Still Or Again?

Another end to the National Basketball Association season.

Another championship won.

Another riot with death and destruction in the winning team's home town.

It's so common it shouldn't be news.

Or it should be, "The annual NBA championship riot was held tonight in New York City.  In related news, the Knicks won." 

I was in Chicago when the Bulls won a championship.  Riots!  Fun!  Excitement! 

That was 1997.  Nothing has changed except the team that won and the places destroyed.

I have a, possible, solution.

"Your fans riot, you don't play next year.  Since you're not playing, no worries about draft picks."

Wanna bet the owners of the teams manage to convince their city to do some effective crowd control after that?  They're rich, after all. 

But that's punishing the wrong people.

The real solution is to figure out a way to degrade the value of being a sportsball fan.

The people living vicariously through the performance of a group of millionaires playing a children's game on TV enough that they need to break and burn other people's property is the problem. 

Of course, the real solution to these riots is the solution to ALL riots.

Belt fed and water cooled.

That and a whif of grape and they'd just stand in the square cheering next year. 

At Every Brewery

The mouth breathing morons were standing in rapt attention watching the National Felon League select their newest players this evening.

That this "needed" to be televised is extremely confusing to me.

Hockey manages to have a draft every year and you can read about it on the NHL web page if you care, without forcing anyone who doesn't to endure it.

Hockey is so much better than Football in so many ways.

By the way, the NHL is currently running their playoffs, it's more important than who might be playing football months from now and I am getting sick of the NFL stepping on other sports.

It Would Have Been Better

The local brewery had the WNBA draft on the TV last night.

I looked over at Marv and said, "We could be watching Golf."

He agreed that watching the draft was, indeed, worse than watching Golf.

Happily, there was a ring of condensation on the bar from our beer we could watch drying. 

Nation Of Riflemen My Ass

I am, once again, watching the US suck hind tit at biathlon.

I can't even say it's because we suck at skiing because the penalties (misses) speak for themselves.

Hey, CMP, weren't you supposed to fix this?

Wait, CMP teaches high-power, which is scientifically designed to suck all the fun out of shooting and biathlon is fun.  Not their wheelhouse.

Speaking of...

Why the Hell isn't XTC / High Power Rifle an Olympic sport?

For that matter, why don't any Olympic shooting sports use "real" guns? 

Not Even Once

While I have been at parties centered around the Stupor Bowel, I cannot say I have ever watched it.

Not even the one time.

The closest I've come was when Janet Jackson flashed the crowd during the half time show and I was on the phone with FuzzyGeff at the time.

So I have continued the long tradition of not watching the Stupor Bowel, and the National Felon League in general.

It's really my dad, who played in high school and watched avidly, who made me apathetic towards football in general.  Often hostile, really.

My dad, and his friends, coupled with the jocks in high school and living in a college town soured me on sportsball in general.  I don't get the allure, I don't grasp the fans.

Yet I really enjoy Hockey.

BUT!

If the local team loses, it doesn't harm me.  If they win, I gain nothing.  I don't structure my life around being able to watch it, though I do make time to watch.

It might be because I was the third string goalie in my sophmore year of high school.

Something I only set out to become because of the two sports rule in Anoka-Hennepin School District and I wanted to do biathlon.  You had to try out for and be accepted for two sports or you didn't get to play any.  You could not be in more than three.  Hockey was short many of the school's jocks because they went out for track, football and basketball.

Biathlon was also unpopular because of the time requirements.  You needed to be able to get to the local range very often in addition to skiing.

I still giggle about signing out my rifle and taking it home on the bus to go shooting over the weekend.

Oddly, I'd become a jock because of being successful at biathlon.

I am sure my bullies noted, after I blacked out and beat the worst one, how good a shot I was and they were an easy shot from where the bus dropped us at school to where they hung out before home-room.

Having a reputation among the bullies for being crazy AND a reputation among the jocks as a wicked shot does have its advantages. 

Stupor Bowel

I've never been a football fan.

It was definitely my dad's worship of the game and interacting with high school and college level players that did that.

The money wasted on it is absolutely appalling.

I only object to that spending when it's MY money and high school and college sports do consume taxes.  No matter what the lying bastards running the schools claim.  Every honest audit shows sports is funded out of funds beyond donations by the alumni.

But that objection pales next to the assumption that because I'm an American male that I like, watch, and follow football.

Fuck off is as nice as I can make it come out when someone asks whom I am rooting for.

I try really hard not to force my liking of hockey onto others.  Asking the TV nearest me to be tuned to the game is as far as I go.

Even so, I'm not memorizing or doing much debating about individual players and teams.

It's just another form of entertainment.  I am not personally harmed by a loss or enriched by a win of the local team.

I cheer and groan while watching, but it's not a lasting feeling. 

I don't dedicate a weekend to drinking and eating for any game in hockey.

Of course, hockey decides the champion of the season by playing multiple series of games rather than one big one.  It's more like baseball that way.

Just A Little Short

Bob Uecker has left the chat.

Didn't quite make it to 100.

Story of his life...

What About The Children

The NFL is saying that they had a 20,000% increase in unauthorized drone flights over football stadiums and that it's only a matter of time before death and destruction ensues.

They demand that something be done.

I agree.

Ban football! The stadiums and their attendant games are clearly attractive nuisances to drone operators.

If it only saves one life...

Being Rich Is Nice

I wish I was rich enough to own a professional sportsball team.

Because once you're that rich, you no longer have to pay for things.

Like the building called a "stadium" for your team to play in.

You make the taxpayers from the location of your stadium pay to build it.

If they don't you find a different group of politicians to cave into your demands and have THEIR taxpayers build it.

The taxpayer is rewarded with increased spending on law enforcement to combat the increased crime during games and events at the stadium.

They are rewarded with increased traffic congestion from games and events at the stadium.

The promises of increased business and economic benefits are illusory.

They have never once panned out.

And I say this as a hockey fan and a fan of the Tampa Lightning.

But if the Bolts demanded a new stadium on my back, I'd be helping them pack for their new home someplace else.  If they wanted to move to my county, I'd be lighting a fire under my administrators to nuke the deal.

Coincidentally, Amalie Arena, home of The Bolts, isn't my taxpaying problem.  It's Hillsborough County's.  I don't live there.

I live close enough to get all the benefit I want and far enough away to escape the costs.  I feel so damn clever at this bit of happenstance.

Good!

Donald Trump "targeted and minimized" Kolin Kaepernick.

I'm not even going to check to see if he did.  He probably didn't because there's lots of things disconnected from reality in Kaepernick's mind.

If Trump didn't, he should have!

If there was ever a dancing sportsball monkey that deserves it more, I cannot think of one.

Fair Weather Fans

It's no secret that I'm a Hockey fan.

The local team is having a bad couple games.

This had led to cries for the coach and goalie to be fired by people that I don't consider fans.

Players have bad days.

Coaches have bad days.

Teams have bad runs.

It's the nature of sports.

Not A One

The thing that rankles me about the trans-female athletes isn't the trans part.

It's that they're all mid-range athletes as men and dominant as women.

Not one has discovered competitive sports after transition.

Which makes me think that they're not trans at all, but simple gaming the system to be the best at something where they just middlin' good before.

Which makes me theorize that if you created a third sex category for trans-wimmins alongside men's and women's in sports you'd see a dramatic drop in the number of men transitioning because they won't be dominant, they'll be on a level playing field with others of their ability.

That this is so contentious screams to me that many LGBTQ advocates are still in "any overlap on the Venn diagram is an ally" mode that, admittedly, worked well in the past; but is losing its efficacy as the ever fringer groups are exposed to the mainstream light.

I think they need to start asking themselves if they want opportunists like trans athletes to be their spokespeople.

To Be Clear

The trans athlete debate, by the way, does not matter.

Why?

BECAUSE SPORTS DON'T FUCKING MATTER AND BY EXTENSION NEITHER DO ATHLETES!

They're a species of dancing monkey and we shouldn't waste our time on them.

If sports disappeared tomorrow your life would go on.

It's just entertainment, and no single form really matters.

Touch grass or something.

Opportunists

I know, and am friends with, more than one trans person.

The current shit about trans athletes doesn't make me think it's actually a trans issue.

It's an opportunist move by less competitive male athlete to be competitive.

You can't doubt their dedication to the sport they've chosen because the medical requirements are a bit steep; but I certainly do doubt they're actually transsexual.

Happily! I have a solution that should work for everyone.

It's a solution that's already in play, but most people don't recognize it because it's been in play for so long.

When you answer the question, "why is there women's sports and not just sports," you have the answer.

This will mean that the LGBT+ folks are going to have to make some important admissions about transsexuals.

Primarily that a woman who was born a man is physically different from a woman born as a woman.

Once we have that, we can treat them like women and have a third "sex" in sports where the trans-women don't dominate the sport.  If we don't, we're discriminating against people who were born women.

I suspect that when we make this third category we're going to see most trans-women athletes disappear.

I suspect this because I don't think the current crop is being honest about why they're trans.

Looking For The Real Killers In New Places

OJ Simpson has succumbed to age.

I'd forgotten him until Marv mentioned his death.

I watched the moderate speed pursuit live.

I paid attention to the trial.

I listened to conspiracy theories.

I was pissed at our "justice" system essentially trying him twice and was baffled at a civil trial could commence on the question of wrongful death when the criminal trial said, "he didn't kill anyone."

I found out that our system would still hang you with the lower standard of evidence required in a civil suit, where "eh, maybe?" is enough to get a conviction.

Until 1703 The Next Day

I successfully avoided learning who had won the Stupid Bowel until just after five this evening when my loving wife read the story to me while I was cooking supper.

Now Sports

I've long maintained that the only pro sport I give a shit about is Hockey.

I don't follow other sports and only know what I know about them from osmosis.

Lately I've taken to replying to someone talking to me about other sports with minutia about battleships.

"An Iowa class battle ship has nine 16" guns mounted in three-gun rotating gun-houses..."

And such.

Their eyes instantly glaze over.

I can go for several minutes too.

When they ask what I'm talking about, I say, "you were talking about something I didn't give a fuck about; so I'm talking about something you don't give a fuck about."

You wanna talk about basketball, I'll talk about battleships.

Go Bolts!

The Tampa Bay Lightning failed to win game 6 and thus failed to advance, so the Colorado Avalanche won their first Stanley Cup since 2001.

They fucking earned it.

I'm a fan of the home team, and we got beat fair and square.

No shame and I am not going to be "that fan" and be pissed them for going down swinging.

If we had won this and the next game we would have entered the rarefied ranks of teams who'd won three in a row.  It's not happened since 1982 when the New York Islanders did it; and they won a fourth in a row in 1983!

There's always next year.

Don't Throw Me In The Briar Patch

The overpaid babies of Major League Baseball are threatening a walkout if their extortion is not acquiesced to.

Go ahead and walk you fucking parasites!

And I hope that you starve too.

My only worry is that the larger parasites, the team owners, won't also starve.

They have their own worries about their teams.

The threat of leaving town if they don't get new palaces to baseball isn't working like it used.

The Tampa Bay Rays keep making this threat about leaving St Pete and moving if the area doesn't build them a new stadium.

The voters keep telling the city councils and county commissions that the door should not be allowed to strike them in the ass as they depart because, so far, professional sports has been all costs and no gains with the exception of our NHL team.

Fucking HOCKEY is the professional sport that actually benefits the area overall?

It's not normally popular enough to do that, but it could be a happy middle ground where it's not popular enough to raise crime during home games and the fans aren't destructive after wins.

It Happened To Be On

The TV above the bar was showing the Olympics women's hockey, USA v Switzerland.

The US team was showing some of the best aggressive, offense I've seen on the ice in a long time.

They kept the puck on Switzerland's end of the ice and made shot after shot.

In short, they were playing hard to win.  8 to 0 is definitely a win.

If the NHL showed such spirit, I would be a much happier viewer.

Just sayin'...