ST. PATRICK'S DAY
This Friday, revelers will drink green beer (and eat corned beef) in celebration of the Irishman who, according to David Plotz, "didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish." In 2000, Plotz stripped the myth away from St. Patrick, evaluating the many different popular incarnations that have arisen in the 1,621 years since his birth. "The Irish have celebrated their patron saint with a quiet religious holiday for centuries, perhaps more than 1,000 years. It took the United States to turn St. Patrick's Day into a boozy spectacle. Irish immigrants first celebrated it in Boston in 1737 and first paraded in New York in 1762. By the late 19th century, the St. Patrick's Day parade had become a way for Irish-Americans to flaunt their numerical and political might. It retains this role today."
BASKETBALL
Redick, Morrison To Share 'Larry Bird Trophy For Certain Intangibles'
INDIANAPOLIS — Duke's J.J. Redick and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison joined previous honorees Christian Laettner, Keith Van Horn, and Shawn Bradley Tuesday as co-recipients of the Larry Bird Trophy, which recognizes "certain athletes" each year for possessing "that particular quality" which "really sets them apart" from almost 80 percent of all other basketball players. "In this sport, it's very unusual to find two great players of their…uh, let's see, how should I put it…'stripe,'" said college-basketball analyst Digger Phelps, who immediately asked that his previous statement be stricken from the record. "They really…hmm… You see, not a lot of players are even qualified for this award, you know, in the sense that… Well, let's just hope that, if and when these guys are starting in the NBA, they are able to compete with the league's other more athletic, instinctual…folks." This marks the first time that there have been two winners of the Bird Trophy since 1993, when Bobby Hurley and half of Jason Kidd shared the award.
ART SALE
for charity
HOCKEY
What the fu%k is wrong with the Canucks? from the Vancouver Sun:
COLUMBUS, Ohio. - I went to a chemistry lab and a hockey game broke out. Todd Bertuzzi and Markus Naslund were taking on the world. There has been so much talk about chemistry and the Vancouver Canucks, the Team 1040 may wish to dig up Robert Oppenheimer and pair him with Bill Nye the Science Guy for its new broadcasting crew.
Stay tuned for the bidding war on television rights between Sportsnet and The Discovery Channel. This is news: Bertuzzi played golf Wednesday in Nashville and Naslund didn't. Call out the paparazzi. Get Leeza Gibbons on the phone (tell her it's that talky thing you hold to your head). Surely, there is a scandal here. Are the best friends splitting? Is Brendan Morrison a homewrecker? Has anyone got Robert Shapiro on retainer?
No, Naslund just doesn't dig golf, so Bertuzzi spent the players' day off puttering around with teammates Henrik Sedin and Matt Cooke and media relations director T.C. Carling. Good thing. Imagine the headlines had Naslund and Bertuzzi played golf together. A Nation Divided: Canuck stars golf, invite only two teammates -- Burrows and Bieksa abandoned, play Scrabble. Granted, the headline's longer than many of Bertuzzi's press answers, but you get the idea. After an avalanche of stories have noted the closeness of Bertuzzi and Naslund, who are not in fact fishing buddies on Brokeback Mountain (not that there'd be anything wrong with that), and the adverse effect it may be having on the Canucks' chemistry, Bertuzzi came out swinging Thursday.
"It's a crock of s--t," he told grateful reporters after the Canucks practised for today's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. "I think it's people with too much time on their hands trying to dissect our team. It's not going to happen. We're not going to let that crap from the media or what's being said in the papers divide this team. It hasn't been there. It's never been there.
"We're the same team that's been over 100 points. . . the same team four years ago. It's unfortunate we have to sit here and talk about, just speaking about it, period, [because] it's never been there. It's not the case."
At least we know Bertuzzi can still hit. A goal or two would be nice. What he feels is manure is the reality that his friendship with Naslund sees the two most influential players in the dressing room spending less time with other teammates than they could. Or, at least in the case of the captain Naslund, they should. This is beyond debate, as is the fact there are other groups -- bonded by personalities, circumstances, rooming list or Swedish birth mother -- within the Canuck team, and even its coaching staff. When a team is winning, these are called friendships. When a team is losing, they're cliques. When a team has lost five in a row in March and scoring about as often as Oppenheimer, there's a crisis.
"There certainly is no division in our group," head coach Marc Crawford insisted. "It is a strong group. Because we haven't performed well, yeah, we're a little bit fragile. You work hard to get through that. This is a team sport; it's about sticking together. Those are the messages coming from our leaders. Those are the messages coming from coaches." Crawford believes stories like this one are driven by flippant gossip, almost universally uniformed, on talk radio and the Internet.
"I don't spend my time worrying about what's being said in chat rooms," he said. "I don't worry about what's being said on talk radio. It's very important we stay on message and stay on task."
Naslund's message Thursday was there is no problem with chemistry: "I don't believe so, until someone proves me wrong," he said. "There are always going to be different groups hanging out. That's the chemistry on any team. We're all on the same page and there is respect in this room for one another and that's all we can ask for."
Of course, you know if there were real problems in the dressing room no player would say so publicly. The Legend of Bertuzzi has become so pervasive and all-consuming, self-sustaining now so it doesn't matter what the 31-year-old does or is actually like, the Canucks' chemistry probably can never be "normal" with him in the dressing room. But Crawford and general manager Dave Nonis aren't fools. They knew the dynamics of their team when they chose to keep it together, and decided to live with them because they believe these players can win. If they don't win -- and we mean the playoffs in late May, not regular-season games in mid-March -- then you can blame Nonis and Crawford and know the chemistry will be changed. Many seemingly dysfunctional teams, however, have won championships. One of them was the 1994 B.C. Lions, who had a race riot on the eve of the Grey Cup. Somehow the chemistry seemed fine in the victory parade.
This Friday, revelers will drink green beer (and eat corned beef) in celebration of the Irishman who, according to David Plotz, "didn't rid the land of snakes, didn't compare the Trinity to the shamrock, and wasn't even Irish." In 2000, Plotz stripped the myth away from St. Patrick, evaluating the many different popular incarnations that have arisen in the 1,621 years since his birth. "The Irish have celebrated their patron saint with a quiet religious holiday for centuries, perhaps more than 1,000 years. It took the United States to turn St. Patrick's Day into a boozy spectacle. Irish immigrants first celebrated it in Boston in 1737 and first paraded in New York in 1762. By the late 19th century, the St. Patrick's Day parade had become a way for Irish-Americans to flaunt their numerical and political might. It retains this role today."
BASKETBALL
Redick, Morrison To Share 'Larry Bird Trophy For Certain Intangibles'
INDIANAPOLIS — Duke's J.J. Redick and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison joined previous honorees Christian Laettner, Keith Van Horn, and Shawn Bradley Tuesday as co-recipients of the Larry Bird Trophy, which recognizes "certain athletes" each year for possessing "that particular quality" which "really sets them apart" from almost 80 percent of all other basketball players. "In this sport, it's very unusual to find two great players of their…uh, let's see, how should I put it…'stripe,'" said college-basketball analyst Digger Phelps, who immediately asked that his previous statement be stricken from the record. "They really…hmm… You see, not a lot of players are even qualified for this award, you know, in the sense that… Well, let's just hope that, if and when these guys are starting in the NBA, they are able to compete with the league's other more athletic, instinctual…folks." This marks the first time that there have been two winners of the Bird Trophy since 1993, when Bobby Hurley and half of Jason Kidd shared the award.
ART SALE
for charity
HOCKEY
What the fu%k is wrong with the Canucks? from the Vancouver Sun:
COLUMBUS, Ohio. - I went to a chemistry lab and a hockey game broke out. Todd Bertuzzi and Markus Naslund were taking on the world. There has been so much talk about chemistry and the Vancouver Canucks, the Team 1040 may wish to dig up Robert Oppenheimer and pair him with Bill Nye the Science Guy for its new broadcasting crew.
Stay tuned for the bidding war on television rights between Sportsnet and The Discovery Channel. This is news: Bertuzzi played golf Wednesday in Nashville and Naslund didn't. Call out the paparazzi. Get Leeza Gibbons on the phone (tell her it's that talky thing you hold to your head). Surely, there is a scandal here. Are the best friends splitting? Is Brendan Morrison a homewrecker? Has anyone got Robert Shapiro on retainer?
No, Naslund just doesn't dig golf, so Bertuzzi spent the players' day off puttering around with teammates Henrik Sedin and Matt Cooke and media relations director T.C. Carling. Good thing. Imagine the headlines had Naslund and Bertuzzi played golf together. A Nation Divided: Canuck stars golf, invite only two teammates -- Burrows and Bieksa abandoned, play Scrabble. Granted, the headline's longer than many of Bertuzzi's press answers, but you get the idea. After an avalanche of stories have noted the closeness of Bertuzzi and Naslund, who are not in fact fishing buddies on Brokeback Mountain (not that there'd be anything wrong with that), and the adverse effect it may be having on the Canucks' chemistry, Bertuzzi came out swinging Thursday.
"It's a crock of s--t," he told grateful reporters after the Canucks practised for today's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. "I think it's people with too much time on their hands trying to dissect our team. It's not going to happen. We're not going to let that crap from the media or what's being said in the papers divide this team. It hasn't been there. It's never been there.
"We're the same team that's been over 100 points. . . the same team four years ago. It's unfortunate we have to sit here and talk about, just speaking about it, period, [because] it's never been there. It's not the case."
At least we know Bertuzzi can still hit. A goal or two would be nice. What he feels is manure is the reality that his friendship with Naslund sees the two most influential players in the dressing room spending less time with other teammates than they could. Or, at least in the case of the captain Naslund, they should. This is beyond debate, as is the fact there are other groups -- bonded by personalities, circumstances, rooming list or Swedish birth mother -- within the Canuck team, and even its coaching staff. When a team is winning, these are called friendships. When a team is losing, they're cliques. When a team has lost five in a row in March and scoring about as often as Oppenheimer, there's a crisis.
"There certainly is no division in our group," head coach Marc Crawford insisted. "It is a strong group. Because we haven't performed well, yeah, we're a little bit fragile. You work hard to get through that. This is a team sport; it's about sticking together. Those are the messages coming from our leaders. Those are the messages coming from coaches." Crawford believes stories like this one are driven by flippant gossip, almost universally uniformed, on talk radio and the Internet.
"I don't spend my time worrying about what's being said in chat rooms," he said. "I don't worry about what's being said on talk radio. It's very important we stay on message and stay on task."
Naslund's message Thursday was there is no problem with chemistry: "I don't believe so, until someone proves me wrong," he said. "There are always going to be different groups hanging out. That's the chemistry on any team. We're all on the same page and there is respect in this room for one another and that's all we can ask for."
Of course, you know if there were real problems in the dressing room no player would say so publicly. The Legend of Bertuzzi has become so pervasive and all-consuming, self-sustaining now so it doesn't matter what the 31-year-old does or is actually like, the Canucks' chemistry probably can never be "normal" with him in the dressing room. But Crawford and general manager Dave Nonis aren't fools. They knew the dynamics of their team when they chose to keep it together, and decided to live with them because they believe these players can win. If they don't win -- and we mean the playoffs in late May, not regular-season games in mid-March -- then you can blame Nonis and Crawford and know the chemistry will be changed. Many seemingly dysfunctional teams, however, have won championships. One of them was the 1994 B.C. Lions, who had a race riot on the eve of the Grey Cup. Somehow the chemistry seemed fine in the victory parade.
posted by D @ 8:04 AM
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