I should preface this blog by admitting I'm watching Coming To America with Eddie Murphy for the 3000th time.
"Give it up for Randy Watson...Sexual Chocolate...Randy Watson everybody"
"Damn that boy Good"
I don't know why, but that joke and this movie never gets old to me.
You know what else never gets old....my favorite hockey team winning the Stanley Cup.
We should first discuss the origin of why this is my favorite team. You see all of my other favorite teams: Colts, Pacers, Butler University....are easy to understand. I grew up in Indy so I'm true to my roots....and I'm true to my school...98 graduate Butler.
But I am a Red Wings fan based soley on the fact that they were my favorite team to play with on Sega Genesis hockey. No doubt my efforts in those days made me a first ballot hall of fame player in the pantheon that was my friend Mike McCall's basement.
There were times when I strayed from the Wings because the McCall boys were fervent Wings fans and it gave me great pleasure to upend their dreams with a little guy I call Alexander Mogilny and the Buffalo Sabres.
Mogilny in my opinion was the best overall player...99 rating...super fast skater and the master of pointing the stick one way and pulling it back to the other side for the shot and the score.
However, his team was not nearly as good overall and it was difficult to upend those Wings. Yzerman, Fedorov, Constantinov, a bunch of other OV's, Marty LaPoint, and yes Bobby Probert arguably top 5 greatest fighters of all time with hockey skills. You know how many hours of my life were wasted in McCall's basement? Zero.
They used to let me watch their dog and they'd come home from vacation and I'd still be sitting their honing my skills and eating their food...drinking their amazing selection of soda: Welch's grape, Sunkist orange, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Fanta cream soda. Ok, the last one I just made up but you get the point.
"what you got in that hair?"
"It's juices and berries."
"Shi. that ain't nothing but ultra perm"
Sorry I'll promise to pay more attention to this column.
But in all seriousness, is there a more appropriate nickname in sports than people referring to Detroit as Hockeytown USA? The Red Wings clinched its 4th Stanley Cup in the past 11 years last night with a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Only a quarter of the roster has been there for all of them. After Scotty Bowman left they did an awesome job of bringing in Mike Babcock fresh off success in Anaheim and Babcock has kept the mojo going full steam in Hockeytown.
The days of the Russian 5 are gone...but new players and stories have emerged like Brian Rafalski and little known Dan Cleary. Cleary came from obscurity and emerged into a viable player this year for the Wings and it culminated with him becoming the first Newfoundlander to win a cup.
Yzerman and Federov both great scorers and two way players are gone... but enter Datsyuk, Franzen, and Zetterberg. How sweet is it for Captain Nic Lidstrom who has been through the entire process of forging hockey's most current dynasty.
"It's something I'm very proud of. I've been over here for a long time," Lidstrom said. "And I watched Steve Yzerman hoist it for three times in the past, and I'm very proud of being the first European. I'm very proud of being a captain of the Red Wings. So much history with the team and great tradition, and we see some of the older players coming through. So I'm very proud to be the captain."
A goal in the final 30 seconds forces game 6....and in the closing seconds of last night's clincher the puck was inches away from forcing a game 7. It was the highest rated NHL finals in a decade....good news as the sport tries to make its way back past poker on the totem pole of sports relevancy.
Alright switching pucks and sticks for leather and hardwood now. This is as excited about an NBA finals as I've been except for when my Pacers made it in to play the Lakers. When I think of what Lakers vs. Celtics means...it means are you a type A personality or are you type B?
Let me explain....I was a Lakers fan. I liked SHOWTIME. I liked the way Magic got the team up and down the court with flash. I liked watching James Worthy and Byron Scott dunking. I liked the drive and kick to Coop for 3.
My dad was more of a Celtics fan. He didn't care for Magic making the simple pass look fancy. He liked the hard hat approach of Bird, McHale, and Parrish. The Celtics didn't have the Lakers athletiscm so they passed it around side to side getting the d moving and then attacked when it wasn't in position. Boston played a much more cerebral game. That's not to say the Lakers didn't but they just had more natural talent and quickness. Boston was probably a little better overall shooting team.
These matchups were so awesome I'd take it immediately to the backyard and pretend to be all the players. I would even emmulate shooting styles and patented moves. Like my Mchale turnaround off glass 13 feet off the left block shot. Why 13feet you ask.... because that's where the cement ended and the pine tree began. Nothing was better though than the 20 footer straight out pretending to be Byron Scott, my favorite NBA player before Reggie Miller.
I guess the point of all this crap is these teams are the NBA. All my learning and falling in love with what this league is about is because of these matchups. These games were so big and so entertaining that I would take our family's Sony Watchman to the lake on boating day. You couldn't see the screen on a sunny day so I'd climb into the bow where the spare cushions went and watch the game from in there....that's where I was when Magic hit the baby hook on McHale.
Tonight....the NBA's two best teams will play and create new memories...and entice a new generation of fans. I'm still cheering for the Lakers...they get er done in 6.
"Give it up for Randy Watson...Sexual Chocolate...Randy Watson everybody"
"Damn that boy Good"
I don't know why, but that joke and this movie never gets old to me.
You know what else never gets old....my favorite hockey team winning the Stanley Cup.
We should first discuss the origin of why this is my favorite team. You see all of my other favorite teams: Colts, Pacers, Butler University....are easy to understand. I grew up in Indy so I'm true to my roots....and I'm true to my school...98 graduate Butler.
But I am a Red Wings fan based soley on the fact that they were my favorite team to play with on Sega Genesis hockey. No doubt my efforts in those days made me a first ballot hall of fame player in the pantheon that was my friend Mike McCall's basement.
There were times when I strayed from the Wings because the McCall boys were fervent Wings fans and it gave me great pleasure to upend their dreams with a little guy I call Alexander Mogilny and the Buffalo Sabres.
Mogilny in my opinion was the best overall player...99 rating...super fast skater and the master of pointing the stick one way and pulling it back to the other side for the shot and the score.
However, his team was not nearly as good overall and it was difficult to upend those Wings. Yzerman, Fedorov, Constantinov, a bunch of other OV's, Marty LaPoint, and yes Bobby Probert arguably top 5 greatest fighters of all time with hockey skills. You know how many hours of my life were wasted in McCall's basement? Zero.
They used to let me watch their dog and they'd come home from vacation and I'd still be sitting their honing my skills and eating their food...drinking their amazing selection of soda: Welch's grape, Sunkist orange, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Fanta cream soda. Ok, the last one I just made up but you get the point.
"what you got in that hair?"
"It's juices and berries."
"Shi. that ain't nothing but ultra perm"
Sorry I'll promise to pay more attention to this column.
But in all seriousness, is there a more appropriate nickname in sports than people referring to Detroit as Hockeytown USA? The Red Wings clinched its 4th Stanley Cup in the past 11 years last night with a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Only a quarter of the roster has been there for all of them. After Scotty Bowman left they did an awesome job of bringing in Mike Babcock fresh off success in Anaheim and Babcock has kept the mojo going full steam in Hockeytown.
The days of the Russian 5 are gone...but new players and stories have emerged like Brian Rafalski and little known Dan Cleary. Cleary came from obscurity and emerged into a viable player this year for the Wings and it culminated with him becoming the first Newfoundlander to win a cup.
Yzerman and Federov both great scorers and two way players are gone... but enter Datsyuk, Franzen, and Zetterberg. How sweet is it for Captain Nic Lidstrom who has been through the entire process of forging hockey's most current dynasty.
"It's something I'm very proud of. I've been over here for a long time," Lidstrom said. "And I watched Steve Yzerman hoist it for three times in the past, and I'm very proud of being the first European. I'm very proud of being a captain of the Red Wings. So much history with the team and great tradition, and we see some of the older players coming through. So I'm very proud to be the captain."
A goal in the final 30 seconds forces game 6....and in the closing seconds of last night's clincher the puck was inches away from forcing a game 7. It was the highest rated NHL finals in a decade....good news as the sport tries to make its way back past poker on the totem pole of sports relevancy.
Alright switching pucks and sticks for leather and hardwood now. This is as excited about an NBA finals as I've been except for when my Pacers made it in to play the Lakers. When I think of what Lakers vs. Celtics means...it means are you a type A personality or are you type B?
Let me explain....I was a Lakers fan. I liked SHOWTIME. I liked the way Magic got the team up and down the court with flash. I liked watching James Worthy and Byron Scott dunking. I liked the drive and kick to Coop for 3.
My dad was more of a Celtics fan. He didn't care for Magic making the simple pass look fancy. He liked the hard hat approach of Bird, McHale, and Parrish. The Celtics didn't have the Lakers athletiscm so they passed it around side to side getting the d moving and then attacked when it wasn't in position. Boston played a much more cerebral game. That's not to say the Lakers didn't but they just had more natural talent and quickness. Boston was probably a little better overall shooting team.
These matchups were so awesome I'd take it immediately to the backyard and pretend to be all the players. I would even emmulate shooting styles and patented moves. Like my Mchale turnaround off glass 13 feet off the left block shot. Why 13feet you ask.... because that's where the cement ended and the pine tree began. Nothing was better though than the 20 footer straight out pretending to be Byron Scott, my favorite NBA player before Reggie Miller.
I guess the point of all this crap is these teams are the NBA. All my learning and falling in love with what this league is about is because of these matchups. These games were so big and so entertaining that I would take our family's Sony Watchman to the lake on boating day. You couldn't see the screen on a sunny day so I'd climb into the bow where the spare cushions went and watch the game from in there....that's where I was when Magic hit the baby hook on McHale.
Tonight....the NBA's two best teams will play and create new memories...and entice a new generation of fans. I'm still cheering for the Lakers...they get er done in 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment