The_Admiral

1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

 Macolm Gladwell's theory of the World Eugenics Basketball League

 go on...

The Flames drafted one of two guys with one name, the Sabres drafted one of zero guys with another name, it all averages out in the end...

No, this league has been dumb from day one. They've never had a cohesive vision for the league or the sport, just a very small handful of arena promoters enriching themselves.

Imagine if the Malice at the Palace happened and no one knew what to do because David Stern went off on a vision quest and didn't tell anyone.

RIP John Ziegler

You Weren't Gary Bettman

Goal in Rangers-Blackhawks gets washed out but is then reviewed. Turns out that the puck went in the net but after the play was intended to be whistled dead. Fine, whatever. Two minutes later after they finish reviewing, the referee goes to center ice and declares that there's no goal and this is not a reviewable play. You could have told me sooner.

EDIT: unrelated, I always knew Dan O'Sullivan was one of my favorite contemporary writers, but this, 

2 hours ago, LMU said:

If they want a model for how to market they should look Down Under.

Taint Residue Chargers

Former Islanders owner Charles Wang died. What I'll remember most about him aside from trying to get a new arena in Nassau and failing is that he once did an interview on MSG, and while I expected him to sound like an elderly Chinese immigrant, he actually sounded like Woody Allen, and it was really funny. Anyway, uh, it's sad that he died and not the guy who pretended to live in a model home.

The Hurricanes won a few games to start the season and all the Twitter nerds were like "oh my god, hockey is fun again," fun in hockey apparently being thwacking shots from anywhere like an intermission shoot-the-puck contest gone wrong. Tell Raleigh about the fun, though! They didn't seem to get the memo yet!

Hmm, I don't think I'd refer to a far-flung single-family-home neighborhood of Chicago like Beverly or Norwood Park as a suburb, even if they're suburban in nature. Chicago already has like 200 suburbs as it is.

6 hours ago, Quillz said:

But go north to Chatsworth if you like porn. 

I see it's next to "Box Canyon."

Yeah, it was only a few years ago that I learned all these place names I had known -- Northridge, Sherman Oaks, Reseda, Van Nuys -- were actually just neighborhoods of Los Angeles rather than suburbs. The Valley is a strange phenomenon, geographically speaking. Maybe the people are strange, too.

Here's an oddity for the Fox single game on Sunday: DC is scheduled to get a doubleheader, with Panthers-Eagles in the early spot but also Saints-Ravens in the late spot, with Cowboys-Redskins running in the CBS late spot (despite neither team being in the AFC but that's not a rule anymore). So I guess the deal here is some sort of Baltimore-Washington reciprocity where each one gets the other team's games, but because they're both late, the DC affiliate isn't supposed to run against the Redskins at home but also needs to carry the Ravens but also is only supposed to have one game? idk weird.

Thanks for reminding me that Horses doesn't end after the first track after all!

48 minutes ago, Quillz said:

The Pistons play in Auburn Hills, not Detroit.

They moved in with the Red Wings and came back downtown last year. RIP, home of the Pistons and almost the Whalers.

11 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Massive waste of resources? An entire economy based around paying people very little to accommodate the ultra wealthy? Poorly planned transportation system? Fattening foods and chains as far as you can see?

ugh, Alexa, play every Radiohead song

If this team moves to Las Vegas I'm done with all sports forever.

If they want to have some "honoured numbers" for great players, I guess that's okay, but the best player in the history of the franchise should have his #12 retired outright.

Lambert https://sports.yahoo.com/countdown-kane-matthews-make-hockey-fun-125016852.html

Quote

5. Attendance woes

Only like 8,800 people showed up for the Islanders’ opener in Brooklyn, but isn’t it so so so interesting that no one in Canada is saying like “We gotta move them to Quebec City yesterday!”

I know they have that new arena deal now but even before they did that was never talked about and I bet it has something to do with the Mason-Dixon line. Just a thought.

There were literally busloads of Nordiques fans at Islanders games who were saying that, but never let anything stop you from sucking up to nerds on Twitter who like the Hurricanes and Stars and think they're dril.

Somehow the NHL did not schedule a single game yesterday, a Friday night. Were they superstitious about scheduling games on Friday the 13th? That's no excuse, it was the 12th.

Part of getting old is feeling like it's always the run-up to the Olympics.

Probably the right thing to do would have been to ask the arbitrator to knock two games off, now don't say we never had your back, in the future try not to get drunk and beat your wife.

An arbitrator knocked Austin Watson's suspension down from 27 to 18, which puts left-leaning people in sort of a double-bind: domestic violence should be punished, but the league shouldn't have unilateral power to punish players if the collective bargaining agreement allows for the PA to appeal. 18 still seems too low (no hockey player would ever say that), but the union has to do union things or else what's the point.

Kobe got about as out in front of it as he could, given the circumstances. I think by admitting that it was a heat-of-the-moment misunderstanding of consent, giving her a ton of money, and generally staying out of trouble since then, he closed the book. And I wonder whether maybe people have forgotten what an exhaustive story that trial really was. Daily coverage on ESPN and sometimes beyond. It's hard to think about going back to it because what could we not have gotten to the first time around? 

Remarkable about the Bryant piece -- the more recent one -- is that the author assailed the shallowness of the NBA's faux-progressive marketing strategy with no acknowledgment of Deadspin's loyal partnership in that marketing strategy. When I think about who's shoving down my throat that the NBA represents everything in sports that is good and pure and woke, it's Deadspin who comes to mind first, second, and third. I'm glad they said what I've been saying for a while now, that pro sports are not woke and can only fall on a spectrum running from amoral to immoral, I was just surprised, is all.