The Continental

Oh hey, DGWUS readers, it’s me again, prepare to be greeted with some hot sports takes birthed straight from the fertile shores of my femininity.  If you live under a rock, or decided to sleep in on the only Monday in February that’s worth living for the US women’s hockey team beat the Swedes 6-1 with the US outshooting their opponents 70-9.  So scores took to twitter declaring it time to eliminate women’s hockey from the Olympics because parity doesn’t exist. 

Presenting my rebuttal, in easily digestible SEO optimized list form, it’s the only way to have discourse these days:

1. Sweden is a country of  9.5 million to the US’s 314 million! As of 2011 Sweden had 3,245 female players which is about as many kids go to high school at Williamsville North/South/East total.

2. The Slovakian men lost to the US men 7-1 but no one gave a shit about parity then, probably because of the novelty of cheering in earnest for Ryan Callahan hadn’t worn off.  It’s more exciting to watch players we recognize versus faceless women we MAYBE only catch during the Frozen Four.

3. The parity argument again is a sexist sham, specifically Men’s Basketball.  In 17 tournaments the US Men won gold in 14, silver in 2 and bronze in 1; that 2004 bronze team was a ~national embarrassment.~

(@thedefenseman also points out no one had differentials above +50)

4. Before 1998 Canadian women won every World Championship but that year the US women won gold in the first Olympics that had women’s hockey and those teams have been pretty evenly matched since.

5. The US hit parity with Canada despite the fact WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WOMEN’S SPORTS!  How many jokes use the WNBA as its punch line? How quickly did the Women’s Professional Soccer league fail? Who can name the winningest college basketball coach of all time?  But we sure as shit remember Brandi Chastain diving into the ground in her sports bra, because we always have the time of day to objectify women athletes. 

6. The primary reason the US has great women's athletics now is Title IX.  It took legislation to force universities and high schools to afford equal athletic opportunities for girls and boys.  Forty years after Title IX women’s participation in sports has increased 980%.

7. OMG! THIS! WIN!

8. College is largely the only opportunity women have to play since pro leagues have largely been such a massive failure or entirely ignored.  The Canadian Womens Hockey League (which nine US roster members are a part of) doesn’t pay players, it covers: travel, ice fees, uniforms, and some equipment.

9. Hockey presents specific economic challenges for all players: it’s extremely cost prohibitive.  Ice rinks are money pits to build and keep running,   For players to get to the rink, the ice time, equipment involved, league fees, etc, it adds up to a six figure hobby pretty quickly for travel players.  This point is also why there is a lack of diversity in hockey IMO but that is for another day.

10.  Latent sexism, like latent racism is easy to deny and men have a really hard time getting past it, fuck, it’s something I struggle with too.  Critical thinking is something we should all strive for, the fastest way I’ve seen this happen for men is to have a daughter, but going to the library and picking up books by Audre Lorde or Judith Lorber is WAY cheaper.

The Scizz

Hey friends, remember me? I'm that asshole who use to start fights with rapey-faced Buffalo News reporters and occasionally try to stay positive about the Buffalo whoseitwhatsits. That's right, the Scizz is back in action in honor of the 2014 Winter Olympics in....Sochi? Sochi? What the fuck is a Sochi? It sounds like a bacteria you test positive for after a night with Jeremy White.

But that is just one of the many reasons I'm here today. Russia sucks. This is obvious to anyone except a very small percentage of actual Russians. It is the massive asshole of the world, coming in slightly below Sudan and slightly above Jacksonville. Tomorrow morning I will be jaunting off to Manhattan to watch our USA men's hockey team take on the robots of Russia, and I need to take this moment to make it clear that Russia is awful. Will this jinx us? Maybe, but Russia still sucks. Enjoy my list of stuff and reason and things in no particular order!


- They have open-minded thinking worst than the deep south....except for it is cold as fuck there.


- It took Rocky Balboa to end communism.

- Mikhail Grigorenko


- Those rapey Russian fraternities that anyone who went to a SUNY school knows about.  


- Die hard 5


- Russian women minus Maria Sharapova. 

- YOU HAVE WILD DOGS EVERYWHERE JESUS CHRIST GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER


- And you think WE don't care about our own people?????

- Russian strippers that never leave you alone in the strip club....you know what I'm talking about.



- Ralph Wilson Jr. (Don't think about it just accept it)



- The language sounds like two Orcs repeatedly having sex. 
                                          

- Birdman  >  AK47

                        

- Russians in New York never got the heavy over use of cheap (any) cologne memo.



- Too many riots. Not enough pussy.

There are a million other reasons but I'm tired and I only had 14 minutes to write this. Enjoy the game tomorrow and follow me @TheScizz so you can witness me live-tweet the game from a bar at 7:30 am tomorrow. I'm a prize.

Leave your other Russia Sucks facts below or tweet me. #WhyRussiaSucks

As the Deeg's official music education correspondent, producer of the “BroneCast”, co-author of “Dear God Why Us?” the Craptasticast theme song, esteemed founding member of the DEEG “House Band”, the Jambrones, and Beatle expert, I feel it is my sacred duty to at least chime in today, Feb. 9, Beatle Day USA, the 50th Anniversary of the first wave of the British Invasion: The Beatles’ historic series of Ed Sullivan Show performances.

I am aware that it’s way trite of me to say The Beatles are the greatest. It’s a little like being a Yankee fan or something, I admit... It's not an original concept. But it’s my truth. They are the reason I do what I do in life.  I only hope I don’t get anyone so fired up to the point Yachtsman has to go on a maniacal rant on how the Beatles dissed Jesus, suck at music, and Whitesnake or whoever is the greatest.

The Barrister here.  My boy Phil, a dear friend of the Deeg, and I talk Liverpool. You may remember Liverpool from such films as "Smoking Everton Off The Pitch" and "Ruining Arsenal's Universe."

A fun one. Music by way of Two Door Cinema Club, The Chemical Brothers and Black Tide. Breathe it all in.

Red or Dead.

Stream below. Download here or here. RSS feed here. iTunes button below. OPTIONS

The Barrister


I could wait on this, but I won't. Better writers than I with less acute emotional nonsense will tackle this, perhaps even here, and they'll do so with appropriate timing, eulogizing the player's departure when it becomes reality as opposed to jumping the gun with a preemptive shot of woe. 

Yes, I'm woeful at the idea of losing this player. When it happens, I'll probably (definitely) cry. I'll put on my circa 2010 Miller jersey and silently laud the memories he gave us while cursing the franchise that wasted his immense talent; a franchise that chose eyes-slammed-shut-there-will-be-better-days hope followed by incredible mediocrity followed by riding Vezina coattails followed by, we're told, suffering. Though it was all suffering, after all... watching a team achieve so very little while being led by one of the absolute best in the game.

Maybe watching Miller play with a better team will confirm what we've always known but what has been clouded by a squad so verifiably shit: that the dude has massive, bona fide chops. That all the talk of Henrik or Marty or Roberto or Quick was fine and all, but this player we had at our disposal was legit. Maybe watching him these next couple weeks will give us that confirmation. Fitting, then, that our goodbye starts in earnest while the rest of this nation of hockey fans can cheer with us. We're going to have to get used to other people cheering for him, and at least we get to give it one more shot.

I gave so few shits when Pominville left, perhaps a few more, but barely, when Vanek left. I was sad about Briere and Drury, but I was also incredibly stupid and thought that the team's magic remained fit to be sowed.  So, then, now? Left anticipating the likely departure of a player who stood taller for me than each of those guys is a feeling of hardened love for a team that is little else than a complete fucking waste, making it so very difficult to resign myself to watching Miller skate for another club and another fan base. 

We're fans, nothing more. Our money doesn't buy us anything except an open door and a seat, even if we wish to think we must be given more.  We deserved no better than we got these last eight years.

But Ryan Miller definitely did. 

And maybe that's all that's left when a player so good and so utterly hung out to dry is on the verge of leaving your club ... a community of shared disappointment and regret, desperately wishing that Miller might stay and, more importantly, that the Sabres would finally make it worth his while.   

I’m not a social media expert. I know what I find annoying, I know what I like, and naturally I gravitate towards people who like and don’t like similar things as me. Here’s what I also know. John Scott sucks at hockey, period. Mike Weber sucks at hockey, period. Cody McCormick probably still sucks at hockey, period. Marcus Foligno is a great idea, but when you’re relegated to the fourth line on this team, probably less great as a hockey player. The Buffalo Sabres are a hockey team in the NHL, one that presumably tries to win every time they’re on the ice (shut the hell up about the merits of that, I’ll be with you in a minute). They’re really bad at that, the worst in the league, even. So why in the living fuck do the Sabres social media people insist on talking about these worthless players?

Well, we know why. The Sabres social media and fan outreach folks are doing what Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Huff Post since it got terrible, and most other outlets on television and the internet do. They reach out to the lowest common denominator, or as Richard Nixon called them, the Silent Majority. Of course the Silent Majority are comprised largely of a brainless clump of folks who just love Storage Wars and Springsteen and god and guns and think bullying is just a part of growing up and why can’t we have a white history month too!? They’re also TBN’s wheelhouse, whiner line callers, and the idiots on that “we love Steve Ott GO SABRES” commercial. They’re the ones who favorite Marcus Foligno pictures and buy “BIG JOHN” shirtsies. So what do the Sabres tweet about? John Scott practice goals and Marcus Foligno’s uncle.  The nuanced fans, the fans who know the game best, who love the team for the team, not for some big doofus whose appeal is that HE’S SO BAD BUT HE’S BIG AND TRYING SO IT’S CUTE RIGHT, these are the fans forgotten in this whole thing.

Maybe if the team was able to give a wink to the sheer hilarity of their ineptitude, to the predicament we all as fans find ourselves in together, the online interaction could be a bright spot. But some people are just so desperate for positive reinforcement, they’ll cater it from whomever offers it, even if that so happens to be teenage girls and middle aged dads who only discovered the team through those very same teenage daughters. These are the same people that claim America’s health care is the best in the world, that we’re the shining light on a hill, that our military causes are always just and the casualties always necessary. The one’s who get bent out of shape about a commercial featuring different languages, that claim god must exist because golly-gee that sunset is so purdy. These people live in a world of denial, just as anyone who pushes John Scott to the fans is in denial about the state of him or of the team he plays for.

How to fix it? I don’t know, I’m an unemployed JD, not a fucking social media manager. I know it’s more than tailoring to a different audience, it’s changing your entire goddamn outlook. You shouldn’t be Kenneth on 30 Rock all the time. Some things suck, it happens, and regarding this team, almost everything regarding the current situation sucks more than anything has sucked before, to steal from the Beavis and Butthead movie. But I know the one thing that doesn’t suck- the prospects, the future- is never fucking discussed. This may be because the puck bunnies and grit-obsessed cementheads don’t know or care who JT Compher or Jake McCabe are, but when they play on national television, I shouldn’t be stumbling upon their game by fucking accident. The Amerks are hot, but I know that only through the Amerks social media and the feeds of my friends that have the opportunity to follow them closer than I. The Sabres are telling us to like the very things that are part of the reason the team is so shitty, not the reasons the team won’t be so shitty quite soon. I know that’s a strategy the intelligent minority doesn’t appreciate. Not discussing the prospects or the fact that the future lasts longer than "GOOD SEATS STILL AVAILABLE" simply creates dumber fans and the perpetual cycle of whiner line callers, TBN sheep, Cody McCormick truthers will continue on forever. Which is sad for anyone who enjoys watching and discussing this team, but is at least a boon for pushing merch RIGHT NOW. Not hard to see where the priorities lie.

Of course the nuanced fans aren’t free from the grips of being yammering tools now and again. Let me say this again: yes, the Sabres losses are good for the draft, I want to be at the top of the draft, I fucking get it, and you’re not wrong. What is stupid, what is really, extremely grating and off-putting, is anyone cheering losses. “Well, one step closer to Ekblad,” is another thing from “Gotta hope [Team X] comes back in the third!” when the Sabres are winning. Fuck you, no I don’t have to hope for that. The draft is the reward for being shitty, and in case you haven’t noticed, this team can’t win! What, you’re concerned for a five game win streak coming out of their ass? Have you SEEN them playing this season? How they have 15 wins is remarkable and half of them can be explained simply by “they scored a goal they had no business scoring.” I can root for them to win tonight because they probably won’t and they probably won’t tomorrow. Because can you imagine what this team is going to look like after Miller and Moulson are gone?  Jesus, go back to being a fan for a couple months, it won’t hurt you or make you an idiot, I promise. And if it does make you an idiot, well at least the Sabres store has BIG JOHN shirts in stock.

The Barrister


What the fuck ever, it's been a while, but it's the off-season for the only Buffalo sport to hold any interest this year, the Sabres are a tire fire for whom only merit my mention with remarks such as "Oh God thanks to Jesus they're terrible please draft well and fuck off until then," and I've been reluctant to talk about soccer since it is a bore for the #BillsMafia readers who have inexplicably wandered here in search of Buffalove or some such vague feeling of positivity. Not today. Buffalo is rad as hell, but the only local sport of current interest to an expat living in the Garden State is probably Syracuse Men's Basketball but, seriously fuck that and Go Duke. /ducks

Soccer it is, I suppose. 

August to May is the time for English soccer, an unappreciated gem in the US, giving Americans sports at dawn to enjoy over coffee and pancakes and whiskey. The sport that gives you a reason to jump start the weekend with consciousness and, if you invest yourself enough in it, an excuse to avoid the inevitable list of chores your sports-agnostic spouse has prepared while somehow simultaneously feeding your baby, calling a plumber, redecorating your living room with inspiration from a few hundred photos she saw on Pinterest before the baby even woke up, and making a second list of all the ways you've failed and continue to fail her, not the least of which is oversharing relatively intimate domestic details on the internet.

Like I always say, soccer is fun!.

So if you haven't, to reiterate the urging of many posts you might see before the start of each EPL season: try it out, find a side that makes watching the sport fun, and make sure it's not Manchester fucking United.