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.