It was quite a week. Finished the contract to become the sports guy at NCI FM and Streetz 104.7 in Winnipeg, did three Goldeyes games on Shaw TV with Ken Wiebe and Jim Toth, finished four stories for the August edition of ONE Magazine, two stories for the next two issues of Senior Scope, three stories for the July issue of Grassroots News and a piece on Morgan de Pena for ManitobaScore.com.
In the meantime, watched the NHL draft, a load of baseball, a Bomber game and more World Cup matches than I care to remember.
Although I do remember the first thing I learned from all that World Cup craziness:
1) After England’s second goal against Germany on Sunday — the goal that would have tied the match — was ignored by a referee AND a linesman, it became clear that the silly position that people like FIFA president Sepp Blatter take on the use of instant replay is not just silly, it’s criminal.
“We need the human element that comes from having an official,” Blatter said earlier this month. “We will not be using replay any time soon.”
Blatter is a luddite who would rather be wrong than use the technology available to him. How do you rationalize pure idiocy? Ask this question: Would you prefer to be wrong rather than right? Blatter says, “Wrong, absolutely.” That borders on the insane. Sepp Blatter and everyone who thinks like Sepp Blatter is a moron.
Would England’s second goal have changed the outcome in a match that ended 4-1? Maybe. If England had scored two goals in two minutes and quickly come back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the match in the first half, it might have changed the approach of both teams. No one knows. But unless the call is made correctly, we’ll never know.
As long as the people who run FIFA allow players to dive all over the field as if they’ve been shot at point blank range, allow referees to make calls that they clearly did NOT see, and allow goals to be ignored that were actually scored, then soccer is just a silly game with rules that are made up as the morons go merrily along.
Just like baseball.
2) The Edmonton Oilers made the right call taking Taylor Hall ahead of Tyler Seguin with the No. 1 overall pick in Friday’s NHL draft.
Hall proved he was a leader and a winner at the Memorial Cup. That’s exactly what the sad-sack Oilers need.
3) It has apparently become the drink of choice for big-time U.S. professional athletes. It’s called “Purple Drank,” and it’s kind of nasty. Don’t understand why some jocks like it, but here’s what we know:
ESPN’s Outside the Lines recently did a major report on how this codeine-based drink is gaining popularity among athletes. The story starts with the arrest of Green Bay Packers lineman Johnny Jolly in 2008. When Jolly was pulled over, police noticed, “the smell of codeine” emanating from a Styrofoam cup filled with ice and a “purple liquid.” The drink was a concoction of prescription cough syrup, Sprite and Jolly Ranchers. Jolly was charged with felony drug possession.
BTW, that’s not a typo. Jolly Ranchers is correct. Who knew?
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