I forgot to mention how excited I am for another home hockey season, which starts on Friday night.

Gettin’ kinda excited to see Wilco tomorrow night. I’ve already talked myself out of bootlegging the show—ironic, given how much I trade in Wilco boots—but I know that my equipment just isn’t up to the task. That, and I want to fully enjoy one Wilco show before I start taping all the ones I hit.

I only want to go where my wheels roll … and Tuesday they carry me to Nashville and then Wednesday on to Hotlanta to see the Bruins play the Thrashers—it’s the only time they come down there this year, and well … I’d go another time if they came, given that this week is busy. [Hey Dougal?! Are you going with me or am I calling in the relief goalie? ]

Now I know I made a mistake, lining up all this travel at once. Ah well. I’m still under 30.

Dear Marvin and Mike:

Cut Odell Thurman. That will say more than any press conference. Cut him, and do it this week.

Thanks,
Geof Morris
Bengals fan since 1987

With the Reds’ loss to San Diego today, I’m officially giving up on the team’s chances. As such, I have performed my ritual deletion of my Baseball Tonight season pass. Rotowire will be enough for me to keep an eye on the little bit of interest I have in baseball [read: my roto team], but even there, my team has faded just like the real guys on the field. I must say, though; this is the latest I’ve ever canned a BBTN Season Pass.

The good news? The Bengals are 1-0 and look pretty good. I’ll have something to tide me over until UAH’s home hockey season starts. [36 days. Yes, I'm twitching in anticipation.]

Here are random thoughts that I had while watching NBC’s new Football Night in America, their Sunday-night highlights-and-commentary show that precedes their Sunday night game:

1. This is a 75-minute show. They went 15 minutes before showing the first highlight. WTF?! The only explanation that I have for it is to avoid showing highlights against the 4:00 p.m. ET starts that sometimes go past three hours. That said, if this is your intention, I as a viewer want to know that. 12 minutes in, I was wondering, “Is this just going to be another damn Bob Costas Olympic-style broadcast?” Then, on the teaser heading to the break, they discussed that they’d go to highlights next. Almost too late for me: however, I’d TiVo’d the thing, so I was ready to bail.
2. The one good thing about the first segment: they did an around-the-league with their on-site reporters bringing you the top news. It had just enough football to keep you mildly interested.
3. The group seemed relaxed and together, but almost too much so for a first show. Any show like this—especially one where the cast sits on leather chairs out from behind desks and essentially is inviting you into their living room—needs to develop its camraderie slowly. This felt like walking into a locker room full of veteran players: intimidating, awkward, and a little off-putting. I’m not asking for stilted, but I am asking for slow development.
4. Sterling Sharpe’s honed repartee didn’t fit in so well with Cris Collinsworth and Jerome Bettis as it did with Steve Young, Tom Jackson, and Michael Irvin. In fact, I felt at times like Sharpe was expecting Costas to pull a Chris Berman on him, which … say what you will about Costas, but he doesn’t have the big man bombast that Berman has. [That's mostly a good thing.] Costas, the professional TV guy, is purely there to guide the broadcast and keep things going.
5. That said, do we really even need Costas? Collinsworth is such a polished TV guy that you could probably get him to play the gig pretty straight and have him lead the coverage. Now, I’m not one of these guys that says that I want only players doing commentary—I think outsiders can pick up on things that players don’t—but … when I think Costas, I think baseball and Olympics.

If you’ve read all that and feel that I’m disappointed in the offering, you’d be right. Even the highlights were just … mediocre. I preferred what NFL Primetime brought to the game: the fast-paced music, the feeling of drama, etc. ESPN had all the cues in the broadcast—done on the fly by people who were just that good—that let you know to start paying attention again if you’d been distracted by something else going on in the room. I never got that feeling with Football Night in America; it never really drew me back in.

I’m going to sample ESPN’s Monday night offering and see which I like; I’m fine with waiting a day for a pre-packaged highlight show. Frankly, I’m curious to see how stunning ESPN can make theirs with a day to do film work and cutdowns on timing.

Wow.

Great Physician Dies: In May, Lee Jong-wook died at the age of 61. He passed away a few hours after suffering a stroke, then undergoing emergency surgery that failed to remove a blood clot from his brain. Who was Lee Jong-wook? One of the world’s leading physicians — an expert on tuberculosis pathology and, on the day of his death, director general of the World Health Organization. Where did he die? At Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland, one of top health care institutions of any nation. So the head of the World Health Organization died young after receiving the best possible care. Memento mori: in Latin, “Remember that you too will die.” The knock on your life’s door could come at any hour. If it comes today, will your heart be ready?

A $54,000 Per Night Hotel Room Costs the Same as the U.S. Median Family Income for a Year: Ian O’Connor of USA Today recently praised golfer Phil Mickelson as generous to the poor, writing, “[Mickelson] pulls over to the curb, with no cameras or notebooks in sight, and hands hundred-dollar bills to homeless men.” Hmmm — if no one with a camera or notebook was present, how does USA Today know this happened? For its part the Wall Street Journal recently reported Mickelson paid $3.4 million for a nine-week penthouse timeshare at Saint Andrews Grand in Scotland, an ultra-lux condo overlooking the Old Course at Saint Andrews, frequent site of the British Open. The price works out to $54,000 per night, making this perhaps the most expensive hotel room in human history. Phil Mickelson — do you really believe that in a world where the impoverished of Africa die for want of a dollar a day, you are justified in spending $54,000 per night to make yourself feel important? “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation,” Jesus taught.

It’s refreshing and a little shocking to see Gregg Easterbrook being so open in his first column back on ESPN.com. [I guess a little mis-perceived anti-Semitism is okay when Mike Eisner is gone, eh?]

This story about what major league baseball players pack in their suitcase has to be one of the stranger things I’ve read in a major media outlet.

Shawn Green brings his own soap on every road trip. Mike Cameron never forgets his lavender linen spray and orange-scented spray for the room. Ichiro Suzuki depends on an electric massager that takes up nearly half his suitcase.

And then there’s Detroit closer Todd Jones, who wears only one pair of underwear when the Tigers leave town.

“I don’t pack any underwear,” he said. “I wear it into the park, it gets washed every day and I wear it out of the park. I guess that’s weird. I’m not proud of it, but I’m cutting down on space.”

If Jones was proud of it, I bet he’s not now!

The Bengals’ signing of Johnathan Joseph to a deal before training camp starts tonight should help take the spotlight off of all the Bengals’ off-field indiscretions. I’m glad that the Bengals’ training camp opens tonight: it means that players are less likely to get arrested.

I expect the Bengals to take a step back in 2006, record-wise. They’ll consolidate their gains in 2007, I think. This year will be a test of their mettle.

Bowden heists two everyday Reds for pair of relievers, bag of balls, and the rotting corpse of Royce Clayton.

Wayne Krivsky gets a contract extension, and then he pulls this shit?! [And yes, Alex, you know that I'm far more pissed off about Lopez than I am Kearns. We've talked about their relative merits, and you know that I think Lopez is the next Barry Larkin.]

When I first awoke this morning—after under three hours’ sleep—my lizard brain had one thing on its mind: Game Seven. Would it be on NBC? Indeed, it will be.

The NHL TV deal—taking the guaranteed money from OLN over the partnership with ESPN—has been a debacle from my end of things. I love hockey, and I watched less than five regular season games before dumping my digital cable [and my only access to OLN with my cable provider]; I’ve only seen one postseason game, and that was only because I was in Carolina for Game One, where the venue that hosted the concert I was attending happened to have the game on in their bar. I could just see the screen from where I sat, so my head was definitely on a swivel. Compare this to past years, when I have pretty much spent any idle TV time in the summer with whatever playoff game has been on ESPN—after all, it might be a Steve Levy game, which means it’ll go to eleven [overtimes].

My fear was that Game Seven—the very win-or-die, mano y mano kind of contest that drew me into hockey in the first place—would be stuck on a crappy cable channel that almost no one watches. [The aforementioned Game One was outdrawn by women's college softball playoffs on ESPN, after all.] Instead, the game will be broadcast in all its glory for almost all the country to see. Sure, maybe they don’t give a damn about hockey, or maybe they don’t understand the sport … but the opportunity to see this brutally beautiful game is all I can ask for as a fan of hockey.

GO CANES!

I wrote this up on Section23.org, but I’m so excited I’ll post it here: UAH has their first NHL player, Scott Munroe!

From Alabama to the Flyers

Rather than call up veteran NHLer Jamie Storr from their Phantoms farm team as their emergency third goalie, the Flyers tapped unheralded rookie Scott Munroe.

Munroe, who played four years for the Division II University of Alabama-Huntsville, signed an amateur tryout contract and played a couple games for the Phantoms.

Even though the odds of him playing for the Flyers are quite slim, this is still a dream come true for the 24-year-old.

“Our early assessment is he has some ability,’’ Phantoms coach John Stevens said. “Any guy who’s big and moves well in the net, we can work with.’’

Munroe, a native of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, said he’s a little intimidated dressing in the same room as Peter Forsberg and Keith Primeau.

“A month ago I’m in Alabama and now I’m here, it’s been kind of a whirlwind,’’ Munroe said. “I’ve only played two AHL games so it’s an honor. I didn’t think I would get here from there. I’m playing with guys I grew up watching and I’m in a little bit of awe.’’

– PhillyBurbs.com

Mike and I were privileged to call both his first and last games as a Charger. Scott is as nice of a guy as he is a good goaltender, and I’m so proud of him, I can’t stand it. WAY TO GO, 29!

As I’m heading out of town in, oh … six hours … I figured I needed to set up VNC between the mini and the iBook. Anyone who’s spent a few minutes at this definitely knows the score, but man … OSXvnc was drop-dead simple to set up as a server, and Chicken of the VNC was a simple solution for the client. Add a little port-forwarding action with the router and … voilà! Between this and the fact that I do most of my work server-side, I can go off to Detroit and not miss a beat.

My only problem now is that I need to wind down enough to get three or four hours’ sleep. Tomorrow’s a long day—drive 10.5 hrs, check into the hotel, then make it to Ford Field, cover the CHA awards ceremony, then go collapse back at the hotel to rest up for the games.

WOOHOO! I may not be able to sleep at all.

Tag team, back again:

For the fifth consecutive year, Eyecentric Media will team up with the University of Alabama in Huntsville to broadcast the Chargers action from the College Hockey America Conference Tournament in Detroit, Michigan.

Fans can log on to www.eyecentric.com and, after providing registration information, listen to exciting Chargers hockey free of charge.

Mike Anderson will provide the play-by-play commentary, while Geof Morris will handle the color commentary.

I’ve missed hearing that redheaded joker in my headset. I’ve missed trading wordless looks with him as the puck comes off the ice. I’ve missed being one of the Voices of the Chargers.

My buddy Doug Eagan and I roll out of Madison before dawn on Thursday. My new iBook will be with me, so there’ll be updates from the road.

I can’t wait.

DSCN3246

Originally uploaded by jholland444.

I had a bunch of friends in town for the weekend. The plan was to get together, hang out, and catch a couple UAH hockey games. Well, the plan went by the wayside as soon as Mike’s wife started having heart problems last week—by the way, she’s been home for a few days, and she’s doing well —as UAH’s normal Public Address announcer had some outstanding committments.

Enter me, your ever-crazy correspondent, always willing to stick a microphone in his face and make a complete ass of himself. I had one HELL of a fun time working those two games. I would be happy to fill in as needed in the future.

In other news, Mike and I will be back together—after almost three years!—broadcasting from the CHA tournament in Detroit next weekend. I can’t wait!

Joe Clark wrote an excellent essay on how it’s silly that sportswriters seem to push obviously homosexual athletes into the closet, playing the don’t-ask, don’t-tell game:

Straight sports reporters telling everybody to keep quiet about gays in sports is the problem. These are mostly guys; even the leading Canadian women in sportswriting, of the Rosie DiManno/Crusty Blatchford ilk, are flat-out male apologists. Sportswriter guys are, on the whole, dumpy or aging and look with great fondness at the physical capabilities and the actual bodies of the male athletes they cover.

When sportswriters talk about the fact that the locker room culture makes it awfully difficult for an athlete to be open about his sexual orientation—which is to say, to publicly admit that he’s homosexual and not part of the mainstream macho stereotype, which is overtly [and sometimes borderline predatory] heterosexual—they are, in fact, highlighting a cultural problem that they themselves buttress. Consider all of Joe’s examples, then add the salacious reporting of marital infidelity and sexual misconduct allegations—Kobe Bryant, Shawn Kemp, Isiah Thomas, et al—and realize that all this reporting simply amplifies the false expectation that all our athletes are heterosexual.

Of course, then there’s the whole Out magazine controversy from a few years ago that had everyone speculating as to Mike Piazza’s orientation.

Now, some of my friends argue that this doesn’t matter, and they look at me disdainfully when I broach the subject. But I think Joe nails it here:

Sexual behaviour can be private but sexual orientation isn’t and can’t. If you think that’s too broad, apply it solely to public figures, which Olympic athletes surely are. In the 21st century, they don’t get to hide in the closet or be coy. What you call outing we call reporting. When do journalists report that straight athletes are straight? All the time.

In an era where athletes are celebrities, subject to all the privacy invasions that celebrity brings, it’s interesting to note how the coverage of the celebrity nature reinforce the very stereotypes that the more editorially-minded commentators among us seem willing to decry. It’s frustrating to me, since we’re just delaying the inevitable … I’m ready for this to just not be a problem anymore.