Thursday Cannon Fodder: this and that
Yesterday at 09:30 AM
Good Thursday morning, TSFers. Todays's D.C. snow and ice update: it's still here. Local ordinances say you have to have your sidewalks shoveled within 24 hours of the end of a snowstorm. It's more than 48 and some people's sidewalks are sheets of ice. You have to step off the sidewalk into the snow to safely pass. It's kind of annoying. [insert old man shakes fist at cloud / get off my lawn meme]
I don't want to do an entire post about the Carabao Cup ball. Here's the quick and dirty: Mikel Arteta was asked about the different ball used for the competition. He observed that the ball flies differently and Arsenal fired a lot of shots over the bar. He also said, and this is the critical part, that you need to adapt and Arsenal could have done better.
The media turned those comments into "Mikel Arteta complains about the ball" and have created a 48-hour plus news cycle out of it. It's not what he said. It's nowhere close to what he said. It's ridiculous, annoying, makes everyone dumber, and caters to the lowest common denominator. It's embarrassing that these people get paid to commentate on football.
That was the "this" part of the CF headline. The "that" portion will be more fun, I think.
I enjoyed this article about Mike Knuble, the only NHLers to play on the same team as both Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin. I went to the Caps game last night — the Caps won 2-1 in overtime against the Canucks. Ovechkin didn't score, but it's been fun to watch him chase down the record, more fun now that it's clear he's going to break it barring some catastrophe, and even better that he's doing it on a rejuvenated Caps team that is up near the top of the NHL in points.
When the Caps were not great last season (but snuck into the playoffs with a minus-38 goal differential), I was really concerned that the Ovechkin record chase would mire the team in mediocrity until after he broke the mark and, probably, retired. After all, he's 39 years old, on a massive contract, and not producing anywhere near the numbers you need from your highest cap hit. Credit to him — he picked it up in the second half of the season and is having a really good season this year. More credit to the coach and GM who have revamped / overhauled the rest of the team around him on the fly, in one offseason.
What's the "state of the union" with your favorite hockey (or other sport) team? Who is planning to watch the college football semifinal tonight and tomorrow? Who are you rooting for?
