KOBE, MJ, and TWITTER: A Weird Mix

Outside of the United Center where Michael Jordan is permanently
dunking over people.
(photo courtesy of Ed Mancia)

Felipe M

We asked our sports' panel about live tweeting.  Here are their thoughts.

Kobe Bryant was live-tweeting his 81-point performance which was re-aired last week on NBA TV. Which sports’ figure, past or present, would you like to see live tweet their paramount, career event?

Here’s what the panel wrote:

• “Keeping it current, I would love to have Raul Ibanez live tweet his game tying HR & Walk-off HR against the Baltimore Orioles in the 2012 ALDS.”—C. McLain
• “Marshawn Lynch—“Beast Mode” against the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs.”—Dan P
• “Araon Rodgers’ 2010 Super Bowl run.”—Johnny J
• “I would love to have seen Michael Jordan live tweeting about the D.C. Wizards at MSG vs the New York Knicks on March 9 2003. A 39 year-old Jordan scored 39 points in 43 minutes of action.  The Wiz were battling for a playoff spot in Jordan's final year. He out-played the combined effort of everyone in that game.  I watched this game while it was happening on NBC, MJ wanted to win the game so bad, but Latrell Spreewell & the Knicks ended up winning.  The most impressive effort I have watched during a basketball game.”—Donny R

Very interesting choices and Dan's choice is one of the funniest videos out there.  Is it racist?  That's for Daniel Tosh to decide.  

I had a hard time coming up with one event I would have liked to have seen be live-tweeted.  So I will share five instead:

• Michael Jordan playing with the flu at Utah in the NBA Finals.
• Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout game.
• Peyton Manning and Ray Lewis playing a game of chess… or at least live-tweeting the last game they will every play against each other. 
• Patrick Kane live-tweeting the game-winning goal to clinch the Stanley Cup Championship for the Chicago Blackhawks.  Also, live-tweeting how he celebrated afterwards would be just as, if not more, interesting.
• And staying in the NHL, the greatest hockey game I have ever watched was on March 26, 1997 between the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings.  Not a fan of the goonery, but one can’t deny the raw emotion and the venom that was spewed throughout this hockey game.  Just figuring out who would be best qualified to do a live-tweet is proving to be difficult.  Do we go with the captains, Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman? Or do we ask guys like Kris Draper  and/or Darren McCarty to give us their take while countering with Claude Lemieux for the Avalanche?  How about the goalies, Patrick Roy and Mike Vernon who most likely had the best, on-ice view of the whole scene before they got involved with the fighting?  What about the coaches?  So many potential candidates.   

Speaking of Kobe, the Los Angeles Lakers, fan or hater question: how happy/mad are you about their season so far?

The Lakers are so bad, that even "die-hard" superfan,
Jack Nicholson is leaving games early and getting
ready for baseball.
(Source: Mike McCann, Field of Fotos)

No one has gotten more glee out of the Lakers’ struggles this season than me.  I’m a Laker-hater and thinking about them literally makes my blood boil.  Yes, Kobe Bryant has back-to-back games of 14 assists, but with all that talent, it is an absolute joke that they’re not living up to the hype.  With that being said, let’s see what everybody else thinks of the Lake Show this season.

“I’m mad!  I wanted to see some competitiveness in the playoffs. It won't be as intense if Kobe's not in it.”—Johnny J

I think these playoffs will be more competitive than ever.  It is almost near unpredictable to forecast what will happen tomorrow in the NBA, let alone what will happen in the playoffs.  One thing is for sure, however, and that is that come playoff time, the stakes are raised a bit higher and the games get more intense.  Besides, there’s plenty of storylines in the NBA outside of Kobe and the Lakers.  The playoffs will be fine.

• “They were purple and bold, but now about to fold--in 2013.”-- Dan P
• “Hater and happy because, like in actual chemistry, when you mix elements that don’t sit well with each other, the whole experiment explodes.”-- C. McLain
• “If I cared any less, it'd still be too much.”-- Donny R

So the panel was harsh on the Lakers and rightfully so.  It was reported by David Schuster on WSCR THE SCORE 670AM that Kobe was still sitting an hour-and-a-half after the game against the Chicago Bulls by his locker stall, just pondering and trying to figure out what to do with the Lakers.  We give it up to Kobe: he’s a true professional, he cares about winning, and he tries every game.  

But knowing his past as a spoiled, child-like, NBA player, all of these recent struggles couldn't have happened to a more qualified person. 

So it’s safe to say that PATHOLOGICAL HATE will continue to hate on Kobe and the Lakers.

How do we fix the Lakers besides making Kobe Bryant the team's de facto point guard? Dan Plotsky has the answers.  Read Part I and Part II. 

NBA stuff is available here. 

Got Twitter?  Follow us, here.

NASHVILLE PREDATORS: Here and Now

Felipe M

This week, I asked our staff here at PATHOLOGICAL HATE to share their thoughts on the Nashville Predators.  The Preds’ inaugural season was back in 1998 and I can still remember many traditional pundits and hockey fans scratching their heads in shared perplexity wondering what Commissioner Gary Bettman was possibly thinking in awarding the city of Nashville an NHL franchise. 

Nevertheless, despite a slew of problems, including, but not limited to, the following: 

• Not making their first playoff appearance until their 7^th season .
• Ownership fraud. 
• A threat to move to Canadian city, Hamilton, Ontario. 
• Unimpressive attendance figures (though, it’s worth mentioning that they have one of the smaller arenas in the NHL) 

The Preds still have one of the more stable NHL franchises with a current streak of three consecutive playoff appearances, three consecutive years of improving attendance figures (in terms of capacity percentage%), and most astonishing of all, they have only known one General Manager in David Poile and only one head coach in Barry Trotz.

Despite all of their long-running and recent success, Nashville is still perceived as a low-grade hockey franchise with a fan base that does not understand the sport and are more fair-weathered fans than die-hard fans.  The current stereotype about the fans needing to learn the rules and culture of hockey are still prevalent today as they were back in 1998.  Just look at our panel’s responses.  The question was, “What are your thoughts on the city of Nashville as a legitimate “hockey town?”  Obviously, the connotation of “hockey town” was meant to be taken loosely and in relative terms:

• “Wait. You did say H-O-C-K-E-Y town right? Just checking.”—C. McLain
• “Well, between the Predators and the Tennessee Titans, I guess they have to clap for someone. Hockey will never survive in Tennessee.”—Johnny J
•  “Great small market, but [the term] hockey town [should be preserved] for Original Six teams.”—D. Plotsky.

Plotsky’s sentiment is more alarming, especially for a sports’ entity like the NHL who has been trying to open up to new, non-traditional markets in a rapid manner since 1967.  By that logic, no other city in North America can ever, fully embrace an NHL franchise outside of Montreal, Toronto, Boston, or Detroit to name a few.  

Also, Nashville is stereotyped as another Southern city full of “rednecks” who will always remain loyal to Southern culture and will remain skeptical and xenophobic to foreign concepts, such as hockey.  As Donny Rodriguez explains:

“Nashville Hockey: The NHL loves passing over cold-weathered cities such as Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Providence for more densely populated areas that have more disposable income and love to casually partake in fringe sporting events.  New cities are good for the sport, but only if the team stays in the city and two decades from now that city starts producing hockey players.  The common Southerner would probably embrace hockey more if there were some "good 'ole boys" with American names swapping fabric of sweaters, like they do swapping paint in those race cars.”

However, the fact of the matter is, when the Predators are winning, the fans come out to support.  That’s true with any other city in any other sport.  I can still remember a time when the Chicago Blackhawks were a young, cheap team run by “Dollar Bill” Wirtz and constantly struggled to bring the fans into the United Center. After the Hawks became Stanley Cup contenders, suddenly, they were the hottest and toughest ticket in town as the Blackhawks have led the league in capacity percentage% in the last 4 seasons when they became Cup contenders.

 

How was their attendance when they weren’t winning? In 2007-08, the Blackhawks finished in 10^th place in the Western Conference, finished 19^th in total home attendance, and that big arena they call home?  82% capacity percentage%! That placed them in 28^th PLACE IN THE NHL!!! As most of you will know, the Chicago Blackhawks are an “Original Six” team.

The fans of Nashville have proved to be as loyal as any in the NHL.  They don’t sell out like the Blackhawks have in the past 4 seasons, but in relative terms, they will support a winner.  And a winning franchise is the Predators.  We’ve mentioned the recent string of playoff appearances, but the biggest surprise is that they still have employed their original GM and head coach!  That’s not just a rarity in the NHL, where historic franchises like the Toronto Maple Leafs go through head coaches and front office personnel like The Black Dahlia Murder goes through drummers, but in sports in general where management positions are constantly on fire (giving new meaning to the idiom “hot seat”).  How Poile and Trotz have kept their jobs, even through the losing seasons, is simply amazing.  And if this stable franchise wasn’t stable enough as it is now, they have locked up one of the better goaltenders in the NHL, Pekka Rinne, to a long-term deal.  Their first draft pick ever, David Legwand, is still on the team!

And as I watched the Predators fight off the St. Louis Blues in Overtime, Rinne stopped a barrage of scoring opportunities as the period was coming to an end.  Play was stopped for a face-off and the Nashville faithful stood up and gave Rinne a long, standing ovation as they appreciated his and his team’s effort.  The Preds lost the game in the Shootout, but give credit to the mostly, “Southern, redneck, no-nothing-about-hockey" fans: they knew a great effort when they saw it.  They have themselves a top-notch franchise and they know that as well.  

Check our most recent, sports' collaborative efforts here and here. 

2011 BIRTHDAY FORTNIGHT: Part I: Between the Buried and Me

Felipe M

Between the Buried and Me is our favorite metal band out there.  There's no argument.  Whether you consider them a metal band or not (because of their fusion of different genres they install into their music), without a doubt, they're one of the most unique, creative, and talented bands out there.  Even though they released an EP this year, it was just as good as many metal bands' full-lengths, if not better!  With the recent release of The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues as the foundation of their Spring of 2011 tour, we descend on the sleepy town of Joliet, IL and as you can read from the title of this article, we kick off my birthday fortnight (because one day is just not enough!):

APRIL 24, 2011: MOJOES, JOLIET, IL-- Just like we stated in our Streetlight Manifesto article, Mojoes is another bar that does not allow the drinking and sale of alcoholic in the mosh pit area and forces you to go to the 2nd floor of the venue to drink and purchase said beverages.  Again, Ricardo, Devon, and I have only experienced this rule outside the Chicago City Limits so we assume that it's a "suburban" thing.  

As much as we were ready to enjoy an evening of awesome music with The Ocean, Job for a Cowboy, and Between the Buried and Me, we had other things in our mind.  The Chicago Blackhawks were fighting elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs against their archrival, the Vancouver Canucks.  We actually spent the majority of Job for a Cowboy's set with our backs turned to them because the game was so intense.  Matter of fact, we thank the band for their pulsating blast beats as it was the perfect music to release some anxiety from this tight game as we used our hands to pat them on the bar and were tapping to the rhythm of the double bass.  Shamefully, we also missed half of the beginning of BTBAM's setlist as well as we couldn't help but continually turn our heads to the direction of the TV sets to see the Hawks win in overtime.  

BTBAM started the setlist playing their entire Parallax EP.  They played it near flawlessly as "Specular Reflection" is quickly becoming a great way to start any of their future shows (for the record, the middle of the "Augment of Rebirth" ('TO CREATE, TO RECREATE!') and the xylophone crash in Lunar Wilderness are the best parts of the EP).

They moved on from the EP to play consecutive tracks from Colors, "Sun of Nothing" and "Ants of the Sky" followed by what seemed to be an impomptu jam session of "Swim to the Moon" highlighted by a guitar solo from Paul Waggoner and drum solo by Blake Richardson.  

We also finally got a chance to listen to "Fossil Genera-A Feed from Cloud Mountain Live" and "Selkies: The Endless Obsession" live for the first time in our lives.  

Overall, this was an amazing show with great bands playing great sets, the Blackhawks winning, and a pretty memorable drive down to Joliet, IL (you might remember this crap-tacular town from such references as THE BLUES BROTHERS movie, the famously infamous Joliet Prison, Route 66, etc.).  This would be worthy of gaining the top spot in the pursuit of our annual SHOW OF THE YEAR!

Check out past articles about Between the Buried and Me.