[Blue_Phoenix]

Okay, here we go. A continuation of my popular thread in which I rant. As with the last one, I control the tempo, but any one can post.

Someone tell me what genius thought up the idea the REEBOK should be designing hockey logos. The popular sneaker company has done a few so far, and they all look like crap. The Canuck logo is just boring, plain, and ugly. And that awful Sabre logo... When slug, wig, Trump hair, and Barney Rubble hair are some of the nicer things said about it, you know it's bad. (And even those names aren't as telling as the fact that the online petition started to get rid of it has accumulated about 50000 signatures. Yes, that's fifty-thousand.)

Reebok is a sneaker company, and trying to make them design streamlined hockey logos has resulted in the style disaster that the NHL has become. Those of us who cheer for Original Six teams better get used to the idea of living in fear for our classic logos. (Except for the Bruins and Rangers - those ugly things could use overhauls.)

Just another sign of Gary Bettman, basketball man, blowing his presidency of a hockey league, showing us he doesn't understand anything about hockey.

[Purple_alien]

Oh Come ON. Don't control your temper. Get mad! go off! Okay fine. don't.
I can't believe the Phillies are in the playoffs. Apparently, in South Philly, losers are driving around honking horns excitedly. Now, unlike my utter hatred for the Eagles, I am rather impartial when it comes to the Phillies. Sure, they are from Philly, a town I hate, but they have done so badly that I can't help but feel sorry for them. Them going to the Playoffs isn't that much of a tragedy.

[Blue_Phoenix]

That's not the kind of thing I'm here to rant about. But I will mention this: I think it's just plain stupid that the city of Philadelphia wanted to throw a parade for the Phillies 10000th loss. Being a perpetual loser isn't something to be proud of, not unless you're the kind of perpetual loser who gets up and keeps fighting. Besides, the world will go on and eventually every pro sports team that doesn't go bankrupt will lose 10000 games. So that really makes a parade moot.

On a happy side note, the Phillies this season HAVE been the losers who kept getting back up to fight. They fought their way into divisional contention and made the playoffs as the Mets crumbled in the last two weeks of the season. If Philadelphia wants to throw a parade for them for that, that's cool.

[Blue_Phoenix]

Isn't it amazing how professional leagues are shrinking their markets? I'm no fan of big business, but even trying to write this from their point of view, this makes absolutely no sense. Hockey is rarely seen on broadcast TV. The baseball playoffs have been moved to cable, and so has Monday Night Football. Guys, quit telling people how you're trying to expand your audience by moving broadcasts to TV stations which a lot of people - myself included - don't get. Tell the truth - you just want money.

I hope this works against them and they start losing money because fans stop paying attention. Otherwise, get used to the idea of pay-per-view sports.

[Blue_Phoenix]

The year of the upset! This is why college football needs playoff brackets instead of this infuriating ranking system. The rankings disagree every week because they're made out individually. Teams going to bowl games are basically elected. This means the guys doing the electing really can't do it objectively. They'll be trying anything they can to get their alma maters into the bowl games.

Really, I don't think Michigan should be barred just because the Blue lost two games, even if one was to Appalachian State (an underrated team, by the way, which is defending a title in its conference). They'll be back on track in no time, but they have slim chances of making it back to the top 25 and NO shot at this year's title even if they go undefeated from here on out. Which they stand an excellent chance of doing.

[Blue_Phoenix]

While I'm whining about bowl games, I gotta mention the bowl game so big it's an unofficial national holiday: the Super Bowl. People are up in arms about the idea of holding it in a cold-weather city. Meanwhile, everyone wants the World Series to be held in warm-weather neutral sites.

These people miss the big picture. I want the Super Bowl played in the home team's city. The NFL has become the league of corporate a-holes because they're the only ones who can afford tickets to ANY games. Meanwhile, real fans sit at home watching the games on TV. Putting the Super Bowl in the home team's city - I don't care if there's a hurricane or a blizzard during the game - would go a long way in bringing the game back to the fans. They're the guys who support the team, if the team makes the big one, they should be able to see it live without selling their house.

For the same reason, the World Series should stay as is. If the corprate white-collar a-holes have problems, too bad. Let them stay at home or join the real fans in the weather experience.

[Blue_Phoenix]

Why are the Predators staying in Nashville? Apparently their new owner is just as stupid as Gary Bettman himself. He knows there's a larger, more knowledgeable fan base in Canada that would dye themselves in wool over the Predators. Face it people, most of the people in the United States don't care about hockey! The majority of teams should be bought and moved to northern locations. (Why doesn't Cleveland have a team?) You won't find fans just because there are more people in Miami than Medicine Hat!

[Blue_Phoenix]

Asterisks should not even be an issue. Nothing deserves to have an asterisk, even if a mark was reached by cheating. If something happened, it happened.

[Blue_Phoenix]

The NHL's point system needs to be fixed. If they really want to make hockey more competitive, they should quit awarding single points for overtime. Doing that only gets teams to play for the tie. If they have to go into overtime, keep it the same as the regulation method: Two points for the win, none for the loss. This makes a lot more sense seeing as how hockey games are not allowed to end without a clear winner these days.

[Blue_Phoenix]

You know what I'm sick of seeing right now? Books about the New York Giants. There have been a ton of them this year alone. And if the Giants somehow manage to stun the Patriots in the Super Bowl, there will be even more books about them for being the team that spoiled the perfect season!

Really, there are too many sports books anyway. I read them strictly as guilty pleasures, but there are often way too many books which are about the same subjects. How many books do we need to see about a worst-to-first underdog? Welcome to parity, guys. What about the fan following the season? Does he have any other hobbies? And the players who all have the same opinions on everything. The list never ends.

[Blue_Phoenix]

The world made fun of Terrell Owens when Owens broke into tears defending Tony Romo. It also called Randy Moss an upset baby when he said he wouldn't play in the all-star game.

This post is not about athletes but about fans. I'm very sick of fans' reactions to athletes right now. Owens is a well-known hot dog who finally showed humility and acknowledged the man responsible for his success, and people made fun of him? That's wonderful. It's time for people to quit whining about the athletes, shut up, and enjoy the games because they want athletes to fit into a very narrow mold. Athletes are people too, you know, and here everyone is trying to control their behavior and *****ing whenever someone shows a moment of unmitigated joy or pain.

You know what? I LIKE outrageous celebrations. If Owens went to the star in Dallas while I was commissioner, I would have offerred him a bonus for being so creative! A creative athlete is the kind we really want. A creative athlete is passionate so he's a guy who you want on your team. An athlete who's a ball hog may just be a guy who believes he can give his team the best chance to win. These guys know they've been truly blessed. It's people like Barry Sanders who should drive you nuts. Barry was humble, sure, but he also walked away from football when he had at least three good seasons left, was one year from not only holding the all-time rushing yardage record but completely blowing it out, and worst of all, when his team still had a legitimate shot at a Super Bowl. It's time to give Owens and Moss room for their phones and sharpies and let them go wild.

[Blue_Phoenix]

How does the AT&T Statue of Liberty sound? Remember, sacred cows are only found in India!

That defense would never work for something like that. But here we have the naming rights to Wrigley Field being sold, and that's just as sacred and historic. It's only a good business move. It shows a lack of respect for tradition. I hope Sam Zell gets smacked by the backlash.

[Blue_Phoenix]

Chicago and the Olympics coming together for the 2016 summer games make perfect sense. Both put a lot of emphasis on sports. Both present themselves as pure, pristine angels who care about the underdog. Both are bloated, corrupt institutions. Both are ridden with scandal. Both are willing to turn their backs on the more unpleasant aspects of what they govern. Neither will stop at anything to get their hands into as many of your pockets as possible. That the two would eventually come together by the Olympics visiting Chicago seems less of a possibility and more of inevitability when those are considered. Chicago stands a good chance of winning the 2016 Summer Olympics. But do we really want them?

Mayor Daley has dived into his Olympic-winning campaign without questioning the general character of the committee he’s courting, although he’s seen it right up close. The Olympic committee hangs a small wad of money in front of Daley’s face while preparing to sucker-punch him with its other fist. In his efforts to appease the committee, the Mayor has had to develop a sound financial plan with which public money will more than likely be involved, develop a new logo because the committee doesn’t like the use of its precious torch, and all but agree to the destruction of Washington Park. If the committee ordered Daley to build a moon laser, no doubt he would be willing to do that too.

These problems, however, are only a small fraction of why the Olympics should not be brought to Chicago. They’ve been acknowledged by many anti-Olympic folks, but economic difficulties and demands pale in comparison to the larger issues of what the games have been used as in the past and what has taken place in them. The Olympic committee has constantly turned blind eyes to human rights abuses, sports controversies, corrupt politics, and scandals.

Next summer, the Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China. By merit of this location, the committee’s ideas of human rights are spotlighted. China is well-known as a country which abuses many of its people. Despite the Chinese government’s promises to the committee that they would start treating their people better, the improvement of China’s peoples’ quality of life – if it has improved at all – hasn’t been noteworthy enough to warrant mention by human rights watchdogs. In a supremely ironic happening, almost two million people in Beijing have been displaced for the impending games. The committee does not appear to know of this situation. If it does, it has done nothing to make the Chinese government own up to the promises it made. It is worth noting here that the committee hasn’t exactly been incorruptible in the past. Officials in Salt Lake City were rumored to have bribed Olympic officials to win the rights to host the 2002 winter games. While there have not been any accusations of bribery for the Beijing games, the committee’s refusal to hold China to its promises doesn’t reflect well on China or the International Olympic Committee.

It’s bad enough that the IOC has decided to sell the games to China, but for a real glimpse of the IOC’s attitude toward mad dictators, one year stands above all others: 1936. This is a year in which the Olympics were played in Berlin, under the watch of a certain dictator (re: Hitler) who believed so strongly in white superiority that he stopped meeting winners in public just in case the black track athlete Jesse Owens started winning gold medals (which he did – several of them). The IOC sold their games to Berlin that year despite the concentration camps, anti-Semitic practices and white superiority propaganda. Hitler was hoping to use the 1936 games to win global respectability among politicians, a feat at which he succeeded. When Owens won his gold medals, Der Fuhrer fumed, "The Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting their medals be won by Negroes. I myself would never even shake hands with one of them." The IOC further showed its indifference to Nazi Germany that year by expelling Ernest Lee Jahnke, an American who encouraged athletes to boycott the Berlin games.

During the waning years of the Cold War, the Olympics became political pawns for the Soviet Union and the United States. The four Summer Olympics from 1976 to 1988 were all boycotted by a number of nations. The most famous of these boycotts are the 1980 United States-led boycott in which 80 teams did not participate and the retaliatory 1984 boycott by the Soviets. Of course, there is also the tragic incident from 1972, in which Palestinian terrorists broke into the Munich Olympic Village and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage, killing two. For an event which is supposed to foster friendship and goodwill between nations, tantrums like these seem very childish.

The scandals that have happened during individual events are too numerous to count. In the 1988 summer games, Park Si-Hun defeated Roy Jones Jr. in boxing. Jones had pummeled Park for three rounds and landed 86 punches against the hapless Park’s 32. The IOC awarded Park the medal anyway and stands by the decision. A 1997 investigation found no wrongdoing by the judges, but even Park himself thought Jones was robbed. Park allegedly apologized to Jones for the decision. The 2004 summer games brought all kinds of lowlights, from drug scandals to bad officiating decisions to Arash Miresmaili, an Iranian judo expert, missing a match against an Israeli opponent in protest of the IOC’s recognition of Israel. A bad judging decision in the 2004 games gave Paul Hamm the gold in gymnastics; when the call was recognized, the International Gymnastics Federation attempted to pressure Hamm into giving the medal back. The 1994 winter games made Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan household names when the former had the latter batted across the kneecap in an attempt to cripple her. Harding was allowed to compete after the fact, though poetic justice was served when Kerrigan won the silver medal while Harding barely placed at all. There have lately been countless Olympic athletes who have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

In the opinion of the United States branch of the IOC, the Olympics have apparently become little more than a massive pising contest. The concepts of fair play and amateur athletes have both become null and void. The USOC originated an idea known as the Dream Team, a basketball team composed of top NBA players. This was done mainly to avoid the embarrassing prospect of placing any position other than first in the basketball competition, since basketball was invented in the States. If the prospect of losing Olympic basketball games is embarrassing just because basketball was invented in this country, then the USOC should also learn a little sports history. They would learn that the man who invented basketball, James Naismith, was actually Canadian. The idea of Dream Teams may have let US basketball dominate, but they also threw so-called Olympic ideals right out the window. This measure of panicky incompetence certainly couldn’t come from the country which also produced the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 winter games.

It could be argued here that professional sports leagues share many of the problems of the Olympics, but the difference is the pedestal they are both held to. The Olympics cling to an image of gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship that no professional sporting league would ever be able to get away with. The International Olympic Committee still fervently promotes the idea that the Olympics are grounds for underdogs while they let the professionals in. They appear to be turning their backs on steroids in much the same way Bud Selig does for Major League Baseball. The Olympic games are constantly held aloft with a torch for a representation of everything good about sports and humanity while a shovel might be a better symbol. The Olympic games are in fact worse off than professional sports – no league in America has ever considered expansion into a human rights wasteland like China.

In light of these facts, the way Olympic athletes are expected to present themselves is almost sickening. The typical image of the Olympic athlete is a strong competitor who carries himself humbly and talks the talk about just wanting to represent his country well. Since most of those athletes are getting what may be their first and last moments in the sun competing in unpopular sports, many of them are happily willing to fall into the line. Then Bode Miller headlined the US ski team for the 2006 Winter Olympics, in which he was expected baa like a regular Olympic sheep and win oodles of medals for America. Happily, Miller refused to comply to the regular form when he showed up overweight, didn’t win a single medal, and walked away from the closing ceremonies while flipping a metaphorical bird at the people who made him a villain. Miller, by acting in such a manner, represented what the Olympics are really about: Hype and athletes who are in it for themselves.

The way Mayor Daley has been acting in order to win these stupid games is sickening. He has flexed and bent in ways devout yoga practitioners would envy, even going as far as to propose a fifth star on the Chicago city flag to represent the 2016 games as a defining moment. And Chicago hasn’t even won the games yet! The city selection process has revealed itself to be a bogus sucking-up contest that will not officially end until 2009. What happens if Chicago isn’t chosen? All that time and all those silly plans will go to waste.