Friday, October 29, 2004
We Can Make a Statement
There are few ways fans can ever really affect a sports league on a large scale. Many have tried to organize merchandise or ticket boycotts, but rarely has it ever done anything other than get some small media attention. In this time of an NHL lockout merchandise is probably not expected to bring in much and tickets obviously aren’t being sold not to buy.
There is one thing both sides do need right now: attention. While those failed boycotts garned small media attention they’d be more likely to reach more people now if done successfully over the internet. Blogs and other news websites would pick it up fast. Right now the NHL and a whole bunch of players are doing what they can to keep the media talking hockey, even in the States. Even if it’s just one line on SportsCenter like “would have been a good night for some NHL hockey” as was the line last night (paraphrased from Steve Levy if my memory serves me correct).
A huge amount of people get their fill of news from the web daily. Many of us own hockey-related websites or blogs. What if we all just shut them down? Not long enough to hurt the sites, but long enough to make a statement. Perhaps that could be our voice, our way to reach the league. Take down a site and put up one single message, something like “We’re not going to cover your lockout bickering. (This site will return soon).” I’m sure I can think of something more creative, but you get the jist of it. As much as we all like to print player quotes and league statements, we may need to take a break and let our own voices be heard. Individually it’s hard - collectively it’s not. Maybe it’s time we should be involved in this PR war?
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Positives From the World Series
As a Yankees fan, I’m trying to think of any positives I can from this year’s playoffs and the Red Sox winning the World Series.
The first thing that I think everyone can agree with: no more “curse”. Curses are stupid - where else but in the world of sports do we still hear about things like curses? I guess it’s better for the beat writers to say that a team has a curse on them instead of writing “they’re bad” or “they fucked up” or the always-sells-a-paper “they just lost”. May the Cubs win the World Series next year and can any other team that is “cursed” please get it out of the way asap, your curse does not have to be Babe Ruth or billy goat-related. If I never hear “curse” again, it’ll be too soon.
No whining. Seriously, live it up there - you have the World Series and the Super Bowl champs. That’s good stuff. You may not ever have it again, few ever do, especially with expansion of all sports leagues. Multi-sport champions are going to become rarer and rarer. Boston’s got it, live it up. Now do your duty as a Red Sox fan - get the high-profile fans who go on tv whining about things, like Ben Affleck, to shut up. I’ll do my part as a Yankees fan and ask that Billy Crystal and Rudy Giuliani not be shown during games anymore. We know they’re there, and we know they’re wearing Yankees hats.
Actually start to realize Boston’s never had it as bad as Chicago. Before today Boston last won it in 1918. You know who won it the year before (that’s 1917 for those still partying)? The Chicago White Sox and they haven’t won it since. The Cubs last won it in 1908. Think of it as though the Braves never left Boston - and ‘95 and ‘57 (when they were in Atlanta and Milwaukee respectively, and won the Series) never happened. Imagine doubling up the Red Sox woes?
This post was meant to be positive… so let’s try and think of some more… nah, just go party - don’t flip over any cars though, and don’t burn anything, do it right. And congrats.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Laughing at Losing
While a lot of major league teams sit and make war analogies about games and such, things are much different in the minor leagues (or in minor sports). They tend to just want to be entertaining, and when they lose, they’re much more likely to have a sense of humor about it.
From the Boston Globe via Ben Maller:
Not exactly flushed with pride
As promotions go, you’ve got to hand it to the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League. After going 1-15 last season, they sent out season-ticket renewals with a bonus gift: a roll of toilet paper with “1-15” printed on each sheet. The roll came wrapped in a message that said, “It’s time to put last season behind us.” The promotion was the brainchild of the team’s ad agency, Justice & Monroe.
Love it.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Finally “Rivals”?
For a long time the national media was calling New York-Boston a great “rivalry”, but seeing the word “rival” only meant you were probably living in Boston or at least outside of New York. The Red Sox were not rivals - they were fodder.
Tonight the Red Sox finally beat the Yankees in a game that probably meant one thousand times more to the city of Boston than New York (and each team’s players as well if you were watching). While each franchise’s history will probably never be close to equal in terms of success, even a century from now, the Red Sox have finally stepped up and beat the Yankees when it mattered, something they haven’t done in a long, long time.
The Curse is not broken yet. They still have a World Series to go against either the Cards or the Stros, with St Louis probably being the tougher team on paper, but Houston having the more compelling storyline with Roger Clemens coming back to Boston to pitch against them in the World Series. If the Sox don’t win the World Series Boston fans will probably still be elated from the Yankees win, but that will fade quickly and the Curse will still be spoken of.
Either way, congrats to the Boston Red Sox.
The Sleep Schedule
Go home tired.
Fall asleep for part of baseball game.
Wake up, see most of game.
Not tired anymore, stay up late.
Wake up late, very tired.
Go home very tired, repeat process.
Need to get out of this.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Fox Sports NY Done?
The Mets have announced they’re looking to start their own television network, similar to the Yankees YES network.
The Yankees left MSG and the Nets left FSNY to go to YES. YES is also scheduled to have the Devils soon, who are currently on FSNY. Cablevision, who owns both MSG and FSNY kept the Mets on FSNY primarily, but also had them on MSG to keep the channel’s worth up for other cable systems to keep carrying it. After the Mets leave Cablevision will be left with three teams: the Knicks and Rangers, mostly shown on MSG, and the Islanders mostly on FSNY. I say “mostly” because Cablevision also puts some games on their Metro channels when games coincide, and a few other random times, once again, to make the channels more valuable for other systems.
However, after the Mets leave Cablevision should stop spreading themselves so thin and just pack it in on Fox Sports. It’s been written in the press that Rupert Murdoch (who owns part of FSNY) hasn’t been happy with their management, and when Cablevision was going to move a lot of Mets games to MSG, something they own wholely, Fox Sports was not thrilled, and that’s why the amount of games were limited. So now what? The NY Islanders certainly don’t have enough of a following to support their own channel (as much as I’d like it personally), and they’d be able to sell MSG much better with the Knicks, Rangers and Islanders. Of course, the three have overlapping schedules, so who knows how well only one channel would work, but they routinely bump games to the Metro channels all the time (to the dismay of local with satellite tv who have no way of watching the game at home). Certainly it’s not the ideal situation. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Islanders follow the Mets to their new channel whenever their contract expires, which I don’t think is for quite some time.
Note: I read this Newsday article about the Mets new network and the most interesting part to me was this:
The Mets channel also could seek to add the New Jersey Devils once the hockey team’s contract with Fox Sports New York ends after 2006-07.
I guess things aren’t set with the Devils going to YES. Despite the Devils being the more successful teams, I’d think geographically and fan-crossover-wise, a Mets-Islanders pairing makes more sense.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Introducing: Newslinks
I have a big announcement for anyone looking to easily follow the CBA and all other hockey-related matters (mostly NHL-related). On The Ice Block, Newslinks has been unveiled.
The concept is simple - it’s just a list of links. To make it easier to manage, there’s a small form so anyone can submit a link. As the site grows, stories from all markets will appear, and as soon as they’re made live.
The process is semi-moderated. Guests are allowed to post links, and all of those are moderated, fairly quickly. If you sign up and are logged in and are a reliable link poster, we can mark you as such and your links will appear immediately.
I’ve also made it so that the domain being linked to is posted below each link. It’s easier when looking at a big list like that instead of mousing over each one to see where you might be going.
After the site takes off, I’m considering adding the ability for comments about each, but I figure I’ll hold off on that until it’s bigger.
Any suggestions welcome.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Finally Found a DVD Authoring Program
For a while I was looking for a program that would easily allow me to take clips (mpg2 format) and put them onto a DVD. While they all do that, most will just add them as titles or separate timelines. The suggestion was usually to merge the clips and then make chapter points. Who wants to do that when you want to put 40 clips onto a DVD?
Finally, I found what I was looking for. TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6 allowed me to easily add files (all at once) and have them be chapters in one timeline (although I could make other timelines too). I created a DVD easily, and can skip through it just as easy now. I spent a little extra time setting up a menu for it as well. I have it start out and go right to the first clip, but if you hit menu it’s there. It has about 10 pages of clips, title and picture for each chapter. Not bad. I just have to create a theme since I used a blah default one.
After all the trial programs and such I’ve had to download and try out I’m glad I’ve found something I can work with. As I create a few more DVDs I hope I can tweak it with the same ease it took to create what I’ve made so far.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Barry Bonds, What a Guy
There’s really little I can say without spoiling this ESPN wire report about Gary Sheffield detailing his relationship with Barry Bonds. A lot of people I know aren’t too high on Sheffield’s personality, although he has matured a bit… well, like him or not, he’s got nothing on Bonds.