Last week was a wild week of college football. Some of the teams toward the top had fallen or stumbled a bit. That means some movement in the Heisman Trophy race.
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Why Isn’t Hockey More Popular?
One would be hard pressed to find a person in the United States that says hockey is their favorite sport. As a matter of fact, hockey probably resides on the totem somewhere in the neighborhood of the WNBA. Hockey isn’t nearly as popular as Golf and Tennis, especially women’s Tennis, so it obviously doesn’t come close to challenging American Sports’ Big Three of professional Football, Baseball, and Basketball.
Why is that though? Why is hockey so far outside the scope of the American Sports radar? It doesn’t make sense because hockey, the NHL, has many elements that should catapult it to a higher level of popularity. Hockey has more flashes of excitement than baseball. It has just as much physicality as football. It is often more violent than your average pay per view boxing event. And, it can be said that hockey has the most graceful, elegant, and best athletes.
I am guilty. Like most sports fans, I play and enjoy fantasy sports. But much like music videos killed the radio star are fantasy sports killing the sports fan?
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Please Tell Me That Was A Joke
For the past three days, I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me that it was all a cruel joke.
I have never been so disgusted with the way my team played that I would write an entire article about it.
But then again, I never though that any team in any situation could play as pathetically lousy in every aspect of the game as the University of Florida did on Saturday at Alabama.
Have you ever wanted to give the owner of your favorite team a piece of your mind? Avery Smith decided to write a letter to Frank McCourt, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and didn’t hold anything back.
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Once Upon a Time in Mexico
On Sunday night, a regular season game was played on non-US soil, the first such occurrence in NFL history. With no idea of what to expect, Paul Tagliabue decided to send the game’s top ambassadors to preside over the event, just in case things got out of hand. And so it was that Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann, Paul Maguire, O.J. Simpson, and Rae Carruth showed up in Mexico City, ready to infuse our neighbors to the south with a passion for Football, Jr. But anyone concerned that the 49ers might have to wear home red ponchos, or that the players agreed to the trip simply so they could sneak “the really good steroids” across the border were quickly put at ease. In the opening minute, fans booed Arizona’s kick returner for kneeling on the back line of the end zone. Apparently watching soccer year-round can turn even the most gentile nation into a bloodthirsty potential XFL market.
I know a lot is said about parity in the NFL but it seems like there are 10 good teams and everyone else falls somewhere in the middle. New England took quite a tumble this week with an embarassing loss to the Chargers. Meanwhile, how can you argue that a 4-0 team with a hot QB, a star WR and a balanced running attack (Cinci) is rated too high?
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MLB Power Rankings 3 October 2005
An entire MLB season has come and passed, and here are the final power rankings going into the playoffs. As always, comments and criticisms are appreciated.
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Dying to Live – Matt Waters
I’m sitting in a hotel room during late June, located ground zero in the “revitalized” section of downtown Detroit, staring blankly at the ninth rerun of SportsCenter. My father, brother, and me had taken a trip into the proud home of the Red Wings, Tigers, Lions and Robo-Cop on a sojourn to see our Yankees do battle in the newly minted Comerica Park. We had just seen Wrigley Field a week prior on our Baseball themed Summer Vacation, and once the initial and deserved shock of seeing what a cathedral that park truly is wore off, the main ingredient served in the back of my mind about seeing and experiencing a Cubs game was not the Ivy on the wall, the merrily obstructed views, or even the Hot Dogs [best in the free world].
It was the fans.
Cub fans are of a different sort. They weren’t watching the game in a modern, frenzied pace that is best reserved in Chicago for the middling Bears [a shuffling crew.] It was quite the contrary, as they took in the experience of a meaningless June against the Brewers wholly inside themselves. Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, one didn’t feel the momentum of the moment, a tie game, taking hold of the mass gathering bowing at the altar of their beloved Cubbies. Instead of tensing up, the crowd seemed to exhale as each frame ended, expelling all of which they had bottled up in the vast emporium that exists within any seasoned baseball fan’s mind. My brother and I had noticed the trend by the fourth inning. After Corey Patterson, a maddeningly gifted player who had not fulfilled his copious potential after ruining his knee during the ’03 season, failed to get a bunt down and than proceeded to strike out, a Corey Patterson trademark moment in a tight game which demanded perfection from both teams, we both prepared our eardrums for the venom sure to rise from the throats of those jaded by the stars Cub fanatics. There was booing to be sure. But there was something missing. Where was the anger? The booing had a different tone, a different tint if you will, that I recognized only later that night.
It was apologetic. Apologetic booing. How sweet.
” You believe these freaking people?” My brother Greg wondered it aloud in utter amazement.
I nodded my head in quiet understanding, than took yet another nervous quick glance at the romantic out of town scoreboard. The Yankees led Baltimore by one run, and hoped to stave off the ghost of .500 for at least one more night.
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The Casual Fan’s Guide To Sox/Yanks
With yet another epic series between the Yankees and Red Sox looming, it seems to be all anyone is interested in the sport world. We all know these two powerhouses well enough to expect, tense, close baseball games, so needless to say that is the predominant interest for most people as they sit on their couches with remote in hand. However, as a die-hard Met fan, the score is really the last thing I’m interested in.