I arrived home on Friday rather shocked to see my wife in her favorite chair on the sundeck, reading a book and then hearing the droneful buzzing of what I thought were vuvuzelas. For a died-in-the-wool football and baseball fan, I would never have expected to see (or hear) my bride watch soccer.
“That’s not the soccer game,” she said without looking up from her book. “It’s the mosquitos. This is June in Winnipeg. Some of these mosquitos are bigger than wasps. I put out some coils. It’s not bad here.”
Silly me, and I thought it was the World Cup.
Speaking of the World Cup, there are two things that I love: (1) all the players who dive around as if they’ve been shot in the back of the head and (2) all the referees who call things they don’t see.
The officiating in the World Cup is silly. I wouldn’t call it bad. I’d just call it apochryphal. These guys make up fouls that don’t happen, they pick out one foul in a series of fouls , they call offsides or miss offsides when they don’t see it and on Sunday, the referee pulled a red card on Brazil’s Kaka when Kaka barely made contact with a player from Cote d’Ivoire who should have been kicked out for life for bad acting.
When I heard that FIFA might have sent Koman Coulybaly home for blowing the call on the Yanks’ third goal in the USA’s comeback 2-2 draw with Slovenia, I was marginally impressed. Only marginally, because FIFA didn’t suspend the dozen or so other referees who had made calls as egregiously bad.
The dude in that Brazil-Cote d’Ivoire match shouldn’t be allowed to officiate a match involving nine-year-olds, let alone a World Cup match. But, hey, I’m not the only won whining. The referees’ supporters should listen to the players and managers. It’s a joke.
* * *
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers were drilled 38-20 in Hamilton in their final pre-season game yesterday, proving once again that pre-season games don’t mean squat.
When you go from a 34-10 win over Montreal in your first pre-season game (read: practice scrimmage) to a 38-20 loss in your second, all it means is that head coach Paul LaPolice and his staff were looking to see who could play and who couldn’t. They got a better sense in Game 2.
Kevin Glenn, who should never have been released in Winnipeg, threw a pair of touchdown passes as he took the Bombers apart in the first quarter. Buck Pierce struggled and Steven Jyles looked good for Winnipeg. LaPolice appears to have a decision to make.
Regardless, after Hamilton leaves Winnipeg on July 2, we’ll all — and that includes the coaching staff — have a better idea as to where this Blue Bombers team actually stands in the CFL’s Eastern Conference. Those two practice games meant nothing.
* * *
Heading back to watch the golf. I’ll see how long it’ll be before I’m forced to hit the mute button. I don’t know about you, but I’m just so tired of Johnny Miller’s new full-time job as captain of the Phil Mickelson Cheerleading Team.
UPDATE: Miller just described a trap shot facing Ernie Els as “impossible to get close.” Els stiffed it. Just another day listening to Johnny Miller saying things are going to happen and they never do.
Golf is really quite enjoyable on CBS. Miller kills it on NBC.