Why I Love Hockey

                "It's too violent."' "'It's boring." "I can't see the puck." These are just some of the reasons many extra space before reasons people don't like hockey. These are the same reasons, unfortunately, that hockey has not become very popular in America. This is a sad fact for many different reasons. One of the main reasons is due to the fact that in 2004, the National Hockey League (NHL) locked out due to labor issues. The 2004 lock out put a dent in the sport that they are trying to repair even today. Even with making drastic rule changes; the sport is still trying to be rectified. However, despite these issues, the NHL is a sport that I love for many different reasons. First off, I feel that hockey is the most difficult sport in the world to play. I've had a few debates with people who would say that baseball would be the most difficult sport to play. That argument could be very valid for many reasons. After all, hitting a round ball with a wooden bat coming at you at over 90 MPH sometimes could make that debate an open and shut case for baseball. However, here is my defense to why I feel hockey is the most difficult sport to play. You have 5 guys with pieces of wood that the hold called a hockey stick. Now do you think they have a big basketball or beach ball to slap around? No! They have a little black circle made of rubber that they have to make sure they don't let go too far ahead of them. Now they are not running, no, no, no. They are skating as fast as they can ON ICE! Finally, once they get to their destination, this is not like football where you run into the end zone to score. Once you get to the point where the goal is, you have a person whose main goal in life and why he can put food on the table for his family is to stop you from getting that little rubber puck past him.  Now, with all due respect, tell me that's not a difficult ability to here too before after respect master. Most of all, the reason I love hockey is for the off-season antics or lack thereof. Again, let's think about this logically. In football, you have Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg and being convicted of a felony. In baseball, you have Roger Clemens and his steroid debacle (Remember, Andy Pettite "Mis-remembered"). Also, in basketball, you have Ron Artest picking fights before you against innocent fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills in the Pistons/Pacers game.  On top of all of this, in college football, you have absolutely deplorable recruiting violations. Things so awful that I'm sure Woody Hayes is spinning in his grave. Now that we know all this, name me a scandal in hockey. Guess what. YOU CAN'T. The reason I love hockey is that for the most part, there are no scandals. Now, as I've written before, I'm not saying that things in hockey don't happen. However, when it comes to hockey, one of 3 things happen in regards to scandals. One, scandals don't happen. Two, if they do happen, the players aren't charged (Example would be Sean Avery who shoved a police officer but was not charged.) or three, when scandals do happen, it is often taken care of either in the team's locker room or by the commissioner of the NHL.  For these reasons, I feel that hockey should be revered rather than being a back page story on your local sports page or the final highlight on a slow news day on SportsCenter. That will never be though, because the fact is hockey is too clean cut of a sport. So for me, here's to hockey, the last real sport in the world.       

         

Good For Him

 

                Throughout his tenure, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been criticized for various things. Fining players for hits and suspending other players for seemingly frivolous incidents just to name a few. However, a few days before the NFL Supplemental Draft, Commissioner Goodell did something that should really be commended. He suspended former OSU Quarterback Terrelle  Pryor for the first 5 games for his involvement in a tattoo scandal at Ohio State where Pryor traded his trophies and other memorabilia in exchange for tattoos. When the University caught wind of Pryor's actions, they suspended him for 5 games. Due to this, I imagine it was Terrelle 's brilliant idea to try and get out of serving the suspension by fleeing to the NFL. There, he could immediately play on the greatest stage of all, the National Football League. Great idea, right? Not on Roger Goodell's watch. Commisioner Goodell basically said yes, you can play in our league, but you still have to serve the 5 game suspension. To this I say good for the Commissioner. It's about time someone stood up to these overhyped college players and not let them get away with what they did in college. If the commissioner didn't suspend Pryor, you are basically sending a message to all the collegiate athletes that no matter what you do in college, no matter how many laws you may break, it's all ok because if you're talented enough, you can just leave the world of academics and go pro. Of course, due to his ruling, the commissioner is getting criticism like he has always gotten. Charlie Batch of the Pittsburgh Steelers was one who said that Goodell's ruling was "Just wrong" when asked about it. Just wrong? What's so wrong with enforcing someone else's rules? What Roger Goodell did should be applauded for once. For once, he should not be called things like "The Devil" as Pittsburgh Steelers defensive player Jerome Harrison so candidly called him. Roger Goodell may not have done a lot of good things as commissioner of the NFL. He may be considered "The Devil" in many people's eyes. However, to me, for him to do what he did to Terrelle  Pryor, he is looking like a Saint. Indeed crime doesn't pay. Hopefully, Terrelle  Pryor knows that now. There's a new Sheriff in town and his name is Roger Goodell.       

Sexy For All The Wrong Reasons

                Cue the cheesy soap opera organ. :When we last left our famous and informative blogger, he was about to tell us why football is so popular. What does he know that so few people know? Why is football so popular despite its shady background? How will this blog affect how people view sports? All this and more will be revealed in this episode of "Thoughts from the chair!" Dun dun dun!!!!!!!!: OK, enough of that nonsense. Last time I wrote, I explained that the NFL is way too popular of a sport. Why though? Why is pro football the most popular sport in the world with college football being arguably second and the NBA being third? The reason may shock and surprise some but not others. The reason is that all 3 sports mentioned above are all sexy sports. Sexy in the sense that all 3 have dirty laundry attached to them. From Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg, to recruiting scandals in College Football, to rappers spewing abrasive lyrics and it being accepted and condoned in the NBA. This dirty laundry stems  from another somewhat morbid truth that needs to be  addressed. This truth may not be heard by many. I may be severely scolded for even suggesting the idea of the truth. That truth is deep down inside we Americans love bad news. I realize it's extremely difficult to digest, but once you really think about it, you'll know it to be true. Do people honestly believe that there's not a correlation between the popularity in sports and the controversies that elude the most popular sports in America? A great example of my theory would be hockey. During its season, if you're lucky, you will see one to two highlights of Hockey games on SportsCenter. Some people may believe that this is because hockey is boring. After all, who in their right mind would want to watch grown men run up and down on ice for 3 hours give or take? However, I take the lack of popularity of hockey from a different angle. Here's a question to ponder regarding my view. When is the last time you heard of a scandal in the NHL? When was the last time you heard or read a hockey player getting shot? When is the last time you heard of a hockey player having multiple kids with multiple women? The fact is that you don't hear of anything like that. The biggest scandals in hockey are comprised of DUI's and that's about it. Now I'm not saying awful things don't happen in hockey. That would probably be far from accurate. What I am saying though is that if these things do happen in that sport, teams are able to police themselves and keep things in house. That's more than I can say about the other 4 most popular sports. Baseball, football, basketball and college football all have scandals. These scandals fuel the media and their popularity in American culture. Based on these truths, if this is where American sports are headed, I'll be glad to join my Canadian brothers and move to Canada. Not a bad idea, eh?     

Popularity should not equal obsession

 

Hi everyone. I'm back from vacation and have a lot of things on my mind, so let's get right to it:

                While I was on vacation, the NFL lockout ended. Oh joy. Can you sense my sarcasm there? I sure hope so because those 2 words were filled with sarcasm. Now I realize that the National Football League is the number one sport in the United States. I for one feel it shouldn't be that way. I think there's a thin line between popularity and obsession and the media is on the brink of crossing that line if it hasn't already done so. Case in point is Mike and Mike in the Morning. While getting ready to leave for the day, I tuned into their show just to see what was going on in the sports world. The lockout was just about to end. Due to these events, Mike and Mike had Adam Schefter on their show. Now they were supposed to have C.C Sabathia on at that time but due to technical difficulties, that didn't happen. That's OK though because Mike Greenberg proclaimed "This is a football day." Really? Did he just say that? You just admitted that because football has some activity, no other sport matters. I don't get irritated too often, but this subject really gets to me. Another point that proved how obsessed America is with football happened the day after the Major League Baseball All-Star game. Now the day after the game, you would think the results and highlights would be the top story, right? Wrong. Turns out that a Steelers defensive player ran his mouth to a national men's magazine ranting and raving about commissioner Roger Goodell among other things. Which story made the top headlines? That's right, the NFL story. The last example I will make about our obsession with football happened the day that the owners agreed to the collective bargaining agreement. I admit that was a big story. ESPN apparently thought it was a bigger story when they covered it FOR 3 STRAIGHT HOURS! Obsessed, are we? I believe so. Covering that story for one hour would have been fine. Covering it for 3 hours makes me truly believe that we as a nation have a problem. A problem that, due to the new collective bargaining agreement, will not be cured for the next ten years. Furthermore, you all may think I'm joking, but if a MLB team won the World Series and on that same day, Peyton Manning threw for 8 touchdown passes, I really don't know what would be the top story. Why is this? Why is football taking over as the most popular sport in America? Tune in next time to find out the real reason.

Let It Count

                As I was watching the afternoon recap show of Mike and Mike In The Morning, I saw something very troublesome. Mike Gohlic and Buster Onley, who was filling in for Mike Greenberg that day, were both in agreement that the MLB All-Star Game should NOT count towards deciding who gets home field advantage in the World Series. What was more disturbing is that players such as Braves catcher Brian McCann were in agreement with the two hosts on this philosophy. I feel that this thinking is inaccurate and sort of unhealthy in my estimation. Their thinking is that the game should be nothing more than an exhibition game. This would be similar to the other All-Star Games in the NBA, NHL and NFL. Having the MLB All-Star Game be an exhibition game? Are you kidding me? Do people not remember the debacle that was the 2002 All-Star Game? It started out well with Torii Hunter robbing Barry Bonds of a home run by leaping over the right field wall and catching the ball. After that though, the game went downhill from there. The decline started with Tommy Lasorda coaching third base. Tommy may have been a great manager in his day, but there's absolutely no way Major League Baseball should put him in harm's way by putting him in charge of third base. In fact, in that game, Tommy was put in danger when a bat shattered due to a pitched ball. The bat flew Lasorda's way and caused him to fall right on his behind. Of course the announcers just laughed it off as some funny joke. It looked like something out of a Benny Hill skit. Things got progressively worse as the night went on. I will never forget seeing Rudy Giuliani in one of the dugouts and thinking to myself "What is he doing in the dugout?"  Then came the ultimate sign of disrespect to the mid-summer classic. Going into the 11th inning, the score was tied at 7 apiece. Due to the absurd rule that every player should play in the game, by the time the 11th rolled around, neither team had anyone left on their bench. Nobody scored that inning so what did the commissioner do? After deliberating with the umpires, he decided to declare the game a tie. Really? Do people really want to go back to those shenanigans? I know I don't. I want to go back to the days of Ray Fosse being tackled by Pete Rose like in the 1980 game. Perhaps the game shouldn't count as home field advantage in the World Series. To say that the game should mean nothing though is also inaccurate I believe. Let the game count for something. That way, the game will be more enjoyable for the fans, the players and for the game as a whole.