Observations From Yesterday

I put in around 90 minutes a day, give or take a half hour, getting each days blog entry up.  The rest of the day, I work towards earning money as best I can – columns, real estate copy, working on the Hockey Greats Fantasy Camp, or soliciting new sponsors.

Yesterday, I recieved an extremely generous donation from an Aggie in Alaska, Frank Reddick.  Frank was living up in AK when I was playing, and in looking for ways to support the University hockey program, he bought my jersey at an auction and gave it to my family the second I was no longer NCAA eligible.  He is buddies with a couple of my roommates as well, and has done more for us than he’s ever needed to.  So, to Frank, THANK YOU.  It’s feels wonderful to have the time I put in to this justified.

*****

Crap, same costume, AGAIN!

I’ve written a couple columns in the last few days that I really liked.  When that happens, the response is usually great.  The problem though, is that I received the NHL media stuff in my inbox the other day, took it at it’s word, and went on to write about the amazing growth of attendance and television ratings.

And though the NHL has seen major gains, my point is this: did anybody catch Capitals/Thrashers on TV yesterday?  It was in Atlanta, and I was embarassed watching it.  After naming ATL as one of the four teams to see huge growth in attendance, it looked like 7/8ths of the fans came dressed as blue seats for halloween.  How am I supposed to write about how awesome their ticket sales are, when all it takes is someone with two eyes to see they aren’t doing that well at all?

(The other article is an elaboration of the gay rights for hockey players blurb that started some conversation yesterday.  We’re ridiculously behind the times in sports.)

*****

Knuck it up.

Is doing the “pound” (knuckle-bump) officially the new “old-white-guy-high-five” yet?  Isn’t it time for Afro-Americans to continue to lead the way in cultural trends and start something new?  This may be the only time in our culture where you still see young black men and old white men using a similar form of expression. 

Except old white guys “blow it up” sometimes now, which kills me (case in point: Clark Gillies Charity golf event, where my Dad and his group, in a scramble event, honored each good shot with a double-fist simul-pound, with TNT like results… PZCHOOOOOO!  They were hilarious).  Oh, and apparently the fear of “pandemics” promotes the pound too.  Whateves.  (says the kid who lives 2.5 hours from the Mexican border)

*****

Alexander Frolov got me thinking: there’s nothing worse than playing well after being benched.  Its such a stupid situation to be put in.

Basically, post-benching, if you play well the coach takes credit for “motivating you”, even if all he did was earn himself a dose of seething resentment.  Then, given the chance to play again, you get a couple bounces and he takes credit.  Long term, it’s not effective, I promise.  Pulling that card out in game seven?  Fine, Frolov is hot (because Frolov is good).  Looking forward to that relationship deteriorating as soon as he cools off again.