When Tiger Woods was unbeatable and Yao Ming looked like he might almost be worth the money, Chris Rock joked that the world was going nuts because the best basketball player in the world was Chinese and the best golfer was black. I kinda feel that way right now, because today the NHL is staging a regular season game at Dodger Stadium, and next week the Super Bowl will be played outside on the New York/New Jersey/New Brunswick border.
I wrote "staging" on purpose. It's a mid-season publicity stunt, that will probably be at least a short term revenue enhancer. But let's not forget it's a regular season game, and counts in the standings. I'm sure people in LA are excited, and someone in the cast of Glee will ask Vin Scully if he thinks Matt Kemp can hit a home run with a bat shaped like that, but if it does win any hockey converts that haven't already been won over in the forty-six years since the first regular season NHL game was played there you can Jack Kent Cooke me up a Dodger dog and introduce me to them. Because I'll remind them that they won't be able to work on their tan at any other regular or postseason games since the NHL generally plays those inside, on a frozen pond and not the murky one that the Pirates of The Caribbean ride floats down at nearby Disneyland.
They're gonna have to shovel so much snow during the frequent stoppages in play that people in the front rows are gonna think they're hanging with Belushi in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont. Direct sunlight wreaks havoc on ice surfaces no matter how cold it is-I was at the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor and even the faint UV rays sneaking through the thick snow clouds were chewing ice like Scotty Bowman in a game 7 OT.
But the NHL's ill-advised gamble will be nothing compared to the Irwin Allen style disaster that the NFL will have to deal with if winter weather clobbers the biggest one day spectacle in sports. In typical NFL fashion, they're saying don't worry, we've got it figured out, and they might. Sure... if the radar looks yucky, just move the game up a day to Saturday and forget all about the thousands that are scheduled for a Saturday night arrival in Jersey, which has very little to offer in the way of entertainment now that John Gotti, Clarence Clemons and Tony Soprano are dead. Or, you know,
just do this all day Sunday...
…and play the game on Monday, because that won't interrupt any commerce whatsoever, YOU MORONS.
I used to have a supervisor who would stress "don't be late or hungover Monday, the Super Bowl is not a holiday" and our shift didn't even start until 2:30 PM. And our position was: the Super Bowl should be a holiday, because they gave us Columbus Day off and no one ever had squares on what date Cristobal Colon was gonna wash up on these pristine shores, so why don't you back off and we'll see ya at 4:00 on Monday with some bean dip. What the hell is gonna happen if that's when the game is played ? Barry won't be the only Junk Bonds not traded that day.
Worst case scenario for the NHL, the Kings and Ducks can make up the game at a later date, indoors and some of the ticket holders won't even ask for refunds because they optioned "Bewitched 2: Molly Shannon Wiggles Her Nose and Clears Out The Theater" before the second face off.
But if the most commercially lucrative championship in North American sports has to be radically altered…oh boy…good old Roger Goodell, the stooge who is an honorary "Dr. Fine", will take this decision to his grave.
I wrote "staging" on purpose. It's a mid-season publicity stunt, that will probably be at least a short term revenue enhancer. But let's not forget it's a regular season game, and counts in the standings. I'm sure people in LA are excited, and someone in the cast of Glee will ask Vin Scully if he thinks Matt Kemp can hit a home run with a bat shaped like that, but if it does win any hockey converts that haven't already been won over in the forty-six years since the first regular season NHL game was played there you can Jack Kent Cooke me up a Dodger dog and introduce me to them. Because I'll remind them that they won't be able to work on their tan at any other regular or postseason games since the NHL generally plays those inside, on a frozen pond and not the murky one that the Pirates of The Caribbean ride floats down at nearby Disneyland.
They're gonna have to shovel so much snow during the frequent stoppages in play that people in the front rows are gonna think they're hanging with Belushi in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont. Direct sunlight wreaks havoc on ice surfaces no matter how cold it is-I was at the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor and even the faint UV rays sneaking through the thick snow clouds were chewing ice like Scotty Bowman in a game 7 OT.
But the NHL's ill-advised gamble will be nothing compared to the Irwin Allen style disaster that the NFL will have to deal with if winter weather clobbers the biggest one day spectacle in sports. In typical NFL fashion, they're saying don't worry, we've got it figured out, and they might. Sure... if the radar looks yucky, just move the game up a day to Saturday and forget all about the thousands that are scheduled for a Saturday night arrival in Jersey, which has very little to offer in the way of entertainment now that John Gotti, Clarence Clemons and Tony Soprano are dead. Or, you know,
just do this all day Sunday...
…and play the game on Monday, because that won't interrupt any commerce whatsoever, YOU MORONS.
I used to have a supervisor who would stress "don't be late or hungover Monday, the Super Bowl is not a holiday" and our shift didn't even start until 2:30 PM. And our position was: the Super Bowl should be a holiday, because they gave us Columbus Day off and no one ever had squares on what date Cristobal Colon was gonna wash up on these pristine shores, so why don't you back off and we'll see ya at 4:00 on Monday with some bean dip. What the hell is gonna happen if that's when the game is played ? Barry won't be the only Junk Bonds not traded that day.
Worst case scenario for the NHL, the Kings and Ducks can make up the game at a later date, indoors and some of the ticket holders won't even ask for refunds because they optioned "Bewitched 2: Molly Shannon Wiggles Her Nose and Clears Out The Theater" before the second face off.
But if the most commercially lucrative championship in North American sports has to be radically altered…oh boy…good old Roger Goodell, the stooge who is an honorary "Dr. Fine", will take this decision to his grave.
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