“A Festivus for the rest of us!”
If you didn’t grow up watching Seinfeld (shame on you), Dec. 23 marks the celebration of Festivus, a fictional holiday created by Frank Costanza — the character from the show played by Jerry Stiller.
Costanza hated the commercial and religious aspects of Christmas, so he made up his own holiday that has some eccentric elements to it.
Instead of putting up a tree, he erected a pole because it required no decoration and tinsel was too distracting.
“Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son,” Costanza said during the episode of Seinfeld. “I reached for the last one they had — but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way!”
Out of that, a new holiday was born.
The Festivus tradition begins with the airing of grievances, so I polled a group of trusted colleagues around the Sportsnet newsroom to come up with our list.
“At Festivus dinner, you gather your family around, and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year!”
In last year’s edition, we took issue with NHL stat wars, UFC weigh-ins, and grown men who wear their own names on the back of a jersey.
Here is the 2014 edition of the Sportsnet airing of grievances:
“I got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re going to hear about it.”
Note: The following is done in the spirit of Frank Costanza. If I sound like too much of a curmudgeon, remember it’s tongue and cheek and all in good fun. Don’t take it too seriously.
Legacy talk: We in the media, especially columnists, like to look at the big picture. It’s a way of looking beyond the obvious story — but sometimes it leads to errors in judgment. And there’s one aspect that I’m sick of: talking about an athlete’s legacy before his or her career is over. This seems to happen every time LeBron James and Peyton Manning win or lose a big playoff game or series. Sure, there’s a time and place for that (like when Steve Nash had essentially a career-ending injury) but legacy talk should be saved for when the full body of work is complete. For example, if we wrote one of the legacy pieces on John Elway before 1997, the narrative of his career would’ve been that he’s a big-game choker. Well, Elway won the next two Super Bowls and now he’s considered to be one of the best players of his generation. Funny how that works.
Fans of two teams in the same sport: There’s a guy in my office who roots for both the Montreal Canadiens and L.A. Kings. This is bogus! You have to stick with one. It defeats the whole purpose of being a fan and is a cheap, easy way out. There are some exceptions, however. One of my bosses cheers for the Utah Jazz and the Toronto Raptors because he was a Jazz fan before the Raptors’ inception. I’ll give him that but in most cases, this is unacceptable behaviour.
Throwing jerseys on the ice: This has become a recurring issue in Toronto with Leafs fans, and I’ve had enough of it. It makes everyone look bad — the fan base, the players, and the organization. It’s a weak attempt to send a message and it just irritates the players (as we saw with salute-gate) and the rest of the fans. If you want to make a statement, don’t deliver it by throwing your used dirty clothing on the ice. It’s disrespectful.
Trying to quantify everything: There is definitely a place for analytics and stats-based analysis in sports. Heck, I use advanced metrics such as WAR, Corsi, PDO, DVOA, and PER in plenty of my articles. But what grinds my gears is when those in the media or on social media that try to base everything on numbers. There are legitimate arguments to discount ideas such as momentum and clutch, but sports have a human element to them and there are simply things that cannot be determined by numbers. The eye test will always have value and the sports business is still about people. Someone like Percy Harvin would excel in all possible metrics but there’s a reason teams keep getting better without him. Remember: These are humans and as much as we love to learn by the way of statistics, robots don’t play the games.
The “elite QB” debate: Outside of the legacy talk, this is the silliest conversation in the sports world – and it’s far too common. Every year when a quarterback emerges, those on Twitter or television debate whether that player should be considered elite? First of all, who cares? Secondly, what defines elite? The annual debate is pointless. What’s wrong with being very good or an emerging good player? Do we need to compare everyone to Peyton Manning or Tom Brady? Do we need to know whether Joe Flacco or Matt Ryan is elite? It’s overdone and serves no purpose.
Mid-game/halftime interviews: Anyone who watches a lot of sports sees these frequently. Coaches giving half-assed answers to questions they don’t want to address in the middle of a game. And sure, they may be considered an important part of a TV broadcast, but it’s time to pull the plug. The coaches (the ones who tend to be interviewed) rarely say anything of importance and they provide nothing to the fans. So, what’s the point? It’s a win for both sides!
Justin Bieber: I’m sick of this kid. Every week I have to hear about whichever team he’s pretending to cheer for. Let’s stop giving him our attention. Back to what I said earlier, pick one team per sport and stick with them. Based on what we’ve seen, Bieber is a Lakers/Clippers/Heat/Warriors/Raptors/Blackhawks/Cavs/Hornets/Leafs/Steelers/Patriots fan. This is what I call a sports party foul.
The wave: I might be on an island here, because a lot of people seem to disagree with me, but I cringe every time I’m at a game and someone in my section makes a feeble attempt at starting to start the wave. Even when done to perfection, the wave is not that enjoyable and, like tinsel, distracting. And there’s a huge downside. When fans (usually of the intoxicated variety) try to start the wave at important or inopportune times of the game. This occurs way too frequently at Blue Jays games and we need to put an end to it. And stop throwing paper airplanes, too.
The end of NBA games: I’ve been a basketball fan since I was a kid, but there’s something unsettling about the end of these games. Why do we get constant action for 40 or so minutes before an excess of timeouts and free throws spoils the fun? Shouldn’t the end of the game be the most exciting? Why does basketball go the other way? The constant stoppages/TV timeouts ruins the flow of the game and sucks out the energy. As Frank said during the creation of Festivus, there has to be a better way, because the last five minutes of a basketball game is more like 35 minutes.
Honouring players that don’t deserve it: It’s great when a franchise looks back at their history and celebrates tradition or players who greatly served the city or the team. But what infuriates me is when the wrong people get honoured. Sure, who am I to determine who the right people are? But there are some erroneous choices.
The Raptors are celebrating their 20th anniversary this season and to be honest, they don’t have too much history to commemorate. The team today is great and likeable and fun, but honouring Tracy McGrady didn’t seem right. He only played three seasons in Toronto and only one was impactful. He used that one good year to leverage a big free-agent deal out of Toronto and became a superstar elsewhere. So what are Toronto fans celebrating? That a great, homegrown player spent the majority of his career elsewhere? I’ve found it difficult to embrace that choice.
Fans who just wave at the camera the entire game: I get it, people like attention. But there are some fans that just take it too far. As my buddy Eric Prime of the Fan 590 pointed out on Twitter, the fans that constantly turn around and wave at the camera during hockey games totally suck. See this example below.
This act should be publicly shamed. Sure, do it once to show off to your friends [No. Never do it. Ever] but don’t be an attention hog. It’s not a good quality.
Leafs/Raptors comparison: When the Leafs were in the middle of their winning streak earlier this month, there was a discussion on social media that the Raptors’ strong start to the season helped motivate the hockey club. Sure, in a fictional world, this would make sense. But that notion is crazy talk. Let’s try and use the same logic to come up with examples:
-Did the Eagles lose their last three games and fall out of the playoffs because the 76ers set the tone?
-Did the Golden State Warriors get off to a dominant start because the San Francisco Giants won the World Series?
See how silly this sounds. I highly doubt Randy Carlyle is making Jake Gardiner watch Kyle Lowry videos to improve his toughness.
Well, that’s all for this year. I was going to rant about the media’s treatment of Marshawn Lynch, but let’s save that for another time.
If you have any grievances yourself, hit me up on Twitter at @realjeffsimmons or send your Festivus contributions to the @Sportsnet Twitter with the hashtag #SNFestivus and we’ll re-tweet the best ones.
Happy Festivus to you all. Have a great holidays.
“Until you pin me, Festivus is not over!”
