The Most Randomly Random Entry In Awhile

 

In a few weeks, it’ll be my ten year high school reunion.  Crazy, crazy stuff.

The only thing more crazy than that is I’ve reverted back to making the same amount of money now as I did then.  And then I delivered pizza and bused tables. 

Glad I could be around for this whole “death of journalism” thing.

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I give the NHL my share of little jabs for not making the best decisions, but I had this brought to my attention yesterday: the NBA Finals are a 2-3-2 home-away-home format.

As in, if you win one of the first two games on the road, you get three straight cracks at home after that.  That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  Sooo, the next three games of a 1-1 series are in Boston?

Doesn’t that seem insanely unfair, given that home court advantage in the NBA is like playing the entire  game on the powerplay?

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What are your thoughts on playing hockey tipsy?

This an entirely new experience to me, since, y’know, I’ve never been a rec player before.  But when the game is at 10 o’clock and you have a couple beforehand, it’s an odd experience.  Can’t say I love it.

But, it seems a lot of guys do…. doesn’t it just make the game seem like it’s happening too fast?

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Alright, my buddy and I batted this idea around the other day.  Nothing gets tainted or changed by doing this I don’t think, so….

Shouldn’t the NHL have some guy that sit in a booth somewhere and reviews every single play?  They could have just as much power as the on-ice refs. 

They would review every important play between whistles (like how we get to see the replays at home), and if the on-ice refs miss something, they can turn on a light at the scorers booth before the puck is dropped, or communicate it directly to the on-ice official.  So when we go ”oh, wow, penalty”, someone actually gets one.

Refs aren’t trying to miss calls, but you can’t look everywhere.  Take last game: our new booth guy would turn on a light and the ref would turn on his headset or whatever, and the guy says “yep, Briere was high-sticked by Keith off the draw, it’s a double-minor”, and the call could get made. 

We’d still need the on-ice guys because so much happens quickly that’s irreversible (offsides calls, for instance), so the refs would do the exact same job, they’d just have a safety valve for obvious calls that they miss.

We’ll never catch everything, but wouldn’t it be good to catch more?  Whaddya think?

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I’m pumped “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” is on Comedy Central now.  Give it a chance.  I could watch like ten episodes in a row.

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Comment sections on internet articles should have some way to lock down commenter picks, so they can’t flip flop.

As a writer, I’m held to my predictions pretty firmly.  At least you can look up what I said and call me on it.  I want a thing on Puck Daddy and here where the person’s comments on the series come from say “Jim Smith, Philly in Six”. 

It’d be awesome for me to be able to filter what everyone is saying through their own bias, the way EVERYTHING I WRITE gets filtered.

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Yesterday I walked out of Costco and a guy with knee high black socks, black running shoes and a vicious side-part looked at the contents of my cart and said “good choices”.

So now I’m worried I bought stupid-looking stuff.

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Guy Fieri host “Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins” or something like that.  Turns out one of the spots is a minute from my front door, called Chino Bandido. 

It’s “Asian-Mexican Fusion” (apparently a Chinese guy married a Mexican girl), and it’s awesome.  If you’re ever in Phoenix, look it up.  Ginger chicken burrito.  Orange chicken quesadilla.  I’m so goddamn full.  Still. (Maybe because I ate the leftovers for breakfast?) 

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Okay, today’s Puck Daddy entry is on the Struggles of the Top Dogs in the Finals.  Here’s the link to yesterday’s Keith for Conn bit.  Happy Tuesday!

Avatar, Figure Skating, Lockouts, Milbury, Tiger

 

I finally got around to seeing Avatar last night, on a Bri-sponsored date.

We did it the right way – IMAX, 3D, a sack of popcorn bigger than the screen, all that good stuff.  And I’ve gotta say….  WOW.  Just wow.  That movie was unbelievable.  I was 90% certain I would leave going “meh”, but I gave it a fair shot, and man, I thought it was just great.  It’s like Planet Earth on acid, splashed with a pretty cool story.  Check it out before you have to watch it on your 18″ RCA at home.

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I don’t get why male figure skating has to be so flamboyant.  I really don’t.  It’s the same as “why doesn’t Norway have a good hockey team?”

Why all the glitter and jazz hands to distract from one of the most unbelievably difficult events in individual sport?  Triple spins on skates?  And you need SEQUINS to make it impressive?

I understand not wearing something loose, as that would detract from your ability to perform.  But I find all the pomp and flash detract from my attention on what they’re actually able to accomplish.  There’s too much substance buried under all that style. 

But, I guess every sport has a culture.  The American snowboarders are rocking the jeans and plaid look (because the Cobain/grunge/Seattle look needed to be revived…. okay, I actually like the their gear), so I guess the figure skaters can rock bedazzled unitards and sparkles, if that’s what the culture is.  What they do is still ultra-impressive (just look at this pages bottom image for proof).

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In all of ESPN’s holy-crap-there’s-nothing-to-coverness, they’ve been chucking around the possibility of NFL and NBA strikes.  Do you think all those fans would immediately forgive “us” for the hockey lockout if that happened?  Would they come running back?  They would right?  Please pay attention to us.  Please!  I desperately want to make love to a schoolboy.

 

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 So Roenick and Milbury are the newest Pierre McGuire and Milbury.  As in, duo who argues because they’re both so opinionated they both have to be somewhat wrong.  I think the reason we’re seeing more Inflamatory Mike is that he’s starting to get comfortable on-air.  He probably started as a decent GM too *gag*, but now that he thinks he’s safe in his analyst job, he’s starting to say the stupid red flag things that make people go “…pardon?” (like that time when he started saying things like “Do you think we can turn Chara, Luongo, Jokinen and the future Spezza pick into some real Yashiny/Kvasha/Parrish-ish type guys?”).

My first taste of this was when Inflamatory Mike explained in a sentence or two to Clark Gillies that, since he had been with the Islanders for 13 years, and Clark played there for a mere 12, he was as much or more of an Islander.  This was spurred on by a bit of Grandpa’s cough syrup, it’s safe to say, but there were some mighty unhappy ex-Islanders in the room after that.  Since, y’know, Mike said it on the microphone while hosting an event to a bunch of them.

Let’s not launch a Milbury hate parade in the comments section.  We’ve covered he’s not the most popular guy, I just wanted to tell the “Mike’s a true Islander” story.

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Last for today: Tiger speaks tomorrow.  Holy crap.  This means a return to golf.  Before the Masters.  Holy crap.

I sure hope he apologizes to us for cheating on his wife.  Wait… why’s he holding a press conference again?

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Fact:  You can’t do this.

Don’t Tap Your Stick On The Ice. Ever.

 

Finally, FINALLY, I’m in a real, permanent home.  Or at least as close to permanent as possible without buying one.  My bags are (getting) unpacked, the intenet is fast, and watching a TV this big in a living room this small is like being at IMAX.  It’s amazing.  Oh, and as an aside, I got the NHL and NFL packages.  But that’s just as an aside.

A major side effect of playing sports for a living is travel.  As athletes, most people realize that the pro’s of the job so heavily outweigh the cons that it’s not even worth the breath to complain, but permanently living somewhere temporary does suck. 

After I moved out of the house in which I lived for nearly three years in college, I haven’t unpacked until today.  I lived in a small apartment with the Alaska Aces, then split my summer between Kelowna (BC) and New York with the family and GF, then New York for hockey, then Bridgeport, then Utah, then Bridgeport, then Utah, then Kelowna/New York, then Hershey, Reading, Boise, Kelowna/New York and most recently, my parents place in Arizona while Bri and I found this place.

I finally f**k**g unpacked.

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I’ll keep it mostly hockey today, because lets be honest, that’s probably why you check this site.

I saw something disturbing in a rec league game the other night, and it reminded me of something that I’d seen as a kid, and needs to be stopped before it can spread.

The guy on the other team triple tapped his stick on the ice to call for a pass… again, from the other team.  You know, the minor hockey move where the other team has the puck, and kids would just blindly pass it to anything they thought was a teammate - shadows, sounds, smells, whatever – so you could tap your stick and get a pass from just about anybody on the ice.

But this was a 30 year old adult male of the species.  You should have seen how hilarious it was, the guy hunched over his stick, doing those quick rabbit taps.  I blushed I was so embarrassed for him.  Yes, the move is that pathetic that I blushed.

In other sports, I’m a major fan of some things that people consider unethical, but I’d call gamesmanship.  If you can steal signs in baseball, why wouldn’t you?  They’re the ones who “need” to agree on a pitch, but don’t want to say it out loud – If you can figure out a “tell” in poker, you use it.  You’re trying to win.  So if you know what pitch is coming because their signs involve holding up ACTUAL SIGNS, sit on that fastball. 

Similarly, football is the perfect sample of the American rat race in general – anything to get ahead.  If that means renting a blimp and dangling into a stadium to get cellphone videos of the Jets 4-3 defense the day before you play them, then I say good on ya.

But the stick tap?  Grow up.

{Tangent brackets – don’t even call for passes from your own team with the stick tap.  Call for the damn puck like an adult so he/she can at least hear your voice.}

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Why can’t every sport institute football’s “challenge flag”?  It’s great that there’s some humanity involved in calling sporting matches.  That way refs can feel the momentum and energy, and adjust their calls accordingly.  But a missed call on a crucial play can unfairly penalize an undeserving team. 

It wouldn’t be used for calls like “hey, that was a foul” in basketball, but like “hey, that ball was actually fair” in baseball.  *flag*  or “hey, the puck hit their defenseman last before going over the glass, the draw should be inside.”  *flag* 

What’s so great about the challege flag, is that if you’re right, the game became more fair.  If you’re wrong, you lose your privileges, and we don’t have to put up with your petty grievences for the rest of the game, cause clearly, you’re frequently wrong.

Look how great its been for tennis.

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Despite the fact I had a tough first week in Fantasy Hockey (in my defense, the guy I played had not just a killer week, but also a shutout from CRAIG ANDERSON, and a short-handed assist… there’s two free “W’s”), I’ve agreed to be a weekly fantasy hockey “expert” on XM radio.  I’ll run my latest interview on my blog as soon as I get it.

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In other news, Glenn Beck narrowly edged out Gary Bettman for the person my readers would most like to punch.  I’ll be booking the flight to deliver that gift ASAP.

The Start of Everything Great

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Ahhh Monday, October 5th – the start of everything great.

Great:   This week kicks off the start of the 2009 – 2010 NHL season, and the excitment in North America is at it’s highest level in years.  08-09 saw the league make great strides towards regaining national interest, and this season got out of the gates even quicker than the one past.  It’s year five of the channel Versus’ NHL coverage, and though they do a slightly worse job of covering it than the Detroit Lions defense does of covering anything, it’s still a positive sign that this year’s opening day game had the highest ratings they’ve ever had by a run-away. 

Welcome back NHL season, and a welcome to Bourne’s fantasy hockey dominance – my guys have 12 points already, and my goalies have an average save percentage of like  .952!  …wait… what??  I’m losing with those stats?  Someone must have created a stupid league.

Also great: The NFL season just finished it’s fourth week, and we’re finally getting into the heart of the year.  My Jets are 3-1, which, despite a Mark Sanchez implosion last game, is the type of start any team would happily accept.  Good stuff from Gang Green.

Also great: The NBA season starts soon.  Not that I care all that much, but I like watching Lebron dunk on fools like the league is playing on Fischer-Price hoops.  I like the phrase ”posterize” (the act of dunking so hard on someone that they become the guy getting dunked-on in the poster on the wall of a kid’s room), and I like buzzer-beaters.  But really, it’s about Lebron (and the Cavs awesome team chemistry).  He’s like Tiger Woods – he makes an otherwise barely interesting sport mandatory to watch when he’s involved. 

Also great: My lady-friend and I are moving into our first place on Thursday.  Well, the first one we’re trading our own money to stay in, anyways.  As the Phoenix residents have explained, we’ve now entered the second six-month season, simply known here as “bragging”.  88, blue and clear here today.  How’s things Alaska?  Boston?  (Sorry, I had to).

Also great: 46″ Sharp Aquos, in the box, waiting to be opened.  Next topic.

Also great: Now that I got my Negative Nancy article out of my system (the firestorm-inducing piece in the Arizona Republic), I have a bunch of positive-ish columns coming out this week.  I’ll be linking to them here, because I’m not certain I’ll have time to blog later this week with the move and all.  The article’s title will become a link the second they become available around the ‘net.

Monday: HockeyPrimetime.com – The Last Two Cents For Fleury

Tuesday: USA Today – A New Season Begins

Wednesday: The Hockey News – Life After Hockey

Whenever Botta Wants: Islanders Point Blank – Trevor Smith

Two more quick things:

One: Give HockeyPrimetime a thorough check-out in the coming weeks.  They’re focused on providing quality original content, while amalagamating some of the best hockey stuff from around the ‘net.  They have radio shows in the works, and they built this site.  Hence, I’m a fan.

Two: If I may, I’d recommend reading the pieces for USA Today and The Hockey News.  The USA Today piece is a nice, light piece on how the start of the season feels, right before the marathon season begins.  If you like the piece, please, let them know, since they took the (massive) risk in hiring me.  The Hockey News piece is an article that stands in stark contrast to the USA Today one, but is strong in it’s own, different way.  It carries a lot of my own honest emotion about leaving the game, and was theraputic to write.

I hope you enjoy them all, and most of all, enjoy this hockey season.  Islanders, for the Cup! (enjoy the money I lost on that bet, Vegas…)

Things That Matter: Sports and Music

 

 

Music:  It’s so deflating that my passion for football is shared with a group of people who feel that an “Opening Kickoff” concert would be best played by the Black-Eyed Peas and Tim Mcgraw.  I stomached every second of every song just so nobody could invalidate my hatred with a “you have to really listen to it all” garden-variety response.  It’s awful.

Its a real testament to technology that the Black-Eyed Peas can be successful in the music world today.  F*** they’re painful.  And then Tim Mcgraw gets up and plays the exact same song I would write if I were trying to do a parody of everything that’s awful about country music – “Southern boys like beer and football and hats and rodeos…” (*may not have been exact lyrics).

Musically, I’ve got broad tastes – I’m all over the map.  And I’d never try to defend the rap music I listen to when I’m in a good mood.  With the baseball “up-to-bat” songs, I just like a little swagger in the step if you’re not trying to funny with it.  Maybe this one’s not quite up-to-bat worthy, but it definitely gets the “volume up” honor when it comes on in the car {random thought: the car is almost officially named.  Public release coming soon}. 

Bourne – alienating hockey fans through rap music, one reader at a time.

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Football:  Steelers tight-end Heath Miller has a farmer tan so ridiculous that the white-ness extends past his jersey length.  I love it.  Way to really emphasize your whiteness in the NFL.

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Football:  Troy Polamalu is freaking scary.  Could you imagine playing “jackpot” with him as a kid?  “500, dead or alive”… annnddd Troy gets 500 points.  Again.

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Hockey:  How much does watching old highlights of NHL games half-taint the stats of players in those days (sorry Dad… I’m just sayin…)?  The goaltending is sinful.

I was watching a game on the NHL network - some classic game, mind you - that ended in a triple overtime, on-the-ice five-hole shot, and not a single player tried to behead the goalie who let the shot in.  If an unscreened shot goes in on-the-ice five-hole nowadays, goalies (by law) have to let every fan in the first three rows punch their face.  And teammates get two punches.

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Baseball:  Why do I have to sit through intentional walks in baseball?  For that matter, why does anybody? 

If the team wants to put the guy on base, can we not accomplish that using our big-boy words?  Like, exchanging dialogue with the ump wouldn’t be okay? 

“We’re just going to throw four pitches very far away from the plate because we’d like this player to get to first base.  Permission to skip those steps?”

“Yes.  Take your base.”  Done.

Or even better… you can put the guy on base in one pitch by just hitting him with the ball.  Maybe you miss him with the first couple (evasive bastard), but you can save time by trying again on the next pitch.  If I pitched in the AL and didn’t have to bat, I’d have 0 intentional walks, and 53 intentional rib injuries (a new – but valued – stategory).

A Plea To Current NHLers

 

When I grew up, sports seemed so clear.

There didn’t seem to be so much legalise; this constant, in-depth coverage of the personal lives of the athletes I was watching and revering.  Our heroes of old were probably just as flawed as our heroes of present, only they didn’t catch guys like Babe Ruth doing something stupid and run it on every TV in the nation because there weren’t six cell phone camera’s around at the time.

In earlier decades, fans would have no clue that in pre-season Josh Hamilton stumbled in his attempt at a sober life, but thanks to a few college teens, we have a couple dozen pics of his bizarre meltdown. 

The mistakes our athletes make are constantly in our face, covered to the fullest, and intertwined with regular sports news. 

This steroids thing in baseball has gone from “no!” to “oh” to “so?“. 

I understand sports fans who don’t like baseball.  It’s a thrill-an-hour, and they play more games the video game world has Halo users.  But for me, there was always something kinda pure about it.  Because there’s no man-to-man contact in baseball (or very, very little), it just seems like the least relevant sport to be a steroid user.

And that may be why the steroid suspensions haven’t come crashing down too hard on the users.  There’s no risk of injury to other people, like in football, where if someone is scary strong, it’s scary for a reason.

What’s with the length of suspensions?  In baseball, getting busted for injecting your body with illegal performance enhancing juice costs you 50 games (that injection also costs the right people their jobs, and earns the wrong people more money).  And then you’re cleared to play and help your team down the playoff stretch, while most of the falsely earned new muscle is still there and about to burst through your jersey.  You’ll lose some of the muscle mass, fine, but hey, get in enough cycles before you get caught and you’ll see the benefits for a while.

Why does baseball think it’s any better now that it was before the Mitchell Report?

Of course, baseball’s not alone in it’s embarassments in recent years.

Somehow, the culture of the NFL is breeding poor decision-making too.  This hip-hop culture that has emphasized the need to be a gun-toting, take-no-guff cool guy is putting guys in prison so often it barely registers a blip on my care-dar anymore.  Thanks Plaxico.  Dante.  Pacman.  Vick. 

And the NBA is nowhere near exempt.  I’m not so sure we’ve gotten to the bottom of the officiating scandal.  One single referee gets caught betting on games he’s working, claims he’s part of a league-wide reffing circle of hustlers, and the story gets buried?

Guys are always going to get in trouble, I get that.  Like all jobs, men work them, and men are flawed (sometimes we hit cabbies).  We do expect our athletes, as role models, to hold themselves to a higher level of accountability (and not the opposite, as they may think), but mistakes are still going to happen.

But when you step back and see the frequency of the problems, and the consistency in the types of errors being made sport by sport, I’ve kinda gotta ask:

Still holding that lockout against the NHL, hey America?

I can’t stand hearing the “I used to watch before the lockout” comment.  It’s not that I don’t love the NFL (I love the NFL) or other sports, I’m just running on an equal sports-shunning platform. 

Baseball’s ratings are up in recent years.  And people claim they don’t watch the NHL because of greed?  Have you seen MLB contracts?  Occasionally, hockey ratings are below the PBA and poker, but it’s the only sport that’s gotten better this decade.

Maybe hockey will figure out that fans like a little mischief and chaos, and follow in Patty Kanes example (for the record, I’m skeptical he committed much of a crime there).  This is a call to hockey players!  Let’s start mixin’ it up!

Hell, I’m gonna be a writer guys.  I need material now!

Juicin’!  Guns!  Gambling!  Gimme something! 

We’ve got to win the lockout fans back!

We’ve got to win the lockout fans back!

It Bloggles My Mind.

 

Are you over the NBA slam dunk yet? I cannot believe that anybody is still impressed by this. I mean, these guys are huge.  There’s a lot of huge people in the world.  This league has selected the very best athletes of the very huge. Hugesketball. And we’re impressed that they put it in something high?  Slllaaaamm Dunk!  I’m not trying to take anything away from the NBA (it wouldn’t be fair, what with all those soccer players out there… and leagues that begin in “W”), but this sport seems to have an odd quality.  It seems to be the only sport you can beat.  In a way, you can beat the game like when you had that cheat code for Super Contra (left-right-left-right-a-b-b-a, was it?)

There’s is no physical way to overcome a golf course.  Nobody gets to begin the hole a lick closer than the next person. Sports like hockey, football and soccer are played against other players, on a surface with the goal on the ground.  But in basketball, we could literally see the day where some monster has arms that go above the rim, and he stands there and sets the thing in the peach basket  (note: that guy looks like a Hobbit beside Yao).  Scouts who judge a players potential seem to use a sliding scale of size and talent.  For every inch you drop below seven feet, you need to be a half point better on the talent scale to make the NBA.  A 7 footer needs a talent rating of about 4/10 to make it. If you’re 6’11″, you better be at least a 4.5. You say you’re 6′ 10″?  We’ll take you as a 5, sure.  You could completely phase out the need for talent if you were tall enough.  I think it’s possible. At least the guys trying to stop Giants running back Brandon Jacobs  (6-foot-4 and 267 pounds) can grow with him.  That poor lil orange circle, however, cannot.

Basketball is a wonderful sport.  A ton of fun.  Out on the playground, and in the gym, there is a huge basketball following, including myself.  But for the elite of the elite, the most monstrous of the monsters, the game has become silly.  I’m starting a campaign to raise awareness for all you NBA players out there.  You looked ridiculous when you celebrated that dunk just there.  There was nobody in your way and you’re 6’6″ with long arms and a 40 inch vertical.  Celebrating needs to have some correlation to the difficulty of the play (listen up, NFL safety’s. As Bill Simmons pointed out, if the guy you’re covering drops it, you don’t get to face the camera and wave the “nu-uh” finger)  You did well for your team, you can celebrate, don’t get me wrong.  But did you really just flex?  Growl?  You’re the best -insert player name here-.  You’re the f@#$ing best. (That was Kevin Stevens, and one of the classiest men in hockey, Bryan Trottier assaulting Brian Bellows.  Ha…now that’s classy.)

 

 We would love to dunk.  We dunk on our nephew’s Fisher-Price hoop.  We dunk on the lowered hoop that neighborhood kid’s family owns. We dunk our garbage. I like to see some dunks mixed in to my NBA game.  And I don’t want the rims at 12 feet (is 10.5 out of the question?) I just want youuu tocalmtheFdown.  Proof that a slam (ps, is there a sporting term more lame than “slam dunk”?) anyways, proof that a slam dunk is as easy as convincing someone that  “PC” has lost the war of advertising versus the Mac (Bill Gates is Justin Long’s bitch), is that we have a contest to see who can do the most stuff in the air before the dunk.  Human beings have a max hang time of like, a second, and this task is so mundane that these guys have time to spin, switch their ball hand and switch the pocket they carry their ridiculous roll of money in.  The term itself has become synonymous with not difficult.  “Is that guy going to use our company for the job?”  “For sure… It’s a slam dunk”.  As in “there’s no chance of it not happening”.  A kicker going for an extra point in football is more likely to miss than the guy going for a dunk.  And during the Steelers game, I tried to bet a buck during live betting that the kicker would convert, and my return was 3 cents.  And to this, Sportscenter devotes 6 spots out of every top 10.  “Ohhh!! That one’ll be on a poster! I wonder if he’ll sign it for himhahaha” HAHAHA!  Ha.

                                 (SHE DUNKED IT!)                                                    ((I LOVE that the female commentator chips in about 2/3 of the way through and goes “BOOM!”))