I was just sitting down reading a story from a web-site yesterday only to find that there was somone in Ohio who wanted to ban all star games. Normally I don't react to what somone is saying, but this really bugged the hell out of me.
Here is the link to the article if anyone wants to see for themselves. In this article he is talking about kids younger than 10 years old.
If you dont have time to read it, let me give you the coles notes version. Bascially what is being said is that the writer of the letter wants to ban the all-star game because it shatters a person self-confidence and can bruise the kids ego.
Then he compares it to school and says that if a kid is learning numbers and letters quicker, do we call then "special" or "gifted". Then he compared the all-star game to taking a vegetarian to a fancy steakhouse and or a person on a strick diet to a buffet.
Next he says all these games do is reward the kids who have developed quicker, then he got rediculous and said that all-star games with children at a young age can lead to injuries with extra games and practices. I'll use a direct quote and he says "They take a toll on young bodies and lead to an avalanche of overuse injuries."
Then he goes on from there talking about how you should take a stand and help in the fight to ban all-star games in general, or something along those lines.
I don't know what to say after something like this. This was written by the guy who wanted the great institution of the "Participant" trophy installed at every youth sports league in North America. Whenever someone wants their child not to feel upset by belittleing other accomplishment bugs me to no end.
This letter was probably written by a parent who thinks their son or daughter when they are signed up for sports is going on to better things even though they can't tie their own shoes yet. Then when their child got passed over for an all-star team, they are just so upset and they use the old addage of if I can't have it no one can.
Then he proceeds to damage his stance on the issue further saying that it can lead to a bruised ego when a child is passed over for an all-star team. If your kids who is younger than 10 years old knows what an all-star team is unless he is watching the peofessionals, you have missed the point. A 10 year old isn't going to be drafted tomorrow so whether or not he makes an all-star team should be irrelevant.
Next we have the overuse injuries comment. You know what else provides overuse injuries to kids, playing video games for hours on end and eating bag after bag after bag of chips. That also adds to the kids being severely overweight and less interested in sports.
At least when kids are playing sports like baseball, basketball and football, they have a goal to strive for in being a great player, who is better -yes some kids are going to be better and it is not based solely on whether or not they have developed some are more skilled than others- than other players on their team.
Why should somones accomplishments be torn down to make other feel better about themselves?
I say that all-star teams are great because the ones who are passed over will try harder and they will try to become a better player. Being dissappointed builds character in a person and isn't that more important in raising a productive member of society. When kids get dissappointed at a young age, they learn how to persevere and get beyond road blocks.
If you don't teach a kid dissappointment at a young age what is going to happen when s/he hits middle age and goes off sulking when he didn't get a big account at the law firm s/he may work at. It motivates them to become better at what they are doing and gets them working harder to achieve that goal.
Nobody celebrates mediocraty and by banning the all-star game, that is exactly what you are doing. You saying that everyone is equal, which in many cases, like sports and life, they are not. If you say to a kid that everyone gets a trophy for participating, the kid will be conditioned to think that way their entire life.
Listen to a lot of recruiting stories for big college programs. Not everyone can go to USC, so when teams play USC, there is a little extra motivation to try and beat them to show them what the missed. Ian Johnson, runningback at Boise State was passed over at UCLA, and has gone on to become one of the best runningbacks in college football. What may have motivated him to this level, somone telling him he was not good enough. Johnson was passed over on an all-star team and went on to great things in spite of his situation.
If you remove the all-star game you will be a lot more harm than good, by raising a nation of soft people, like the ones on American Idol who think they are excellent even though they are probably the worst on the planet, everyones great accomplishments will be downgraded and belittled to make everyone appear equal. No one is equal or we would all be playing professionally.
I learned this concept when I was playing minor hockey and was passed over for an all-star team. It motivated me to become a better player and then I kept moving up in levels. When I got to my highgest level that gave me an incredible sense of accomplishment and I felt good about my self.
If there was no all-star game, maybe I wouldn't have gotten as high up as I did. An All-Star game made me a better person, and I wasn't even apart of the game. The team I was passed over for gave me motivation to get better, it taught me to peresevere and be a driven person and to work hard for everything I got.
By removing the All-Star game and start giving trophys to everyone, you create a culture of entitlement and then when somone doesn't receive a "good job" or an "atta boy" thats when it hurts the kids development.
When these people realize that they are hurting the kids rather than helping them, we will get a better kids and better professionals, because somone didn't say to them, "Congratulations Participant"
With the NHL Draft taking place in Ottawa this weekend, every hockey fan is wondering who is their team going to pick, what trade day deals are going to happen and how is their teams chances at the Cup going to look after the weekends completes.
Being the good person that I am I thought I would shine some light on a few things.
Steven Stamkos will be the first overall pick, no questions asked. I think that Tampa Bay's problems are not concerned with offence and they should be focusing on defense, but a prospect like Stamkos only comes along every so often.
Watching Stamkos at the World Junior Championships this past Christmas was a treat because I finally got to see what eveyone was talking about how good this kid is. He will be an instant impact player in the NHL and will slide right into the Lightning line-up replacing the departed Brad Richards. Their powerplay will be incredibly good with Lecavalier, St. Louis and Stamkos.
Teams are going to shy away from taking European players who are signed with club teams and playing professionally in Europe because of the disintegration of the IIHF Transfer agreement between the NHL and all other professionaly leagues around the world.
Players like Nikita Filatov who is projected to be the Number 5 overall pick according to TSN, will get passed over simply for the degree of difficulty of getting players away from their European team without being caught in a legal battle like Evgeni Malkin was when he left Russia for the Penguins.
In the NHL, especially with the Draft, you can't expect to be good overnight unless you get a prospect that is a 100% can't miss like Stamkos. Most of the time when you get a player who is 18 years old, he takes time to develop physically, when the player is a lot smaller than his future NHL colleagues.
The mental aspect is not that big a deal because the players in the CHL are used to playing a ton of games, including three games in as many nights. Also, in the CHL they play with the rules they are going to play with in the NHL which is another reason that the turnover is going to be a lot faster than a sport like baseball and or to a lesser extent football.
A draft in any sport-except baseball-is always exciting and the upcoming NHL one will be no exception.
Finally the NHL caught a break with the American public. They have the Finals they wanted, their most marketable star playing one of the most storied franchises in the games history. All they have to do is schedule the games.
How come the NHL manages to screw everything up?
They have their dream final, they have a perfect matchup to sell as the new game. They can use this awesome final to make their triumphant return to becoming one of the four major sports again.
But they still manage to to fan on the tap-in goal.
When thier final conference championship ends on Monday, when would the next logical tiem to schedule a game. Wednesday? Thursday? Maybe even Friday?
But No, they choose to begin their Championship round on Saturday night on Memorial Day Weekend.
What person would choose a weekend of hard partying and a lot of drinking for a night with a television and Hockey in 30 or 90 degree weather?
Some people I have talked to say that they are marketing to the Canadian audience that is already in love with the game. They are trying to sell the game to the purists is another thing someone said.
But Mr. Bettman has made it clear that he wants to sell the game to the average American guy or girl, but he continues to make poor decision after poor decision. First he leaves ESPN for the new network NBC, where I have heard they make next to nothing from that television deal. Now start the best thing that has happened to the league on Saturday night at 8 PM.
The finals should have been started on Thursday at the latest to give the best option of going up against the competition of the NBA conference finals or the fact that most baseball games will be held in the afternoon.
Why not strike when the iron is hot and shove your product to their throats? But instead theu choose to go after an audience they already have.
Another bad move by the game that I want to see succeed and that has squandered every opportunity to make themselves relevant.
The decision for the outdoor games and ones to come are excellent but they have just wiffed on too many other ideas. I would love to see them move back into one of the four major sports in North America, but they aren't helping themselves with decisions like this.
Now to pick the cup finals: Detroit may be an excellent team with experience but I think that the Penguins have to much talent to get beat by an older and experienced team. I will take talent of experience any day of the week. The Pittsburgh Penguins win the series in 6 games
I didn't get to see the Rangers vs Devils game on Sunday, but watching the highlights Monday morning I saw Sean Avery set a screen on Martin Brodeur, he was using his stick as a little bit of an extra screen.
All I heard from different analysts was that what Avery was doing was not illegal, but it was not "kosher" and that is was unsportsmanlike. I have seen a bunch of different highlights of this and I have found nothing wrong with what Avery is doing. Avery is being a pest to goalies, that is waht he gets paid to do.
Aside from the analysts saying that Avery was wrong, it is mostly goalies who are poo pooing his actions. Dallas goalie Marty Turco was one to say that what Avery did was wrong.
I like Turco, but he is not the most objective source to go for to an opinion on an issue like this. All goalies look out for other goalies. If every goalie had a say on what was allowed in front of them, they would want to make setting screens illegal.
Avery was just trying to level the playing field between he and Brodeur. He was trying to make it more difficult for Brodeur to make a stop. He was trying to heklp his team win the game.
I notice that when I see the talking heads on TSN and Sportsnet saying that Avery was unsportsmanlike, they look over the nice shot to the groin that Brodeur and most goalies give to the players setting the screens. Nobody came to Avery's defense and said that Brodeur was wrong.
Maybe they say that Avery was wrong because there has been some questionable decisions made in the past. This is sort of the same talk I heard when Chris Simon stomped on Ruutu's leg, and one analyst said that "It's Ruutu!"
Nobody likes the pest. Everyone will stick up for the guy who is being bothered by the pest. Everyone is going to protect the stars like Brodeur and crucify guys like Avery.
If it was another player like Darcy Tucker, people would be calling him an innovator, saying why don't more players use their sticks like that.
Take your opinion of Avery out of the equation, then look at the highlight again. Then make your decision and see what's wrong.
With the Ottawa Senators chances of missing the playoffs reaching an all time high this year, I think for a good laugh, lets look at theirs and some other epic collapses in all of pro sports.
2007-2008 Ottawa Senators After starting the season with a 13-1 record, and looking like a shoein to make the Stanley Cup finals, and maybe win the entire thing. But then the Sens ate some bad fish when out on a road trip and started choking. The Sens have been on a nose dive ever since the All-Star break, and they may not have a chance to pull out before they hit the ground.
2007 New York Mets With a 7 game lead, with less than a month to go in the season, the Mets were playing with their family cat and swallowed a fur ball and began to choke. With as good as the Mets were last year, they still couldn't close the deal. Not only did they lose the division to the Phillies, they missed the playoffs all together.
2006 Boston Red Sox What happened? Two years off of winning their first World Series in 86 years, all I remember from this season is what is known as the Boston Massacre. The Red Sox had a lead in the division, then came August 18. The Sox had a four game scheduled series with the Yankees, that turned into five game series because of a rain out. The Yankees went on to lose all five games to the Yankees and then lose the division, and finish in third place. The Yankees are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.
1978 Boston Red Sox The original Boston Massacre. most Red Sox fans will remember this for Bucky Dent. With a 14 and a half game lead on July 19, the Red Sox proceeded to break their fans hearts when the coughed up seventeen games losing the division by 3 and a half games. Yankees outfielder, Reggie Jackson said after the season, "We played great, but we didn't win it. They lost it. If they'd played .500 the last half of the season, we'd never have caught them".
1978 Washington Redskins The beginning of the season looked promising with 6 straight wins. But then the the 'Skins had a drink go down the wrong tube, choked and finished 8-8, with 5 straight loses.
1942 Detroit Red Wings The original team to lose a seven game series after leading 3-0. While leading in the deciding game in the Stanley Cup finals, 1-0, they lost the game in 10 miniutes by letting the Toronto Maple Leafs socre three unanswered goals.
Jean Van de Velde, 1999 British Open Who could forget Jean Van de Velde hitting the ball into the water at Carnoustie in 1999. Then after rinsing his ball, Van de Velde decided to get a little wet himself. Van de Velde turned his golf pants into flood pants and waded into the creek and proceeded to attempt the heimlich maneuver. He was unsuccessful.
Greg Norman, 1996 Masters Bogey. Bogey. Bogey. Double bogey. That sounds like a guy at your local dog track executive course, not a professional at Augusta. This was the greatest choke job in golf history, until a monsieur Van de Velde got wet at Carnoustie.
But here is the gold medalist...........
2004 New York Yankees This one is pretty simple because it made history that had not been made in 86 years. After the Yankees took a 3 game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, the Sawx "kept the faith" and fought back in three great games to only destroy Yankees in the final game. Then the Sawx lucked out in the World Series to let Bill Buckner rest easy.
With the happenings of the past weekend during a playoff game in the Quebec Major Juniour hockey league involving former NHL goalie great Patrick Roy, Hockey has taken another black eye that it didn't deserve.
Jonathan Roy, Goalie of the QMJHL Quebec Remparts can be seen on many sports casts and your local computer during a playoff game being held back by the referees while trying to start a fight with the goalie of the Chicoutimi Sauguneens.
After the referee holding Roy back left to attend to another matter, Patrick Roy can been seen in two different camera shots waving for his son to go to the other end of the ice. I have no idea what Patrick was saying nor am I going to speculate as to what was said, but he should have made more of an effort to control the conduct of his team, let alone his own son.
Then Jonathan Roy skated the length of the ice and began to assault, and that is the only way to describe it, the opposing goalie then proceeded tell the crowd that they were number 1, then begin another fight with a player, I said to myself, "this is going to be an ugly suspension". That is not what happened.
Then we get a little 7 game suspension for the son and 5 games for papa, I felt that the ball had been dropped like it so often is in Hockey from the NHL on down to junior.
Then watching two shows on the Tuesday following the incident, ESPN's "Around the Horn" and "Pardon The Interuption" and hearing the LA Times columnist Bill Plascke and Miami Herald Columnist Dan Le Batard say that this is part of the game.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?
Le Batard continued and said that hockey is a brutal game. Does anyone every say that football is a brutal game?
When did battery become woven into the fabric o####ame that I love and still play? We see incidents like this happen every year in hockey, but does anyone try and put a stop to it, No. Everyone now sees hockey as a brutal game and one full of thugs. From the Bertuzzi incident to this one. Seven games is an absolute joke for what Roy did.
I have heard people say that it is a playoff game and that playoff games are more vauable than regular season games. So I say if the games or more valuable, make the punishment fit the crime. Deterents have been sorely missed in the NHL and hockey in general, but incidents like this where they can throw the book at someone, they toss a pillow.
If Roy had done this on the street he would be on trial for battery. But because he is playing hockey and you have opinions like those of Le Batard and Plascke, people always get a pass.
With an opportunity to send a message to players in all of hockey, hockey did not do anything. That means that everyone has accepted this as part of the game and they have done the game a disservice.
It is a shame that no one feels the need to fix this part of the game.
