Hockey is Awesome

This Makes Me Happy Part XII

video credit here

Chivalry is Alive and Well

NHL heavyweight George Laraque was wearing a microphone during this fight with Raitis Ivanans. Pre-fight Laraque to Ivanans – “Want to?… Ok…. Square up?…. Ok, good luck man.”

Football is Beautiful

I work at a social media website for football (soccer to us Americans). One of the perks of the job is I get to speak with football crazies from all over the world on a daily basis. Their passion is enviable and highly addictive. I don’t pretend to know the sport or culture but one thing that stands out to me at least, is the difference between American sports where the focus is more on individual athletes as opposed to football where a greater emphasis is placed on the club, community and tradition (or so it appears to this outsider looking in). So here’s my two cents – and it’s probably worth half that

Football is Beautiful

It’s far bigger than the players or the clubs

Football is a people, a culture, a community

It’s a history, tradition

And tradition, not measured in decades but moments.

It’s religion. Not a religion but the religion

More people in this world have met heaven on the verdant pitch than through a god of any other name

It requires faith, not faith in the unknown but faith in spite of what is all too well known.

Football is human and bares its own shortcomings and injustice

Football is life, hardly perfect but worth pursuing

Football releases the purest of emotion in spectators and participants.

In an instant men turn to children and boys to Gods,

Ecstasy and anguish separated by so little it must be fate

Or the capricious nature of a benevolent host.

Football is beautiful.

Update: Here’s the other side of the coin, an excellent post appropriately titled F*** Football

Hockey Rules

Brendan Morrow on Milan Michalek 5/4/08.  Perfectly clean hit, Michalek left the game with a concussion.

This Makes Me Happy Part III

The reaction of Kansas fans at home in Allen Field House when Mr. Mario Chalmers hit his 3. This is what college sports are all about. One of the coolest aspects of these videos is the celebration is 100% positive, not a negative word about their opponent is mentioned.

Only in Canada

A 37 yr old man was arrested Wednesday for high sticking at the City Centre Mall in Edmonton. He assaulted 6.5 people – 3 shoppers, 2 security guards, and one pregnant woman (they were all ok) – before being escorted to the penalty box a.k.a. mental hospital.

That’s right, an adult Canadian male walked into a shopping mall with a hockey stick and proceeded to hit random people with it, proving once again that hockey is Canada’s sport.

Update: A person who actually met one of the victims after the attack stops by in the comments section and I’ve included a link to his post on the incident

If you haven’t seen this yet…

Here’s a video of what’s already being called the goal of the year. Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets against the Phoenix Coyotes on January 17, 2008. Enjoy