I don’t think that is a Real Sport…

by J. Scott Moore

Maybe you think that all I do is watch hockey.  I have a confession to make about Real Sports. As you may already know, I wrote about what I thought was a real sport here. I probably make it sound like if it wasn’t a real sport, that I don’t like it.

Not true. In fact I was probably hiding behind some macho BS to guard against some of the sports I do like…and don’t want anyone laughing at me for digging them.

Of course I know people laugh, my Canadian friend loves badminton and tried to tell me repeatedly how bad-ass it is. I never heard much, I was laughing too hard. Well, I’ve got a couple of those too.

He was famous for doing back flips, sans helmet

Might as well get the toughest one done first: I love figure skating. Yep. Not that ice dancing crap, but the women’s short and long programs as well as the men. Love the jumps. I think Scott Hamilton probably got me into it at some point, which shows my age. But that guy had the best foot work ever. Ever since then I have judged skater’s foot work based on him. Being a big music guy has probably led me to enjoy the choreography of the programs. To overly technical skaters don’t do it for me, give me the emotion. An emotionally charged program is always the best. Just like music, if it’s got no feeling, who cares?

Sailing. Frankly I don’t know a darn thing about it. Not even enough to really explain why it’s so exciting to me. But years ago I was on vacation in the Caribbean and had a great experience that really got me into it. We went sailing at this place that does these mock races in some of the old America’s Cup boats. You get a chance to do some simple crewing, it’s all rather fun. I’ve always loved sailing and the strategies of a race, even at my limited ability to understand, are like chess on water.

Speaking of chess. Is chess on TV? Not really. Maybe in Russia? But I do love chess; I’ve read a few books about historic figures and such. Just found a sci-fi/fantasy short story collection, all chess stories.

Well I’ve gone from sports to games. Nonetheless, it’s certainly not the rough and tumble – must have a helmet – type of stuff I was talking about earlier.

Confession time is over for me.

What’s your favorite sport that you don’t want anyone to know about? C’mon, you can tell me. Leave an anonymous comment.

 

Real Winter Olympics

When I first started this blog I took a look at what I meant by a “Real Sport”. You can review that article, or you just hang with me here and I’ll tell you that you need apply only one rule when determining the status of a sport, either real…or not. Simply apply the helmet test. Does the participant wear a helmet? Then yes, it is a real sport.
So let’s take a look at the Winter Olympics and se what’s real and what’s not.

Helmets
Alpine skiing
Bobsled
Freestyle Skiing
Hockey
Luge
Nordic Combined
Short Track
Skeleton
Ski Jumping
Snowboarding
Speed Skating

No helmet
Biathlon
Cross-country
Curling
Figure Skating
Nordic Combined

Luge, skeleton and bobsled, yep, helmets. Are these guys sane? Real sport or extreme sport?

The Nordic combined might be the oddest pairing of competitions, ski jumping and X-country. One all balls, the other so lame. I’ll let you decide which is which.

Ah curling, um…no. No I’ve gotten a little flack about liking figure skating, but this is the DUMBEST ‘sport’ ever. What can possibly be dumber than sweeping ice? And I love the replays they show of the draw. Do we really need a slow motion replay of a rock that is already moving at a mere 5 mph? That’s about 8 kph for you Canadians. Hilarious! And, even better, they get time outs! What do you need a time out for? And how about that Curling Caliper? That is some serious hardware for determining the winner of a close match. That isn’t something you just buy at the hardware store. While I was watching the US-Swiss match the Swiss spent SO much time discussing a draw that even the announcers were getting impatient. Or bored, is that possible? Hehehe.

Ok, so I like figure skating despite the fact that it isn’t a real sport. I’ve been accused of having a little frou-frou in my step, and I do like a latte, a good latte, with a lot of espresso, but so what? Figure skaters are like the rock stars of the Olympics. They wear the costumes, they rock it out to the music, they get the girls…er…ok, forget that.

Biathlon – helmets? No, but guns! Can we call this what it really is? A bunch of guys got kicked out of their house by their wives up in Norway and decided to ski around and shoot things. Somehow it turned into an Olympic event. Face it; this would be a lot more interesting if these guys were shooting at a dunk-tank target with Lindsey Vonn sitting on the bench with nothing on but a white t-shirt.

So about 2/3 of the Winter Olympics are real sports, that would account for all the time I’m spending in front of the boob-tube!

I’ll leave you with this picture. A X-country skier crashing off the course. Really, were you going about 10 mph or what? How does that happen?

-From the Point

The NHL and Versus

As the end of the NHL season nears it’s time for me to defend Versus and their coverage of this latest hockey season. It’s a commonly repeated complaint that Versus isn’t a respected network and that for the NHL to be taken seriously, it must return to ESPN.

Ridiculous.

I don't understand all this garbage about how hockey needs to be on ESPN to be respected and accepted. I really don't think my neighbor is suddenly going to 'respect' or 'get' hockey because it's on ESPN. It doesn’t work that way. Guess what? The NBA is on ESPN and I don't ‘get it’ any more than I ever have.

Versus’ regular season coverage included national games every Monday and Tuesday. It’s a great opportunity to watch teams all across the league. While I don’t have an exact count, the Eastern conference did seem to be aired more, a bit unbalanced. That is a fair complaint. And the playoff coverage was every night of the week and double headers on some nights! There is NO WAY ESPN could give hockey fans that kind of coverage. Was it perfect? No. There were so many games during the first round that someone out there was going to miss games they wanted to see. The NBA approach was to start games as late as 8:30 and they were soundly berated in this market for that. So no solution is perfect.

The biggest joke about Versus is that no one can find it. Look, it is a network that is building itself. They will continue to get bigger and hopefully better. Hockey has plenty of fans and it doesn't need to go on every trendy network to survive. It will always be around and the people that care about it will find it on their TV.

When they started NHL coverage it was a hurried process. Namely because ESPN hung the NHL out to dry, declining to exercise an optional year left on the current contract. They chose not to renew that relationship creating a scramble to air the league. But a lot of the hockey talent moved to Versus and eventually the network was producing a product on par with ESPN. Some exceptions were Barry Melrose and John Buccigross. Bucci often bristled at the notion that he was a hockey guy at ESPN, he saw himself as more rounded. It was understandable that he was seen in that light, he hosted the successful NHL2Night, an excellent show. But he wanted to be more than just a hockey guy so he stayed when the NHL left.

The advantage to Versus is that they aren't trying to cover everything under the sun. They have a few niche sports and a lot of time to cover them. The Versus lineup includes MMA, cycling, bull riding, Indy racing… notice a high percentage of sports that require a helmet? Ah, a Real Sport network. Frankly, their slim programming lineup allows them to spend a lot of time on hockey. Now what's wrong with that?

On ESPN we have an enormous amount of coverage devoted to poker, basketball on trampolines, paintball...now that is ridiculous. Versus is already heading down the same road as ESPN, trying to fill the hours of the day with 'original' programming, promoting it and even foisting it on us between the end of a game and the post-game coverage, as they recently did with Sports Soup. They're learning the big network ways, Sports Soup is ok, but this new show, FanArchy looks pretty low denomination.

I can't understand the high level of criticism of the network from hockey fans in particular. Versus will spend the whole break between periods talking hockey, no baseball, football or basketball. Look, nothing wrong with any of those sports, but if you are a big hockey fan its hours of nothing but hockey. What's to complain about?

But I say enjoy the sparse programming while you can before the coverage is like that of the other big boys, coming on mere minutes before the game and cutting out right at the end to move on the next obligation, like horse racing, or poker.

Posted by: From the Point

World Sport Stacking Championships

Denver is one of the nations premier sports cities! Many of us here have always known this but the rest of the country often views Denver as nothing more than an overgrown cow-town. Well you can't make that charge anymore. Not now that Denver is the host city of the 2009 WSSA World Sport Stacking Championships!!!
You doubt my sincerity? In 2006 upon the eve of ESPN's televised coverage of the sport, a representative had this to say about Sport Stacking:
"We are thrilled to be at the forefront of this exciting new sport," said John Lasker, director, new media content, ESPN. "Sport stacking is something you have to see to believe, and once we saw it, we knew we wanted to share it with kids and sports fans everywhere."
Let's take a look at what appears to be a team practise:

I suspect that even back in the good old days before computers, video games and television, this 'sport' would still have evoked the old 'you should be outside getting some fresh air' stand-by used by parents since, well, television. I think I'd rather my kids were playing a video game.
Despite ESPN's gushing endorsement, I don't consider this a Real Sport.
Posted by: From the Point

RING OF FIRE 34: JUDGMENT DAY - Broomfield Event Center

On Saturday night the Broomfield Event Center hosted a 13 bout MMA event. Since I have never been to a live fight, The Shocker and I decided this would probably be a lot of fun. Oh, and this is a Real Sport so of course I need to give it a little coverage here.
The cage was on the floor surrounded by tables that were selling around $100 a seat and appeared to include catering. More floor seating was situated around the tables and the whole floor seemed sold out. We got a couple $55 seats just 3 rows up off the floor, just a little off-center to the cage and high enough to see the the ground work.
I wouldn't say it was a complete sell out, but it was well attended by a variety of tatted up dudes with serious muscles and a lot of women in high heels, sportin a lot of cleavage.
We got there a little late but it seemed to have started on time. The 6 preliminary matches all went the full 3 rounds and were decided by the judges. These guys were decent and got the crowd warmed up as the tables filled with the fashionably late.
Sir Kenneth Seegrist got the undercard rolling with his showy entrance and brawling style. That one was over shortly after Sir Kenneth gained position over his opponent and began pummelling him with body punches. Apparently a rib was broken as Ed Banks quickly tapped out and looked to be in a lot of pain.
Here is where I think the event was well run; the fights came quickly, one after the other without too much time in between, but plenty to get another beer. When the fighters get down on the mats or behind the obstruction of the cage padding, there was some pretty good camera work being broadcast up on a big screen at one end of the arena, as well as on the scoreboard. They did miss one important submission hold that ended a fight, and there wasn't even a replay from a good angle, so about half the arena never saw it.
Where they really blew it was the clock. The rounds, as we all know are timed. No clock, anywhere. Your fighter is getting a little tired and you want to know how much longer he has got to go to get through this round? Forget it! No clock to be found anywhere. Big mistake.
Ok, even though the undercard started late, the whole thing was wrapped up by about 10 because all the other fights were fast and furious! And that was ok. It was some good, exciting MMA action with plenty of work on the feet, a couple TKO's and some surprisingly quick submission holds ending the work on the ground. You can't look away for a second or you can miss it. I think that is what makes MMA so popular.
Overall a good event, well run and lots of fun. I would go again.
Posted by: From the Point

What is a Real Sport?

I think we’ve all heard and/or been a part of the 'what is a sport', or is Tiger Woods an athlete, conversation. It’s kind of like that ongoing discussion in high school about the greatest guitar players. Everyone has an angle, right?
Well, mine is to define what a real sport is, and the reason that is relevant is because this is Real Denver Sports, the blog. Dum-dum duuum! (intro music!)
The majority of the content of this blog will be surrounding real sports.
No Basketball.
No Baseball.
Whoa slick! You say, baseball is America’s pastime and basketball is one of the four major sports in the USA. True.
But here at Real Denver Sports I like to apply a simple rule of thumb to the definition of a real sport. Do the players wear a helmet? Ask yourself that question and you’ve got your answer. Helmet = Real Sport.
Ergo, hockey and football. Not baseball or basketball.
Now I know what some of you are thinking, if we agree to define a sport based on protective equipment, shouldn’t it be the jock strap? Surely that is the defining gear, equipment to guard the equipment. Here’s your answer, no. First of all you sexist cave man, haven’t you heard of Title IX? Second, how many millions of times have you seen America’s Funniest Home Videos where dad ends up taking one to the family jewels by junior? By that definition parenthood is a sport. Nope.
It’s the helmet. A real sport is a game that is physical in nature or hazardous in nature in such a way that the head requires protection. That is a real sport. Now if you look at things this way I think you will see that you are going to be forced to accept some sports you never thought much about before and realize that some of the ones you consider sports to be nothing but highly commercialized games.
Let’s put it through a couple more tests, shall we?
By the helmet test we end up with the following real sports:
Hockey
Football
Car racing, IRL and NASCAR, etc.
Motorcycle racing
Lacrosse
Downhill skiing
Snowboarding
Bobsledding, skeleton, etc
Horse racing
Mountain climbing
Kayaking
Cycling
Now let's look at athletes that don't wear a helmet:
Baseball
Basketball
Cricket
Soccer
Volleyball
Ping pong
Bowling
Poker (just because it’s on ESPN doesn’t make it a sport)
Wrestling
Golf
Tennis
Track & field
Swimming
Gymnastics
Hunting/Fishing
If you can get over your shock that the B-balls might not be real sports you'll see that it falls into place very logically. Those are not real sports.
With rules come exceptions. Boxing/MMA, just about any sort of combat game is a real sport sans helmet. Why? Because the point of the game is to injure your opponent, very often by punching your opponent in the head. And even in the most outlandish of these combat bouts it is not allowed to deliver a blow to the nads, further proof that a jock can not be the measure of a real sport. An exception to the exception here would be fencing. Yes there is a helmet, but since sword play was at one time (like any face to face combat) a means of survival/war, putting a damn helmet on nullifies the whole point. Not a real sport.
Bull riding is in that grey area regarding protection of the grey matter. It’s a real sport; it’s just a matter of time before enough cowboys get their melons splattered all over the arena dirt before helmets will permanently replace a Stetson. And that is the same logic that got us to where we are today with hockey. Cause I’m sure some of you base/basketball lovin’ people are a bit miffed by now and have thought, Hey! Hockey players haven’t always worn helmets! True, but we are talking about a day and age when every one was either pretty fatalistic because they were all going to die of consumption anyway or just your typically drunken, crazed Canadians. And they invented the game, if they didn’t want to wear a helmet, who could argue?
Cricket and baseball are a bit trickier. Here we have a couple of players that don a helmet in only certain circumstances. Near as I can tell we have an odd situation where catchers are the only guys on the field playing a real sport. The batter wears a helmet maybe 10% of the game, and that is high due to all the rituals that go on between pitches. Nope, not a real sport. Cricket is pretty much in the same boat except that I think there is the unique situation in that the bowler is allowed to try to throw the ball at the batsman in order to hit him. That’s kinda cool. But I will have to do a little more research into this before considering cricket any different from baseball.
And there you have it. Irrefutable!
Actually I would like to hear your angle on the whole thing. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think a real sport is!!
Posted by: From the Point