Sports Moron Of the Day Award Goes To.....

Courtesy of the National Sports Review, I give you Why Chicks Should Be Banned From All-Star Voting by one "Den Cotton."

Here's his opening salvo:

As I recall, Colin (Cowherd) has spoken about the upsides — a requirement even — of having a relationship with a girl who doesn’t love sports. Now I don’t want to get Colin in too much trouble because he has a lot of smart female fans who call into his show. But I don’t want to date them, no matter how hot they are.

Jigga WHAT NOW? Hold on to your hats ladies, it's about to get better.

Cotton continues:

I know some of you ladies probably think I’m intimidated by your sports knowledge — and I am. Not because I’m afraid you know more than me about sports — because you probably do — but because I don’t want you to be a man. I don’t feel like much of a man already, and I really want to keep what is left of my dignity; and that is very little if you’ve been scoring at home.

Just fix the toilet or something if you need to get your manliness on; no fear for me with that. I’ll bake one of those tasty dinners that I’m known for while you go mow the lawn, take care of that broken door I won’t fix, and maybe put some new tile in the bathroom.

Ladies who love NHL are completely off limits.

So basically what I'm getting from this is that Den Cotton is SO AFRAID of his potentially latent homosexual desires that he's refusing to date any women that he sees as infringing on that manliest of manly frontiers, the sporting world. God forbid that he be potentially attracted to a woman that likes sports, because obviously to him, she's going to be "manly," and the only logical next step from there is all rainbows and pride parades and he can't be having that as a REAL MAN, can he?

Oh sure, he'll let us little ladies improve the home in what HE sees as a manly gesture, giving us domain over toilets and lawns and tiles, but hasn't the "HOME" been the place of females for years now, historically? By 'giving' us that right to improve our home, isn't Cotton really just shoving us back into the little housewife role and taking away our Sports Center rather than enabling us at all?

And just what would Cotton say about a roller derby girl? She's wearing a little skirt and fishnets, which should obviously make his lower brain (dare I say ONLY brain?) engage, but isn't it awfully manly of us to go out and think that we can take NHL-worthy hits for the sake of our sport?

Also, I LOVE the painting of all female sports fans as emotionless robots.

Seriously, if you come home and suddenly decide you don’t want to share feelings anymore, I am without question,kicking you out in the street where you can be free to go to the bar for a date with Tom Brady by yourself.

And just what if the feelings I want to share are over a hockey team? I'm positive that I've said "Goddammit, I'm so mad the Penguins lost," and I KNOW that anger is a feeling. Instead of saying "when you don't want to share feelings, I'm kicking you out" why doesn't Cotton say the obvious, "I can't handle a strong intelligent woman who likes and knows about sports because I'm completely insecure about myself and need to feel dominant in relationships."

Because right now?

I'd rather kiss Danny Briere than touch Den Cotton with a ten foot pole.

Unless, perhaps, it was a ten foot pole crammed up his you-know-what.

(also at Talk Hockey To me)

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The Over-Educated Hockey Fan Gives A Book Review: "Hockey and High Heels" by Lisa Ovens

I started reading Lisa Oven's "Hockey and High Heels" with hopes that it would be THE HOCKEY BOOK that spoke to the wishes and dreams of Hloggers worldwide. Instead, it turned out the be more like Hockey as Written By The Shallow Bimbos You Hated in High School.


Ovens starts off by declaring her good intentions-following the Vancouver Canucks for a season, but never gets past her insistence on going back to the being the ditzy scattered capitalistic female who sees any sporting event as an excuse to buy something of show off new acquisitions. Essentially, Ovens plays into the girly-fan stereotype that plagues hockey women the world over. She exclaims over how getting her hair done is her pre-game ritual (just like the players!) and shows off her new Prada purse to obnoxious and un-useful sidekick 'Stacie'.

By letting readers know off the bat that she can afford things like partial-season NHL tickets, Prada bags, and mid-season jaunts from British Columbia to Florida, Ovens also alienates those of her readers who don't share her ability to throw money at what for her seems like just a fun, giggly diversion. As much as I'd love to sit in the lower bowl for NHL games, I have to face facts: I have to eat. By rubbing her unexplained wealth in my face (What does she DO, anyway?) Ovens just makes me resent her as one of those people who throw money at something for the status they think it may bring them.

This view of Ovens as status-seeker is further bolstered when she dubs herself "hockey ambassador" to Florida while simultaneously admitting she knows very little about the game. At the end of the book she looks back and says "I guess we only covered one rule in the whole book... oops!" While this keeps her from running into the territory of The Girlfriend's Guide to Hockey, it also proves her ignorance when it comes to the game itself. Between this and the episode in which she exclaims over not knowing what constituted a puckbunny, she consistently undermines what little authority she gathered previously. Of course, handing her the mantle of "authority" is stretching it as well, when the format of the book presents perhaps two pages of hockey, hockey game or hockey related insight for every six pages of obnoxious and repetitive dialogue between Ovens and her sidekick on non hockey topics.

Overall, Hockey and High Heels reads as would a self centered and poorly written blog, dealing occasionally with hockey. Regretfully, because other women more involved more closely with the game (bloggers, sportscasters, etc) have not yet come out with their own interpretations of being a female fan, Ovens' pitifully weak and ridiculously un-insightful memoir of her single season with hockey is given the most weight among all womens' voices.

(cross-posted to talk hockey to me

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I think I've ranted here before....

Pennsylvaniagate and the reports I read after it last night got me thinking about respect issues. I know I've chewed over and over fan respect issues, here, there, and everywhere, but respect for players seems to be starting to leave as well, and both as an athlete in a very public-based sport and as a sports fan, I'm not okay with that.

Here's my problem. In a Bears/BabyPens game last week, this is what I saw...
Curry, the WBS Pens' goalie, is hurt. Obviously hurt. Hurt on the Bears powerplay, so they're down in the WBS end. Curry goes to his knees, and doesn't get up. Can't get up. Tries to get up, and goes back down, and basically is forced to finish the penalty kill on his knees in the crease. The refs don't call a thing, even though the coaches are screaming at him. FINALLY, the penalty kill ends or they dump it or something, but play stops and he makes it pretty obvious that he's in pain. The trainers come out and work him over, the backup is masking up, and he's definitely seems to be favoring one leg. Lo and behold, however, he takes a few laps back and forth and decides that he can stay in for the rest of the game.

Cue booing Bears fans.

Honestly, I don't care which team you cheer for, when you have a hurt player who decides he can gut it up and stay in, you applaud. When you have a hurt player who can finally get up and leave the ice under his own power, you applaud. If you have to have a player stretchered off, but they showed some goddamned gumption about getting the injury you applaud. If they're there putting their motherloving lives on the line to entertain you, (because that's what pro sports come down to, as they wouldn't be playing for money if it weren't for the audience,) the least you can do is show that you appreciate the fact that they're playing hard and getting hurt FOR YOU.

The showing of booing Talbot at the Wachovia Center last night was just disrespectful. I don't care if you're a Flyers fan or a Penguins fan or what, if someone's hurt, you give them some respect, you don't say "Well, he deserved that" even if he did. These are humans we're talking about. Big hefty humans who know what they're getting into when they start playing the sport, granted, but humans none the less. To treat them like their lives and bodies don't matter because they're on a sports team specifically to entertain you is nothing short of shallow and when you think about it, really kind of horrifying. You wouldn't boo an actor on the stage if they twisted their ankle or had pneumonia and STILL went out there to do the show (both of which I've seen firsthand) so why should a sports figure be that different? The actor AND the hockey player are both there to be entertaining, so what the H-E-double hockey sticks is the difference in respect levels?

Just, really, people. Think about what you're doing before you follow the lead of a few idiotic and disrespectful fan sheep. I'd love to believe that people are mostly good, but between the recent few incidents at Bears games and the continual disrespect I see coming out of some other major hockey markets, you're making it hard right now.

Also over at THTM

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