I am sitting here in my underwear, Friday afternoon, drinking sugar free juice, and watching O.J. Simpson talk to the judge moments after he has just been told he’s spending 15 years in prison. His voice is cracking. He is on the verge of tears. I don’t feel bad for him.
O.J. Simpson is going to jail for 15 years (minimum 9) for armed robbery. CNN just used the term Cosmic Justice. This has absolutely nothing to do with sports. Does anyone even remember that O.J. Simpson played football?
NFL Career Totals:
• Rushing - 2,404 Carries for 11,236 Yards and 61 Touchdowns
• Receiving - 203 Receptions for 2,142 Yards and 14 Touchdowns
* Some nice Fantasy numbers there…
NFL Highlights:
• NFL Most Valuable Player (1973)
• First player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season (1973)
• Unanimous All-Pro
• Won Four NFL Rushing Titles (1972,73,75,76)
• Named All-Pro Five Straight Years (1972-76)
• Named to Six Pro Bowls
• Pro Bowl Player of the Game (1973)
• Inducted into the Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame (1991)
Does anyone remember that he was pretty funny as Nordberg in three Naked Gun movies?
O.J. ruined the Naked Gun movies for everyone. And for that, may they throw away the key...
December 5, 2008
December 4, 2008
Fuck Up Athlete #1: Sean Avery
Sean Avery gets paid millions of dollars to be a fake asshole, and then is chastised when he is an actual one; it’s sort of the Dennis Rodman Effect (dying the hair, cool—kicking a photographer in the nuts, not cool). Avery’s a professional wrestler; he’s Daniel Day Lewis going squirrely and asking everyone to refer to him as his character on a movie set; he’s Christian Bale losing 100 pounds for a movie no one saw; he’s Don Rickles.
If you’re on this sporty blog (and my counter says about 650 non-me hits have been), you probably know what Sean Avery said in Calgary when referring to the fact that his old girlfriend was now with another NHL player (the progerian Dion Phaneuf). Even though he only said it two days ago, PuckBunnygate already seems like old news.
Okay, so sloppy seconds is a bit of a mean thing to say about an ex-girlfriend, especially when he’s referring to my number two crush from 2002-2006 inclusive: Elisha Cuthbert. I imagine the angelic voices of young Billys from Gravenhursts all over Canada asking Ma and Pa over dinner last night....
BILLY: Ma, what’s a sloppy second?
MA: It’s nothing...
BILLY: But the sportsman on TV said sloppy seconds.
MA: When you’re older....
BILLY: Can I have sloppy seconds?
PA: Stop it, boy!
BILLY: Can I get sloppy seconds for Christmas...
*If that's not proof I can write plays, what is?
What all this amounts to is that Sean Avery told a locker room joke in a locker room, only we all got to hear it. Should he be kicked out of the NHL? I don’t know—a million sports websites are talking about that—go look at them. The point is, lots of guys (fuckups and non-fuckups) have made stupid jokes out of jealousy, bravado, carlessness, accident, bullying, self-defence, or just plain absence of thought.
I'm not defending him. I still don’t like him. But no one’s perfect(except Elisha Cuthbert 2002-2006).
If you’re on this sporty blog (and my counter says about 650 non-me hits have been), you probably know what Sean Avery said in Calgary when referring to the fact that his old girlfriend was now with another NHL player (the progerian Dion Phaneuf). Even though he only said it two days ago, PuckBunnygate already seems like old news.
Okay, so sloppy seconds is a bit of a mean thing to say about an ex-girlfriend, especially when he’s referring to my number two crush from 2002-2006 inclusive: Elisha Cuthbert. I imagine the angelic voices of young Billys from Gravenhursts all over Canada asking Ma and Pa over dinner last night....
BILLY: Ma, what’s a sloppy second?
MA: It’s nothing...
BILLY: But the sportsman on TV said sloppy seconds.
MA: When you’re older....
BILLY: Can I have sloppy seconds?
PA: Stop it, boy!
BILLY: Can I get sloppy seconds for Christmas...
*If that's not proof I can write plays, what is?
What all this amounts to is that Sean Avery told a locker room joke in a locker room, only we all got to hear it. Should he be kicked out of the NHL? I don’t know—a million sports websites are talking about that—go look at them. The point is, lots of guys (fuckups and non-fuckups) have made stupid jokes out of jealousy, bravado, carlessness, accident, bullying, self-defence, or just plain absence of thought.
I'm not defending him. I still don’t like him. But no one’s perfect(except Elisha Cuthbert 2002-2006).
December 3, 2008
Fuck Up Athletes...
...piss us off. And by us, I mean those of who delayed our virginity (if for only a moment) and sacrificed our marks (meaning we had to go to Universities near the bottom of the MacLean’s ranking), growing up in the pursuit of some sport. Life as a Tim Hortons commercial isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, when at 6AM on a Sunday morning, you’re putting on an ice cold jockstrap in Astorville, while your friends are just getting in from a party at someone’s house where there was a bonfire—I mean, come on, a bonfire!
A pro athlete who throws it away isn’t the same as say, an actor who dies early. I don’t care what you say, a fourth line centre in the AHL has sacrificed more to get where he is than River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, or anyone else a teenage girl cries for when he dies. Having tried to learn even the simplest of guitar, you could convince me that Kurt Cobain worked hard to get where he did before he threw it away, but then again, he could do heroin and drink at work: name a pro sport where I can do that, and I’m hitting the gym/pipe. Maybe it’s not a fair comparison, since for athletes, it’s usually not such a matter of life and death, but rather, prison or suspension or looking like a lame ass.
For a number of boys, the youthful pursuit of sport with an eye to “the pros” was with hockey, but for some it was baseball (though Terry Puhl and Larry Walker were the only Canadian baseball players I had ever heard of), or if your parents were eccentric, you had outliers like tennis, golf, or track. (*I won’t even start with the girls, who endure the mysterious phenomenon of stripper training known as competitive dance—come on, Jazz Dancing? Really?).
So when a professional athlete spits in the face of all us losers, we get angry. I don’t mean to say jealous. After the age of about 16, you pretty much realize there are a lot other things to do, a lot of other paths to follow, other than pro-athlete. And while only few people actually live in a Deloreon, I don’t know anyone who grew up playing a sport at any level, who truly says “I wish I could go back and do something about the fact that I’m not a pro athlete,” as though they could do something about being 5’8, 140 pounds.
In light of this week’s multitude of fuck up athletes, I’ll start periodically profiling athletes who...well...are fucks ups. Who have taken a gift (a gift they WORKED for no less) and usually through sheer stupidity, treated it like Sean Avery’s sloppy seconds.
So with that, I’ll start with the biggest fuck up out there right now: Sean Avery.
A pro athlete who throws it away isn’t the same as say, an actor who dies early. I don’t care what you say, a fourth line centre in the AHL has sacrificed more to get where he is than River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, or anyone else a teenage girl cries for when he dies. Having tried to learn even the simplest of guitar, you could convince me that Kurt Cobain worked hard to get where he did before he threw it away, but then again, he could do heroin and drink at work: name a pro sport where I can do that, and I’m hitting the gym/pipe. Maybe it’s not a fair comparison, since for athletes, it’s usually not such a matter of life and death, but rather, prison or suspension or looking like a lame ass.
For a number of boys, the youthful pursuit of sport with an eye to “the pros” was with hockey, but for some it was baseball (though Terry Puhl and Larry Walker were the only Canadian baseball players I had ever heard of), or if your parents were eccentric, you had outliers like tennis, golf, or track. (*I won’t even start with the girls, who endure the mysterious phenomenon of stripper training known as competitive dance—come on, Jazz Dancing? Really?).
So when a professional athlete spits in the face of all us losers, we get angry. I don’t mean to say jealous. After the age of about 16, you pretty much realize there are a lot other things to do, a lot of other paths to follow, other than pro-athlete. And while only few people actually live in a Deloreon, I don’t know anyone who grew up playing a sport at any level, who truly says “I wish I could go back and do something about the fact that I’m not a pro athlete,” as though they could do something about being 5’8, 140 pounds.
In light of this week’s multitude of fuck up athletes, I’ll start periodically profiling athletes who...well...are fucks ups. Who have taken a gift (a gift they WORKED for no less) and usually through sheer stupidity, treated it like Sean Avery’s sloppy seconds.
So with that, I’ll start with the biggest fuck up out there right now: Sean Avery.
October 16, 2008
Bocce Art
In trying to forge an identity for the new blog, I have only a vague idea of combining sport and art. As I approach 30, the thought of improving at any sport seems far off; new sports are for kids and hobbyists (people who think doing things you suck at can still be fun).
A year ago, I discovered urban bocce: 8 big balls, one smaller ball, a measuring tape, public cocktail consumption, and your municipal park tax dollars at work. From cow paddies to concrete abutments, since April of 2007, I have probably played 100 games of urban bocce in varying levels of sobriety.
This picture sums up where I think the blog might be headed. I would hang this over my fireplace if I had one. Behold the visual magnificience of my new #1 sport.
September 26, 2008
Being in a Mall on Sunday
On the afternoon of September 26, 1986, I am at the top of our driveway in Kingston, shooting tennis balls into a hockey net. The net is one of those flimsy types—with a base and a back, but no sides or “top-shelf.” More a lacrosse net than a hockey net. Framed mesh, if comparisons to lacrosse nets mean nothing. I am seven, and have three Steve Yzerman posters on my bedroom wall. Nothing unique by mid-80s standards.
I don’t know what I am thinking on this afternoon. I mean this literally. I don’t remember. Nor will I try to probe the depths of that seven year old with romantic adult make-em-ups: dreams of playing in the NHL (who didn’t have that?); grade three crushes on a black girl who was actually from India (Sorry, Jaspreet); a fight with a teacher about how many States there are (Fuck you, Ms. Holden, there are fifty!).
I don’t know what I am thinking on this afternoon when after a wonderfully average shot (or a stiff wind), the net falls over and instead of bending down to pick it up, I stomp on it the way Marty McFly does on one end of his skateboard to pop the whole thing up into a waiting hand. Simple lever mechanics…I think.
Ah, the flimsy net…the flimsy net. Well, what can’t stand up to my rad wrist shot is strong enough to pop past my hand and McFly into my mouth, knocking out my front tooth—an “adult” tooth! I don’t suppose the net hits me particularly hard, but for whatever reason the little guy comes out. When there is no tooth where a tooth should be, it’s always going to be disconcerting*; anyone who has had wisdom teeth removed can relate to the idea of getting used to a new mouth architecture. Let’s catalogue the scene here:
• A tooth is floating in a small pool of blood and saliva just under my tongue
• I yell for my Mom (probably)
• When my mouth opens, some blood and spit spills out onto the driveway (probably); there is a splat (unlikely)
• I run inside, lean over the kitchen sink, and cry.
"We" call an emergency dentist whose office is curiously at the Cataraqui Mall, and he tells us to put the tooth in milk. A bloody tooth in a bag of milk: Strawberry Cow, anyone?
Bundled in a hoodie, I am buckled into the front seat of our ‘85 Grand Am. I wonder if in the middle of my first trauma, I marvel at being let into the mall on Sundays—the opening of malls on Sunday being a social hurdle we had yet to overcome. Guess what Dr. Sunday does with the tooth? Just guess. Did you guess that they ram it back into my gums? You shoot, and you score. I shit you not. And like any broken bone, they put a cast on it. Splinting it to the uninjured teeth which surround. Even at seven, the joke, “Can I sign your cast,” is at best, only slightly amusing. It hurts to laugh anyway, so stop making jokes, Jaspreet.
The very tooth will stay in my mouth, changing colours, until 1997 when the dental artists at the University of Manitoba are good enough to give me an implant. Some things we just can’t let go of.
Thus began the years of putting a hand over my mouth when I laughed, mouth guards at recess, being nervous in pictures, and even now, cringing when teeth clink during makeouts.
Not to mention the saddest grade three school picture ever taken...on Tuesday.
* Since this time, I have had four periods in my life where I’ve had to live without a tooth in my mouth, most recently, early 2008 when implant surgery meant a three day self-imposed exile.
I don’t know what I am thinking on this afternoon. I mean this literally. I don’t remember. Nor will I try to probe the depths of that seven year old with romantic adult make-em-ups: dreams of playing in the NHL (who didn’t have that?); grade three crushes on a black girl who was actually from India (Sorry, Jaspreet); a fight with a teacher about how many States there are (Fuck you, Ms. Holden, there are fifty!).
I don’t know what I am thinking on this afternoon when after a wonderfully average shot (or a stiff wind), the net falls over and instead of bending down to pick it up, I stomp on it the way Marty McFly does on one end of his skateboard to pop the whole thing up into a waiting hand. Simple lever mechanics…I think.
Ah, the flimsy net…the flimsy net. Well, what can’t stand up to my rad wrist shot is strong enough to pop past my hand and McFly into my mouth, knocking out my front tooth—an “adult” tooth! I don’t suppose the net hits me particularly hard, but for whatever reason the little guy comes out. When there is no tooth where a tooth should be, it’s always going to be disconcerting*; anyone who has had wisdom teeth removed can relate to the idea of getting used to a new mouth architecture. Let’s catalogue the scene here:
• A tooth is floating in a small pool of blood and saliva just under my tongue
• I yell for my Mom (probably)
• When my mouth opens, some blood and spit spills out onto the driveway (probably); there is a splat (unlikely)
• I run inside, lean over the kitchen sink, and cry.
"We" call an emergency dentist whose office is curiously at the Cataraqui Mall, and he tells us to put the tooth in milk. A bloody tooth in a bag of milk: Strawberry Cow, anyone?
Bundled in a hoodie, I am buckled into the front seat of our ‘85 Grand Am. I wonder if in the middle of my first trauma, I marvel at being let into the mall on Sundays—the opening of malls on Sunday being a social hurdle we had yet to overcome. Guess what Dr. Sunday does with the tooth? Just guess. Did you guess that they ram it back into my gums? You shoot, and you score. I shit you not. And like any broken bone, they put a cast on it. Splinting it to the uninjured teeth which surround. Even at seven, the joke, “Can I sign your cast,” is at best, only slightly amusing. It hurts to laugh anyway, so stop making jokes, Jaspreet.
The very tooth will stay in my mouth, changing colours, until 1997 when the dental artists at the University of Manitoba are good enough to give me an implant. Some things we just can’t let go of.
Thus began the years of putting a hand over my mouth when I laughed, mouth guards at recess, being nervous in pictures, and even now, cringing when teeth clink during makeouts.
Not to mention the saddest grade three school picture ever taken...on Tuesday.
* Since this time, I have had four periods in my life where I’ve had to live without a tooth in my mouth, most recently, early 2008 when implant surgery meant a three day self-imposed exile.
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