social butterfly and a hermit crab — works against Shawn and I having a lot of shared experience. Shawn bridges that gap because he will walk in and sing, deadpan a line from a movie he just watched, or make a face. Shawn has introduced his uncool eldest sibling to Jon Lajoie, Eastbound & Down and How I Met Your Mother. Point being, the way Shawn lets you in on his sense of the off-beat affirms that there is a lot in common.

You become brothers by chance, but you become Bros by choice. It's great having a sibling who knows the difference. Here's hoping he has fun and that tonight ends with a classic case of guy-on-the-ground. (Ask him about that one.)

In honour of his 25th, here are 25 contributors to the lore of Shawns, whatever the spelling.

1. Sean Connery: Probably the coolest man who ever lived.
   
   
2. Shawn Carter: Better known as Jay-Z. Might yet take Connery's title.
   
   
3. Chone Figgins: A Swiss Army Knife of a ballplayer for the Los Angeles Angels who is up for anything, third base, second base, the outfield. He is leading the American League in bases on balls and runs scored while on-basing around .400, making him a Seamhead's pride and joy.
   
   
4. Shaun of the Dead: Hilarious 2004 zombie comedy which re-invented a genre while also respecting what preceded it, like Shawn Sager.
   
   
5. Shawn O'Sullivan: Canadian boxer who won a silver medal in boxing at the 1984 Summer Olympics, a few weeks before our Shawn was born. The timing of those events makes him my brother's unofficial namesake.
   
   Sager family fact: Our mom was pregnant during three consecutive Summer Olympics. I thought better of mentioning this during a an interview last year with Greg Joy (silver medallist in high jump at the 1976 Montreal Games)
   
   
6. Shaun White: A fellow ginger kid who won a gold medal in snowboarding at the Turin Olympics and apparently is a fan of the movie Anchorman. Should not be confused with Sean Whyte (B.C. Lions kicker) or Sean White (Chicago White Sox pitcher).
   
   
7. Sean "Diddy" Combs: Whatever you think of the arrogance of saying, "It's hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend," it's a statement for the times. That time was Rome just before the fall.
   
   
8. Wallace Shawn: His life arc reminds us no matter how serious-minded one is, you'll probably be more widely remembered for something on par with Gossip Girl, so lighten up already!
   
   
9. Shawn Johnson: The reason why most North American men who watched the Beijing Olympics are doomed to eternal damnation.
   
   
10. Shaun Marcum: For his sake, here is hoping he is back in the Blue Jays starting rotation next season.
    
    
11. Shawn Sage: One letter away from being a member of the family, but with the reddish hair, he pretty much qualifies if he's interested. The Toronto based alt-pop singer has a big enough following to have warranted an appearance on CBC Radio 3.
    
    
12. Shawn Crahan: Lead singer in Slipknot, who turns 40 this month!
    
    
13. Sean Penn: Those two Academy Award-winning performances come and go, but Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High is enduring.
    
    
14. Shaun Wright-Phillips: Midfielder for Manchester City. Shawn was a pretty fair high school soccer player, so this list needed a footballer.
    
    
15. Sean Avery: Has a lot in common with Shawn Sager. They both spent all or part of their teens in Kingston, Ontario and are fashion-forward with their eyewear.
    
    
16. Shawn Colvin: Singer-songwriter whose hits include Riding Shotgun Down The Avalanche.
    
    
17. Shjon Podein: Earned a Stanley Cup ring in 2001 with the Colorado Avalanche.
    
    
18. Shawn Marion: The Matrix!
    
    
19. Chaun Thompson: Eight-year NFL veteran who has played his entire career with the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans, which is why his name doesn't ring a bell.
    
    
20. Shawn Graham: Premier of New Brunswick, where our Shawn lived for a time.
    
    
21. Shean Donovan: Current Ottawa Senators winger was not in Shjon Podein's league in either spelling or hockey playing, but we need 25 for this list.
    
    
22. Sean Young: Amazingly, the Blade Runner curse is not used to explain what happened to her career.
    
    
23. Shaune Bagwell: Never heard of her before Monday, but apparently she is a "classically trained ballerina" with a "genius-level IQ," a handful of screen credits and a swimsuit calendar for sale.
    
    
24. Shawn Ashmore: He played Terry Fox in a TV movie!
    
    
25. Shawn Watson: Offensive coordinator for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Our sister Trina is working in Omaha! We love her equally, of course, but coming with a list of Trinas for her next birthday is going to be tough.

Big Fan: The dark side of obsessive fandom — can't wait

One can only assume that Big Fan, due out in theatres Aug. 28, might hit a little too close to home for some sports obsessives. It is written and directed by Robert Siegel, who wrote The Wrestler, so that might be a clue as to tone.



Casting a comic actor, in this case, Patton Oswalt, as the lead in a dramedy is high-risk. Moviegoers did not exactly warm to Seth Rogen in Observe & Report (which grossed only $25 million US, but must have something going for it since it was from Jody Hill, one of the bright minds behind Eastbound & Down) and, dating myself here, a lot of people we not ready for the Jim Carrey that they in The Cable Guy.

Not everyone's up for a movie which might creep people out as much as making them laugh. Then again, what is comedy if not pushing people's thresholds? By the sounds of what the movie nerds are saying, people expected lighter comedy when Big Fan was screened at Sundance.

"With Oswalt in the lead, most festival-goers were expecting a flat out comedy, but were shocked to find a dark dramedy. Big Fan is a character study much in the same vein of Siegel’s The Wrestler. It is a profile of an obsessed sports fanatic who has invested too much of himself into a past time. You might not like the twists and turns, and you probably won’t have any idea where this story will conclude, but you’ll walk out of it with an all new respect for Oswalt." — Peter Sciretta, /Film

"This actually looks a lot better as a trailer than I remember it being. Siegel's writing may have been fine, but his directing was completely amateur (read my review). I may still give this another shot when it hits theaters to see if Siegel has tweaked it at all since Sundance. Anyway, give it a shot, I expect a few of you may end up liking this indie a lot." — Alex Billington, FirstShowing.net

" ... audiences at Sundance were amazed to see such a dark and dramatic performance from the comedian and the trailer below really gives us a sneak peek into what we can expect from both the actor and the director." — ScreenCrave

Five other feature films about sports fans:

• Fever Pitch (1997). The good Brit adaptation of Nick Hornby's book, starring Colin Firth, positing that anyone who doesn't care about something at age 35 the same way they did at age 12 is in the wrong. "Maybe there's a big bit of you that's gone missing somewhere, maybe everyone should want something they've always wanted." Worth it alone for the melt of 1970s-vintage Arsenal footage. It's almost guaranteed that when that happens, you'll free-associate with moments from your own sports fan past. When Paul Ashworth harkens back to Frank McLintock, you might be picturing Roberto Alomar crushing a post-season homer off Dennis Eckersley.
  
  
• The Football Factory (2004). Gets right inside the culture of the firms, the organized group of club supporters in England whose fanaticism borders on illegality (that is a diplomatic way to put it).
  
  
• Rudy (1993). The real-life Rudy did become a player against million-to-one odds, but really, he was a fanboy first.
  
  
• Field of Dreams (1989). It's in here over the line delivered by James Earl Jones which might sum up why people go to games, "For it's money they have, and peace they lack." It's in despite a personal objection that this is, on the whole, pandering Boomer bathos (the dead giveaway being the casting of Timothy Busfield, then as now known as the "redheaded guy in thirtysomething."
  
  
• The Fan (1996). Steer clear. Robert De Niro at his scenery-chewing worst as a low-rent Travis Bickle out to help his favourite player, a brash, belligerent outfielder on the San Francisco Giants who in no way is intended to resemble Barry Bonds.

BT to the dub, Patton Oswalt had a recurring role on the old CBS sitcom King of Queens as a neighbourhood buddy of Kevin James' lead character, who ironically, was a New York Jets fan. Please keep this factoid to yourself, lest people think you watched that show for any reasons beyond Leah Remini's rear end.

The other 20 worst things to happen to the Vikings

Brett Favre's signing with the Minnesota Vikings is supposed to go down on Friday, July 3, according to the unimpeachable Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Other oracles are chiming in. The production of No. 4 jerseys has already been green-lit (how unfortunate that phrase evokes the colours of a certain rival in Wisconsin). Some even wonder if this is the canary in the coal mine, that owner Zygi Wilf has resorted to a desperation play because he wants to unload the team since it has zero chance of getting a modern stadium.

The indispensable Daily Norseman has tried to counsel Minnesota Vikings fan through this. As it put it in a piece titled The Favre Stages Of Grief.

"As a group, we've been through way more than this, and we've been through way worse than this ... and we've managed to persevere for this long. To be honest, I'm not even sure if 'signing Brett Favre' would crack a list of the Top 20 most disappointing things to ever happen to the Minnesota Vikings."

Twenty most disappointing things to ever happen to the Vikings, eh? Consider that gauntlet picked up, even if the author is unaware it was even thrown down. If nothing else, it's way to build a a forcefield for Favregeddon, starting right after the jump.

First off, there need to be ground rules, which the author reserves the right to make up off the top of his head.

Randy Moss' mock-mooning at Lambeau Field during the 2004 playoffs does not count. It came in a game where the Vikings beat the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. Moss came off better in that fiasco than FOX Sports' Joe Buck did. Scratch perennial 1,000-yard running back Robert Smith retiring from football in 2001 when he still had a few good seasons left, since that was his personal decision. Mocking former running back Onterrio Smith for getting busted at the airport with something called an Original Whizzinator is also out since that incident was symptomatic with his problems with addiction (read this post by one of Smith's one-time teammates, NFL tight end George Wrighster, and then say Onterrio Smith is fair game).

The rest is in play, as far as anyone knows.

20. Starting quarterback, Spergon Wynn

Spergon Wynn III was hardly cut out to be a CFL quarterback, let alone a NFL quarterback. The epitaph for his career in Canada came courtesy of one-time B.C. Lions teammate, Carl Kidd, who once said, "Spergon can be a good quarterback at times." The rub is none of those times involved the two starts he made for the Vikings late in 2001. He went 48-for-98 for passing with one touchdown and six interceptions and never started another game. He is the answer to a great trivia question: Who started at QB in the Vikings' last game under Dennis Green and the first under Mike Tice?

19. Drafting Troy Williamson

He's open deep and ... oh, he can't hang on! There is another NFC North team which is synonymous with spending first-round draft choices on wide receivers whose 40-yard dash times turn out to be fool's gold, but Williamson's ignominy ranks with any of the approximately 72 receivers Matt Millen drafted when he was doing to the Lions what a bunch of dopes in suits did to the U.S. auto industry.

Williamson, the No. 7 pick in 2006, was expected to give the Vikings the deep threat they had lacked since Moss left. Three years later, his name is mostly a punchline and he's an entry in Worst Man Drafted tournaments. Some of his drops were so bad that the director of a cheesy football comedy wouldn't have even included them, for lack of believability.



18. Paul Ferraro's special teams unit (2008)

Seven return touchdowns allowed in one season, a NFL record. The crazy part is Ferraro moved up the coaching ladder after that showing, since he was hired by the St. Louis Rams to coach their linebackers. Granted, that means worrying about three players, not all 11 on the field at one time.

17. Tony Dorsett runs 99½ yards (Jan. 3, 1983)

Perhaps it was not disappointing in the classic sense. It's just that the NFL Network seems bound by policy to have to air the clip of Dorsett's dash at least once every 24 hours. No one remembers that the Vikings actually won that 1982 Monday nighter, no mean feat when you allow a running back to go 99 yards on a play when his team lined up with only 10 guys. True story.

16. Vikadontis Rex (1995-2000)

There is only room for one lame dinosaur mascot in the four major sports. The Toronto Raptors totally called this one. Vikadontis was introduced in the wake of the Jurassic Park phenomenon in the early '90s, probably as a way to appeal to the kids. Of course, the Vikings already had a mascot, Ragnar, played by a guy who holds the world record for shaving with an ax, so it just ended up muddying the brand.

15. Antonio Freeman's catch (Nov. 6, 2000)

A semi-legitimate sports journalist is conditioned to eschew using the word fluke. However, what happened on the night of Nov. 6, 2000 was nothing but a damn fluke. The Vikings and Packers never should have been in overtime in the first place, but in a driving rainstorm, the Vikings botched the hold on a last-second field goal try.

In OT, Freeman slipped on the wet field while running a deep route and Dishman appeared to bat it to turf. However, it hit Freeman, who managed to complete the catch, get to his feet without being tackled and cut inside a defender to score and give Green Bay an ill-gotten 26-20 win. It also cost the Vikings home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.



14. Dennis Green tries to sue the team (1997)

To be fair, you might call a lawyer too if you had coached a perennial playoff team and found out the highers-up tried to replace you with a rah-rah college coach like Lou Holtz who was a failure in his one shot in the NFL.

13. Randy Moss' long goodbye (about 2002 to '04)

There are reasons Randy Moss is great and wonderful beyond him being in the picture when people talk about the greatest pass receivers in NFL history (after Jerry Rice and somewhere in there with Marvin Harrison and Lance Alworth from the AFL and if you include Terrell Owens in there, you're asking to get punched in the balls).

Moss showed an outcast could make it in an American team sport. That point was generally lost amid the "I play when I want to play," the meter-maid bumping and leaving the field before the game was over. No one really got that at the time, except perhaps for Karl Taro Greenfeld, but he didn't profile Moss until after he been traded to the Oakland Raiders for next to nothing. Meantime, there was so much lost potential left back in Minnesota, even though it's hard to begrudge Moss on NFL Sundays when he's catching touchdown passes from Tom Brady and polishing his application to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

12. Daunte Culpepper's knee injury (2005)

When pro football historians (how do you get that job? Is there a test, like the foreign service exam?) talk about the great passing combos whose first names need not be mentioned, they'll talk about Montana-to-Rice, Manning-to-Harrison, Unitas-to-Berry, and Brady-to-Moss. It will ignore Culpepper, who threw to Moss during his prime years, from the time he was 23 until he was 27.

It went so well for long, then one day it did not anymore. Since '05, Culpepper has played for the Dolphins, Raiders and the Detroit Lions, so you could say the injury was career-ending.

11. Pass not intended for Darrin Nelson (Jan. 17, 1988)

Plenty of teams have seen their Super Bowl dreams dashed in the final minute of the conference championship game, just yards from a tying or winning touchdown. The killer is that the final play of the 1987 NFC championship vs. Washington, the underdog Vikings ended up with Anthony Carter and running back Darrin Nelson in the same area of the field. That made it easier for Hall of Famer Darrell Green, who was covering Carter, to break up the pass. It was intended for Nelson, but considering that Carter had set a playoff receiving record the week before, it's hard to perish the thought Wade Wilson was throwing for him.



In hindsight, the other kicker two decades later is the Vikings, as a blue state team, could have won on the field and on principle. That was the season when the NFL used scab players for three games during a players' strike. The fake Vikings went 0-3, but they still made the playoffs and were six yards from victory.

10. Super Bowl IV (January 11, 1970)

The first of the Vikings' four Super Bowl losses might not be well-remembered. The fact remains is they were 12-point favourites going in against the Kansas City Chiefs and lost by 16. No team ever favoured by such a large spread ever lost again until 1998, when a certain bunch of Cheeseheads, thanks to a couple key turnovers by a quarterback wearing No. 4, lost to Denver after being favoured by 13.



9. Smoot boat scandal (Oct. 6, 2005)

Easy enough to laugh this off now, but the general mood was less tolerant in 2005. Between Moss leaving and Culpepper suffering a thermonuclear knee injury, it was a rough few months.

8. Jim Marshall's wrong-way run (1964)

Marshall's record of playing in 282 consecutive games across 20 seasons basically makes him the NFL's answer to Cal Ripken Jr., except Ripken did not have to get cut-blocked or leg-whipped on a semi-regular basis. However, there's a belief the member of the Purple People Eaters is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame all because of one boner he pulled in 1964.



7. Nooooo! Nooooooo! (Dec. 28, 2003)

Six years later, the question how? remains unanswered. An 11-point fourth-quarter lead against the worst team in the NFL should have been safe. Somehow, the Arizona Cardinals, led by depth-chart fillers such as Josh McCown and Nathan Poole, scored two touchdowns inside of the two-minute warning, helping Favre and the Green Bay Packers get into the playoffs, keeping the Vikings out after they had started the season 6-0. It also inspired an epic rant. Of course, since the best a Vikings fan can usually hope for is justice delayed, several years later the NFL changed the so-called force-out rule, so Nathan Poole's end-zone catch would not count if they were playing the game today. Of course, they're not playing the game today, even if some of us are just replaying it over and over.

6. Metrodome opens (April 3, 1982)

Let's get this straight: You gave up the best home-field advantage in the NFL? How did that work out? Baseball's Twins, the NBA's Timberwolves and the University of Minnesota football team have each scored swankier digs, but only the Vikings remain unable to score a modern stadium.

5. Korey Stringer's death (Aug. 1, 2001)

As a fan, there is a lot you-don't-wanna-know when it comes to the sacrifices pro athletes have to make. Springer's death due to complications from heat stroke uncovered the dark side of the sport. Pushing someone that far was so needless, so unnecessary that it hardly seemed like a game.

4. 41-doughnut (Jan. 14, 2001)

Have you ever sat there as a sports fan after your team lost by a slim margin and wondered if it would have been easier to take if they had never been in the game? Losing 41-0 in the NFC championship game to the New York Giants, getting shut out by a defence which had Jason Sehorn on it, well, there's your answer.

3. Drew Pearson pushes off (Dec. 28, 1975)

Pass interference is like obscenity. There is no definition of it, but everyone knows it when they see it. Pearson's look of restrained jubilation after catching the Hail Mary pass from Roger Staubach to beat the Vikings in the '75 playoffs is all the proof one needs to know he pushed off on Hall of Fame defensive back Paul Krause, even if the replays are actually inconclusive.



2. Herschel Walker trade (Oct. 12, 1989)

The trade was so bad the temptation is to believe it was a conspiracy to restore the Dallas Cowboys to NFL prominence and help the league's TV ratings recover in the wake of the 1987 strike. It's easier to accept that

1. Almost perfect (Jan. 17, 1999)

All together now: Damn! One can finally laugh a little about it now that has been spoofed by an Emmy-nominated sitcom. It's a burn, not a serious one mind you since this is just football, to never know how Randall Cunningham and Cris Carter might have done in a Super Bowl. It is clear the Vikings might have been headed for a fall, having flown to close to the sun on the wings of bad song parodies.



(It was the end of the 20th century. You try to forget, but booze only helps so much.)

Of course, there was more to it than Gary Anderson (who, as Marshall Eriksen/Jason Segel has noted, is now retired and owns a fly-fishing business ... in Canada), missing a 38-yard field goal that would have wrapped up the NFC title when he had not missed all season. There was more to it than the irony that the Atlanta Falcons' winning field goal was also from 38 yards and it was kicked by Morten Andersen, a Dane, meaning the Vikings' fate was sealed by an actual Viking.

It was the aftermath. In this case, it meant having to go out afterward to cover a hockey game for The Queen's Journal while wearing a Moss jersey (going home to change was not an option) and being asked, "So, who won? Last I checked Minnesota was way ahead."

The point is the obvious. Vikings fans have been through much. After reading the magic words, "Top 20 most disappointing things," it took maybe forty-five seconds to come up with about 18 of the items on this list. Put all of it together and we're Brett-proofed. Bring him in, already.

Top 5: Where playoff blunders happen; Courtney Lee has company

The Orlando Magic's Courtney Lee has a place in hoops infamy, regardless of how people hair-split over his missed layup at the end of regulation in Game 2 of the NBA Finals last night.



People remember a blunder (if that's even what this was, it was a tough shot), since it's only human nature to seize upon the times when the gifted goofed up royally. It's more immediate and obvious than a true blunder, like Michael Jordan using the No. 3 pick in 2006 on Adam Morrison, who's now spot-welded to the Lakers' bench, or the entire history of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise.

If you're really generous, one view is that the Magic drew up a brilliant play and suffered the equivalent of a hockey player hitting the goal post or a football wide receiver the ball jarred out by a huge hit just before catching a touchdown pass. Lee was a right-handed player on the left side of the basket, but an NBA player is supposed to make those. Either way, Lee has plenty of company when it comes to roundball ruefulness:

Air Johnson (first round, 1981)

Magic Johnson led the Lakers to championships in two of his first three seasons, 1980 and '82. In between, there was a major bump in the road in 1981 when the Lakers lost to a 40-42 Houston team in the first round. The capper in the decisive Game 3 (the first round was best-of-3 at that time) was Johnson shooting an air ball with 10 seconds left and the Lakers down by one point.



That clip is worth watching just for the music, which is straight out of a Dirk Diggler movie.

Derek Harper's rookie mistake (Second round, 1984)

The Dallas Mavericks had a flair for the farcical long before Mark Cuban made his first million; hell, why do you think picked that team to buy? Derek Harper played 16 seasons in the league as a crafty point guard. However, in Game 4 vs. the Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lakers in 1984, the score was tied in the closing seconds when the rookie Harper got the ball. Instead of working for a game-winning shot, Harper dribbled in place, believing the Mavs were ahead instead of tied. The Lakers, much as they did on Sunday, controlled the overtime and went on to win, taking a two-game lead in the series (3-1 in that case), and wrapped the series up two nights later.

Harper is one of one two players to notch 15,000 points, 6,000 assists and 1,800 steals. The other? Isiah Thomas. Now you know the rest of the story.

Joe Crawford's no-call (Western Conference final, 2008)

Everyone realized San Antonio's Brent Barry was fouled by Derek Fisher on a last-second play, except for the officials. Granted, it was the Spurs who got hosed, so no one outside Texas minded.



Josh Howard loses his brain (NBA Finals, 2006)

One comes not to bury Josh Howard, but to praise him. You remember the situation. The Mavericks were up by a point in the closing seconds of overtime in Game 5, series tied 2-2. Stopping the Miami Heat would gie Dallas two chances to close out the series on home court. Dwyane Wade, the eventual Finals MVP, was fouled with 1.9 seconds left. The strategy was obvious. Take a timeout after Wade's second free throw, so the Mavs could inbound at half court. Instead, Howard called time after the first freebie, forcing the Mavs to go the length of the court after Wade put Miami ahead 101-100. A desperation shot failed

The rub is the game is remembered for the mental mistake by Howard, who had put up 25 points and 10 rebounds. It's forgotten, probably by everyone other than Cuban, Bill Simmons and Henry Abbott, that Game 5 was marked and marred more by the officials, whose whistle-happiness led to the Heat going to the line 49 times, 25 by Wade alone. Howard's teammates Devin Harris and Dirk Nowitzki shot a combined 10-for-31, and of course, there's the whole question of why the Mavericks were down to one timeout.

Perhaps Howard was showing solidarity with the kneejerkers who hate the rule that gives teams the option of inbounding from midcourt after a timeout. No true hoops fans mind this, of course, since having a more confined space to run a last-second play tests a team's creativity much better than someone heaving a 75-foot no-hoper of a pass that works once (Christian Laettner, Duke, 1991), maybe twice (Bryce Drew, Valparaiso, 1998) in a lifetime.

Nick Anderson bricks it (NBA Finals, 1995)

No one ever said life was fair. Anderson ought to be remembered for more than four missed free throws. He was Orlando's first draft choice and played longer for the franchise than any member of the 1989-90 expansion team. He also came up with a huge steal on some guy named Michael Jordan which led to the winning basket in the opener of the Eastern Conference final. However, there is no getting past that the Magic had a three-point lead against the defending champion Houston Rockets in Game 1 of the Finals and Anderson bricked four free throws in a row, at home no less.

Houston, which was the heavy favourite (just like the Lakers), swept the series. Anderson, adding to the pathos, went from being a mediocre 70% free-throw shooter to being able to make less than half. Since he now works in Orlando's front office, he's constantly reminded of it, but it was little to do with the Magic's current situation.

"People are bringing it up and they want it to happen to the Magic now. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't turn back the hands of time. People make it out to be the series. We had three other games. This year's team has nothing to do with what happened 14 years ago. You can't put the two together."

Alas, they will.

At least Courtney Lee handled it like a champ.



As a bonus, Can't Stop The Bleeding (thanks for the link) came through with a reminder of another moment of playoff infamy: The New York Knicks' Charles Smith getting stuffed four times in the final seconds of a game against the Bulls in the 1993 Eastern Conference final.

Top 5: Stanley Cup final rooting interests

The serious analysis of this thing which starts tonight, the Stanley Cup final, is best left to those who do it better: From The Rink, Puck Prospectus, Puck Daddy and so forth. Many of them, not to name names, seem to be saying, "Detroit in 7," which seemed to be a common prediction last year, although the Prospectus says Penguins in 7.

Anywho, there are some good individual stories, after the jump.


5 players to root for on the Red Wings:

1. Darren Helm: The Red Wings energy player could earn his second Stanley Cup ring before he scores his first regular-season goal. (He has five in the playoffs the past two seasons, but zero in 23 regular-season games.)
   
   There is a half a mind to argue for him to be the 13th forward on Team Canada at the Olympics, but it's not clear if it would be a serious case or a parody of puckheadism. Who will be our Rob Zamuner? Besides, the Red Wings penalty killing has actually been poor throughout the playoffs.
   
   Helm was a classic Red Wings find (fifth round in 2005).
   
   
2. Niklas Kronwall: The big defenceman hits hard, and occasionally high and late. Penguins fans have no right to hate him, though, since they loved Ulf Samuelsson, another Swede defenceman who played a greasy game, so during the early 1990s. Kronwall appeals to that raise-the-black-flag, start-slitting-throats side of human nature, the battle between good and evil which cannot be won.
   
   
3. Ty Conklin: By now you've heard 1,001 times that Detroit's backup goalie is in the final for the third time in four seasons, and that his giveaway in Game 1 of the 2006 final with the Oilers led to the game-winning goal (granted, it was Oilers coach Craig MacTavish's fault for being so cavalier about which reserve goaltender dressed while Dwayne Roloson played).
   
   Conklin's also the only player who has participated in each of the NHL's two Winter Classics. It's about time he got a Cup ring.
   
   
4. Dan Cleary: OK, so the story about the former first-round bust who bottomed out and reinvented himself with the Red Wings is passe, since the pride of Harbour Grace, N.L., earned a Cup ring last season. However, this space is sworn to always cheer for Cleary, who played for the Kingston Voyageurs in the mid-1990s before moving on to the Belleville Bulls, where he lit up the Frontenacs on a semi-regular basis.
   
   No one ever seems to make the connection between Cleary's early-career struggles and the fact his OHL coach was Larry Mavety. A decade after escaping Mav's Pro Hockey Factory, Cleary's become a complete player. He has eight goals and a +16 plus/minus in 16 games in these playoffs.
   
   
5. Brad Stuart: No one ever talks about him even though he logs 25 minutes a night on the Detroit blue line. He needs to fire his agent.
   

5 players to root for on the Penguins:

1. Marc-Andre Fleury: At some point, people have got to stop referencing the Pittsburgh goalie's infamous puck-handling gaffe which cost Canada the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship in 2004. That was before the lockout, for pity's sake. It's like The Sopranos: It's over.
   
   Fleury's likely going to have to make 35-40 saves a night for the Penguins to win.
   
   
2. Bill Guerin: The ageless winger took a puck in the face in a game against the Red Wings in 2007 when he was with San Jose and struggled for the rest of that season. Now he's playing against Detroit in the final, so there's a revenge thing happening.
   
   Guerin is almost as old (38) as then-Pen Gary Roberts was during last season's playoffs (42) and he actually takes a regular shift, unlike Gary Roberts during last season's playoffs. However, Guerin's American, so Hockey Night in Canada won't make him out to be the most important player in the series, unlike it did with Gary Roberts during last season's playoffs.
   
   
3. Maxime Talbot: Another late draft pick who's become a solid player for the Pens. He might have also given the Red Wings some bulletin-board material, and you just know this has a chance to get blown out of proportion.

   Maxime Talbot may not have expected Detroit Red Wings fans to be listening during an interview on a French radio station.
   
   If the was the case, the Pittsburgh Penguins center clearly underestimated the reach of his Stanley Cup finals opponent. A Red Wings fan from Montreal translated Talbot's comments about Red Wings forward Marian Hossa and sent them to the Detroit Free Press:
   
   "There's nothing I'd like more than to be able to shake Marian's hand at the end of this series, look him in the eye and say, 'You chose the wrong team.' "

   The hockey gods will surely punish Talbot for such a brazen show of personality.
   
   
4. Sidney Crosby: Reasonable people have made their peace with The Crosby Show playing 24/7/365 for the next 10-15 years. The time for Sidney-slagging was about 2½ years ago. Don't hate him for how he's marketed; he's still only 21 and he has the same representation as Derek Jeter. He's been schooled in the art of saying little.
   
   Besides, as The National Post's Bruce Arthur pointed out a couple weeks ago on Prime Time Sports, Crosby has started to show some personality in interviews. The rote answers he gives (seldom much longer or shorter than 30 seconds) were kind of a defence against the media attention Crosby has had since he was 16.
   
   Face the facts. Crosby is the Boy Next Door ("He comes home and he’s just like one of us all over again," former minor hockey teammate Mike Chiasson, a goalie for the Acadia Axemen, told the Halifax Herald). It's akin to what Bill Maher said about right-wingers who criticize him: Slagging Sidney means you're really just revealing your own inadequacies.
   
   Besides, the Crosby-Ovechkin corollary will be fun to bat around for the next decade. Maybe it's like what baseball fans said about Henry Aaron and Willie Mays back in the day. If you were only going to watch one game, you'd watch Mays (Ovechkin). If you were going to watch someone for an entire season, you'd pick Aaron (Crosby).
   
   
5. Miroslav Satan: Because some people need to believe Sidney Crosby cannot hoist the Stanley Cup without the help of Satan.
   
   (Plus he was once captain of the Buffalo Sabres, who are the third-favourite team of so many hockey fans.)
   

Prediction: Pittsburgh in 7

Top 5: Splendid spliffers...

It is 4/20, so apropos of that, there should be a Top 5 of sports' greatest stoners.

Few are taken aback by pot-smoking anymore, and paraphrasing North Dallas Forty, which came out in 1979, players take much stronger stuff just to get out of the locker room. Even conservative judges think it's totally bogus the U.S. government won't allow for medicinal purposes, which raises the question why the hell it was front-page news when a picture surfaced of the Olympic swimmer of Michael Phelps sucking on a bong. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Any athlete who breaks this fourth wall always ends up taking heat from his bosses and having to put up with ridicule from dealers in the small joke trade.

The point is, there have been a more than a few athletes who were partial to the wacky tabaccy. Maybe a few kids read this and realize, hey, pro athletes are human, they have vices too. We're all a little screwed-up. Robert Parish, the erstwhile Chief of Boston Celtics fame, was left off this list, but there's plenty of others.

MARK STEPNOSKI, NFL offensive lineman

The five-time Pro Bowl centre enjoyed a long and productive NFL career with the Houston Oilers and Dallas Cowboys, and upon his retirement in 2001, became head of the Texas chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He said he'd started smoking in high school, often to help him relax after games. Stepnoski's explanation was as straightforward as the Cowboys' famed lead draw play to Emmitt Smith: "I'd rather smoke than take painkillers."

FERRIS FAIN, baseball player

An oldie but a goodie. Fain was a two-time American League batting champion, winning in 1951 and '52 with the old Philadelphia Athletics. He didn't hit very many home runs, but his numbers suggest he had plate discipline out the yin-yang, since his career on-base percentage was .424 (he even led the league in OBP one season, when Ted Williams was off flying planes in the Korean War).

Thirty years after leaving baseball, though, Fain, was twice arrested for growing marijuana and eventually did 18 months in a California state prison. He played the moral-relativism card, though, telling reporters in 1994:

"I never abused or shot anyone. I was just trying to make a buck. What I did was far less harmful than a bartender getting you boozed up and then letting you out on a highway where you might kill someone. I know how bad that stuff can be."

JOSH HOWARD, NBA forward

Granted, some would say, "The Entire NBA" should get a spot on its list. That's more of a commentary on how we tend to believe the worst about public figures. They show less and less of their true personalities and have a legion of professionals paid to highlight their good qualifies, so it's only human nature.

Howard broke a fourth wall a while ago when he straight-up told Michael Irvin, then of ESPN, that he smoked marijuana. He didn't even act like it was a big deal: "I just let him know that most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the off-season." In other words, Josh Howard should be rewarded for his honesty. It's like something Bryant Gumbel once said, We complain about guys giving cookie cutter answers to questions, and then there is outrage when someone speaks his mind

Estimates of how many players smoke range from 30 per cent (2005 Rocky Mountain News survey) to 60 per cent (2001, then-Raptor Charles Oakley).

RICKY WILLIAMS, NFL running back

Many fans have felt a kinship to Williams, the walking contradiction who projects a blissed-out hippie mien even though he's one of the top power runners in NFL history. It's a good reminder that people can't be put into small boxes, although any time before about 2005 or '06, you would have got your ass kicked for suggesting it.

Williams was said to have tested positive for marijuana four times, which ultimately led to him being suspended by the NFL and having to come up to Canada for a one-season sojourn with the Toronto Argonauts. The fact the NFL considers weed a banned substance is kind of strange. No This is the league where fans and media react to a player getting a four-game ban for steroid use pretty much the same way they do when someone's out a month with an injury.

RANDY MOSS, NFL wide receiver

Being a New England Patriot and catching touchdown passes from Tom Brady has helped erase the rough edges around the most prominent graduate of Rand University. At the end of the day, if you win, people look at you differently. That's what is.

Moss, who's been this ass-talker's favourite football player since 1996, his freshman year at Marshall, had the exact opposite of the Midas touch during his years as a Minnesota Viking. There was the squirting of an official with a water bottle, bumping a meter maid with his car, the mock mooning, the "I play when I want to play" and last but not least, being honest with Gumbel during a 2005 interview.

"I have used, you know, marijuana ... since I've been in the league….But as far as abusing it and, you know, letting it take control over me, I don't do that, no ... hopefully ... I won't get into any trouble by the NFL by saying that, you know. I have had fun throughout my years and, you know, predominantly in the offseason."

That's pretty much forgotten now, as Moss has image-rehabbed his way to a bust at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Point being, he smoked weed and he's still considered a consummate professional, one of the best to ever play the game.

So, to all you kids out there, now that you know you can do it and still take care of business, please, don't do it.

Top 5: And that's why you can stay so long ...

Corner Gas' writers have always mined the world of sports and competition for laughs throughout the show's run, which ends tonight (7:30 Saskatchewan time on CTV). Like King Of The Hill, it's always understood the way people in small towns can get caught up in some good old-fashioned healthy competition, as a way to help pass the time.

It's captured the fun of fandom, like the time Brent Leroy dressed up in his full Saskaman grab to show his devotion to the Roughriders — and weirds out 'Riders players Gene Makowsky and Matt Dominguez when they stop at The Ruby for lunch with a couple tickets to an upcoming game. It got into the drama of human competition when Brent and Karen went head-to-head in an eight-game Summit Series of table hockey.

As a way of giving thanks, here's the shows top five sports-themed episodes. It's not meant as definitive. Really, it's supposed to be random, like the show itself.

"Bend It Like Brent" (Season 6)

Brent and Lacey start trying to outdo each other after signing up as co-sponsors for a youth soccer team coached by Davis Quinton, the local RCMP officer. It's worth it since it takes the piss out of both soccerphobes and the pretensions of footy fans. When Davis corrects Lacey for saying soccer instead of football, she asks him, "What's the word for someone who uses British expressions even though they aren't British?" ... "A wanker." ... "Good to know." There's also:

"Brent, who's your favourite football team?"
"That's easy, the 'Riders."
"No, I mean football."
"Oh, the Minnesota Vikings."
"No, I mean in England."
"Oh, that would be a tie between the Manchester I Don't Give A Craps and the London Not A Real Sports."

A tension soon develops between the co-sponsors. Lacey wants the team to win at all costs, whereas Brent wants to give them candy even when they lose.

"Face Off" (Season 1)

Ignore the fact that having the prim-and-proper female lead emerge as an unlikely ringer ripped off a Cheers episode where the gang challenged Garry's Old Town Tavern in bowling. (In the Cheers episode, Diane Chambers emerges as the bar's best bowler — she took a class in it at college since she needed a phys-ed credit and you could read between frames.)

The Dog River Riverdogs hockey team is beyond hopeless, but the scores they lose by are never too embarrassing thanks to the goaltending of Brent, which means they never have to try too hard. However, Dog River's rival, Stonewood, is urging him to defect to their side ahead of an upcoming showdown,, forcing Brent to choose between playing with friends and actually having a chance to win a game. Lacey, though, saves the day by stepping in as the team's first coach. "A lot of teams have coaches now," reasons Brent. "Even in the NHL."



Lacey's infusion of strategy helps Dog River eke out a 1-1 tie. "Ha-ha," Brent tells the Stonewood players. "You suck just as much as we do."

"At The Good Old Table Hockey Game" (Season 4)

Hockey is not the national sport, contrary to popular belief. It's road hockey. When Davis buys a vintage table-top hockey game for the police detachment and discovers Karen is a god with the rods, table hockey becomes the local obsession.

Before long, thanks to Davis and Wanda's big yaps, Brent and his old-time, dump-it-in-the-corner style is put up against Karen's crisp, precise passing attack in an eight-game series — four in Brent's parents' basement, four at the cop shop. Lacey is the only one who doesn't get caught up in it, until Wanda informs her, "It's not a game — it's a way of life. Think of those little metal kids growing up on little metal farms."





"Slow Pitch" (Season 2)

Makes the list for the name of the gang's beer-league ball team — the Corner Gas Guzzlers — and the game they make out of hiding their open alcohol from Karen and Davis, since they don't want the two cops to issue citations for drinking in public. It turns out the cops are fully aware of the drinking and don't care, but appreciate their friends making the effort.

"I Love Lacey" (Season 1)

Better known as The One Where They Don't Go To The Grey Cup. A series of flashbacks relate how the gang from Dog River had tickets to attend the CFL championship game, which is being played in Regina. A series of unfortunate events conspire to keep Emma and Wanda, Brent and Lacey, Hank and Oscar and Karen and Davis from making it to Taylor Field. However, none of them have ever let on to the others that they missed the game — or questioned why it was 20 Celsius and sunny on a late-November Grey Cup Sunday in Saskatchewan.

And look at the way they invert the everyman fantasy of making time with a beautiful girl while wearing a shirt supporting your favourite football team:

Top 5: Getting in Tournament mode

The NCAA Tournament (always capitalized) tipped off in earnest. You're been up nights trying to figure out which 10 seed might make it to the Sweet Sixteen (Michigan, maybe Minnesota with Toronto's Devoe Joseph), strip-mined The Wages of Wins for pearls of wisdom, maybe said to hell with it and picked teams based on who has a funnier nickname, although none have anything on the one matchup in the women's NCAAs between South Dakota State (the Jackrabbits) and Texas Christian (the Horned Frogs).

You're wrong if you think this is all about knowing which team doesn't have an adequate backup centre if their best big man gets in early foul trouble, although that might help you fill out your bracket. March Madness is not an event. It's an attitude.

1. Re-read portions of Will Blythe's To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry.
   
   Granted, Blythe probably went a little far trying to claim that there's no internecine hatred like Duke-Carolina internecine hatred. However, it's brilliant and it gets to the heart of why people follow sports, to rationalize irrational loathing.
   
   Duke has never done you any wrong, yet you hate them and hate yourself for picking them to reach the Elite Eight. You might not watch NCAA Division 1 hoops all season (especially since the 35-second shot clock makes for a slower-paced game to Canadian eyes which have got used to the 24-second shot clock in the CIS), but when you see Duke, you're seeing the whole bile-pushing line of succession, from J.J. Redick back to Wojo to Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner. Who's playing for them now doesn't seem to matter much.
   
   
2. Re-read Chuck Klosterman's essay "33" (anthologized in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs). It's about the 1980s Celtics-Lakers rivalry, but it gets to the core of basketball. Relating to the sport comes down to black-and-white philosophies. You need your absolutes (do you favour a team with great bigs, or one with savvy senior guards) if you're going to be able to fill out your bracket by noon ET tomorrow.
   

   QUESTION #8: Should capital punishment be legal?
   Laker People say no, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a human rights activist who would question the validity of any practice that essentially replicates the original crime. Celtic People say yes, because anybody who's looked into Larry Bird's eyes knows he's a killer.

   This might embarrass both the person it's about and the person who said it, but a friend said that he knew the Carleton had it in the bag at the CIS Final 8 when he saw that one of the more important Ravens had noticeably deep-set eyes. He went on to explain that men have deeper-set eyes than women due to the warrior culture, when people fought with swords. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, this would mean Carleton's path to this national title started back in 1066 on some battlefield in England.
   
   
3. Go on YouTube and watch as many One Shining Moments as you can. You will cry. It's OK to cry.
   
4. Watch Hoosiers. It's a CRTC and FCC mandate that some cable channel must being airing it late at night on the eve of the Thursday first-round games. It was Reagan-era schmaltz, but it was good schmaltz.
   
5. Stay up half the night preparing arguments for why the Canadian university champion should get a NCAA bid (or saying, hey, our tournament is good enough). More than one Canadian hoops devotee has said it would be great if the CIS champs could be given a spot in the NCAAs, not as one of the no-hope 16 seeds, but maybe as a 12 seed against a team such as Utah, seeded fifth in the Midwest Regional.
   
   Imagine the interest if some wild Canadian horde were allowed inside the velvet rope. Imagine the pressure on the U.S. coaches and players to maintain the NCAA's superiority.
   

Do all that, and you'll be ready.

(Classic To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever moment on the phone with my mom earlier this week: "Did you see the Jets beat out the Raiders?" she said, referring to two area Junior C hockey teams, the Amherstview Jets and Napanee Raiders. Neither of us have ever attended a game, so taking glee in the Raiders' dust-biting might seem like bad form.

However, it made sense. The Sagers are Ernestown people, not Napanee people, no matter what our mailing address says. As kids, we played our minor hockey and ball for Ernestown Township, since it was closer to house and most of all, not Napanee, which tended to take youth sports a little too seriously. All five of us attended Ernestown Secondary School and played various sports, although it was good that my brother got to play a little football for the Napanee Golden Hawks. The lines are clearly delineated.)

Top 5: Conan clips

By no means should anyone claim to have the definitive post on Conan O'Brien's run as host of Late night on NBC.

David Letterman has always fulfilled my hero worship. Outside of Dave, Craig Kilborn, for about a two-year stretch in the early 2000s, made for very consistent viewing. It might look bad now, but nothing, but nothing, explains the turn of the century like Dave Grohl answering the question, "What's the best Beatles song to play when you're lit?", except for a game of Yambo between Mini-Me and the mom on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Regardless, nocturnal types who have had a roughly 3 p.m. to midnight shift since 2002 owe Conan a debt, so here's five faves from through the years.

Triumph takes on Star Wars fans ... "You don't deal with lesser life forms? You must be a lonely guy."



The more you know ...



Andy on The Today Show



"NBC has merged with Universal. Universal owns the USA Network. USA Network owns the rights to Walker, Texas Ranger which means I can play a Walker, Texas Ranger clip any time I want to, simply by pulling this convenient Walker, Texas Ranger lever."



The brawl to settle it all...



Have a nice today.

Top 5: Capturing the spirit of the thing

The alma mater's men's hockey team is holding Slap Shot Night tonight, for their home game vs. the Ryerson Rams at the Kingston Memorial Centre.

Since there's never not a time to quote Slap Shot, here's a Top 5 of film clips, to put a smile on your face this final Friday in Februrary.

"You go to the box, you know, two minutes by yourself and you feel shame, you know ... and then you get free."



"I know a good bar here, the Palm Isle ..."



"Reg, that reminds me ... "



"Dave's a killer!" ... "Dave's a mess!"



"Bleed all over 'em. ... let 'em know you're there."



Elsewhere, the Kingston Frontenacs are in action tonight against John Tavares and the London Knights, 7:30 at the Kingston Ratepayer Centre. Good seats are still available.

Top 5: Pearls of wisdom

Jeff Pearlman's new gig fairly demands some sort of tribute, since he's one of those sportswriters you wish you could touch with a 39½-foot pole.

For his and our sake, Sports Illustrated better figure out how to put Pearlman front and centre.

"This is just my take, but it seems the network/website/magazine became obsessed with adding every big journalism name out there. So it started unloading tons and tons of money on the Rick Reillys and Howard Bryants of the business. Those guys are, of course, wonderful talents. But at some point, ESPN seemed to be hiring for the sake of hiring. They treated journalists in the way sports organizations treat players — gobbling up 'free agents' without much thought. Now, they’re loaded with big names, but is the finished product that much better? Probably not."

Along with his biography of Barry Bonds bio and thumping good reads about the 1986 New York Mets (The Bad Guys Won) and 1990s Dallas Cowboys (Boys Will Be Boys), Pearlman has produced some first-rate stuff for ESPN.com. His stuff speaks for itself, but it's like he's able to bring the point home that a sports figure does not cease to be interesting once he or she is no longer playing, without hitting people over the head with by being overly obvious.

Assuming Mr. Pearlman wouldn't mind, here's five gems among many from his body of work:

1. Fifth and Jackson (September 2008)— A retrospective on the slain California Angels outfielder Lyman Bostock, 30 years after he was shot to death.
   
   
2. From a Benz to a bike; the rise and fall of Clayton Holmes (January 2008) — It's a big myth that journalism leads to public good, but after Pearlman's empathetic profile of former Dallas Cowboy Clayton Holmes, the former Super Bowl-champion cornerback made an effort to get his life turned around. Of course, only Holmes could rescue himself, but who knows if he got a nudge from someone taking an interest in his life.
   
   
3. Joe Kennedy is gone, but not forgotten (March 2008) — A look at the widow of former Blue Jays pitcher Joe Kennedy and the support network she found through people in baseball.
   
   
4. Turning a critical eye to the ol' alma mater (August 2007) — One of the more welcome trends in sports media is that writers who don't claim to have all the answers and work through their own blind spots. Pearlman turned the focus on himself, questioning why in a decade of inveighing against Native American team nicknames, he'd never objected to his old high school being the Indians.
   
   In hindsight, this one resonates. My old high school's sports teams are the Ernestown Eagles. In Don Marks' book They Call Me Chief: Warriors On Ice, he talks about how there was a large dispute in the mid-1990s when a reserve-based Junior A hockey team in Lebret, Sask., opted to call itself the Lebret Eagles. The use of bird imagery is a very sensitive issue among aboriginals. It was not surprising, yet still embarrassing to have gone through 30-plus years not knowing this. It doesn't mean ESS should change its name, but just as it's good to know the Kingston Frontenacs' historical namesake had a tie to slavery, it's good to be aware.
   
   
5. Nothing meek about Meek's game (June 2007) — Remember Chaminique Holdsclaw, who was supposed to turn women's basketball on its ear in the late '90s? She had a couple good seasons and pretty much faded away, as she dealt with clinical depression. People don't forget.
   

Pearlman also believes Tim Raines should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hopefully, all of this speaks to the man's ability to get people to use their heads in ways they didn't know they had. Reading Pearlman at SI.com will be a treat.

Related:
Goodbye, ESPN.com; hello, SI.com (Jeff Pearlman.com)