tsn sucks

wednesday is a hard day. it's my earliest day at work and it's the day i work the latest; then i've got baseball practice with the team i'm coaching; then i've got to head out to cochrane for football practice. well, this wednesday was made even harder by helga the nazi death camp fitness instructor who took a full hour whipping the rangers into some semblance of shape.

i really needed to come home and unwind.


goos hiddink celebrates psv's win with ooijer 

so i had been looking forward to psv v. lyon all day. i had succeeded in avoiding the score, and i made it back for the last thirty minutes of the second half. and when the whistle blew and they wre drawn 1-1 i was super pumped -- extra time.

but no...tsn blows. they decided that since no goals were scored in extra time they'd just skip it and go straight to the penalty shootout so that sportdesk wouldn't have to start late.

what the fuck?!

football fans get no respect. a meaningless blue jays game going into extra innings would not be trimmed to accomadate sportsdesk. sportsdesk would be pre-empted.

but what does tsn do, it takes 30 undoubtedly amazing minutes of football and pretends they never happened. who cares if there were no goals? only people who don't understand football. for real fans thirty minutes of nil - nil can be as good as a thirty minute goal scoring explosion. fuck was i ever cheated last night.

so next time you come to town gino reda, make sure you wear something flame retardant, cause i am getting up high and raining flares down on your ass in protest (i'm sure you weren't responsible for the decision, but i love the symbolism nonetheless).

it sucks being a football fan in a country or heathens.

conflagration

everyone's going to blame the fans. all the pussy north american audiences are going to be appalled that something like this could happen. there will be calls for arrests and prosecutions and tightened security. bla, bla, bla.

this is nothing like the heysel tragedy. 39 people died that day. tonight, one stray flare hit a.c. milan goalkeeper dida in the shoulder, and a spark hit his melon.


the san siro burns with fan flares 

now that's a bummer that he got hit, and it's a bummer that inter milan will be penalized further for the behavior of the fans, but blame should be placed where blame is due: on dr. markus merk. shevchenko opens the game with a head butt, a red cardable offence, and walks away without even a warning, then he goes on to score the games only countable goal. then merk makes a string of terrible calls, ignoring two blatant penalty shot fouls on two inter milan players, and he caps off his shit night at the helm by disallowing a cambiasso goal that was totally legit.

did the inter fans overreact? sure. of course. throwing flares is an overreaction. but give me a place with that kind of passion, a place that loves their sport and their team so passionately that they will throw flares, over a place where soccer moms sit next to you in a sporting event and talk about their daughters most recent haircut.

and i bet if you asked dida where he'd rather play -- a safe, passionless arena, or a dangerous, passionate arena -- he'd choose the san siro tonight.

merk should be ashamed. that was the worst officiating i've seen in ages.