Welcome to the Sports Potato Chronicles
After eight years and more than 300 issues of the Couch Potato Chronicles, I woke up one morning and said to myself, that’s enough of that.
And I stopped. It was really more with a whimper than with a bang. It wasn’t that I had grown tired of writing my reviews and editorials. It wasn’t anyone putting pressure on me to stop. It wasn’t the system trying to shut me up. It was just enough. Kind of like when you’re eating pizza and you know when you’ve reached your limit. I had pretty much said everything I wanted to say about the entertainment business. Some day when I get around to it, I’m may compile it all into a book. It might make an interesting historical artifact.
Anyway, that’s all done, and since I really have perfected the art of living in the present, I’ve decided to take on another area of my world. It’s called sports. So for the next while, until I have said all I need to say, at least, the Couch Potato Chronicles will become the Sport Potato Chronicles.
I’m pretty well qualified to write about sports. Because I am pretty much an A-Level sports fan. And now that I have a high definition TV, I can enjoy the games and events I watch in much greater detail. So it’s all good.
THE GROUND RULES
First of all, there are some things you should know. For example, what I consider sports. Or even better, what I don’t consider sports.
1. Anything Redneck. NASCAR, Formula One Racing, Drag Racing, Funny Cars, Monster Trucks, etc. Oh yeah, and poker.
2. Anything below NCAA Collegiate level. I don’t do high school sports. They are boring and badly broadcast. I’m glad people are participating in them, but I won’t watch them, simply because life is too short.
3. Insane Sports. Like skydiving, or deep diving or cliff diving, cave parachuting or waterskiing, all of which I consider to be adrenaline junkie fixes and not real sports at all.
4. Sports I Don’t Understand. The one that comes most readily to mind is Cricket. Cricket is an idiotic game invented by people with way too much time on their hands. Polo too, in spite of the fact that there are a lot of people who think of it as a bona fide sport. I don’t care what they think. It’s just a bunch or rich guys riding around on horses and giving shin splints and broken angles to other horses. Jai Lai is another one. It’s really nothing more than souped up handball.
5. Nerd Sports. Anything that’s done on a video game console, even sports games, are video games not sports.
6. Anything to do with, dogs horses or cattle. Than include thoroughbred racing, harness racing, greyhound racing, dog fighting and rodeo (which can also be filed under Insane Sports). I do consider bull fighting a sport, but it’s too barbaric to watch.
That’s about it. The rest is fair game for the Sport Spud. So get ready, I’ll be coming at you with all the blunt force of a ball peen hammer. (Not really)
THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS – LITTLE CHINKS IN THE ARMOUR
My sister Sharon thinks likes to refer to football as human chess. This would make the coaching staff the chessmasters. And just lately, the chessmasters in charge of plotting moves against the seemingly unbeatable New England Patriots, are doing, at least in my estimation, a pretty good job of finding the little chinks in their formidable armour.
As an offensive force, the Pats are without peer in the NFL. You could argue that Dallas, Indianapolis and (surprisingly) Green Bay come close. But Pats QB Tom Brady is literally setting the quarterbacking world on fire with his stats. Every touchdown pass he throws from here on out is a record. There is no doubt that unless he gets hit by a bus, he will go down at possibly the greatest quarterback in NFL history. And for this to happen he has to beat out like likes of Bart Starr, Dan Mareno and Roger Staubach. This is no small feat and a big part of the reason why The Pats are capable of putting up at least 35 points in every game. Brady’s success as a passer has to do with three key things. One is the vision of the field that he has, which is a gift. Two is the pass protection he gets, which is amazing. And three, are his two favourite receivers, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. Welker came to them from the hapless Miami Dolphins, and I bet they are kicking their asses every day over that one. And Randy Moss, once considered to be a bit of a bad ass, has calmed down considerably and under Bill Belichick’s regime has become a Real Team Player. Nothing like a SuperBowl Ring dangling if front of you to affect that change.
Welker is a tight end and does as much blocking as receiving. But he’s got incredibly good hands and tends to the chief facilitator or the Patriots’ famous, 10 yards at a time march up the field. Randy Moss is long and lean and fast and quick and specializes in hauling in the long bombs. There are also a couple of good running backs on the Pats, but they are much better knows for their passing.
Their Achilles heel comes from their defense. Lately I have noticed that both their secondary pass coverage and their run defense has not been up to snuff. They seem to be spreading the field too much and have had a lot of trouble lately keeping teams like The Eagles and The Ravens from putting a lot of points on the board.
But the key thing to remember about any juggernaut championship team is that, weaknesses aside, it’s all about heart. The New England Patriots have plenty of that. And it is their ability to close out games, not matter how tight the score, that separates them from the rest of the pack out there. Sure, they have had a couple of close games lately, but that’s a testimony to the opposing teams and their ability to exploit what they see as a weakness in the defense. You can bet that won’t be the case for much longer.
The Pats are the best team in the NFL this year, and arguably, in any other year.
DO THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAVES REALLY SUCK
OR DO IT JUST SOUND THAT WAY IN THE MEDIA?
Outside of the progress of Pittsburg Penguin, Sydney Crosby, who is well on his way to becoming the next Wayne Gretsky, I could really care less about the NHL. I acknowledge that hockey is a sport that’s important to Canadians outside of Toronto because well outside of Toronto, there’s really not a lot to do. Inside Toronto, however, it’s really not so much about Hockey as it is the Toronto Maple Leafs. The devotion that is given to this team by its die hard fans is fanatical on the level of Muslim extremists. All this in spite of the fact that the Leafs have not won a Stanley cup since I was in college. Very strange indeed.
Anyway, the local media in this city, complete with their nosy old lady attitudes and their god complexes like to think that getting on their little bully pulputs and calling for heads to roll in Leaf management, (namely the Coach Paul Maurice and the General Manager, John Ferguson Jr) can actually have some sort of effect on this hockey club.The ignorance of this type of behaviour is on an exact par with its insignificance. The arrogance of these people, whose campaigns are laced with petty inmnuendo and suppositions, mostly based on negative speculation, created a week or more of some of the most distasteful radio and newspaper articles I have ever experienced.
First of all, when the hell did journalists (pretty much the lowest rung on the professional writing ladder) become ersatz opinion makers? Probably when their bosses started pushing them in that direction so that they could keep on mesmerizing the already hypnotized Leaf Nation into thinking that it’s time to clean house. And all this crap was happening a mere 12 games into an 82 game season.
This city’s obsession with the Maple Leafs is bordering on hazardous. This is supposed to be a smart, savvy place, the cosmopolitan centre of a whole country and yet here we are stuck in a rut rooting for a team that has as much chance of winning a Stanley Cup as I do of getting into heaven. It’s a complete mystery to me.
Not to mention the fact that it’s really none of anybody’s business. The Toronto Maple Leaves are owned by one of the largest and most profitable Canadian companies in this country. If these little pissant journalists really think they are being paid even the slightest bit of attention by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, then they are the ones with the biggest perceptual difficulties. MLSE doesn’t care. Oh, sure they send CEO Richard Peddie out to field questions from these ignoramuses, but if you think the these people are going to influence the way he runs his company in any way shape or form, then you, my friends, are as delusional as the journalists who try so unsuccessfully to influence the structure of the the Leaf organization.
At the end of the day, the Leafs are an OK pro hockey team in a market where expectations far exceed reality. This differential is fed generously by the media with their aforementioned god complexes and life goes on. The Leafs may make the playoffs. If they do, it will be just barely, and if they make it out of the first round, it will be a miracle. Same as last year and the year before that and….get the picture.
My best advice to you, if you are a Leaf’s fan, switch to being an Ottawa or Detroit fan. Those cities have actual hockey teams playing in them.
THE SPUDS NFL PICKS FOR THE WEEK
One of my favourite weekend activities is researching and doing paper only picks on all the National Football League Games.
I’don’t play point spreads because that’s how all the idiots out there lose the grocery money. I just bet (on paper only) $100 on each game straight up. So I get back $100 if I win. I pick every game on the schedule and for the past three years, I have out-picked every major prognosticator in the sports betting business.
My record entering Week 14 of the season is 83 wins to 47 losses, which means I’m up $3600
clams on the season. That’s enough to pay for a new hi def TV and a Year of Rogers service.
Here’s my picks for this week if you’re interested.
WEEK 14
WASHINGTON REDSKINS OVER CHICAGO BEARS
DALLAS COWBOYS OVER DETROIT LIONS
TENNESSEE TITANS OVER SAN DIEGO CHARGERS
NEW YORK GIANTS OVER PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS OVER HOUSTON TEXANS
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS OVER CAROLINA PANTHERS
GREEN BAY PACKERS OVER OAKLAND RAIDERS
CINCINATTI BENGALS OVER ST LOUIS RAMS
MIAMI DOLPHINS OVER BUFFALO BILLS
MINNESOTA VIKINGS OVER SAN FRANCISO 49ERS
SEATTLE SEAHWAKS OVER ARIZONA CARDINALS
DENVER BRONCOS OVER KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
CLEVELAND BROWNS OVER NY JETS
INDIANAPOLIS COLS OVER BALTIMORE RAVENS
NEW ORLEANS STAINTS OVER ATLANTA FALCONS
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS OVER PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Hope you have enjoyed this first edition of the Sport Potato Chronicles. See you soon.
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