Sports Thoughts Potpourri

1. The...NFL Network's panel of Football Discussing Types just demonstrated, in about three lines, why I don't watch a lot of sports commentary on TV.

Football Dude #1: What is it gonna take for a team to beat [some team I forgot already because I don't care]?
Football Dude #2: Well, it's gonna have to be a team that scores a lot of points.

I understand that this roughly means "'cause there's no stopping that offense" and all but man, that is some dumb-sounding shit.  These guys are getting paid more than I'll probably see in a lifetime to issue inane comments like that.  I don't even know.

2. The only way American hockey broadcasts are going to get more viewership is if they kidnap all the video and production guys from Hockey Night in Canada.  Hockey is a hard game to put on TV and every US network who has tried has failed dramatically.  Unfortunately, it's going to have to be kidnapping, because no way is Canada allowing those people to leave the Great White North.  In turn, this means we're going to have to have a war.  "No problem!" you may say, "America's overblown military-industrial complex will handle the Canadian invasion in a thrice!"  If you say this, you are underestimating the passion of our neighbors to the north as far as their hockey goes.  It would be like Thermopylae in that piece.

3. I'm pretty sure everyone should just elect Tim Tebow to something and have done with it.  I don't know much about him, but it does seem that every sports outlet on the planet is going to great lengths to avoid saying he's really just not that good, yet everyone seems to agree that he's just a really nice dude and people like him.  He was on The Daily Show and he charmed my face off, I understand this.  However, maybe we should stop trying to make Tim Tebow happen and just let him get on with his career as a Congressperson or life coach or official hug therapist or whatever because now I'm starting to hate him and I don't even fully understand who he is or why anyone cares.

Those are my thoughts on sports for the day.

San Jose or Worcester Sharks Makeup

There are certain realities I have accepted about my life, many of them involving hockey.  Chief amongst them are the facts that a.) I go to at least 40 hockey games a year, and b.) that this means I will have clothing and makeup that goes with my standard hockey attire.  This usually involves jeans and a jersey, and given the fact that it's usually a Sharks game, this means I'll be wearing black, white or teal based sweaters.  When I wear black or white jerseys, I can use some color on my face (for teal jerseys I like to keep it silver and black, or maybe incorporate a bit of Sharks orange if I'm feeling adventurous).  I did a teal eye today and thought other Sharks fans might be interested in seeing how to put it together. Here's the whole look:

I'm not really sure why I look bored and/or angry but there you have it.  I've got a strong eyebrow over a teal base, silver overlay and white corners.  Here's the closed eye:

I start this look by defining my eyebrows with Anastasia brow powder.  I use an angled brush to apply a core of dark powder through the center of the eyebrow, then use the lighter shade along the edges.  This takes a little practice, but pays off huge.  It adds just enough definition to make your eyes stand out; I often use nothing but brow powder and Guerlain kohl eyeliner (more on that later), and it makes for a fast, put together look.

The next step is an eye primer; I am using Laura Geller Eye Spackle right now because I have it on hand.  It does a good job, but if you're doing something with minimal color and you don't have lily white skin, it does show up.  That said, it's always good to add some light color at the inner corners of your eyes and under the arch of your eyebrow, so it's a decent option for that.  (The best primer on the market is Urban Decay's Primer Potion.)  After I get the primer worked in, I apply the teal eyeliner and wing it out a fair distance.  I've highlighted the actual line of my eye so you can see that I carry the wing of the liner out pretty far.  You can adjust this for your own comfort level.  I use Urban Decay Liquid Liner in Bright Teal because I like the depth of color and the brush.

After the liner has dried, I add a little dibbity dab of white pencil on the inside of my eye and blend it with my finger.  I have a hard time blending this properly with a brush; if you are an advanced makeup person, go for it!  You can use any white liner or shadow you like for this.  I use a cheapie RiteAid pencil...the packaging says it's a Prestige eyeliner in White (E30). 

The next colors are all from Tarina Tarantino's "Starchild" palette, which I heartily recommend for anyone because it has a great selection of colors that stay put all day and night.  Unfortunately, it looks like its season has gone by, but you might be able to snap it up on eBay.  You could use Makeup Forever's eyeshadows for substitutes: Turquoise Shimmer 83 and Silver 82 should do it.  I put the teal over the lid to JUST over the crease so it's visible.  Make sure you blend it right into the liner so it's a smooth transition.  You want an arc to go from the tip of your liner wing over to the white highlight.  Finally, apply some silver over the top of your teal arch and run your finger over the line to blend, blend, blend.  I finished with Givenchy Phenomen'Eyes mascara, which has the little hedgehog brush.  Even if you don't want to shell out for the Givenchy, I recommend any of the mascaras with the hedgehog brush, because they get riiiiiiight into the corners to get all those teensy little hairs usually involve stabbing yourself in the eye or slopping mascara all over your eye AND nose.  I think CoverGirl has one now, but I'm not sure.

Voila!  I finish with Smashbox Photo Finish foundation primer and Makeup Forever's HD Invisible Cover Foundation (which incidentally may be a little pricey but is hands down the best foundation I have ever used).  It's always best to do foundation last, because that way you can "erase" any fallout from your eye makeup.  If you do foundation first - as I used to! - fine particulate from eyeshadow can fall down and get set under your eyes. 

There Should Be a Law

Dear Reebok,

This is a hockey jersey.

1980 NHL All Star Game jersey

You will notice the distinctive hockey styling, basic shape, lots of banding, etc.  This is a great jersey, and there have been lots of great jerseys over the years. 

This, however...

2011 All Star jerseys

...is a fucking lacrosse shirt.  These things look like shit, and the styling of your hideous sweaters is making teams adjust to design within these stupid ass designs.  This is already a league with some taste level problems (We all remember the Phoenix Coyote jerseys of the 90s, right?), but they get the jerseys right more often than not.  You know why?  Because they're not forcing their designs into your idiot styling.  WHICH LOOKS LIKE A LACROSSE SHIRT.

Fucking.  Stop it. 

Love,

Me

Can a Sister Get Some Moneyball up in this Joint?

This has been a really frustrating Worcester Sharks season. It's even worse because it comes with a sense of deja vu. A couple seasons ago, the Sharks iced a team that was lackluster, rudderless and suffered from a serious dearth of veteran players. It was boring hockey, and it did very real damage to the fan base. The first season the Sharks were in Worcester was a cardio workout - they'd lose and scrap and get way behind and then somehow come back and outshoot everyone and then lose some more and then win a bunch and it was just mayhem all the time, but it was really fun hockey to watch. Even when they were losing, it felt like they were pounding the other team. Not so this year.

San Jose has an interesting relationship to its minor league team. On the one hand, they do actively use Worcester as a development location. Coach Roy Sommer has been kept on staff specifically because he's good at teaching San Jose's prospects the San Jose system, so they don't miss a beat when they get the call. (Frankly, the idea that Sommer is supposed to be giving the players the system is the only thing that explains the godawful line changes, the timing of which is only viable at NHL speed and is terrible in AHL play.) I like Sommer, but his role here makes me hate him a little during games. It's a sprint-hate. We've seen plenty of guys come through Worcester and make it up to the Show successfully; just looking at San Jose's current roster, you have Logan Couture, Benn Ferriero, Brandon Mashinter, John McCarthy, Jamie McGinn, Torrey Mitchell, Joe Pavelski, Devon Setoguchi, Jason Demers, and Derek Joslin, all of whom have been through Worcester in the previous four seasons. Several of these guys - Couture, McGinn, Pavelski, Setoguchi - would have made it to the NHL if Finz was left in charge of coaching them, but the others have had pretty dramatic improvements that I am inclined to think are the result of good coaching from Sommer, Assistant Coach Cunniff and the rest of their staff. If you had told me when they were in Worcester that Derek Joslin and Jason Demers would have consistent and quality NHL careers, I would have attempted to slap the crazy out of you. Those kids were train wrecks.

Despite this focus on development, I'm still not sure San Jose knows how to run a consistently successful AHL team. As far as I can tell, they set the roster before the season starts, and then leave it unsupervised, trusting in Sommer & Co. to make the lemonade. That is dumb hockey. I really enjoyed Michael Lewis' Moneyball, a book chronicling the approach taken by the Oakland A's and other teams who made low-cost player investments based on statistical analysis on what I guess you'd call "less popular" statistics. In hockey, it would probably be like looking at someone's plus/minus rating instead of their point totals. I think San Jose has something like the moneyball approach in mind when they stock up Worcester; my best guess is that they're stocking a supporting cast for their top prospects, and trying to reserve their funds for those future stars. The problem is that a moneyball approach relies on constant monitoring and tweaking, and I don't think that San Jose hockey ops carries through on that end. It doesn't help that Wayne Thomas has openly admitted that they occasionally decide to run lean, exacerbating all of these problems and guaranteeing stagnation.

It's pretty easy to just say that San Jose is interested in developing its prospects, and not in the supporting cast, but that doesn't let them off the hook. Teamwork is an essential part of player development, and the current arrangement presents several challenges on that count. First of all, since there's very little in the way of AHL depth built in, or of ECHL support, when people start getting tired, then hurt later in the season, there are dramatic shifts in chemistry and team cohesion. That changes your ability to develop your players. Secondly, your prospects' teammates should challenge them as much as the opposing players. If you're not paying attention to your second, third, fourth liners and beyond, you're not working your prospects to their full potential. Third, when you leave your own ass out in the wind, you're going to need to scramble for bodies when you get call ups or injuries, so your prospects and the guys who are supposed to be developing then know that they're going to be getting people who can be signed to PTOs mid-season, which of course means people who have already been passed over and who have gotten through waivers with the NHL giving a collective shrug. Not exactly inspiring stuff, not is it going to provide you with the kind of veterans that can help develop your prospects.

Though there are clear flaws in San Jose's approach, you can rationalize it to a point, but it falls apart when you consider that both San Jose and Worcester are owned by a company called Silicon Valley Sports Entertainment. All players and franchises are investments on SVSE's part, and if you look at it all in that context, Worcester starts looking a lot more like a badly handled investment. Not an inherently bad investment, mind you, but one that is being chronically mismanaged. Worcester should be another moneymaking opportunity for SVSE, and leaving it unsupported is not going to produce exciting hockey that gets people in the building to spend money. It's not going to sell merchandise, nor concessions, and it's not going to convince people to buy season tickets or corporate sponsorship. Thanks to Worcester exemplary front office staff, I understand that corporate revenues have remained high, but that is in spite of this season's hockey product, not because of it. The Worcester front office is singularly dedicated to making an impact on the community and making things happen - they brought the All Star Classic to the city in 2009, which the Icecats never seemed to have the backbone to even bid for, for instance. The staff in Worcester could bring a Calder Cup here given freer rein, but with SVSE's laser focus on San Jose and their desire to view all their investments through that lens, the Worcester front office has a significant challenge before them.

I personally would just like some exciting hockey. It's getting increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm for games, and if my enthusiasm is waning, the Sharks organization is going to have to fight hard to keep butts in the seats next year.

Career Change! I Am Going to Be an NFL Announcer.

I am not really a football person, which I blame on my father for not really being a Sports Dad*, but I am reasonably entertained by it despite never really being 100% sure about what's going on. It's a little bit like going to a really weird art "happening" where there are a lot of armless baby dolls hanging from the ceiling and one bicycle in the corner and then some guy runs into the room naked and starts shrieking, and you're there like "WTF" but everyone else seems to be in a really good mood and that kind of puts you in a good mood because it's nice to see people so happy In Times Like These and you walk out and your friends are like "so how was it" and you can't help but say it was really fun. Football is mostly like that for me, but it helps that I do enjoy sports where huge men in barely adequate padding collide violently in the name of shoving an object around. The problem with this corollary however is that I try to apply hockey logic to what I'm looking at in football, and let me tell you that this is an exercise in futility.

I'm also reasonably convinced that Rich is some kind of wizard, because he's always saying things like "they're going to send that guy over there and then this other guy is going to throw it to this other guy and then they will hand it off and then run it around that dude on the other team and then they will get a down" and it happens which is really exciting for me in the way children are excited by the Quarter In Your Ear trick. He also got me the Football for Dummies book which was probably pretty informative but was unfortunately written by Howie Long, who seemed to be operating on a "this is a girl book, and girls are mildly retarded and don't understand sports" theory, so I kind of made some disparaging comments about that stupid-ass haircut he has and mailed the book via BookMooch to some chick in Germany who wanted to learn about American football for some reason**. That gesture was very sweet but ultimately a failure, so I was kind of freaking out because I was like "I have to learn to enjoy football or I will spend every Sunday-Monday wanting to kill myself out of sheer boredom." The New England Surge swooped in to my rescue. Arena football is basically all red-zone play, so I got an up close crash course (literally; we had front row season tickets and caught a couple players) in football, after which the Surge promptly failed to pay their bills in somewhat spectacular fashion and folded. Oops. But I had the knowledge. Ever since then I've been filling in the blanks, and now I know what's going on a good 80% of the time and have even moved on to random trivia like how Hines Ward has a smile like fucking Pacman and Brett Favre is kind of an enormous doucheface***.

So anyway, I've been watching more football than usual this season, and I've decided that I should totally be an NFL announcer. This whole academia thing is kind of a Thank You Sir May I Have Another situation (I actually mispelled that as "Thank You Sire" which adds a whole other level of grovelling to the scene and I think makes it more accurate) and I'm basically going to make like four dollars every year until I die because I am too bossy to write irritating tripe like Fareed "Here Are a Bunch of Well-Researched Facts and No Conclusions" Zakaria pumps out and thus will have book royalties of about fourteen cents to back up that extravagant professorial salary. If I go into announcing, I won't have to go broke getting myself a Ph.D**** and I will be able to make a seriously awesome living by eating a massive plate of beans before gametime and pointing my ass at a microphone.

See, I've observed that these people do not actually do a lot of talking about what is going on and that when they do, it's the most ridiculous irrelevant drivel ever sent out on the airwaves. Said drivel seems to fall into one of two categories - babbling about the play that just happened, or openly jacking it over the player of the moment. A particular favorite of mine was the other day during the Packers/Giants game when a fumble resulted in some pretty great hot potato recovery action. There was a ref literally right on the sideline with such a great view that he directly blocked the camera angle from one direction. The call was made - ball stayed in - and the announcers immediately started talking about how they would accept the ref's decision.

Okay.

Guys, no shit you're going to accept his goddamn decision. He's the ref. You are retired players who managed to avoid concussing yourself into illiteracy. You are not in this. How about talking about the Packers' and Giants' fumble recovery rates? How about talking about receiver stats? How about QB picks? No? Seriously, what is even the point of you?

So I'm going to be an NFL announcer, not only because I am charming and attractive but also because my scant handful of what I will now be calling "color commentary factoids" about Troy Polamalu's hair and Manning's Manningface. I believe this will also help the lucky network that gets me corner the market on "female sports fans" who they tend to regard in much the same way they do unicorns. I plan to capture this market by being a female talking about sports without asking people about their fucking feelings on the damn field and also by reminding the programming people that women do in fact like sports and don't just fantasize about spraying the goddamn Febreze around after their husbands' filthy, filthy football parties*****, so maybe we should get some ads that don't treat women like vapid cleaning devices to be hauled out after the game. I would also start a campaign against the scourge that is pink team gear, because pink team gear is stupid, that's why. Want to support your team? Wear their goddamn colors. You don't see me supporting my country by wearing a pink tee shirt with the Presidential seal in darker pink and white on it, do you? No, I wear a fucking obnoxious extravaganza of red, white and blue with a taxidermied bald eagle hat like a true patriot.

Then, if I ran out of factoids, I could just start talking about whatever came to mind. I'd probably go with talking smack about the fans, because who doesn't like mocking fans? Weirdos, that's who. Have you seen the shit people show up to these games in? It's a judger's dream. And all of this would STILL be more interesting than the dreck currently airing.

The big question, of course, is whether I'd be able to make the transition to the pre- and postgame shows, and I think the answer is OBVIOUSLY yes. My secret weapon would be wardrobe critique. My theory is that all of these guys are being dressed by someone else, and thus cannot possibly be 100% confident that they are wearing the Right Outfit. There are two reasons I believe this. First of all, anyone who spends as much time as these ex-players and coaches spend in team-wear, be it a jersey or other gear, finds their wardrobe gradually consumed by teamlogonalia, all socially acceptable clothing being slowly devoured by tee shirts. Secondly, I refuse to believe that a man who once had the sheer balls to wear a sweater that said "BEARS" across it in public, repeatedly, would ever be able to assemble the relatively natty outfits Ditka sports on air. Once you go to a sweater that self-righteously tacky, you never go back. In any case, I plan to leap with bared fangs on this weakness the second someone disagrees with me. "I disagree, Jimmy the Shark is not now nor has he ever been a member of the Minnesota Vikings." "Yeah, well you look like you cut your hair with a Flowbee and your pocket square is a fucking mess." There is no counter argument for that shit. They would simply have to admit that I was right and let me win forever.

And then I will punch Frank Caliendo in the face.

* Though he made up for it in many ways, including teaching me how to change the oil in my car, being willing to light expired road flares with me for no reason during family holiday gatherings and reading a frankly absurd number of Nancy Drew books with me when I was a kid.

** I don't think Germans will ever not confuse me.

*** Not sure I actually needed football knowledge for that. If Brette Favre's vocal cords exploded in a gory, Sawesque extravaganza of chaos, I'm not sure I could even muster human sympathy at this point. See also: Lebron James, Curt Schilling.

**** Downside: no crazy robes and ridiculous hat. This is significant.

***** I pride myself on being filthier than my husband.

For the Love of the Game: Concussions and the Nature of Sport

The NFL is talking about concussions and what to do about them again. This comes up in every high-contact sport on a pretty frequent basis and it's a worthwhile conversation not only because concussions are bad generally, but also because it cuts to the core of sports in general. To discuss concussions is to discuss the way sports have been, are now and will be in the future, and this is a topic that we've been dancing around for a long time.

Football is a violent sport, and collision is a fundamental part of the game. This is plenty of reason for studying what happens to the human body while playing the sport, and the verdict has been pretty much unanimous - it's damaging in the extreme. I don't think that's a reason to stop playing the sport. For me, the appeal of sports in general is twofold; the benefit comes from the spirit of competition and the experience of testing and watching people stretch the limits of physical ability. This is why sports that are more contingent on equipment than physicality, like NASCAR or shooting, don't usually do much for me. The oldest and most enduring sports are those predicated on the exploration of the human body, and team sports add the element of the mind, demanding that the individual athlete read and react to his teammates' bodies. Football qua football is certainly a phenomenal test of the human body, drawing on fine motor skills, sheer brute force, mental focus and speed.

If we're assuming that sport's goal is success through the use of one's body, we then need to ask how purely dependent on the human body these sports are. If we adopt the aforementioned view because it is true of the world's oldest sports, it stands to reason that there's also something added to the formula by human sport in the context of nature - performing on natural surfaces and environments, with simple implements that could reasonably be found in nature. Though the latter implements might have been refined over time, it's the rudimentary nature that adds something to the quality of sport. However, refinements matter. The human body developed in the context of nature, and it seems natural that the body should develop in a way that helps it deal with the challenges presented by the natural world. When you change dirt and grass to Astroturf, you add speed and slip. When you change baseball bats from wood to aluminum, you add power, give and accuracy. With every equipment and surface development, you change the body mechanics involved, demand different performance from your body and change the way the game is played. The more changes you make, the further you go from the origins of sport - our human bodies against other human bodies and the natural world.

You can't really discuss alterations of athletes and their sports without talking about steroids and growth hormones. At this point, these substances are at best an open secret. Given my explanation of why I like or don't like certain sports, I'm sure it's not hard to figure out that I disapprove of steroid use, but in arguing about it with various friends of mine over the years, it was my friend Scott who had the best argument for steroid use, and I think it is particularly relevant here. He pointed out that professional athletes are paid to be the best in their respective sports, and for that reason, they have access to the best trainers, the best nutritionists, the best workout equipment, the best medical staffs and an unlimited amount of time to capitalize on those resources. His argument logically followed that steroids, as known performance enhancers, should not only be allowed but would have to be taken by any player who took his paycheck seriously. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but the argument highlights another important element of human development in sports - these athletes have access to everything possible to transform them into supermen. [NB: As high schools feed into colleges and colleges into pro leagues, it follows that these methods trickle down as ascendant athletes work to be as prepared as possible to move quickly through the ranks.] Regardless of the ethics of performance enhancing drugs, it's reasonably easy to say that they take the human body beyond its natural limits, whether by adding a foreign chemical or by increasing the amount of a hormone already found in the body. The same could be said of the trainers, equipment, nutritionists and focus of professional athletes.

We can now see alterations to the natural stage for sports and to the athletic human body itself. This means that we are - right now, at this moment - playing sports faster, harder, and in the case of contact sports, more violently than they have been played at any point in history. The human body is startlingly good at protecting itself, as evidenced by our ability to heal, our reflexes, our senses and more amorphous qualities like our ability to feel fear and pain. Still, these defenses have been developed in conjunction with nature, and as we change our physical abilities in an unnatural way, we test the limits of these protections. When we also change the playing field, the balance is shifted even further from a rough natural equilibrium.

It bears wondering why we would want to pervert human nature and the playing field this way, and I think there are basically two answers for the modern athlete. The easy one is that eternal whipping boy of pro sports: the money. Paid as extravagantly as most professional athletes are, the incentive is there to ignore the hazards and to consistently push harder, faster, higher. The more complicated answer is the same as it always has been: the love of the game. Anyone who has fallen in love with a sport knows the incredible feeling of victory wrung from every cell of your body, or of watching another human being perform a miracle with nothing but their body. Sports inspire us because they are the human body - our shared human experience - held up to the light. When you love the game, you will always be reaching for that next miracle, whatever it takes. My glasses might have a rosy tint to them here, but I think that this love of the game and its experience make the money factor possible. Without the intensity of sports to draw us in, there would be no money with which to pay these athletes, nor pay for the facilities or the equipment or any of the other accouterments that provide financial motivation. Whether directly or indirectly, it's the love of the game that keeps sports moving towards these changes.

It would be dishonest to pretend that sports have only developed new ways to be dangerous, when safety equipment and rule changes have developed as well. However, this can contribute to additional danger. Just as the mental component of team sports is essential, so is the mind of the individual athlete. When encased in modern safety equipment, it's easy to feel invincible. These materials are lightweight but incredibly solid, and this can encourage athletes to take additional risks. Safety equipment often offsets the immediate, catastrophic damages that are the stuff of nightmares, like dramatically broken bones, deep cuts or severed muscles, but its protections can encourage athletes to take risks that open the door to more insidious injuries, like concussions and other internal injuries. Just as performance enhancing drugs can develop your muscles beyond what your bones and tendons can handle, safety equipment can encourage you to take risks beyond what your body may be able to handle. This illusion of safety can be just as damaging as the increases in speed and strength that technology and evolution have created.

So where does this leave us? Does the NFL have a duty to its players to keep them safe? To be honest, I think that there is an assumed risk in contact sports that professional athletes can certainly be expected to understand and take seriously. The main problem is that I don't think it's as simple as figuring out if it's their job to keep their guys from getting concussed into an early grave. For the immediate future, I think it would be wise for players to use the concussion helmets that are available and avoid the hits that are more of a concussion promise than a threat. That's fine. But it doesn't begin to answer the larger questions about the nature of football as a sport, or even of what a sport is. It's tempting to get bogged down in the current manifestations of these questions - this happens in politics, business, economics, you name it - but if we don't stop to consider what sport is and should be, then one day the ephemeral concerns will drop away and we'll see what a shell we've been left with. These are questions worth asking...for the love of the game.

Brilliant illustration from Jim Cooke via Deadspin

My Mother is My Biggest Fan

The Sharks are in the playoffs, and Suzanne at the front office got in touch to ask if I could sing the National Anthem for Game 1 of Round 1 against the Lowell Devils. I did, and it went really well, but unfortunately it was kind of the best part of the game since the Sharks rolled over and just failed all over the place. But they rebounded, won the series, hooray! On to Manchester. Game 2 comes around, I sing again...they lose again. At this point the problem makes it to one of the Sharks message boards:

Although Josie sings better then most people that do the anthem I don't think she should sing any more before the playoff games we are now 0-2 when she does. Just a thought lol

Oh dear. The man has a point. I figure I'll just wait until next season to sing, fine. Last night we were up in Manchester, and I texted my mom to tell her that I'd met up with some family friends who live in New Hampshire and attended the game. She responded:

Hope the Sharks do better tonight...fingers and toes crossed! Give the [Friends] my best xxx

I texted her back saying that every time the mom of the friend family came down, the Sharks scored, so I just needed to get her down to our seats one more time and we'd be good. She texted me back a minute later:

Just don't sing the national anthem!!

Thanks, Mom.

Next time any of you readers out there wonder how I've accomplished the things I have in my life, here's your answer: years of support from my family.

Wanna Learn About Seamless Glass?

The DCU Center did a lot of renovation geared towards making the building fantastic for hockey this summer, including the installation of seamless glass over the dashers. Here are some shots of why this is a HUGE improvement.
Clear clear clear...no visual obstruction at the top of the glass.
The biggest vision upgrade is in the corners; without metal stanchions you can see everything perfectly.
Here's a closer shot of the boards over the penalty box. This is the only place there's any metal.
Here is one of the top caps at the penalty box. Because these boards are not being directly impacted, there is not as much give allowed in the bolts; the two parts of the cap and the bolt itself are flush on either side of the board.
This is a shock absorber, located just under the rim of the dasher on the seat side. Apparently when they first designed this type of board, the construction provided VERY little give, so people were actually concussing themselves on them. These shock absorbers were integrated and the top caps were redesigned...
...like this. It's a little hard to see, but if you look closely, the bolts extend significantly beyond the glass, and there is a giant spring between the head of the bolt and the glass. This allows the glass to move when people hit it.

These boards are a huge improvement. My only complaint is that they are quite noisy...Rich described them as "pingy" and I think that's a good descriptor. The hits are very loud, but even puck deflections are kind of startlingly noisy. It's all a matter of adjustment, I'm sure.

Speaking of noisy things that I like...
...I am feeling the HELL out of Alex Stalock. He's an All-American goaltender out of Minnesota-Duluth University and was drafted in 2005 by San Jose; he just gave up his last year of eligibility to come to the bigs. I like my goalies with a little smartass on them, and I like 'em noisy. I could hear Stalock yapping all night and he's a blast to watch. He's super fast post-to-post, and he's got some kind of weird hybrid style where he's big as hell on his feet and super fast to the butterfly. The most interesting thing about his play is how athletic he is. You see a lot of goaltenders who are just phenomenal at the skills that comprise goaltending, but I look at Stalock move and just think "damn, what a sick athlete." He wings his limbs around like they're someone else's, but he's clearly in control at all times. I cannot WAIT to see how this kid develops.

Housekeeping Notes: Hockey Season

Hey all,

I'm adding three links to the already ridiculous blogroll over there on the right. Hockey's over - go Pens - but this has been a phenomenal season for a variety of reasons. Let's just do a little recap.

1. Got to hit up the Sharks/Bruins game when San Jose came out to Boston this season. You don't get to see the Sharks and B's play very often since they're so far apart, and this game was even more exciting because at the time, the two opponents were number one in their respective conferences. We put up with a lot of trash talk from bandwagon fans, but were vindicated in a.) the fact that the Sharks beat the Bruins, and b.) the spectacle of a cop basically hurling one of said idiot fans into a wall for being obnoxious and bellowing "get outta here, go HOME" at him.

2. We also made it up to Montreal this year to see the Sharks play the Habs. There is nothing - NOTHING - like watching a game in the Bell Center, and being there in the Habs' 100th season was truly special. We had such an amazing time in Montreal...thumbs up for Hurley's, Sir Winston Churchill's, McLean's Pub, The Second Cup, Timmy Ho's, La Cage Aux Sports, La Maison VIP, McDonald's when McDonald's is giving out mini Carey Prices, crazy ass taxi drivers of Montreal and above all, Spa Eastman. I go to Spa Eastman whenever we go up north and they do such amazing work. Not only are their aestheticians phenomenal, but their location is on the sixteenth floor looking out over McGill University and is so unbelievably relaxing. Moreover, I was up there with Rich and a kickass woman I'm gonna talk to you about in a sec.3. The AHL All Star Classic was in Worcester this year.After a ton of work and coordination, the weekend finally rolled around about thirty seconds after I'd returned from the Inaguration in DC. We made a lot of new friends, particularly as we were picking the players, executives and mascots up at the area airports.Making important business contacts

It was a spectacular event brilliantly executed. The hockey season brings its stresses, but at the end of the day, we all know that the folks in the front office of the Worcester Sharks are super goddamn talented. It was a real treat to see that become apparent to the entire AHL. They had a great party after the Skills Competition at beautiful Mechanics Hall, which featured U2 cover band Joshua Tree and the NHL Skills Comp on the giant screen.Now, I don't mean to malign any of the people we picked up at the airport - they were all super friendly and fun to meet - but Rich and I got an even more exciting opportunity. We went to pick up the Stanley Cup and its escort, Mike Bolt, from Logan Airport.Saw Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard in bag claim along with San Jose Sharks GM Doug Wilson in bag claim; the Cup was coming back from the NHL All Star Classic in Montreal, so all these folks were coming from the same place.Here we are with the Stanley Cup in the back of the truck. Mike was a really interesting guy, even though he was completely exhausted. We can put the rumors that the Cup travels in its own seat to rest - it gets checked in a giant toughcase. I'm a little sad that all the pictures of me with the cup feature the most cracked out hair I've sported in the history of ever, but the fact remains that I'm right there with the Cup and that is the shit.
I loved the practice jerseys they worked up for the All Star season and of course I got Patrick Traverse's. Our friend and community liason dude Mike Myers designed that kickass logo - how cool is that? He is so talented. Besides doing a million things in the Sharks' front office, he also designs these freaking glorious goalie masks and bikes competitively. I don't think he sleeps. In any case, let's talk about the awesomeness on the loose that weekend, in the form of these fine bitches right here:That would be me, Trish (a school friend of whose awesomeness I was already aware) and Joanne. Rich kept running in to these two chicks from San Jose, and we finally all met up before the All Star Game itself at the hospitality room the Booster Club was running. Jenna and Joanne were out to cover the ASC for the San Jose community, and they were so goddamn fun it was hard to stand. Joanne might be my long lost sister, I'm not sure. So you've now got these two gorgeous babes on the loose, and even better, they're smart as hell and love hockey. They really made the weekend.

The additions I'm making to the blog roll are their blogs, plus a friend of theirs' who Joanne recommended. Joanne writes Ten Minute Missconduct and Jenna writes OverJennaRated. Check 'em out and give 'em some love.

The Heart of the Matter

The Olympics start today.


Sports have always resonated with me. I don't know why. There is something elemental in sports that I key in to, and as a result, I've always taken interest in the Olympics. I don't watch every event and I don't have the attention span for an entire Opening Ceremony, but I enjoy what I do watch. I particularly like the Olympics because it's usually all about athleticism...there's no irrational hyperfandom, there's no ugly fanbase. It's about people who have taken their extraordinary bodies to the absolute pinnacle of competition, and they are spectacular to watch. It's also very often a chance for the host city to display itself at its finest hour...Sydney comes to mind as a particularly wonderful host city.


China is...a problem.


More than anything, I blame the IOC. Beijing never should have gotten the nod, simply because it guaranteed that the Games would be overshadowed by political problems. China's social problems are notorious, and the pollution is no small issue, either. Athletes at this level are more machine than human - they need a basic environment to perform to the best of their ability, and that environment simply cannot include choking smog and epic pollution. My guess is that we will see slower competition times and increased injury in these Games, and that is a damn shame. The civil rights abuses...where do you start? Tibet? Falun Gong? Policies on population control? The abuse of eminent domain? Crushing economic policy? We've all discussed them.

China is a difficult country for the United States. They own a massive part of our National Debt and all you need is a spin through your closest big box store to see how much of our economy they truly control. We are addicted to the low prices that are the product of the aforementioned human rights abuses. Take a moment to consider just how disposable our lives are - everything is available cheaply and in abundance. Rather than repairing things now, we throw them out and buy replacements. It is in large part China's willingness to at best bend their population to the greater economic and governmental good and at worst force them into what is little more than indentured servitude that allows us this supply. It's easier to ignore their sins when we are in a rush and need a cheap teeshirt, and it's easier to do it when everyone's telling us we're supposed to be focusing on the Olympics.

What I find particularly disturbing is the hypocrisy of the US's public statements (most frequently from President Bush, though I don't necessarily blame him for them) in light of their athletes' and state figures' attendance at the Beijing Games. There have been a lot of damning statements issued about the state of Chinese human rights, yet Bush is still there, because to not attend would be offensive to the Chinese. Well...yeah, Mr. President. That's the point. The point is to show that you do not approve of the state of affairs. The point is to stand up and voice your disapproval.

I have to wonder when we got like this...when ease of progress began to trump moral fiber. Honestly, it can't be that long ago...in my parents' lifetime, people were at least willing to go out and protest. Even I got some of this ethic instilled in me along the way. I'm probably more sentimental than most, but I think most people relate to a certain morality of public action, otherwise we wouldn't hold up supposed American ideals like truth, honesty, freedom, and liberty as such essential qualities.

We have spent so much time wrapping ourselves in Old Glory and thinking about bald eagles that I'm afraid we have come to think that's enough. I think somewhere along the way we decided that just telling everyone that we were right and we were the bright shining Way, it would be true. It's not enough. It's not enough and it wasn't enough for the men who founded the country. We wax poetic over the period of the Revolution and the Founding, but we have strayed so far from that time that we are almost unrecognizable. China is a terrifying world power. To not admit that is ignorant foolishness. However, we do ourselves a massive disservice by not dealing with them honestly and standing behind what we know is right. To say one thing and do another not only removes the veracity of the spoken word but demolishes the ability of the speaker to ever be regarded as truthful, strong, and convicted in their belief. It destroys who we are.

I read a book called America's Constitutional Soul this summer (which I advise all of you to run out and buy immediately because it is phenomenal), and in it, the value of formality is addressed by its author, Harvey Mansfield. His main concept is that we dress up to indicate what's important to us...we dress up to celebrate major events. The same idea can be applied to politics. We as a country revere and almost idolize "Superman values"...truth, justice and the American way. We scream at the top of our lungs the importance of freedom and equality. We bellow about Democracy. The risk, though, is to forget that we must do more than simply shop for party dresses and beautiful suits - we actually have to put them on and go to the party sometimes. Just owning them does not demonstrate their beauty. Just saying we're right doesn't prove we are. Just saying someone else is wrong doesn't prove they are.

I haven't watched much of the Olympics - we only watched the March of Nations, Rich providing the trenchant comments and I adding the Model UN nerd color commentary - and do not plan to. I can't stop thinking about the whitewash commenters are giving the situation, and I just wind up torn between a desperate wish that the phenomenal athleticism could regain the center stage and a deep desire to see the true depth and malice of the Chinese government's behavior towards its citizenry laid bare. It's just an awful lot to think about to watch some volleyball.

Framing the Debate

I often get up on my soapbox to rant and rave about how if you want to accomplish anything, you need to frame the debate properly. I think the importance of this idea is particularly relevant today in general and particularly to the Presidential race. Several key issues have been framed improperly and as a result have been carried off downstream by both candidates, the media and the voting public. Thankfully, the timbre of the Iraq discussion is beginning to right itself, and moving away from bickering about who voted how and when, towards a more sane (though still fighty) discussion of what to do now that we're there. Several other issues, however, remain mired in poor terms that miss the point...rather than talking about alternative energy because smog is gross, we're fighting about whether or not global warming is real or even matters, for example. Rather than talking about spending federal funds intelligently as opposed to doing so in a manner that most closely resembles some kind of monetary ticker tape parade, we're talking about bailing out people who bought houses they couldn't afford to begin with.

We are not this dumb.

I refuse to believe that Americans are actually so stupid as to not understand the truth of issues so essential to their lives. I refuse to believe this because so many people in my everyday life disprove it. That being said, we're doing a damn good impression of being that dumb. My personal feeling is that much of the country, who either are naturally less considerate of politics or who simply do not have time to double- and triple-check the facts, have fallen into a certain kind of frog-in-boiling-water situation. Rather than there having been a massive and violent leap into completely mindless, inadequate news coverage (i.e. the frog being thrown into a pot of boiling water), the crap has snuck in slowly over time (water being boiled as frog sits in it, not noticing his impending watery crisis), while maintaining the facade of credible and deep news. That being said, my ability to understand how we got here does not excuse it, and Americans have got to wake up, or we're going to end up in a world of shit beyond our worst nightmares. I don't want to go all Second Amendment Means a Bunker in Montana on you here, but we have to be vigilant, and we have to watch the government.

To my mind, this must begin with a demand that political discourse in this country be set back on track, so that we're addressing the actual business of governance rather than engaging in political smoke-blowing contests. This is going to mean facing some hard truths if we demand it and mean it, amongst them a serious look at pork spending and earmarks and some adult conversation about how demographics should play in this country's political life.

The latter truth is of particular interest to me, and after being startlingly and kind of spectacularly ineloquent in explaining to a friend this past week why I don't like demographically-based programs, I've been thinking about it more than usual. The programs in this country that are meant to right prejudicial wrongs are all based in the best of intentions...Affirmative Action, for example, attempts to correct centuries of abuse of African-Americans that none but the most bigoted (and thus most easily ignored) can refute. America means well, and tries to do the right thing. On the face of it, Affirmative Action sounds like a great concept, right? Repressed population gets first crack at some stuff, and you're not allowed to discriminate. The problem is that you are fighting fire with fire here by FORCING race to remain an issue. If you have to have a certain number of black people on staff, you have to count them. You have to set them aside and think "okay...got my black people." That's just NICE racism. That's just discriminating without being a douche about it.

An additional issue with these kinds of programs is clearly visible in my mortal enemy, Title IX, part of the Education Amendments of 1972, and also called the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, which I have always felt sounded like something you'd name a rec center or something, giving it a cute, Welcome-to-Pleasantville kind of feel. (I mean...Patsy. Come on! The Patsy T. Mink Rec Center for Young Adults. No?) Title IX reads thus:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Surprisingly, this is some of the least convoluted legislation-speak I've read since maybe ever. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it any less problematic. The difficulty here is that we have a mandate tied to financial assistance that is predicated on gender equity. Economics and social agendas can't mesh in this regard, because the Title only considers one half of the accounting ledger. Because of this oversight, all kinds of weird duct-tape-style solutions have sprung up in an attempt to resolve the gap between the two aspects of Title IX. Of course, the most visible attempts and failures have been in high school and college athletics.

The missing piece of the ledger is the income side, and this is where college sports, in particular, are most threatened, mostly because of high-expense sports like football and hockey. (NB: This is true of state schools, since the matter deals with federal funding. While this is less germane to the private-school-heavy Northeast, it factors in on a much greater scale with the more dominant state schools of the Midwest.) Those sports have expensive utilities to maintain and expensive equipment, and in football's case, a large roster to outfit. Now, that being said, college football is one of the biggest moneymakers in the country, bringing in millions from a wide variety of sources (tickets and merchandise, TV advertising, sponsorship, etc.), more than making up its maintenance costs. Title IX fails to take this income into consideration. As a result, the schools' intelligent financial decision to maintain a football team comes at the cost of other programs that are not as profitable but provide the obvious social and competitive benefits to athletes in those programs. Furthermore, the value of maintaining a successful football team hones the blunt male edge of the gender sword, causing more ancillary mens' sports to be cut as the school struggles to maintain the "correct" balance between mens' and womens' sports expenditures.

The infamous three-prong test of Title IX has caused further problems, particularly in the thorny realm of the third prong: "Full and effective accommodation of the interest and ability of underrepresented sex." This is where you get all kinds of weirdness, as women are allowed to try out for mens' teams (and occasionally but much less frequently, vice versa) in the hopes that those teams could then be counted for both genders. Regrettably, this is a logical flaw not only in the approach to nullifying the damaging effects of Title IX but in the arguments for the more extreme feminist views of today, as it assumes a physiological equality that simply does not exist. This is not to say that women are by nature unable to attain certain physical stature, but rather to say that it is extremely improbable that enough women can compete in certain sports to truly negate the forced gender-blindness Title IX seeks to impose. The basic biological differences between men and women translate into a smaller probability that AS many women will be able to truly excel at full-contact sports...we can see the liabilities of the female build in shorter average height, prevalence of problems with bone density and arthritis, and other common ailments that trend towards women instead of men. We are built differently - that is okay. What is not okay is the attempt to force an unnatural equality upon male and female athletes. The aim of Title IX (and more specifically of prong three) is ensuring that all athletes, regardless of gender, will have access to the sports they wish to play. That is a social issue, not a financial issue, yet Title IX attacks the problem as though it is simply a matter of dollars and cents.

This all comes back to the importance of framing our debates in a manner most likely to allow both intelligent discussion and practical solution. Government solutions to social problems, if rooted in the prejudices themselves, will never achieve the goals they set out for themselves. You cannot fight fire with fire...you cannot fight prejudice by basing programs on prejudice. We should talk about our social ills, and talk about what happened before, but when we try to bear up those less fortunate in our society, we must choose income-based programs. We have come to an unfortunate point in our political development where we think everything needs to be resolved through the government, when in reality, many of our social problems can only be exacerbated by memorializing them in non-adaptive, prejudicially oriented programs. Unless we are prepared to continually revisit these types of programs and adjust them to fit the times as their effect is felt, they simply become a detriment to the repair of social rifts. For instance, Title IX was published in 1972...Billie Jean King faced Bobby Riggs in 1973. Manon Rheaume hit NHL ice in 1992. Brandi Chastain lost her damn mind in 1999. The WNBA was founded in 1996. Title IX still presumes that women are being locked out of sports. This is simply not true. Attitudes have changed.

We are a capitalist country. There's considerable evidence that the Founding Fathers actually wanted to ensure that this was the case, though the reasons they wanted it to be so are up for debate. My feeling is that they wanted the riffraff to stay occupied with work so they would leave the politics to the professionals, which in turn raises the question of whether we are currently staring down the logical end of the Framers' work, i.e. low voter turnout and high factional engagement (Et tu, Madison? Was all that evil faction talk just a ploy to get on the good side of political science teachers?), but THAT is about...eight more posts and maybe a small novel, so I'll let you mull that one over on your own time. The problem is that our well-intentioned social programs do not match our capitalist leanings. While race and gender may contribute to our historical misfortune, we all deal in the same currency. In these days we should be discussing the social problems around us in order to root out the insensitivity and inappropriate prejudices still perpetrated, but federal aid should stem from economic standing. Level the playing field that way. Talk out the rest.

I should not end without mentioning the damaging effects of the coddling provided by political correctness and the abovementioned programs. We have become so unbelievably thin-skinned as a result of our unwillingness to approach social ills on an adult level that we now are almost completely unable to be rational. I will certainly not pull the words-are-just-words line out here, because we have no better defense against the mess we find ourselves in but the English language, but we need to be able to accept some basic realities about ourselves and the state of our discourse before putting the first foot forward. I know this will be surprising, but...there are assholes in the world. Sometimes, they don't even know they ARE assholes. They just grew up in bad environments, with crappy role models, and no direction, being encouraged to play a proscribed role, be it one of dominance or of victimization. There is no asshole-free Utopia out there. The sooner we can all accept that, the closer we will be to a better social climate.

Assorted Fun Stuff

Facebook has really been a wealth of awesome lately! Thanks to The Lucy for sending me the video of that interview with Kevin Garnett I was talking about the other day...seriously, if you can watch this and not want Garnett to come live in your house and be awesome all the time with you, we cannot be friends any more.



And then we have a couple great sites from School Friend Cindy, one old and one new.

Old: Photoshop Disasters

New: English Fail

Updating the blogroll, too...

Congratulations Celtics!

I know almost nothing about basketball, but you can't really be in New England and not be aware of what was going on. As you may know, I'm a sucker for sports drama (and male athletes crying) so the story alone is fantastic, and what I watched of the game was just thrilling. One of the best things about it, in my mind, is the camaraderie that's so evident on the team...really makes all the difference. I also ADORED Kevin Garnett's "interview" with whoever that little shrew from ESPN is...he'd start off strong answering a question, then trail off into yelling things like "TOP OF THE WORLD!" Awesome.

Congrats to the Celtics!

Bruins Pride (No, Not Me...Jesus, Have We MET?)

Dear Dude On 290 In The Shitbox Taurus With "GO BRUINS" Written All The Hell Over It But With "Bruins" Crossed Out And "Celtics" Written In Chicken Scratch Under It,

Awesome.

Love,

Me

A ReSURGEnce of [Insert Grammatically Incorrect Word Choice Here]

Brief note: I fucking hate the Surge's...overall visual presence, I guess. Needless to say, my picky, judgmental self isn't wild about the combo of bright, primary red with bright, primary yellow without the soothing intervention of a neutral (that is not bright white), but beyond that, their team image seems designed to do violence to epileptics the world over. Everything is lightning based and extremely busy, with a ton of movement...gah. Moreover, their marketing strategy seems designed not only to encourage the viewer to buy sponsors' products, but to encourage said viewers to go out and develop issues that necessitate the purchase of those products. We're two games into the season and I'm already fighting back a Pavlovian impulse to ram my car into a tree just so I can go to Accurate Collision. I have to have heard those ad reads eleventy billion times so far...and again, two games in.


Okay, so I hate their marketing. I like pretty much everything else, so fine.

I'm a hockey girl at heart, which means a variety of things, but mostly that the actual gametime contact between players and me is limited. Hockey's loud, first off, and secondly, you have the obvious obstacle of the glass - if you're high enough up to be heard over the glass, you're probably not loud enough to get anyone to actually tune in. I'm plenty loud - I specialize in top-volume, extended-remix WOOs - but actually getting a player to hear every word you're saying and react to it is not that common. (Speed does not have this issue. Misogyny at work? KIDDING, KIDDING) At the Surge however, we sit front row, and there's no glass, so we have plenty of opportunity to talk with any number of participants...coaches, officials, players.

The Surge guys are fascinating to me, most of all because they are pretty much doing this for fun. The Surge is part of the CIFL, one of the minor leagues of arena football. The guys on the team have day jobs and usually only get $100-$200 per game. Good deal, right? Yeah, except this is full contact, really fast football, not toss around with your buddies. If these guys get hurt, they risk all kinds of crap with their actual, bill-paying jobs, not to mention the fact that their respective health insurers may or may not cover "injuries sustained while participating in violent sports." The parts of me that finds weird injuries cool really thinks it's neat that these guys do this. Logically, I can see it's probably a moronic risk, but at heart, I just think it's fucking great, to be honest with you.

I credit this kind of extreme amateurism for the general good feeling of the games...the guys are invariably cheerful before games, and the exact right kind of fighty during, and for some reason about half of them like dancing? In the middle of the game? Love it.

Miscellany

This morning, I popped open the laptop and couldn't get to the Internet. OH HEAVENS TO BETSY! So I went to Meeting, went to Starbucks with the Momster, went to the Craft Center with the Momster, and then went to the Sharks game with the Speedster. Where they won. By playing well, not because the other team sucked. I was startled also. So then we came home, and WOE IS ME still no Intarwebz. We also got DirectTV the other day and it sucks the bag, so it's not a great time in the Land of Technology at Josie and Speed's House. Speed, because he is awesome, got on the horn with the Verizon lady and figured out what was going on.

Time out for a tangent.

I use my laptop while sitting on the couch. The cat has discovered that the laptop is warm, and thus usually comes over and parks himself next to the computer, then spends the next block of time oozing himself onto the keyboard, doing things like restarting my game, typing things like"qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqeeeewww" into the web browser, and hitting F1 for Help on every program in the world in the process. End tangent.

So, Speed and the Verizon Lady figured out that the cat, in his demented little variety of genius, managed to DISABLE MY WIRELESS RECEIVER, which requires holding down the "function" button while pressing the F2 key, which doubles as the "Wireless on/off" button.

I fucking DARE you to tell me he doesn't do this shit on purpose.

So that happened, and that was great. This weekend's hockey was exciting, with decent play and a shootout-defusing overtime goal, a trip to Manchester yesterday in which we lost but there was an awesome freaking fight, and then tonight we won in a great game and for added warm fuzzies, Riley Armstrong shaved his head to donate to Locks of Love, along with a BUNCH of fans, which I thought was really cool (not all of them had to shave their heads to donate, but that doesn't make it any less awesome). I recently cut my hair for the sake of having a cute short hairdo before I start growing it out for wedding styling purposes (realistically, I can probably get another short cut in, but we'll see...motivation is key), but those folks inspired me to a.) get in a donation pre-wedding if I can and b.) definitely lop it off post-wedding and donate. I mean, it's a renewable resource, why not?

The great fight this weekend was between a new kid and Manchester's big bruiser, Westgarth. There have been several new kids in town, notably Jones, Wishart, Zalewski, MacDonald, McGinn and McLaren (I didn't realize how many were Micks and Macks until right now). They all show promise, as far as I'm concerned, but boy, I really liked McLaren's contribution. The game wasn't going well on Saturday, but as Speed noted, when the Sharks got down to 3-0, McLaren properly identified it as a good time to try something new to shake things up and get people fired up, so he picked Westgarth and dropped the gloves. I checked the numbers on both combatants and my first thought was "oh shit, this poor kid's going to find out what it's like to have his face backwards," since Westgarth is a pretty serious badass. Physically it wasn't hugely drastic...they're both big boys, but McLaren's definitely got a touch of lankiness. But he got a good grip on Westgarth's shirt, and just started whaling on him...he even got a couple of Brennan Evans style punch-with-the-jersey-holding-fist shots in. At one point, he lost an elbow guard, too, and I thought for SURE that Westgarth was going to recover and whomp him while he was divesting himself of that, but he didn't, and finally, Westgarth realized he wasn't going to win this one and went for McLaren's knees to take him down.

Needless to say, all the Manchester fans took this as a won fight...whatever lets you sleep at night, you whiny bitches.

Finally, yeah I totally LOLCatted myself but frankly I find it hilarious and if you don't then tough shit.

College Sports

I like sports, and every now and then, people try and get me all excited about college sports...usually football, hockey or basketball. I'm not really sure why I don't care about college sports - sports is sports is sports, no? - but for whatever reason, I just can't get into them. I like going TO college sports games...I still remember going to my first basketball game at American on a whim with one of my friends and how both of us spent the first half being all "oh my GOD why don't we do this more?!?" Those basketball games and the time they showed Old School out on the quad were the most unified and happy I think I ever saw AU's population. This is not to bash American...it's just got a really unique personality and the way it is kind of fragments the student body. Hard to explain. In any case, at one point when I was there, AU beat Cross to get into the NCAA tournament (I think...DON'T EMAIL ME), and it was exciting from a "something I don't care about on campus is doing well" standpoint, like when the curling team makes it to the regional championships and you kind of don't get curling, but since they're wearing AU jerseys you're willing to get mildly pumped about it and maybe engage in some three-martini shit talking on a Friday night.

However, I don't think I'm very good at picking schools with hardcore sports teams, and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Would it be cool to go to Duke or UNC or some other ridiculously hardcore school where sports are a religion? Probably. But the schools I go to are usually the ones whose basketball makes it to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen, faces someone horrifying like Tennessee (AU this year), promptly gets knocked out, and then goes back to pretty-good-but-not-phenomenal basketball. It's exciting but kind of anti-climatic at the same time. Assumption seems to be about the same...they made the tournament and then lost to Bentley.

A lot of people have responded with incredulity when I tell them I've never attended a school with a football team (Assumption is the first), and I get the sense that having not done so really has made for a different timbre in the schools and their populations. There was no quarterback to idolize, the cheerleading squad only worked basketball, there was no all-consuming Friday night game...I think, too, that football, with its high equipment costs and massive popularity, tends to eat the rest of a high school's sports. I mean, people routinely turned up at my field hockey games (TWB FIELD HOCKEY WOO) for fun, and stopped by the soccer games to watch those, and it was just a more casual, universal sports interest. It's probably best to note that the school I attended was pretty small, with only about 500 kids in the building between grades 7 and 12, and it's tough for me to tell how that factored into the whole sports "thing." Part of being at a small school meant that everyone did everything...when I was in high school I played hockey, was in band and chorus, did Odyssey of the Mind, was in National Honor Society, joined the Physics and Science Clubs (yeah....there were reasons at the time), and did all kinds of other cross-extracurricular stuff. While this solidifies my nerdiness, it's also indicative of how the school was. With only 500 kids and a whole bunch of teams and clubs to populate, everyone did everything, and their friends did everything, so you wanted to check out more than just one sport. It's interesting stuff, and frankly I think is a lot of the reason I got in to good colleges.

In any case, March Madness is this week, and it should be...fine, I guess. Since I'm only at work a couple days a week, no one asks me to embarass myself by joining office pools or anything, but invariably, someone will ask me who I like, and I'll say American, because I am a jerk, and that's just how March Madness works for me.

In Which I Am Extremely Pissed

Let's talk about things I do.

I go to college full time. I take 5 classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all of which have reading I have to do on Tuesday, Thursday and the weekends, along with any assorted papers and presentations.

I also work on the aforementioned Tuesdays and Thursdays, where I always THINK I am going to get reading done, but rarely do. I work in Westborough, which is 30-40 minutes from my house.

I work out twice a week for an hour with a trainer.

I have a knitting group after work on Tuesdays.

I do a bunch of stuff for the Sharks Booster Club, and that's what I'd like to talk about today.

I really love the Sharks. I love the people in the front office, they get it, they know hockey. I love the Boosters, for the most part, and enjoy spending time with them. I love seeing Fiona and Shrek and our section family and all the other people around the arena. I like the DCU people and the interns and the games. I love the actual Sharks themselves - by and large, they are just a good bunch of guys, personable and funny.

When the Icecats left, it...sucked. I grew up there. I made friends there, I met throwaway boyfriends there, I had a handful of Christmases at the Centrum with my former section family in 117...I met Speed there. I knew all about the guys on the team and the teams in the league, all of that. It was like a second home. There was a year after they left where there was no team, and that was just horrendous...the upside, I guess, is that it gave Speed's and my relationship a chance to gestate, but still...no hockey. Speed basically strongarmed a new team into town, and that was good...the Sharks seemed like a good group and in the inaugural season, they proved it. We joined the Booster Club, Speed became President, and at the end of the year I'd somehow managed to be named Booster of the Year.

It was also the first time I'd had the weird sensation of enjoying losing. This is not to say the team sucked and lost all the time. They were kings of the comeback, though, to the point that they'd be down by 2 and we'd all start joking about how they had the other team right where they wanted them. And kind of not be kidding. It was thrilling...they were a dynamic team and even watching them lose was more exciting than half the wins I'd ever seen. They made the playoffs, and that was great.

This year, while it's mathematically possible for them to qualify, they're not going to do it playing like this. And that is not fair.

I don't really know who to blame. These guys, by and large, do not suck. There are some guys who could be phenomenal with some polish. When Lukas Kaspar hits the afterburners, you just straight up cannot catch him. When Mike Iggulden decides to show up for a game, he's fantastic. When the defense is cranking and Thomas Greiss and Dimitri Patzold actually have some crease to play with, they are unbeatable.

So why aren't these things happening?

I don't have a solid answer. I put a lot of it on the coach, but not being in the locker room, I don't know that I can point that finger. I DO know that sometimes, no matter how much of a big kid you are, you need a kick in the ass. I don't see that happening on the ice, and quite honestly, I think that's usually where you need it most. When you're not playing, you have plenty of time to work up a guy's motivation and psych him up. But let's have it said...20 minutes isn't long. Not at that pace. There's definitely not time to dick around and wait for the guy who's dragging ass to come to his senses, adopt a heroic pose and Do It For Love. Sometimes when you're in the shit, you just feed on your own frustration and keep screwing up. I also take serious issue with the moronic line changes and the coach's total inability to take a goddamn timeout. Look, this is basic logic.

Point of hockey = putting small rubber critter past a large man with mattresses strapped to his legs and into a net.

Method of acccomplishing above goal = guys with sticks and knives strapped to their feet do whatever they can to push it in.

Ergo, if there are no goddamn PEOPLE in the FUCKING RED ZONE, how in the HELL do you think you're going to get the puck in the goddamn net??? And yet game after game, night after night, this guy changes up as soon as the puck crosses the blue line. WHERE DID THIS GUY LEARN HOCKEY?

And with the time outs...he just doesn't call them, and often this falls into the same angry space with my motivational issues. Look, sometimes a goalie lets in two in a row, and it doesn't mean he needs to be pulled. Sometimes he just needs a slap-around. Sometimes a team needs the same. In either case, just CALL A DAMN TIMEOUT, give the peptalk and the game plan, and move on. Don't just let it drag on and hope something good will happen - be proactive.

I guess I should note that the reason I'm all hacked off is because they lost 3-1 to San Antonio last night in the most boring fucking game ever in the world without a HINT of fighting for the win.

I'd also like to talk a little bit about Jamie "Motherfucking" Koharski.

My first concious knowledge of Jamie Koharski was last season during a game against the Norfolk Admirals, and that game managed to get so fucking far out of his control that someone wound up being taken off the ice on a backboard. The Admirals were an ugly, fighty team last year, and the Sharks certainly were taking the bait, but there was no reason for a game with paid officials to get that out of hand. Since that game, he's been a consistently shitty referee...missing calls, ignoring calls, being oblivious, being an asshole...while variety may be the spice of life, no one needs a variety of ways to suck at something you get paid for.

Last night, Riley Armstrong, who, let's have it said, is a shit-stirrer to the core, got knocked down in front of the net, and some shitheel on the Rampage just started crosschecking him over and over and over. Where, you may wonder, was Koharski? Fucking nowhere to be seen. He finally tuned in by the 4th or 5th crosscheck - for those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Rampage player had his stick with a hand on each end of it, and was ramming the flat of his stick down repeatedly on Riley's shoulders, neck and back - and slapped the guy with a 5 minute major and a game misconduct.

Look, part of being a ref isn't just calling the right penalty, it's keeping the game safe. It's a violent game, and sometimes people just need a goddamn timeout. In this regard, Koharski has failed over and over and over and over, and that is fucking reprehensible. That man is going to be responsible for someone getting seriously, permanently hurt one of these days, and that is fucking terrible.

He should be out of a goddamn job.