Sunday, February 01, 2009

Soooper Sunday

As the title sez… it’s the NFL’s Big Day. I don’t watch football on Sundays as a general rule, believing as I do that football, the sport, is played on Saturdays… and Friday nights. Football, the bid’niz, happens on Sundays… and Monday nights and even Thursday nights, occasionally. But I will resist the temptation to launch a rant in this space, even though I’ve got a danged good start on one, right here.
Nope, I’ll probably watch the damned thing if only for the ads. I don’t need to watch the ads in real time now that we have YouTube… and if I really hated pro ball as much as I think I do (hunh?) I wouldn’t have any plausible reason to watch the event at all. But there is more. The Sooper Bowl is one of the few great shared-experiences in our culture and deserves respect for that fact alone. Nice marketing job, NFL.
Oh. Nearly forgot. I’m not that big a Springsteen fan, either. I do like his early work, though.
―:☺:―
Well… if it ain’t football, it’s gotta be hockey! Speaking of which… here’s Ville Leino of the Detroit Red Wings with his first NHL goal, in his first NHL game... yesterday:
“Beauty!” as they say in The Great White Up. In Portales, too, but only in certain circles. VERY small circles.
As long as we’re on about the Wings, here’s a nice piece about the franchise from Michael Russo, writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Excerpts:
In all seriousness, is there a better model franchise in hockey than the Red Wings?
It starts with owner Mike Ilitch, who has assembled the best management in the league, starting at the apex with GM Ken Holland, and followed by right-hand men Jim Nill, Jim Devellano and the beloved Steve Yzerman.
From top to bottom -- from the drafting led by European superscout Hakan Andersson to the recruiting of free agents such as Marian Hossa to the convincing of homegrown star after star to accept "hometown discounts" to remain inside a franchise that has created an unparalleled culture of winning, nobody does it better.
The Red Wings are the envy of 29 teams.
[…]
This (ed: four Stanley Cups in 11 years), despite the fact that in the past 15 years, the Red Wings haven't picked higher than 19th in the draft. In the past 12 years, they've had five first-round picks.
Yet, year after year, the Wings unearth talent late in the draft: (Johan Franzen, 97th, 2004; Jiri Hudler, 58th, 2002; Valtteri Filppula, 95th, 2002; Zetterberg, 210th, 1999; Pavel Datsyuk, 171st, 1998; Tomas Holmstrom, 257th, 1994). And there's quite a pipeline in the minors of young 20-somethings waiting for their shots. (ed: watch that video above once again!)
This is why most players with a desire to win first, make money second, want to go to Detroit. This is why nobody ever wants to leave Detroit. They know the grass isn't always greener.
You’d be forgiven if you think Mr. Russo wrote a puff-piece, but almost everything mentioned and discussed in the article is true. Bonus: There are “management lessons” in what appears to be an article about a hockey team, and they ain’t too hard to figure out.
Now… about those Caps… But… if one HAS to go on a losing streak (umm… five in a row?), now’s the time to do it.
―:☺:―
Today’s Pic(s): We haven’t posted any gratuitous baby pictures in a while… so here are a couple just to keep an EIP tradition alive. The Second Mrs. Pennington and SN3, taken on two separate occasions in July of 1998.
SN3 will be 12 this month. Oh My… How time flies.

8 comments:

  1. Well Buck I'm sure you could have figured by now that with grandsons named Dallas and Landry we are huge Cowboys fans in this family, but I have to agree that the heart of American FB lies with the teams that play on Fridays and Saturdays! That is why I love to referee high school FB.

    SN3 is a real cutie there Buck!

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  2. Buck, I agree with you that Springsteen's earliest work is hard to top (back when he wanted to be Bob Dylan when he grew up.)

    His last couple of studio albums have been surprisingly good.

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  3. Dale: I hadn't figured that out, as there are more than one reason to name a child thus. But thanks for relaying that! And the good words about SN3, too.

    Barry: I'm thinking perhaps The Boss should have held on to that goal (being Dylan). I left him shortly after I bought "Nebraska," which I think is an exceedingly GOOD album (YMMV). I'll have to check out his latest work... based solely on your recommendation.

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  4. Too bad that boy child has no sense of adventure :) ... looks like a handful - love the peak over the pass-through as Mom is turned to the camera!

    I so want his hair!

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  5. Ann: Thanks for the kind comments. You don't know the half of it when you say "adventurous." TSMP and I finally had to put a baby gate in the pass-thru, coz we just could NOT keep him out/off of it. He yowled for hours when we did that...

    And he did have beautiful hair as a baby. I was envious, too. ;-)

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  6. Buck, you know how I love baby pics, but the story you related to Ann about SN3 being adventurous is really good.

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  7. Lou: And that's only the HALF of it, as I'm sure you appreciate!

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  8. I have no opinion re: hockey OR football, but SN3=CUTE!

    SN3 will be 12 this month. Oh My… How time flies.

    Tell me about it! Silver will be 18 in a few months, and a couple months after that, she's off to college...I'm feeling old.

    Happy Birthday to SN3!

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.