Professional Sports Tournaments
Both the NBA and NHL finals are going on. Noone watches either of them for a couple of reasons. First -- these are both winter sports and it's officially -- if not technically -- summer. The last weekend of May is the first weekend of summer. Even in Canada. Second, professional versions of both sports are painfully boring.
And since we're a week into the "official" summer season, everyone's preparing for the pinnacle of summer sports, which takes place on 4 July every year. Nathans Hot Dog Eat-Off (or whatever its called). Thing is, this year there's extra excitement to be excited about leading up to the eat-off. A NEW RECORD HAS BEEN SET. In a recent "preliminary" round, Joe Chestnut ate almost 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes. SHATTERING! the old record.
Personally, I have no desire to compete in these types of events. However, I would like to apply to be commissioner of Major League Eating, which -- and I can't tell if they're trying to be funny or not -- describes itself as the "governing board for all stomach-centric sports."
And since we're a week into the "official" summer season, everyone's preparing for the pinnacle of summer sports, which takes place on 4 July every year. Nathans Hot Dog Eat-Off (or whatever its called). Thing is, this year there's extra excitement to be excited about leading up to the eat-off. A NEW RECORD HAS BEEN SET. In a recent "preliminary" round, Joe Chestnut ate almost 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes. SHATTERING! the old record.
Personally, I have no desire to compete in these types of events. However, I would like to apply to be commissioner of Major League Eating, which -- and I can't tell if they're trying to be funny or not -- describes itself as the "governing board for all stomach-centric sports."
posted by Michael Lasley | 3:56 PM
7 Comments:
I hadn't ever thought about the seasonal connection. Good point.
I've always thought hockey's problem -- like soccer's -- was that there was too much time spent when literally nothing was happening because the ball (or puck) was clattering around in the middle of nowhere, with nobody in control of it -- making it impossible for anything to happen.
In soccer, ISTM the field (or pitch or whatever) is just too darn big. There's too much empty space.
Hockey, I dunno. The rink seems reasonably sized, but still the puck is in the middle of nowhere too much. I've watched just enough of the playoffs in the past couple of weeks to have found out that this is actually considered a strategy for the offense -- dump the puck way up ahead, somewhere in the vicinity of the other team's net, and maybe, when somebody catches up with it, it'll be one of your guys, and maybe he'll somehow knock it in.
This is a strategy? It's like an offense in football (the American kind) running a Hail Mary on every single play for the entire game. Americans wouldn't watch that, either.
Besides this problem, there's the fact that basically nobody can score at all in hockey unless their team actually has more players than the other team, which makes a silly gimmick of the entire sport.
Maybe hockey as a spectator sport is just a bad idea.
I actually kind of like watching soccer. I mean, yeah, it can get a bit boring at times, but because the pitch (which is just a really cool name for a field, I think) is so big, there actually can be some strategy in the middle of the field. Actually, I really like it because you can watch it without watching it. It makes for great background noise and occassional interruptions for reading.
Hockey is just silly. It goes at a frantic pace and nothing happens. The equivalent of watching someone sprint on a treadmill. I'm sure it takes lots of skill and whatnot -- and it actually is much more fun to watch in person -- but still. It's just silly. Even sillier in June.
It looks like it'd be a hoot to play -- informally with a bunch of buddies, and with lots of breaks for hysterical laughter.
What are the dimensions of a soccer pitch, anyway? I mean, I know it adds up to roughly 120 acres, but what are the dimensions?
(It'd be more interesting if they'd put some hills and gulleys and stuff in there. So would hockey, come to think of it.)
Anybody here ever watch cricket?
Larger than a basketball court, smaller than Idaho. I think that's the general size of the pitch.
I just asked one of my roommates who is a rabid fan of the sport and he has no idea. So knowledge of a sport isn't a requirement for enjoyment of a sport.
I've never watched Cricket. Those matches last for days. I think the reason people like them so much is that it gives them a reason to drink all day everyday for a week.
What's your point?
I have a friend at work who's from India, and he's a big cricket fan. I've been wanting to watch some, but, to my knowledge, it's never on American tv. I don't even know the basic rules of it. The scores I sometimes hear from the BBC on the radio don't even make sense; they might as well be talking in Navajo.
It's how I imagine baseball boxscores must sound to somebody with no knowledge of the game.
What's my point about what? I'm confused.
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