Sports Blather

I figured now that Spring Training (yes, it deserves capitalization!) is here, I should pontificate on some sports subjects once again. I think I'm getting through to the girls anyway! Rhiannon mentioned they played some sort of floor hockey at gym the other day, and that she scored 3 goals. Adrienne piped up to say that she scored a hat trick! Smart kid, and it is surprising what they remember some time. We talked a week ago or so while watching a hockey game and that was one of the things that came up.

Winter Olympics

Yeah, I know, folks like Bill Simmons whine about the tape-delayed Winter Olympics, saying things like "how can you watch something delayed by 8 hours when you already know what the results are?" It seems to me to be a contradictory whine. First he says that they don't matter, and then he says he already knows the results. Well, if they don't matter, then why does he know the results? And if you don't know the results, why does it matter that it is tape delayed?

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the Winter Olympics. The sports just seem to be more real and daring than the Summer games. I think the alpine downhill race is the perfect Olympic sport. You just have one run, to ski as fast as you possibly dare - no judges, no whistles, no artistry, just ski fast, one and done. As someone who loves to ski fast, I really can enjoy it watching it. I'd also love to give one of the track sports a try. Bobsled, luge, skeleton, you name it. I loved sledding as a kid in NH, and I'm sure it'd be a blast to go 80+ mph in a bobsled!

I also love the speed skating, especially the wild and woolly short track stuff. Fast, physical, and random, real exciting stuff. And of course the hockey, although I don't think it was played at the same level as in years past. Very few of the games were that close. Even the one goal losses by the American team were mostly played from behind, and only late rallies made it close. Oh, and the ski jumping! How could I forget that. What fun that would be, just sailing out over the crowd. They had some real nice shots of the ski jumping this year.

I am not a fan of the judged sports. Figure skating, not surprisingly, does nothing for me. It's a backwards sport, sort of like NASCAR racing, where you are waiting for failure, and not really so much for a spectacular play. Nor am I a fan of all the fancy schmancy snowboarding events, where they are just trying to do tricks for the judges. I'd rather see a race against competitors, not judges. Only snowboardcross did it for me when it came to the boarders. Now that was fun to watch - 4 snowboarders racing down a twisty course, just trying to come across first.

And as for the Jacobellis brouhaha, where the press (and even some teammates) got all over her for hot dogging it a little and entering the pantheon of sports losers by getting "only" a silver medal for it when she hit the ground and let her follower slip past her - who cares? C'mon, give it a rest. A silver medal is real nice too, and it isn't the end of the world she came in second, like some of the more stuffy local columnists would have you believe. I was reading somewhere about the sad emphasis on winning gold, like no other medal, or even competing hard, mattered in the slightest, and it made me shake my head in wonder. Some of these reporters seem to have the wrong idea about competition, and I'm glad most of the competitors seemed to take it on a more level field.

Curling is an interesting sport. There isn't much action, but there is plenty of strategy. I wold also love to give that sport a try, although I don't think there are any venues around here. My wife wanted to know what exactly makes curling a sport. Not sure really, any more than billiards is a sport. Do you have to be out of breath for it to count as a sport?

Baseball

It sure is nice to read about the boys playing baseball again. A true sign of warmer weather ahead, although it is still several months from now. I'm looking forward to the first few games showing up on the radio. I like nothing better than to listen to the calming rhythms of Joe and Jerry (when he isn't wildly exaggerating a pop fly into a deep home run or vice versa) calling a game on the radio. The annual game against the Boston College Eagles is coming up tomorrow, the real start of spring training baseball.

I like the looks of the team. They got younger, have some nice arms, and still have Big Papi and Manny to hit the ball a long way. I know Manny is infuriating in his antics, and I worry about the effect he will have on the younger players when they see his special treatment. But I'm still willing to cut him some slack, especially as long as we have the anti-Manny in David Ortiz. The Yankees are older and more brittle (Pavano is already shelved), and Toronto still doesn't have all the pieces, especially pitching. Maybe we can finally breakthrough and come in first this year!

Hockey

The Bruins are doing what the Bruins have done for the last 20, no 30, years now - cruising along at an high level of averageness. Usually just good enough to make the playoffs and never good enough to go very far. This year, with the salary cap, the brain trust has nowhere to hide. Before, they would say that the other teams were buying a Stanley Cup (ignoring ridiculous outlays for stiffs like Marty LaPoint), but now everyone has the same money and the Bruins are still remarkably average. They are battling it out for the eighth(!) and final playoff spot, but even if they make it in, they'll probably just lose in the first round. They are trying to get us to come into The Vault to watch though. I just received an email from them with an offer of $10 tickets. You can find out more here.

There is the nice story of Tim Thomas, journeyman goaltender. A University of Vermont Catamount, he's 32 years old and is finally getting his big chance, thanks to injuries and the general ineffectiveness of 2004's Rookie of the Year, Andrew Raycroft. Thomas was solid, even spectacular, in the couple of weeks before the Olympic break, leading the Bruins back into contention for a playoff spot. His buoyant disposition has reportedly been a real boon to the clubhouse, and he seems to be enjoying his time in the limelight.

But I wonder if he has hit a wall. His last few games before the break were a little shaky, and I was hoping the two week vacation would help him out, both physically and mentally. But his play wasn't that inspiring last night against the powerhouse (!) Carolina Hurricanes, now leading the Eastern Conference. The Bruins were actually ahead in this one, but typically let it slip away, losing 4-3. And a couple of the goals looked very stoppable, especially the second one, a slapshot from outside the faceoff circle. I don't think it was tipped by his defense on the way in, so it should have been stopped.

As a goaltender, I know how responsible I feel for every goal that gets by me. I put them into three categories:

• Oh Well : sometimes, they're just gonna score. I move out to cut down the angle, and instead there's a nice pass over for an easy tap in. Or, like I saw happen to Medford's own Oiler, Mike Morrison, in last night's game against St. Louis, someone winds up for a big shot from inside the face-off dot and drills one up under the crossbar. Oh well...
• Coulda Had It : these are goals that probably would have happened no matter what I did, but I still feel like I should have given a better effort. Maybe I didn't react fast enough to a rebound, or I get my skates tangled up, or my positioning is off just a tad. These are also the goals scored most often by my more gifted opponents, who have an uncanny knack for finding that hole.
• Shoulda Had It : these are the worst, the ones you know you are 100% responsible for. Generally long range shots that get by me somehow, or ones I misjudge and slip behind me. If I can get through a game without giving up any of these, then I'm pretty happy. And I think there were one or two of these that happened to Tim Thomas last night.

I have to say, being a goalie has really help in my maturing as a person. I've only been doing it seriously for about ten years now. Growing up, I was never involved in any sort of organized hockey, just groups of all ages playing on a local pond. Even then, I was the crazy one who played "goalie" with nothing but a regular hockey stick and a smile. I'm surprised I survived! I wanted to be a goalie in soccer, my high school sport of choice, but there was a pretty good goalie who was one year in front of me, so I never got the chance. I did play goalie on a club hockey team at RPI, where there were plenty of teams playing, but as I only lasted part way into my sophomore year, that wasn't a real long term experience.

But when I was working for Interleaf, they had a group who played a Wednesday lunch hockey at a rink just down the road. Lucky for me, they had goalie equipment and a need for a goalie, so I volunteered. I was able to slowly upgrade my goalie equipment, rather than having to splurge whole hog for the entire set. So I improved it, piece by piece, until now, when most of my equipment is pretty good.

But there's certainly nowhere to hide as a goalie. You really have to learn to step up and take responsibility when you don these "tools of ignorance" (to borrow a phrase from baseball). You also have to be able to shrug off adversity and move forward, and to learn from your mistakes but not to dwell on them. At this point, I consider myself a pretty good average-level goalie. It's fun when things start clicking. You get a real feeling of invincibility, that you can stop anything.

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