Monday, 25-Feb-2002
Spurious
thoughts and idle musings from the sports week just past ...
Forget
all those 5.7's, 5.8's and 5.9's, here are the real figure skating scores ...
Maria Butyrskaya -- Yet another blonde Russian. Major babeage. Fumie Siguri -- Sorry, clicked over to hoops
on The Deuce. No marks. Sasha Cohen --
Jailbait. Immediate disqualification. Needs help for 2006. A little cream
cheese on the celery sticks wouldn't hurt.
Michelle Kwan -- Buffalo Bills. Move along, please. Irina Slutskaya -- Mesmerizing. Has some
leftover Katarina mystique but could be even better as a classic Bond
villain. Sarah Hughes -- Jailbait.
Immediate disqualification. Solid potential but needs to bag the "This one
time at band camp ..." deal.
All
kidding aside, gotta give it up to Sarah Hughes. An incredible performance under the most immense pressure
imaginable. Hell, I'll admit that this
bizarre quote unquote "sport" is completely captivating and wildly
entertaining. Every jump, every spin,
every leap is kill or be killed. And everybody
... skaters, coaches, family, fans ... They all twist themselves in death knots
over it. Everybody except the golden
16-year-old who must've set a new Olympic record for the number of times Scott
Hamilton puddled himself. And you just
knew Kwan was beaten before her music even started. Unreal.
You'll
recall Kobe Bryant's recent poutfest with heckling Philly phans ... Now add
long-time hecklebait Colin Montgomerie to the list. During last week's Match Play Champeenship in California, the
fiery Scot ripped into a fan who asked him how he'd played ... "There's
only one thing worse than losing and that's spending another day in your
country." "I just don't need
this anymore." And this gem ...
"Without turning around, I knew I could accurately predict the appearance
of these kinds of fans -- shorts, tennis shoes, T-shirt, cap on backward,
holding a beer. I was
correct." Oh, Colin, please don't
go.
Don't
miss "Leap Of Faith" immediately following a very special
"Friends" this Thursday night.
And
speaking of bizarre, the USA-Canada gold medal hockey game pegged way off the
strange scale. I mean I see Joe Sakic
and I think Colorado. I see Martin
Brodeur and I think Debbils and Brendan Shanahan and Stevie Y are Detroit and
so on. Hell, Herb Brooks collects his
paycheck from Mario Lemieux who all but owns Pittsburgh, Pee Ay. I kept waiting for a buncha smartass Rangers
fans to start chanting "1952" over and over again until Wayne
Gretzky's ears burned off but no such luck.
Fabulous hockey but just a weird game.
More Pics
hockey notes ... Belarus apparently had to cancel their next day plane tix home
after pulling off a 4-3 quarterfinals stunjob over the Swedes while the
Russians ordered cheese for their whine after blaming the zeebs for a tight semis
loss to the Yanks. Yeah, obviously it
was the refs who outshot The Team Formerly Known As CCCP by 38 to 11 after two
periods. Next time try playing a full
game, Slava. And for every time we
heard how much better the international rules are compared to the NHL, you
gotta wonder just how jiggy commish Gary Bettman will be to send the boys over
to Turino next time around.
Nice to
know that John Rocker has some other career options ... Like for example
playing a crazed homicidal maniac in "The Greenskeeper". Yep, the ex-Tomaflop badboy plays the title
role in this upcoming low-budget flick about a golf course attendant who slices
up the naughty local teenager population.
However, it's doubtful this cinematic tour de force will ever see the
big screen since the producers might not have the coin to avoid the
straight-to-video path to glory. The
same path Rocker's fading fastball is on too.
Joey
confesses his feelings for Rachel on "Friends" followed immediately
by "Leap Of Faith" this Thursday night.
In other
MLB news ... Rafael Palmiero is close to inking an endorsement deal to help
pitch Bob Dole's favorite little blue pill.
Only problem is Raffy's agent insists the slugger doesn't actually
suffer from The Problem because ... let's not forget ... chicks still dig the
long ball. Meanwhile, a fascinating new
spring ritual is unfolding as we speak ... Mucho Caribbean ballplayers heading
back to the States are aging several years apiece as they each cross the border. Seems as though the INS never really broke
an accuracy sweat over most of these players' foreign visa apps until now when
who gets in and out of this country is a deadly serious matter. Which means all kinds of interesting
documentation is showing up. It's a
whole new ballgame.
Now here's
an idea that makes me wonder where the hell it's been hiding all this time ...
The state of Washington House of Representatives recently passed a new bill
designed to end the NFL's blackouts of unsold Seattle Seahawks games. And their reasoning is dirt simple ...
Washington taxpayers coughed up a stack of coin $300 million dollars high to
build the Hawks their gorgeous new playpen in downtown Seattle. Which only makes sense ... Hey, you wanna
play in *our* house, you hafta open the windows. What a concept.
And now
for The Peacock ... Somehow I doubt we'd have seen that much short track
speedskating if the dude's name was something like Bill Brown instead of
supercool Apolo Anton Ohno. And to be
honest, I'm about Soul Patched out by now.
Geez, we haven't seen this much hype over facial hair since Broadway Joe
got 10 large to shave off his Fu Manchu.
But snap crackle pops go to whichever NBC sharpie got a live camera up
close and personal next to Sarah Hughes as the final marks came in. You just can't script a chick skater and her
hysterical coach rolling on the floor in tears as their gold dreams ... not to
mention $10 million in endorsements .. .come true.
And one
more time for the SLC history books ... The Croatian Sensation ... Russian and
Canadian pairs exhibition double death spirals ... Derek "Speedy
Gonzales" Parra ... Happy happy joy joy bobsledders ... Willie Nelson
singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" ... Mr and Mrs Janet Jones
celebrating Canada's hockey golds .. Sarah Hughes and her "I Love
You" coach ... Bode Miller ... Georg Hackl ... Dorothy Hamill ... Roots
berets ... "It's my life. It's now or never. I ain't gonna live forever." And lastly ...
"Leap
Of Faith" comes on right after Rachel gives Joey the Eric Lindros
Concussion Face on "Friends" this Thursday night.
See ya
nexted week ...
Robert E Hunt Jr
Copyright ã 2002 by Robert E Hunt Jr. All rights reserved.