Ranking Sports, Ryder Cup Clothes, and a Nash/Malkin Fight

 

There’s no sport that I’d rather see a highlight package from than hockey.  It’s my number one. 

There’s so many different things that can happen – it’s not just different uniforms executing the diving catch, homerun, double play sequence on repeat.  The many different ways to score make it interesting, especially when you factor in huge saves, big hits, nice dishes, fights, and excitement.

That said, hockey isn’t my favourite sport to watch, when you’re talking about turning it on at the start of the event, and turning it off when it’s fully over.  (By the way, this whole thing is about TV viewing, not in-person viewing.)  Football’s my number one.  So I’m gonna go ahead and rank my six main viewing sports by fun-to-watchability, and then re-rank them for highlight packages.  Let me know where you stand.

Best Sports To Watch on TV, in Their Entirety

1.Football
2. Golf (during a major, otherwise bump it down one)
3. Hockey
4. Basketball
5. Soccer
6. Baseball

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Best Sports To Watch, Highlight Package Edition

1. Hockey
2. Soccer
3. Football
4. Basketball
5. Baseball
6. Golf

And eff it, lets do a live-viewing rank too….

1. Hockey
2. Basketball
3. Baseball
4. Football
5. Golf
6. Soccer (Never been to a game, so it’s default last. I’m sure it’s great. Calm down, soccer weirdos)

 

And while we’re at it, favourite sports to play, in order…

(Note: I struggled with this, badly)

1. Hockey
2. Golf
3. Basketball
4. Baseball
5. Football (Never played an “organized” game in my life. Thx, Canada)
6. Soccer

For the record, that last category is impossible for me.  I’m a complete jock, and love all sports.  Racquet sports (tennis, badminton, squash, racquetball), volleyball, ultimate frisbee, whatever, I’m down for a game.  There’s very few things I’d rather do than chuck around a real baseball in a backyard with a beer (a football would suffice too).

Probem is, as you get older, everyone gets too busy to get enough people together for a game of anything.  Boo.

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Real quick here:  I had a lot of help from people who gave me and this whole writing thing a chance when I first started out, and I mean that beyond the obvious (family, Bri, friends, etc.).  Quick links-as-thank-yous to people who took a swing in the dark on my work:

Doyle Woody – Alaska Daily News
Chris Botta – Islanders Point Blank
Jason Kay – The Hockey News
Dan Friedell – Sports Journalist and Editor

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The US Ryder Cup team regularly dresses like complete fucking morons.  Now, this year may be different.  But I saw Tiger Woods at a press conference yesterday wearing one of the most horrific ensembles mankind has ever dared leave the house in (minor exaggeration).

Some baggy red sweater vest (solid) over a blue and white striped shirt (thin, equal size stripes), on top of some navy trousers.  It really looked like Woods, who usually dresses to kill/sleep-with-cocktail-waitresses, hadn’t done laundry in like forever.

Rob Mixer described the shirts below (from the 1999 Ryder Cup) as “fumigated Mediterranean upholstery.”  ….FTW, I assume.

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I’m not sure what it is about Sportcenter running tweets from athletes and pawning it off as news that’s so off-putting, but…. it is, isn’t it?  Like, I get that they could say something newsworthy there, and I understand why they’re covering it….

Something about it just doesn’t seem right, and I can’t place it.  What is it?

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I CANNOT believe this didn’t get more love – I guess it’s a product of living in the US before the NHL Network resumes it’s “On The Fly” services, but….  My US friends, did you know Rick Nash and Evgeni Malkin fought the other day?  In a pre-season game?  What a bizarre sequence of humans and activities to plug into a sentence that is.  Nash.  Malkin.  Fight.  Here ya go: 

Coupla big boys that don’t know how to fight right there, I love it.  They’re like me, if I were bigger and good at hockey!

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Have a great Wednesday!  See you again tomorrow.

Brendan and Brian Burke. And Me.

 

Let’s hit the links.

Yesterday, ESPN’s John Buccigross posted the Brendan Burke story - as was to be expected, the article has been passed around on Twitter like  it’s running a five-on-three powerplay.  As a result, I’m back in the mix (“the mix”, being the 286 comments received on my gay slurs article for USA Today).

I did an email interview on the story for Yahoo! hockey blogger “Puck Daddy” (Greg Wyshynski).  You can check that out here.

Also, I responded via email to a Buccigross question – he’ll be running that response later today, and of course, that’ll be up on here when he puts it up.

For my Canadian readers, I’ll be going on CBC’s primetime show “Connect with Mark Kelley” if one of the Burke’s are unable to make it – that’s at five o’clock today.  All I can say is, I’m cut out for radio today, not TV.  I look like I got lost in the woods, found and drank some grain alcohol, fought Manny Pacquiao, then slept in a ditch.  In reality, I just haven’t shaved in a week and couldn’t sleep because of late-night rec hockey.  …and I may have had a Stella or two.

***AMENDED*** – Apparently, it IS for TV.  Five o’clock Arizona time on the CBC.  I just scraped a razor over my dumb face, and will be heading to the studio in a bit, if the CBC can track down a willing partner in this.

And again, I received further confirmation in my inbox today that, yes, I am indeed a “flaming homo”.  So… I’ve got that going for me.

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Since I’m receiving a bit of an influx in the ‘ol number-of-hits category today, I thought I’d direct some first-time Bourne’s Bloggers to a few things I wrote that managed to not suck.

*An inordinately serious column on leaving the game of hockey, for The Hockey News

*The “How I Met Your Mother” of Bourne’s Blog.  The story written for Islanders Point Blank on how I ended up engaged to Clark Gillies daughter, Brianna.

*And the story of how I ended up being a writer, for The Hockey News – I’m having trouble getting their site to work right now, so you can find it as the bottom article on this page.

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So that’s all you get today, friends.  Looking forward to more feedback, and when the ESPN bit gets posted, you’ll be the first to know.

 

The Process of Potential. And Beer.

 

I’m getting a lot of ideas tossed at me these days for different topics I should write about, which is great.  Keep ‘em coming.  I save them in a file on my CrackBerry, and intend to get to them all at some point.

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Beer of the Month:

Commentor JustJeff is Bourne’s Blog’s resident beer expert {tangent brackets, eight words in – in retrospect, I really wish I had given my blog a better name.  I started with a laptop, pain meds, and a stack of documentaries and stand-up comedies in the blu-ray. Didn’t think I’d end up using the name so much}, and we’ve tossed around this idea a couple weeks ago.  For now, I’m just looking for advice on what to try, so I can recommend one for November.  I’m a fan of Stella Artois, most hefeweizen-style beer, summer stuff like Corona/Pacifo, and a lot of nice British Columbia beers like Sleemans “twenty”, Okanagan Springs “1516″ and even the occasional Guinness.  Advise when ready.

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Apparently my recent piece for The Hockey News struck a chord with some old teammates of mine (about eight, actually).  Even some guys that are playing this year are struggling with that choice, and found they could relate to it.   And, not just teammates – apparently, at some point, a lot of us have had to face the difficult decision of practicality versus passion.  Hearing from them (and you) was pretty neat for me, because obviously it was one of my more personal pieces of writing.

The following is an excerpt from one of the messages I got that I thought would be a neat observation for hockey fans to hear, written by Kevin Croxton.  He excelled in college on and off the ice, spent time in Springfield and Peoria in the AHL, and played in the ECHL (Alaska) with me.  The paragraph before the one I’ve copy and pasted below emaphasized that these thoughts weren’t born out of bitterness – it’s just a general observation on how the game works.  And for what it’s worth, I agree with him.

“I always thought a new career would be better for me because in hockey you get to a point where it doesn’t matter who’s better than who. Once I realized that, it made the decision a little easier. You know the old story about “he’s drafted”, what contract people are on or “this guy has potential”.  Apparently only NHL teams run their business that way, as opposed to REAL businesses that reward results as opposed to potential.  If I sell more than everyone here on a consistent basis, my company doesn’t promote the younger guy that doesn’t know the business as much because he has ‘potential’.  They also don’t take a guy that’s been trained in sales (scoring) and put him in the marketing department (fourth line) and then six weeks later complain that he hasn’t sold anything (produced points). I understand the argument for grooming players and whatnot, but it’s a pretty expensive proposition and even more so if you’re wrong. You should write about ‘If NHL teams ran their businesses like businesses, what would be different?’”

For a player, getting drafted means more than a team saying ”dibs on him if he gets good”.  It means that every kid gets chucked in the water to see who can swim, but you’ve just picked up water wings, scuba gear, and flippers.

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And last, two things: One, props to Eric Nystrom, an LI boy, who had three goals, a fight, and was plus three last night, essentially mauling the game sheet with awesome. (note: he just text me – they took away the one they thought he tipped.  I always hated that video review)

And two, today I recorded a segment on XM’s Hardcore Sports Radio (I may or may not have capitalized on their leniency with cursing).  It’s running on Monday, so I’ll put a “check it out” reminder on here then.

A Brief Thought on Knuckles

 

It’s too bad you can’t up and punch people anymore.

In our society, things have changed, and largely for the better.  You can’t smoke in bars, we recycle more, and we’re more tolerant of alternative lifestyles.

But you just can’t hit a dude.  And for the most part, that’s too bad.

I can kinda see what’s happened in the NHL happening in real life.  Back when my dad and dad-to-be played in the league, there was a lot less spearing, high-sticking and mouth-running, because you couldn’t get to the “uck” part of the phrase that ends in “you” without taking your first bite of knuckle sandwich.  Guys were held accountable, so they were less likely to flap their gums just to look tough.

Now, the league protects so heavily against guys getting randomly popped, that players spend time after every other whistle getting through a lot more than just ”f*** you” (which is still a clever, intelligent thing to say), because they never have to physically back it up.

And that’s on the ice.

Off the ice, you can’t hit anyone ever.  I think you have to file paperwork at City Hall if two people agree they wanna scrap.  Here’s where I’m going with this:

Why does anyone care that Braylon Edwards might have popped a “club promoter”  (Lebron Jame’s friend) at 2:30 a.m?

Club promoters are the exact type of  people that we need to taste a few flavours of knuckle on a nightly basis anyway.  A guy gets drunk at a club and punches the promoter… and we’re calling that “an alleged assault”?  Can we not devalue the phrase “assault” so much?  That’s an alleged “straightening out of the food chain”, isn’t it?

Lebron is saying that his club promoter friend is “like 130 pounds, it’d be like hitting someones little brother”.  Okay – if you’re 130 pounds, don’t run your mouth to a professional football player, right?  Just a thought.

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As my Facebook status mentioned yesterday, I’m dropping more columns than a bomb at the Parthenon today. (Still only me that thinks thats funny?  My bad).  The following are links to those pieces:

USA Today – A New Season Begins

The Hockey News – Life After Hockey

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…)

Brand New, Brand New, Brand New

 

Before I launch into stuff – how about me buying a new car?

 

Brand New – Rhymefest featuring Kanye West

As of a week ago, I was looking at these unforseen expenses: A crown for my front tooth ($1,100), two new (after market) tires w/ alignment ($700+), and registering my car in Arizona ($200+).  Turns out minor league hockey insurance isn’t as bad as the rumours make it out to be, cause they stepped up on the tooth, and the new car not only lowered my monthly payments, has lower interest,  and put me in an ’09, but it also took care of my tires and registration.  Sweet.

 

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So, I love that Bourne’s Blog readers are passionate about their beer.  At some point, we’ll have to steal a page from Botta’s blog and have a meet and greet (where we only drink good beer, right guys?).  And by meet and greet, I mean schedule it like a year in advance, in Vegas, at the Sportsbook in Caesars or something (maybe to watch the Islanders in the first round of playoffs this year?).  I’m just spitballin’ here.

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I made my debut visit to www.dontevenreply.com yesterday, and most definitely will be back.  Much like textsfromlastnight.com (parental advisory, once again), it’s basically a way to pass time by reading about people doing/saying hilariously inappropriate things.

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The Jets are talking about picking up Brandon Marshall from the Broncos, gotta love that.  My first Fantasy Football draft is on the 11th, and I’m at the peak of my football knowledge game right now (yet I keep insisting the Blackhawks will win the Presidents Trophy in the NHL, apparently damaging my credibility in that sport).  After a meeting with Jay Dieffenbach, the Pro Sports Editor of the Arizona Republic, it’s becoming increasingly clear that my sports writing future doesn’t have to hinge on the whims of Gary Bettman and the Coyotes.  Go Jets.

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Should we start looking into a Bourne’s Blog fantasy hockey league?  Admittedly, I know nothing about setting one up or how to run one, but I’m fairly certain that as a college educated human I could figure it out.  Just a feeler really.  You in?

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Bri signed the lease on our new apartment yesterday in the Chandler/Tempe area.  To put the awesomeness of our gated community in perspective, the pool has beach sand leading into the shallow end.  But here’s my question to salespeople: Do we really have to do the whole “oh, this special just came out today”, “oh, I just got approval from my manager…” thing to get a fair price?  After four days of that BS, we haggled 10 free weeks rent, a $300 credit and another discount on a year lease (taking our monthly payments down over $230 bucks a month in the process).  Take that, desperate Arizona real estate.

So – apartment, car, engagement ring…  Did I just get domesticated?  …Wait… married guys still get to go party and crush beers after hockey games right…?  … I just… um… wait… where am I…

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Random thought a million people have had:  Why isn’t there a centrist party in the US?  I have to believe the biggest population of the people aren’t strictly left or right; not many folks are that cut and dried.  Would it be so absurd to represent moderate views?

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My new article is up today for The Hockey News.  I’d definitely recommend this one, it’s a neat players-only insight that sheds some light on how we raise money for the end of the year party, aside from fines.  Hope you like it!  The Hockey News: Put in on the Boaaaard, Yes!

Up In Smoke

 

Alrighty-o.  My newest entry for The Hockey News is up at http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/27298-Justin-Bournes-Blog-The-summertime-grind.html if you’d like to take a look at that.  A little explanation of why this is the time of the year hockey players really start the grind for next season.

But first, a couple thoughts!

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Anyone else watch the ESPY’s? 

If I was sick of Debbie Phelps after the Olympics (and I was), I need some Ginger Ale and Pepto again after that awards show.  This broad gets more airtime than Amelia Earhardt (though a “was never heard from again” ending wouldn’t be quite so tragic in this case).

The only known antidote to a Debbie Phelps sighting is Marissa Miller.  Thankfully, she was in attendance as well.

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I’m calling for the head of the next person I hear use the expression “you know what they say here, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”.

It’s weather.  It changes quickly everywhere, not just in your town. 

At least come up with your own expression, like “You know what they say, if you don’t like the weather, there’s absolutely f***ing nothing anybody can do about it, so stay indoors.”

Plus, in Kelowna we have very little sympathy for all these places with intermittent rain, largely because every few years now I can here Nero fiddling away while our lovely summer city goes up in smoke like a Snoop Dogg/Dre tour.  Apparently, consecutive months with no rain isn’t cool if you live amongst a quatrillion pine trees.  Who knew?

We’re up to 11,000 evacuated as of yesterday, and The Cove – the resort home of our Fantasy Camp in two weeks – is currently evacuated too.  Awesome.

That’s not too far from where Heatley lives – maybe he’ll be smoked out of his own home and have to talk to the media soon.  We can only hope!