Sorry for the heavy concentration of sports this week, but hopefully it's still interesting for those of you who prefer the Home and Garden Channel.
A Chicago Bears fan has been fined $250 after he used a stun gun on his wife, who's a fan of the Green Bay Packers. You can't make this stuff up. The husband claimed the wife would let him use the taser on her if the Packers lost, but after he allegedly stunned her twice in the rear end and once in the thigh, she called the police. Authorities says they did retrieve a cell phone video of the woman laughing, however, while she was being tasered.
As I get older and become less attached to sports, it becomes quite a bit easier for me to see how shallow people can be. A couple of weeks ago when the New Orleans Saints defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, a video surfaced of a Saints fan celebrating the last second field goal to win. Moments later, the video showed an Eagles fan spitting on the Saints fan. Naturally, a fight ensued. I would welcome emails from die hard sports fans to explain to me how your team winning or losing a playoff game affects the greater good or bad of the world. I can assure you that while the Eagles players were disappointed at the loss, many of them went out and partied and celebrated the end of the year much the same way they would had they won. For quite a few players, they are happy to be done work early. Think about it. Would you be disappointed if your boss told you to take a month off, with pay?
Vancouver Canucks head coach John Tortorella is in hot water with the NHL after he tried to get into the dressing room of the Calgary Flames during the first intermission on Saturday night. Not only should Tortorella not be suspended, someone should give him a raise for making the NHL a little more popular in the United States as his circus act was the lead item on ESPN Sportscentre. There are a ton of theories out there as to what Tortorella should have done to answer Calgary's tactic of starting five goons at the beginning of the game. Some say Tortorella should have put his number one line on the ice and tried to get an early goal. I say, the the half asleep referees should have issued 10-minute misconducts to all players before the puck was dropped. I was watching this game and there was a lot of barking going back and forth between the players on the ice and it all could have been settled by throwing all of them in the sinbin for ten and giving the Calgary bench a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct for trying to encite a line brawl.
I attended my first Winnipeg Jets live game on Saturday afternoon and I left with an extremely positive impression. The game against Edmonton was very exciting. I am beginning to think it's not really the NHL that is turning me off, but rather the talking heads on the sports channels who spend countless wasted hours speculating on how the rule book should be interpreted or which player is 'in play' for a trade when there are less than 5 trades all year leading up to the deadline.
If you go to a Jets game, it's imperative you eat a Jumbo Jets Dog. It's over priced like the rest of the concession food that you buy at professional sporting events, but it was delicious. I think it was because the bun was toasted to perfection and soaked in butter. Is that possible? Can a bun be the difference maker for a hot dog?
I give the Saskatchewan Roughriders a lot of credit. They are doing their Grey Cup Tour celebrations the right way. On Friday, over a dozen of them spent the evening playing basketball with a number of local residents and, by all reports, it was a fantastic time. The players were patient and took lots of photographs afterward and were not quick to get out and back on the road having fulfilled their duties. Two big thumbs up to the Roughrider organization for their community involvement.
Thumbs down to the moron who taunted Kory Sheets through social media circles last week, prompting Sheets to reply and, subsequently, get slapped on the wrist by the CFL for 'bullying'. It's not bullying if someone threatens you (or in his case, a member of his family) and you reply in a stern way. So, two big thumbs down to the CFL for preventing from Sheets from defending himself in an effective way and thumbs down to the donkey who went to extreme lengths to try and get his name in the news.
While on the topic of thumbs going down, here's two more down thumbs to the baseball writers who now sit on their soapbox condemning the pros who used performance enhancing drugs by not voting them into the Hall Of Fame. It would be the writers who could have stopped this long ago by doing an expose or two, but instead chose to be buddy buddy to their heroes instead. Sorry, but you shouldn't be able to have it both ways. If you are a reporter, you are not a fan.
Nice person mentions this week to Ryan Duthie, Matt Dominguez, Darryl Flunder, Ember Simpson, and Lynndell Popoff.
