The Inigo Martinez Speculative Rip of the Week

Note: this is not a video, but a mere teaser image. The video is in the link at the end. 


This is an emergency post, and also the beginning of a feature that I started on an old blog, called 3 Man Wall, that I curated with two of my friends. The title is a nod to 22-year-old Spanish footballer Inigo Martinez, who has so far scored two goals of sheer absurdity in his young career.

With the Premier League starting back up, and me posting semi-regularly on this blog, I thought there was no better time to return to the time-honored tradition of posting fucking amazing soccer goals online for others to enjoy.

Without further ado, Juventus's Paul Pogba: http://www.wimp.com/goalangle/

Why it’s Finally Time to Start Caring About Soccer in the United States

This is not your garden-variety soccer apologist’s post. While I am a soccer fan, I certainly don’t consider myself to be some holier-than-thou purist of the game, nor do I think of soccer detractors as thick-headed cretins whose only requirement for entertaining sports television is frenetic action and violence. But I do know that, whether we’re ready or not, soccer is coming. And now is truly the time to start tuning in.

What’s wrong with soccer?

My reasons for following soccer are inconsequential, so let’s get right to the good stuff. Ask any of the millions of people who would be proud to fall into the “red-blooded American male” category in your trusty pocket stereotype-ometer, and they’ll give you a handful of reasons that they dislike, can’t stand, or simply don’t care about soccer.

Before beginning, I’d like to point out that I’m only going to spend time refuting arguments that I believe have some modicum of sanity behind them. This does not include claims such as: “Every child in America plays soccer, and then the better athletes move to football,” or “Soccer’s only for prissy Europeans and flashy Brazilians," or especially “A sport where you can’t use your hands isn’t a sport.” Those arguments all hold no water, and if you do find someone to debate them with, I’ll advise you not to bet heavily on your winning that round.

1.       It’s boring

Reason number one is usually some variety of the “it’s too boring/not enough offense/too much walking, jogging, and standing around” argument. And, when you put it that way, it almost sounds legitimate. But then you remember that goals like this can happen in the blink of an eye, seemingly from nothing but a bunch of standing around. And it makes you realize that soccer, when you get right down to it, is the least predictable sport in the world. Picture the arduous routines ingrained into baseball and football – the tens of seconds between each pitch, and the constant huddling, play-changing, and decision-making that occurs before every down. Now realize that soccer matches are played with running time – no pauses, breaks, or timeouts. That means, at any moment during a soccer game, a team could go from some casual possession near the halfway line to a rocket-propelled goal or two in less than five seconds.

2.       There’s too much diving

Reason number two is diving. And yes, diving is a problem. You can watch videos like this and have some serious fodder in the diving debate. And in response to the claim that soccer is nothing but a tryout for the 3 meter springboard, I have two videos to show you. Both are compilations of game footage from the undisputed best players in the world at their sports. 

First, we have the best soccer player on earth, a 5-foot-7 Argentinian who was literally prescribed HGH when he was younger because of his stunted growth. He weaves through bigger defenders with the grace and balance of a figure skater, and he never dives. There are several of these videos, and you don’t need to watch more than a few highlights to understand Lionel Messi’s philosophy. He knows he is the best in the world, and he gives his team the best chance to win by playing the way he’s always played – driving the ball through the hearts of defenses and probing for goals.

On the flip side, and I’m sure you saw this coming, we have LeBron James. Yes, that LeBron James. The same 6-foot-8, 250-pound human freight train who has been dubbed the best athlete ever in a major American sport. To put it simply, he flops like a fish. He could play the exact same way that Messi does, and indeed that’s what got him to the top of the basketball mountain, but now he feels that he is owed certain calls as the resident “King.” So yes, soccer has a diving problem. But so does every sport, and at least in soccer it’s not led by the self-anointed monarch.

3.       It’s unnecessary

Once we’ve run through the previous arguments, we get to this one. This is the argument that soccer haters pull out when they want to stand up and walk away from the fight with their pride intact, the same way a spoiled child on the playground will feign indifference when a classmate has a newer toy. It’s the old “America doesn’t need soccer” defense. Many people use this tactic as a conversation-ender, and tack on something like “We’ve already got the four best sports leagues in the world, what do we need another for?” I’ll address that question shortly, but first, let’s talk about why America does need soccer.

There are a million ways to go about this response, but surprisingly, I’m going to turn to the Stoolies. Yes, Maurice from Barstool Sports Philadelphia put together a surprisingly good piece on this subject in May, just after the US men’s national team lost to Belgium. Basically, his point is a nationalist one: if the US is such a world superpower, why are we losing to countries with the population of Ohio? We are the third-largest country in the world by population, we give our children every advantage possible to let them become whatever they want, and our training facilities, coaches, and medical care are top notch. There is no way we should not be the best in the world at everything, and that in and of itself is reason enough to support the team.

I’m assuming that some portions of non-soccer-watching America won’t all of a sudden pick up the English Premier League (though NBC Sports is making it fun and easy to do so) or start following the ins and outs of the Spanish La Liga. But appealing to our sense of #MURICA makes sense, and it’s a perfect time for it. Consider: we’ve actually started winning since the publication of that Barstool piece, having rattled off 12 on the trot. Standing out among these was a 4-3, come-from-behind win at Bosnia-Herzegovina, the 13^th-ranked country in the world (USA is currently 19^th). Jozy Altidore continued his stellar scoring run, racking up a hat trick in Sarajevo as the Yanks stormed back for their first ever comeback win on European soil. Further, the World Cup is in less than a year, and the USA has four more qualifiers before 2013 is out. Then the last-minute tune up games begin, with our lads facing off against some of the best in the world before heading for the Brazilian sunshine and the chance for glory.

In a perfect world, American fans would watch a few qualifiers and identify their favorite players. Inevitably, these players will be Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, and Tim Howard – our Big Four. Fans would be curious about the clubs that these four play for, and a quick Wikipedia search would yield that two of the four – Altidore and Howard – are playing for top-tier English sides (Sunderland and Everton, respectively). Boom, just like that, America has two teams in the EPL to find, research, track, and support. And the other two players? Why, they’re playing stateside, in the quickly burgeoning MLS. For a small fee, you can take your kids to watch a game featuring one of the best soccer players that America has to offer. What more could you ask for?

The Case for Following the English Premier League

So we’ve debunked the common myths about soccer. Hopefully you’re thinking to yourself: You know what? This little sport doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, I might like to check out a few games and see what all the fuss is about. Well, if that’s the kind of stuff that’s rattling around in your head right now, you’re in luck.

NBC Sports Network, a channel that comes included in every normal cable package, is bringing unprecedented TV coverage to the US. Between the NBC Sports Network (57), NBC (10), and CNBC (thankfully only 2), there will be 69 live Premier League matches in the first three months of the season. And that’s only the start of it.

The vast majority of these games happen in the morning here. That’s right, the weekend morning. You know, that time that you’re hungover and promise yourself you’re going to work out but instead just lie in your pajamas and watch Homeland reruns? Yeah, that time can be used for watching live, compelling, hi-def Premier League action.

And trust me, it will be compelling. If you are new to the league, this is shaping up to be the most fascinating campaign in history. Seriously. The top three teams from last year, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea, are all starting the first year under a new manager. This would be like if the Broncos, Patriots, and Falcons all got new head coaches over this offseason. But it’s more than that. Because Manchester United is one of the most storied clubs in all of soccer, and their former manager was so revered that he was knighted. Imagine Bill Belichick receiving a Presidential medal next year, winning two more Super Bowls, then retiring, and you’ll have some idea of the hype around Manchester United’s new manager, David Moyes.

Diving deeper into the Premier League, though, is where it really gets good. Because this isn’t just about the crunching tackles, stunning saves, or outrageous displays of skill (really, watch that one). It’s about two things: history and tradition.

The History: Why this means so much to so many

Top-flight soccer in England started way back in 1888, and soccer has been the runaway leader for most popular sport in the country since that time. Sure, people play rugby and cricket and tennis and golf, but none of these is a religion the way that soccer (or “football”) is.

Your location, your loved ones, and your lifestyle all dictate your fandom. People are born into a football club just as surely as they’re born into a family. Just look at that term. They’re not teams, they’re football clubs, and they dot the country from top to bottom. You’ll find pockets of die-hard supporters for even the lowest-division sides. Teams that are now nearly irrelevant may have once tasted the highest glory (check out my favorite non-Premier League side, Nottingham Forest), and teams that are now dominant giants may have toiled in relative obscurity for decades, only to be saved by the seemingly bottomless pit of money thrown their way by an unnamed Russian owner coughcoughChelseacoughAbramovichcough. 

I wouldn’t claim to know the inner workings of the British psyche, but it seems to go like this. With one dominant sport in the country, a city is defined by its football club(s). If you support a club, you support all that the club stands for as it relates to your city, and by extension, you are an advocate for that city. Thus, fans who travel into an opponent’s stadium and watch their team win a hard-fought match on enemy turf are tasting the last vestiges of a long-dormant instinct: to conquer and assert dominance over another man’s territory. And if you are lucky enough to be born into a multi-club city like Liverpool or Manchester or London, your choice of squad matters that much more.

The Tradition:

In the interest of brevity, I’ll just list some of the traditions that make English soccer one of the best sports to follow in the world.

·         Relegation and promotion. This is a standings-based form of reward and punishment for every team in the eight tiered professional leagues in England. Think of the Premier League as the MLB and the lower divisions as farm teams, except no teams have affiliations with each other. After each season, the top three teams in each league’s standings move up to the next tier, and the three worst teams move down a league. This has incredible financial ramifications – one season in a higher league can bring a small club riches it could have only dreamed of before. Similarly, being dropped into a lower division sometimes forces teams to sell off valuable players in order to keep their heads above water. This makes for life-and-death games between some of the worst teams in the league near the end of the season, with a place in the richer league next season at stake. Imagine if the Astros and White Sox had to play a three-game series at the end of the season, and the loser was demoted to Triple A. Interesting, right?

·         The fans. As discussed earlier, English soccer fandom is a religion. And like all religions, it has all manner of songs, chants, incantations, prayers, and pleas. Stadiums ring with the signature song of a team, my favorite example being Liverpool’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Hearing the hordes of Liverpool supporters belt out the song after Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League triumph still brings shivers. But more than that, many fans are dedicated to the craft of fandom. They pore over the team’s transfers and acquisitions, as well as those of their opponents, and make up clever (and often rude) songs to support their men and deride the others. Some of the better ones are Manchester United’s “You Are My Solskjaer” (playing off of “You Are My Sunshine”) and Liverpool’s song for mercurial striker Fernando Torres.

·         Transfers. This is one of the more interesting facets of European football. Basically, there are no trades. Teams simply put a value on their players, and then other teams make offers for those players. If the numbers seem right at the time, a deal is struck, and the player is shipped off to a new team, league, and sometimes even country. Transfers are not restricted by national boundaries, and thus it’s impossible to discuss English soccer without tangentially referring to Europe as a whole, and indeed the entire world, as the talent pool in England is as diverse as they come. Getting back to transfers, there are two periods of the year when teams are permitted to bid for players: the summer (when the league is in its offseason) and in January (during the middle of the season). It’s interesting to note that buying and selling players based on a mutually agreed-upon price is much closer to our American version of capitalism than the player transferring practices in any major American sport. Plus, it makes great tabloid fodder when a perennially popular team buys a hulking, marginally skilled striker for 35 million pounds, then sells him two years later for 15.5 million.

·         The many, many tournaments. Conservatively, in any full season, an English Premier League team can expect to be involved in anywhere from three to seventy tournaments. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but it does seem that every few weeks there is a new cup tie (tournament game), and it’s hard to keep track of them all if you’re watching from a distance. However, narrow your focus to one team, and it becomes much easier. Following Liverpool (as I do) throughout the season presents countless opportunities to play armchair manager. Some tournament games need to be played with substitutes in order to save the top players for the more important league games, while other games demand a 100% effort, no matter the schedule. Some tournaments mean much more than others, and the Champions League (a tournament that pits the best teams in the best European leagues against each other) is considered to be the best in world soccer, even better than the World Cup. However, the fact that there are so many tournaments involving so many teams means that even teams toiling in near-obscurity taste the bright lights of Wembley Stadium in London.

Now is the time to follow the English Premier League. The games are all on NBC Sports. They’ll be over before the NFL afternoon games, so you don’t need to compromise. The immersive history, culture, and backstory of every team is a rich tapestry of glory and triumph, loss and heartbreak. It’s everything you could want in a professional sports league, and you’re not even compelled to spend hundreds of dollars to watch the team in person. Plus, almost every team has some pretty sweet jerseys.

Funny Name Situations

I think stuff like this is interesting.

So for work I have to set up an account with this online service that deals with all the employee's requests for vacations, time away from the office, that kind of thing. You have to set a security question, as with most online services, and there are a multitude of different questions, all designed to only have one answer that you can call to mind easily.

The problem is, for me, only one of these questions has a clear, single answer.

Let's go through them, shall we?

Q: "1. What was the last name of your childhood best friend?"

A: Demers, Gentile, Hall, Rose, Walls, Wicks are all perfectly acceptable answers, written in random order so as not to anger anyone. So that's not a very good question. Let's move on.

Q: "2. What was the first name of your best man at your wedding?"

A: Wedding hasn't happened yet. Plus I'm an only child, so it's kind of a battle between the aforementioned best friends. Let's not dwell on that.

Q: "3. What was the first name of your maid of honor at your wedding?"

A: Does not apply for two reasons. You figure it out.

Q: "4. What was the first name of your first college roommate?"

A: I had a lovely time in my triple with Sam and Jared. So this doesn't have a single, easy answer either.

Q: "5. What is your maternal grandmother's first name?"

A: Funny story, actually. She was born Rubydene Hudgens, down in the heart of Joe-juh (that's Georgia for you Northerners) with her sister Ernestine. When she moved up here, she decided to drop the "Ruby" (like many a Boston College sophomore when faced with a campus policeman) and just become "Dene." So, again, no easy answer there. Moving on.

Q: "6. What is your paternal grandmother's first name?"

A: Come to think of it, I don't know. For as long as I can remember, I've called her "Nana." My mom calls her "Dad's mother," and my dad calls her "Nana" or "mom." Now, I obviously know her name, but that doesn't help much either. It's Betty. And yes, Betty is PROBABLY short for "Elizabeth." But it might not be! She's like 95 years old, I don't know what kinds of crazy names parents were giving their children back in 1920, especially immigrant parents from Sweden who were soon to abandon their child altogether and leave her to grow up in various foster homes and orphanages. Could be Bettiane. Could be Bettinski. Could just be Betty. The world may never know.

Q: "7. What is your paternal grandfather's first name?"

A: This is the easy one. It's George. The funny part? I've never met him. He died when my dad (now 69 years old) was about 20.

Q: "8. What is your mother's middle name?"

A: Another interesting story. My mom's original name was Cynthia Lee White. Lee was in homage to General Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate general. Remember how I said my maternal grandmother was from Georgia? Yeah. But then when my mom married my dad, she sort of dropped the Lee, shunted the White over a bit, and changed her middle name. Sort of. Like, on her social security card I think it says Cynthia White Vogel. But in the phone book I think she's Cynthia L. Vogel. And then other places I've seen her still go by her maiden name altogether. There's no rhyme or reason on that front.

Names are silly. I'll just go with Question 7: George.

New Short Story

Just finished a new short story, and it turned out pretty long. You might have to read it in chunks or something, but I kind of just kept writing.

The inspiration for this came from a story about a person during the Mexican-American war, sitting around a campfire with a knife in his hand. That story was pretty boring and I don't think I ever read the whole thing, but that scene stuck with me.

Hope you like it.

A Quick Thought

Don't we all have those coach thoughts? Not tactical adjustments, but the big, overarching themes we'd like to tell some coaches so they don't keep screwing up what seems like an easy job?

I do.

One of them goes something like this. If you're in the playoffs, and matched up against a team who has roughly the same "level" - that is, they're not CLEARLY better or worse than you - you can win by taking advantage of their weaknesses.

Doesn't that seem like the easiest thing ever?

But some coaches don't do it, and try to bull their way into victories with the same strategy that got them there - a kind of "Damn the torpedoes!" approach that rarely leads to great results against similarly-matched teams.

Worse, some coaches do what Dan Bylsma did against the Bruins, and try to beat the opponent at their own game. In a playoff series, this is a recipe for disaster. Maybe the Penguins could have outmuscled the Bruins in a meaningless game in February in Pittsburgh, but there was absolutely ZERO chance that the B's, in this postseason, were going to lose to a team who tried to out-tough them. Because, quite frankly, you can't out-tough them.

The Pens should have played their game - speed, skill, and silky passing - and endured the Bruins bruising style. Their snipers would have been able to put a few more goals on the board if they weren't constantly racing to backcheck after another failed dump, chase, and squash against the boards.

A GREAT example of how to do this comes from the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. From Grantland: "The Spurs have rebounded 30.5 percent of their own misses in this series. That would have ranked fourth overall for the season. The Spurs ranked 29th during the year, and they almost take pride in minimizing the importance of crashing the offensive glass." 

The Spurs are not a great offensive rebounding team. HOWEVER, they found a weakness in the Heat, namely that they are lazy and undedicated basketball players who refuse to box out, and are exploiting it to their advantage. 

Go Spurs, and go Bruins. 

The Championship Mentality of a Boston Sports Team

Before the Boston Bruins suit up and try to take down the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals Wednesday night, let's take a step back and survey the Boston sports landscape as a whole.

Specifically, I want to look at what makes a champion in Boston.This is not going to be a roster breakdown. I'm not going to come out with any groundbreaking statistical analysis proving that Kevin Youkilis's OPS was equivalent to Tedy Bruschi's forced  fumbles percentage (is that even a stat?) or something. 

I just want to discuss the general feeling that I get from a championship Boston team, and how we might have more than just one parade in our not-too-distant future.

I'll go in chronological order, starting with the greatest dynasty since the Targaryens, the Early-2000s Patriots. 

These days, the Patriots are known for one thing: offense. However you want to slice it, we're an offensive juggernaut: Brady to Gronk, Brady to Hernandez, Brady to Welker and Moss (RIP). We own the best prolonged aerial attack since, well, the Targaryens. 

But it wasn't always this way. 

Back when I was but a wee boy of 11, in the 2001-2002 season, the Patriots were a defense-first team. Belichick was known around the league as a defensive guru, and we allowed the 6th-fewest points in the league that season. 

We had stud defenders (a wholly different class of players than the "stars" who come with their own tents and peanut vendors) who were in their prime: Lawyer Milloy (28), Ty Law (27), Tedy Bruschi (28), and Willie McGinest (30). We also had a young talent by the name of Richard Seymour. 

We hit teams in the mouth from the opening whistle, and it took us all the way to perhaps the most unlikely championship in the history of the NFL, as a first-year quarterback named Tom Brady ran a picture-perfect two-minute drill to get the ball onto the foot of the the most clutch kicker of all time.  (Aside: listen to Pat Summerall's call of that kick. Has anyone ever discussed this? Dude sounds like he's announcing a high school JV first-quarter extra point two weeks after he watched his grandson get hit by a bus.)

We were outgained 427-267 in total yards. We also forced three turnovers that we turned into 17 of the 20 points we eventually needed to win. That was the Patriot Way. Don't screw up, execute when it counts, and make the other team fear your defense.

It worked for two of the next three years as well, and the Pats won the Super Bowl after the '03 and '04 season. 

But it couldn't be that way forever. Brady seemed to develop a fondness for the word "super" in the following years: going supernova in starpower, dating supermodels, and losing Super Bowls. My opinion? We traded our toughness for finesse. Less bludgeoning opponents to death Mike Tyson-style, and more trying to tiki-taka our way into the endzone, Xavi-style.

Needless to say, our Super Bowl record since trading in our Hulk hands defense for a pair of Kenny Wu's skates is 0-2.

Let's move on to a team that took care of the middle of the decade, the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox.

Now, I'm not going to claim that the 2004 Team of Destiny was anything other than pure magic. But, like most magic, it needed the right circumstances to be able to occur. Much like Daenerys Targaryen (can't seem to leave them alone) needed a funeral pyre for her husband in order for her dragon eggs to hatch, those '04 Sox had the scrappiest, weirdest, and most importantly, loosest bunch of dirtbags in the league, and they were perfectly suited to pull off the madness that they needed.

Baseball is a different animal than football, but one constant remains if you want to taste success: defense. Of course, in baseball, defense starts with pitching.

And pitching starts with the starters. Some quick stats. Curt Schilling. 21-6, 3.26 ERA. A truly dominant year. Somehow Johan Santana won the Cy Young that year by winning one less game, and having an ERA about 6 points lower. Regardless, Schill was a horse.

So was Pedro Martinez: 16-9, 3.9 ERA. Decent, but not great, by his standards. More important? 217 innings pitched. Like Todd McShay said, the best ability is availability. Pedro had a productive, healthy year, not taxing his bullpen.

We all know what happened in October. David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, and Johnny Damon were our studs (though Manny turned into a "star" and has since paid the price), and our lineup was rounded out with the choicest selections of scrappy goodness this side of a Vietnamese cockfight. Just listen to this ALCS Game 7 lineup:
Damon
Mark Bellhorn (strikeout king and playoff stud)
Manny
Ortiz
Jason Varitek (Captain)
Trot Nixon (body is 70% water, 30% warning track dirt)
Kevin Millar (idiot, in more ways than 1)
Bill Mueller (unlikely batting champ)
Orlando Cabrera (classic Sox defensive shortstop)

This team simply outworked other teams. They ground out at-bats, wore down opponents with great starting pitching, and played loose and fun at the same time. A hard combination to beat.

The 2007 team was kind of the same, but substitute Josh Beckett (20-7, 3.27) for Schilling and Tim Wakefield (17-12, 4.76, 190 IP) for Pedro. Also, remember Daisuke Matsuzaka? 2007 was his first year in the MLB, and the gyroball fooled a few people, to the tune of 15-12, 4.40, 206 IP.

On offense, it was just a perfect storm. Pedroia and Ellsbury were up-and-coming stars. Ortiz and Mike Lowell (World Series MVP) finished 4-5 in the regular season MVP voting. Tek was Tek, Youk was Youk, and Manny was Manny.

But overall, we had that feel to our team. It just seemed that all throughout the lineup, even down to ole cereal bowl Coco Crisp, we had people who could pop off for a timely hit. We weren't quite the scrappy, unkempt bunch that pulled off a smash-and-grab title in 2004, but there was something down-to-earth and endearing about the '07 Sox. Manny hid in the Monster, for God's sake.

Which takes us to our third entrant in the Boston sports decade of champions, the 2008 Boston Celtics.

Now, although I have played basketball since I learned to walk, I must say that I despise the NBA. Not for some unusual reason, either, but for all the normal ones: too much one-on-one, not enough defense, nobody tries until the playoffs, etc.

However, I loved that 2008 team. Of all the squads here, that team may have had the most "scrap-swagger," a term I just made up. Scrap-swagger basically means that you know you're not a superstar, but you're gonna play and act like one, and say a big eff you to everyone who wants to put you on SportsCenter as the "nobody" who made big plays.

Of course, the NBA is all about swagger, so it's no surprise that the C's had scrap-swagger in spades. To go along with the first true Big 3 since the days of Larry Legend, we had such scrappy studs as Glen (Big Baby) Davis, Eddie House, Kendrick Perkins, and, of course, Brian (Scals) Scalabrine.

Because the Big 3 of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett was assembled late in everyone's career, when they were all trusted (and wily) vets, and since Scals looked like your local roofer, and due to the fact that most of our bench guys (Powe, Posey, and PJ Brown) could have been bouncing outside Tequila Rain and no one would have known them, this team felt like an underdog, good-guy team despite its .805 regular season winning percentage.

Pierce was our leading scorer, but he only averaged a shade over 19 a game. Ray Allen led the team in minutes, sprinting around the court draining threes and (usually) covering the other team's best player. Perk led the team in shooting percentage, mainly because he never took a shot from outside six feet. I could write another whole post on Perk, and what he meant to this team, but to keep it short (even though it's already INSANELY long), let's just say this. Letting Kendrick Perkins go did to the Celtics what changing from a defense-first team to an offense-first team did to the Patriots.

Cumulative championships for those teams after these changes? Zero.

And we've come to our last squad, and one that has the chance to put another banner into the rafters of the TD Garden: the 2011 Boston Bruins. 

First of all, the current B's squad has 17 holdovers from that championship club, which bodes extremely well for our chances in the Finals. It also means that I'm pretty sure we're still in the middle of one of these runs that I'm talking about.

The 2011 Bruins team was so easy to like, it was scary. They were like a combination of every great family member you've ever had. Seguin was your adorable little brother, who the entire family can't get enough of. Recchi was your crazy drunk uncle with more stories than DUIs, but not by many. (Granted, I know Rex wasn't like this in real life, but it was fun to think of him like that, and he played like the wiliest of veterans, giving him that aura. Plus, c'mon now.) Tim Thomas was the dad who didn't talk much at family parties, but just kind of sat in the corner with his beer and made everyone feel a little more comfortable. I could go on.

We weren't the most skilled team that year, but rarely in the NHL does the most skilled team win the title. Look at the Penguins this year. Timmy had a run that few goalkeepers have ever duplicated (don't look now, but Tuukk is duplicating it pretty damn well). We got huge goals when we needed them and, much like the early Patriots, we punished teams. In that Stanley Cup Finals, the Canucks were the Rams, we were the Patriots, and the Sedin twins were Isaac Bruce and Torrey Holt: small, skilled offensive weapons who were neutralized because they were afraid to get their heads taken off.


This is what every Boston sports team, except perhaps the current Bruins and Red Sox, is missing in some way: the desire to stomp on an opponent defensively, the willpower to ensure that that opponent knows they are going to lose, and most importantly, the blue-collar, lunchpail-type mentality that defines this town.

I know it's cliche, but it's true. We're a city of underdogs. We're not the biggest, brightest, fastest, or newest. But we pride ourselves on working the hardest. That's what champions do, and that's what we want to see in the Boston teams that win for us.

It's time for the Bruins to show that they are true Boston champions. 

"Game of Thrones" Analysis featuring Drew Galloway

Back to our regularly scheduled programming. AKA I send Drew a wicked long email and he responds. Here ya go!

Robbie Vogel <robbievogel@gmail.com>	May 13 (6 days ago)
to Drew

Hey,

So clearly my previous effort asked you far too many questions. I got a little excited, it's Game of Thrones, what are ya gonna do? 

So, if you scroll past my nonsense ramblings, I've only asked two questions this week. And I'm trying to keep this short and sweet. Less is more.

Ok, here we go.

First, this episode (307 - "The Bear and the Maiden Fair") was written by George R.R. Martin, author of the original book series. This immediately excited me, but then I remembered that if I had my way, he would be locked in a dungeon, similar to the one in which we find Theon, finishing the novels before he dies of old age.

Also, did you know GRRM is a Jets fan?

Moving on.

Quotes of the week include the following:

Random Stark bannerman (possibly a Tully, I don't care to look it up): "I've seen wet shits I liked better than Walder Frey."

Bronn had a terrific day, with: "How did marrying a whore work out for you the first time?"   and    "You waste time trying to get people to love you, you'll end up the most popular dead man in town." and also  "You pay me to kill people who bother you. Evil notions come free."

Jaime with a Catholic priest joke to his doctor: "So why did the Citadel take your chain? Did you fondle one boy too many?"

Back to the notes. 

I think Robb's girl is a Lannister spy. They've already departed from the books in not making her a random maiden from the West (which would actually have given her a better possibility of being a Lannister spy, incidentally), and she writes in a language that Robb can't read. She's using her feminine wiles to win his heart, while her head spins circles around his. SPOILER ALERT: I think she's got something to do with the planning of the Red Wedding.

Either way, we now know that this relationship is well and truly fucked. There's no hope for them in the long term, and not really even in the longer short term. And why is that? Because Robb did the unthinkable. He said the one thing that you are ABSOLUTELY not allowed to say in this series. 

He said he loved her. 

My actual note reads: "NO NO NO ROBB NEVER SAY THE L WORD." Love was the theme of this episode, and love is nearly impossible in this society.

Think about any relationship in this story. Every single one is completely screwy. No one, and I repeat, NO ONE in this story has something even resembling a healthy, loving relationship. And not just romantic love either. Take the crazed parental love of Lady Arryn, Cersei, or Cat (or Dany, if we're really getting weird). Or the grumbling, vengeful rage that first Tyrion, and now Cersei, feel for their father. And don't even get me started on what Jaime and Cersei have. 

The only relationships that were presumably happy and kind of normal were those of Ned Stark (dead), Jon Arryn (dead), and Tywin and his unnamed wife (long dead). 

It seems, when playing the Game, there is no room for love in the equation.

This is why I love watching the Jon-Ygritte dynamic. It's clear that Jon is no wildling. His upbringing still hangs heavy about him like a cartoon rain cloud, and occasionally forces him to spout unhappy truths like his "Six times" monologue. He loves Ygritte, but he grew up south of the Wall. He knows that love is useless.

She, on the other hand, is a hopeless romantic and an extreme pragmatist all wrapped up in one flame-headed wildling. I think this is why I love her so much. She repeats the Jason-Mraz-inspired Tyrion-Shae mantra ("You are mine, and I am yours") with a zeal that makes you believe that SHE believes it. She's in it for Jon. Realistic about the future, which most likely includes her early death, but desperate and unashamed to spend her present with the man she loves. 

See my question #1 below for more on this concept.

On another note, George R.R. Martin is a horny old bastard. There was a serious amount of nudity on this Mother's Day episode, including a scene plucked straight from a Saw knock-off porno: the Varys-ization of Theon Greyjoy. I can only imagine the awkward familial interactions this scene in particular spawned (pun intended) in living rooms around the country. 

If you haven't seen it, please view this Tyrion and Bronn "Calvin and Hobbes" picture.

It's perfect. Bronn dispensing simple truth bombs while protecting the little one from all manner of seen and unseen enemies.

Speaking of truth bombs, Shae drops them as well. Tyrion is surrounded by truth-flinging brunettes. Kind of the exact opposite of his family. Probably the way he likes it. What I'm wondering is, why does Shae like him so much? She doesn't seem to care about money, clearly can't have any illusions about power, and has to remain hidden at all times. Seems like a shitty way to live, especially if your reward between the sheets is someone who was once mistaken for a child between the sheets by Tina Fey

Quick random timing question: The last dragon died out with a skull no bigger than an apple. The monster ones that roamed the skies and melted Harrenhal died 300 years before that. I kind of thought dragons lived for at least several human lifetimes, but it would seem that there had to be at least 7-10 dragon generations between the carriage-headed dragon of 300 years ago and the apple-headed one of, let's say, 75 years ago. How long do dragons live? Are we talking dog years here? If so, are Dany's three going through their teen angst, or does that come when SPOILER ALERT Drogon up and peaces the fuck out for weeks on end? 

Random Note Time: 

In which I jot down what I jotted down while watching the show.

This scene with Tywin and Joffrey wouldn't have been in the books, as neither of them were POV characters.

 Grey Worm looks like Colin Kaepernick

How long does it take to set up these elaborate camp tents for Robb and Dany?

Dany is becoming RUTHLESS in her emancipation efforts. Interesting to look at why. She was sold as a slave, but made the best of it (understatement) and became Khaleesi of the greatest khalasar on the Dothraki Sea. Conversely, she saved a woman from becoming a slave (Mirri Maz Duur) and, because she had not saved her in a more timely fashion, it cost her the life of her beloved Khal Drogo and her unborn child, who would have been the Stallion that Mounts the World.

You'd think she'd want to enslave everyone.

Foreshadowing from Tyrion as he gives Shae "chains of gold." I was wondering how they would make that future scene work, as the item denoting the Hand of the King is now a stickpin, rather than a necklace. 

I think Arya is confused. She proclaims to follow Death as her only God. SPOILER ALERT This is foreshadowing for her future efforts across the Narrow Sea.

However, the only encounters she's had with death besides that of her father have been from the hand of Jaqen H'Ghar, who follows the Red God aka the Lord of Light. So really, she's a follower of that religion.

Finally, it seems no good deed goes unpunished for Jaime Lannister. Saving Brienne from the frying pan of being raped by Locke and his followers earlier in the season, he's now unintentionally thrown her into the fire of being held ransom for far more than her father can ever pay (due to Jaime's lie that Brienne's father owns all the sapphires in the Seven Kingdoms). This is highly typical of George RR Martin's world, where nothing good ever works out and oftentimes, everything positive turns negative.

Also, if Jaime had hopped down into the bear pit with no sword and no right arm and said "I immediately regret this decision", that would have been awesome.

BUT more importantly, from this situation comes my second and final question. Read on. 

Question # 1: To borrow a line from Haddaway and the Butabi brothers "What is Love?" 

But seriously. More to the point, what can people who have to play the Game (nobles, highborns, etc.) reasonably expect from their romantic relationships? 

Question # 2: There seems to be no form of media in this society. No printed news, no books that haven't been written by hand, and certainly no long-distance communication except by faulty ravens. How did this affect the Jaime-Brienne fiasco that played out in this episode, and how do you think it has affected the series as a whole? Think about how Westeros views Dany and vice versa, and how the various Kingdoms of Westeros feel about different events. 

Finally, I would be remiss without mentioning THE UNDISPUTED BIGGEST COMEBACK IN THE HISTORY OF HOCKEY

NO SELLOUT NO SURRENDER LET'S GO B'S

Robbie

Drew Galloway	9:23 PM (14 hours ago)
to me

Ok so first point----the guy with the incredible line about liking wet shits more than walder frey is breydan the blackfish tully---reasonably important character

I like your theory on robb's woman---they have departed a lot so it wouldnt be a shock if she betrays him............BUT i doubt it now that they made her knocked up---b/c of this she clearly must die when robb dies so their son is killed so sansa becomes heir to winterfell (b/c everyone assumes rickon and bran muffin are dead)

Arya is the best.....her death response was chilling. I cant wait until she becomes the ultimate assassin----think jason bourne meets uma thurman (kill bill) meets jack bauer meets----------WAIT 24 IS BACK?!?!?!!???!????? Holy shit a subject for another day (and thread)

On to your questions:

1) Sex. Then less sex as they cheat on each other. Then death. There is basically no hope for any good relationships. On the surface, ned and cat's relationship seemed great----but then we found out she was promised to his brother, ned fathered a bastard (allegedly), and ned is never home always fighting & then getting his chopped

2) good point about the media. Everything is done through ravens so it presumably takes months (atleast) to receive news in westeros and even longer coming from across the sea.  It affects the series by creating more uncertainty. Nobody knows whether dany is a threat or not. Nobody knew where tywin was leading the army until he showed up & crushed stannis. Although curiously winterfell heard quite quickly about ned's death. So maybe there's inconsistancy. But your point remains. I like it.

Pumped for next week.....aka tomorrow