I just knew that my Top 10 sports movies answer last week would incite some anger from readers.
On that note I will let Bill from Saint John, New Brunswick have his say.
"How can any movie be rated higher then Friday Night Lights? I thought the actors appeared real during the game scenes. Then I saw the reality show of the high school team from Alabama and realized they got USA high school football spot on. It was hard for me to tell after watching small town ball. The book was even better as the movie forgot to mention that Jesse Armstead actually played for the team that the Panthers lost to in the movie."
Well said Bill and I agree with you, the book was amazing. And now on to this week’s questions.
This week I wanted to kick off the mail bag with a Tweet I received from Yanovich.
Comment:
Jim, what are you expecting from the Jays? Is this year really going to be that bad?
Answer:
First of all Yanovich, thanks for following me on Twitter (SportsnetJim).
It depends what you mean by bad? I don’t think anyone is under any illusions that the Jays have any kind of hope of being playoff contenders this season. I don’t think this year is about that at all. It’s about all those young players learning about what it takes to win in the Major Leagues.
I am thrilled to see how well Shaun Marcum is pitching this spring. The other pleasant surprise has been how well Jose Bautista is hitting. Maybe, just maybe, the Jays will be somewhat competitive and win around 70 games. Let’s be honest: the Jays will experience a lot of growing pains this year. But that is to be expected with such a young team.
I will be curious to see if Vernon Wells can stay healthy and put up some decent numbers this year. Goodness knows the man is making enough money. I would also like to see the guy play with a little passion this year. I think what the Jays really need is a manager to grow with them for the next decade. This is not a knock against Cito Gaston but the man has made it clear he will only manage this season.
General manager Alex Anthopoulos has done an impressive job so far. His next big challenge will be to hire a manger that buys into his vision of what the Jays will be like for the next decade. I know he’s young, but I have a good feeling that Anthopoulos will hire the right man for the job.
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Name: Patrick
Comment:
Hey Jim, I wanted to run this by you, so here goes: My roommate and I have been debating which NHL team was the first to use a goal horn. We suspect that it was either St. Louis or San Jose. Are you aware of the answer to this hotly debated subject matter around our apartment?
Cheers, Patrick
Answer:
Hi Patrick. This is an excellent question and one that took a bit of research to find the answer. It turns out the first team to use a horn to celebrate a goal was the Blackhawks in the old Chicago Stadium. It was a marine horn that was taken from the Wirtz family yacht; the Hawks started using it to celebrate goals back in early 1983.
The Blues started using a horn in the early 1990s; just about the time Brett Hull was scoring 70 goals a season on a regular basis. Now, pretty much every team uses a horn to celebrate goals. But back in the early 1980s, when the Hawks were loaded with guys like Denis Savard, Steve Larmer, Dirk Graham and Al Secord; you heard this ear-piercing sound many times every night.
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Name: Steve the Coal Miner
Comment:
Hi Jim,
I am a person that loves strange and obscure stats and it appears you do too. I was wondering if you happened to know what the most number of NHL shutouts to occur on the same day?
Answer:
Hi Steve the Coal Miner. Thanks for a great question. This took a lot of research and after conferring with the head NHL statistician, we discovered that on two occasions, there have been six shutouts on the same day. The first time it happened was way back on Feb. 28 ,1929. It happened again 72 years later on March 21st, 2001.
The first time it happened there were two separate 0-0 shutouts. One of them involved the Montreal Canadiens and the defunct New York Americans.
Fast forward seven decades and Martin Brodeur and the Devils shutout their bitter rivals the Rangers. That same night the Hurricanes shutout the Sabres 1-0. The Wild and the Predators skated to a 0-0 tie, a game that produced two of the six shutouts. The Stars destroyed the Ducks 8-0 to produce the night’s fifth shutout.
Now, Oilers fans will always remember the sixth shutout that night, a resounding 7-0 win over the Kings. Tommy Salo was awesome and Georges Laraque went toe-to-toe with Stu "The Grim Reaper" Grimson in a classic heavyweight tilt.
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Name: Chris
Comment:
Clubber, if all of the Sportsnet on-air personalities faced off in the ring for a WWE-style Royal Rumble, who would be the last one standing? I bet Kipper talks a big game, but being a wrestling fan since your younger years, do you think the moves you’ve picked up from the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase and The Ultimate Warrior would help?
Answer:
Hi Chris. You are so right, Kypreos does talk a big game, but in a Royal Rumble, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
I created most of my moves from the likes of Ric Flair and Stone Cold Steve Austin. I am also a big believer in the steel chair.
The first thing I would do would be to toss Barry Davis and Jason Portuondo over the top rope and onto the cold, hard concrete floor of the arena.
My big worry is Brad Fay.
Brad is a nice guy, but in the ring, he can’t be trusted. Fay would come into the ring in a nice suit and when I least expect it, he would cut me wide open with a foreign object tucked into his gitch.
Of course, I would stagger across the ring bleeding like a stuck pig. But that wouldn’t stop me. I would have one of my henchmen (Bill Watters) toss me a steel chair and the next thing you know Brad would be out of the ring and being tended to by the paramedics.
I would use every dirty trick in the book to deal with Kypreos. While Kipper is busy stomping Daren Millard into submission, I would drop kick the Big Greek in the back and then toss him out of the ring with a cactus clothesline. The whole time Millard was taking his beating at the hands of Kypreos, Doug MacLean would be standing outside of the ropes yelling at Millard to get up and fight like man. At that point John Shannon would get into it with MacLean and the two of them would stage their own brawl on the ring apron.
Sean McCormick is fast and has great hair, but I think I could handle him. I would pummel The Dude with a series of vicious neck chops then finish him off with a scoop slam pile driver.
My biggest fear would be R.J. Broadhead. A former golden gloves boxer in Saskatoon, R.J. stays in shape by doing an MMA style workout. He’s really dangerous in a Shawn Michaels kind of way. R.J. only has one weak point to his game, an old knee injury from his Junior B hockey days. If I could somehow survive his initial brutal assault, I would slap my patented figure-four leg lock on him.
That would leave me with just the ladies, Evanka Osmak and Martine Gaillard. I hate to say it Chris, but I know I would fall for the oldest trick in the book, the fake handshake. While Evanka reaches out to shake my hand in the middle of the ring, Martine would jump off the top rope and knock me out with her infamous Gaillard is on Fire flying elbow.
So in the end, Evanka and Martine would join forces to form some sort of evil NWO splinter group within Sportsnet and be named co-champions.
The commissioner of Sportsnet WWE, Gord Stellick, would then grab the microphone and claim this was the greatest Royal Rumble ever and that Jim Lang was robbed of his title and demand a rematch. At that point, battered and bruised, I would stagger to the side of ring, grab a couple of beers and proceed to douse myself with the golden nectar.
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That’s it for this week.
St Patrick’s Day is coming up and that always reminds me of the late, great Pat Marsden. Patrick was a hall of fame sportscaster, a proud Canadian and Irish to the core.
I plan on having a rum and Coke in his honour.