Tag: Sports, Games and Competitions

Soccer Friday Night

It’s back. Grown men, many gone grey, dressing up in bright colours and short pants to run around like eight year olds. It’s great. With the league restructuring, not this one – this one, I am on a tentatively nameless yellow team, that sort of yellow yellow with a bit of orange yellow. Numbers of the shorts and matching socks, too. It’s like being in a bunch dressed up Action Man footballers, some with guts but without that nasty cheek scar Action Man had. I had a Man U Action Man. Odd as I’ve magic marker Keane on the back of the jersey now and stick it with pins. Or maybe not. I have seen how he gets people back.

The glee of running and sweating overcame my disgust at confirming that the song “This Is The Day” by The The is now selling pants in a Dockers ad. I had to play it and mourn. It is such a good tune. Here it is [.wma, 4.8 MB]. Note the instrumentation. You think it is synthesizers which, being 1983, is a pretty good guess – but its actually an accordion and fiddles.

Twisted Blankle

I must have twisted my blankle or strained my black as I can’t think of anything to blog about this morning. A pull bloin. Maybe its just fear of the impending first fitba game of the summer tomorrow night, dread at the prospect of the unknown way this corpse will fail me.

I am big on the web nostagia post most of all from yesterday’s slew. Nils took the bait….blait.

Another Pool Update

Well, the Memorial Cup is over and the Lodon Knights win but not after the Rimouski Oceanic rack up some high scores. Looks like I fixed the pool again.

Question
⇓
 Alan Mike Gooner Don Hans
#1 5 5 5 5 10
#2 0 0 10 0 10
#3 25 0 0 0 0
#4 10 0 10 10 0
#5 36 0 13 33 0
#6 0 0 0 0 0
#7 10 20 10 20 10
#8 10 0 10 0 0
#9 0 0 0 0 0
#10 10 0 10 0 0
#11 0 10 10 10 10
#12 10 0 10 10 0
#13 0 0 0 0 0
#14 0 0 0 20 0
#15 5 5 5 5 0
#16 0 0 0 0 0
#17 20 0 0 0 0
Total 131 40 93 108 40

F.A. Cup

Now that the long weekend is upon us and the events of Parliament’s crisis-ette have passed, it is important to remember there are real events out there in the real world and one happens tomorrow morning with the English F.A. Cup Final between Arsenal (yea!) and Man U. (booo!).

If you think Martin and Harper had issues recently, look at these two gents, the managers involved in tomorrow’s game – they have learned to love again compared to their past dealings but there is still a lot of love left over laying around doing nothing when these two meet. Roger’s SportsNet is telling us the game is on live and for free this year – starting 10 am EST. In past years, I have spent two hours swearing at the pay per view satellite dish when it would not take my order for the game so I am hoping the gods of digital cable transmission are with me tomorrow.

Sports Update

The sports pool is suffering from a gap and I realize I should have had some first round NBA questions to fill in at this point – like “how many techical fouls will Iverson pick up?” for 30 points. That being said, I am astounded how I do not miss the NHL in any way. My gawking at athletes life is entirely complete without it, exemplified by how much I enjoyed last night’s 2-0 Jay’s victory over the Yankees.

Of my three disliked teams across all sports – the other two being the Habs and Man U – I admire the Yankees the most. So while I will turn on the TV just to see them lose, when they do lose it is quite the thing. And losing to the Jays is quite the thing as well. Roy Halliday, the pitcher for Toronto, threw a three hitter was as in control and dominating as any pitcher I have ever seen making veterans dive back at pitches that transformed from beanballs to middle of the plate strikes but the time they hit the catchers glove. Their shortstop, MacDonald, made a unbelieveable snab at a sure looper and Hudson at second was very strong. Randy Johnson, by comparison, appeared as weak as I have ever seen him but he still had a more than decent start with a complete game and nine strike-outs. He was just over-shadowed. The New York Times this morning says of the game:

Halladay throttled the Yankees, 2-0, spinning a three-hitter and doing his best imitation of Josh Beckett in the 2003 World Series. On a night when Randy Johnson also threw a complete game with nine strikeouts, Halladay shone brightest. “He was nasty, that’s just the bottom line,” Derek Jeter said. “Everyone talks about the great pitchers in the game: Clemens, Randy, Pedro,” Jeter added, referring to Roger Clemens and Pedro Martínez. “They need to start talking about Halladay, because he’s as good as they come.”

With the Big Unit out to a poor start along with the rest of the team, the judges now will be out for a good long time to determine whether Boston, with Wells, or New York was craftier in their selection of guys my age as starting ace.

Baseball has won me back. I have box seat tickets for a Pawtucket Sox game in late July and may even take the kids to see a Jays game from the cheap seats – seats you can actually afford at nine bucks and seats that are actually available. I may even drag them over the river to see the Watertown Wizards of the NYCBL. June 18th there is a whuppin’ of Glens Falls scheduled at 3 pm on a Saturday. Soon, CFL will start up. Soon, there will be talk of NFL. Soon, Bettman will be fired and, someday, the new 16 team NHL will figuring out how to get a revenue stream when you force a lock-out and declare that you will not use replacement players.