January 18, 2014

SportsFilter: The Saturday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 20 comments

Manchester City scored their 100th goal of the season today and then added three more.

They still have sixteen games to go just in the Premier league and they're averaging very nearly four goals a game at home.

posted by Mr Bismarck at 12:43 PM on January 18, 2014

Metrodome deflated for final time.

posted by rcade at 08:08 PM on January 18, 2014

Two seconds in

posted by tommybiden at 10:52 PM on January 18, 2014

The officials should just leave the ice and let them kill each other.

posted by dyams at 11:03 PM on January 18, 2014

After the 1st period

posted by tommybiden at 11:22 PM on January 18, 2014

Jesus, what an embarrassment.

posted by NoMich at 11:35 PM on January 18, 2014

What. The fuck.

Why?

posted by Mr Bismarck at 11:38 PM on January 18, 2014

Hey everybody, it's Hockey Day in Canada, let's celebrate our game!!

posted by tommybiden at 12:02 AM on January 19, 2014

Jamie Benn elbows Matt Cooke

posted by tommybiden at 12:16 AM on January 19, 2014

New England Patriots: AFC Champions

posted by tommybiden at 12:23 AM on January 19, 2014

"Hey everybody, it's Hockey Day in Canada, let's celebrate our game!!"

"This content is currently unavailable."

What is it? ESPN's hockey coverage?

posted by Mr Bismarck at 12:53 AM on January 19, 2014

That was a bit nuts. Anyone have a quick synopsis of the bad blood between Calgary and Vancouver?

posted by kokaku at 05:45 AM on January 19, 2014

Bob Hartley's such a spineless prick. I have no love for Torts, but in post-game interview, Hartley tried to justify how well the 4th line played and how they even got a goal the last game. The inflection in his voice shows even he thinks that them scoring a goal is surprising.

They went out there, chirping and dropping the gloves the first second they could. If you are going to send guys out there to get punched in the face, at least have the stones enough to take the heat on yourself and not the players from all of the talk about how bad for the game that is.

posted by dfleming at 07:00 AM on January 19, 2014

A couple players had trouble finding a dance partner. If I was an NHL player and a huge fight broke out, I'd try to convey to my sparring partner that we should just make it look good without striking any meaningful punches. Perhaps we'd get stuck in a tight clinch in which neither of us could land anything with force.

Is that kind of thing possible?

posted by rcade at 08:31 AM on January 19, 2014

New England Patriots: AFC Champions

Damnit. Just last night (well, technically about 7 hours ago because my wife and I are stupid and are trying to set aside weekend time for "Just us" which is a great idea in the abstract but because of the baby's sleep schedule means we wind up drinking beer at 2am) I saw one of those "America's Game" NFL Network episodes on the 2004 Pats and I always have to stop on that one because it has a pre-game speech from Belichick describing the Philadelphia victory parade route. It makes me laugh every time, but it's stupid: no major city could possibly arrange a parade for potentially millions of fans on the fly. Of course there's a route. It's the same thing with these shirts: we want them available the day after the game; what are teams supposed to do, air drop screenprinters at midnight? This will be a story every year and some team looks stupid every year but it's a dopey side effect of modern culture and the story only hangs around because the tribalism of sport blinds us to the obvious.

Now to do my part in encouraging that tribalism: if the Patriots win today (which I don't think will happen) and then go on to do the utterly unlikely and beat one of those two NFC teams that look like Patriot Kryptonite, the numbers will look like this: in the 12 seasons Belichick and Brady have been together as a loving couple . . .

67% of the time they went to the AFC Championship
50% of the time they went to the Super Bowl
33% of the time they won the Super Bowl

posted by yerfatma at 09:43 AM on January 19, 2014

New England Patriots: AFC Champions

That may actually be a savvy move by Modell's. Those shirts are getting made either way. By putting them on the rack yesterday, I bet they sold a few already.

posted by bender at 11:05 AM on January 19, 2014

Perhaps we'd get stuck in a tight clinch in which neither of us could land anything with force.

It happens a lot. Just wrestling with some exaggerated arm movements.

Just don't do this.

posted by grum@work at 11:21 AM on January 19, 2014

If the Pats lose, I should probably go get some of those shirts. My U10 soccer teams sometimes train in bare feet to help them to develop touch on the ball and to eliminate toeballing. If I had them playing small sided games in those shirts, a roving photographer from one of the local suburban newspapers would get a shot of that for the front page, and then there would be a bunch of letters to the editor complaining that the community is turning into a third world country.

posted by beaverboard at 01:01 PM on January 19, 2014

"air drop screenprinters"

Haven't the SEALs expanded to include a team for this purpose yet?

No doubt Denver also has shirts printed already, they just haven't been photographed on sale. I'm sure the shirts won't be overblown on ESPN tomorrow if the Pats lose.

Still, if results go in favour of Manning, the picture will go nicely in the scrapbook alongside the Ray Lewis retirement party billboard and the 19-0 Trademark application.

posted by Mr Bismarck at 01:17 PM on January 19, 2014

No doubt Denver also has shirts printed already, they just haven't been photographed on sale.

Right, which is why I found it interesting the shot was from a Modell's in New York City.

posted by yerfatma at 01:07 PM on January 20, 2014

You're not logged in. Please log in or register.