As I type this, I am watching one of the best things that sport has to offer … NHL Playoff Overtime! Not only that, but the best of even that, something you maybe see once every season or two … a Game 7 overtime! The Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes are going at it, and as I type, they are 8 minutes in.
Most sports have overtime, and they almost all do in playoff games (soccer, we’re looking at you. Bring the Golden Goal back!). Baseball extra innings in the World Series and Game 7 is pretty intense and extremely rare (three or four times ever?), the NFL has had a couple of games to go double overtime in the playoffs, it has happened. But, there has never been a Super Bowl overtime game (and I want a small tweak in the sudden death rules anyways). And, NBA overtime games in Game 7 exist, but the five minute overtime period there doesn’t have quite the same bravado. Maybe the closest recent “extra time” instance that brought on legitimate great drama was the ’08 NCAA Hoops championship, but the drama was just as much built from the 30-footer that took the game to overtime.
So why is NHL overtime so good? The never-ending play and the finality of it. It has the drama of a sudden death ending at a completely unpredictable time, but the nature of hockey allows for tremendous amounts of play, and interesting play at that. It also allows for amazing amounts of play, stuff you just do not see in any other sport. In no other overtime format, outside of baseball and pitching (and it’s more rare) does fatigue play more of a role.
I have fond memories of watching four and five-overtime games at 2:30 in the morning … on a work night! You can’t turn it off, you’re too afraid that you might miss something, and you fully understand you’ll be worthless the next day with no sleep!
Hopefully we’ll get a couple of these triple overtime style games this year, and even better if it’s a Game 7!
Why I’m Glad Miss California Kept Her Crown
(From video games to social commentary in one post. Interesting!)
So it looks like, maybe, the hubbub on whether or not Miss California, Carrie Prejean, should keep her crown or not has subsided thanks to an actual decision being made; that she could. I don’t mind saying that I am very happy she is, and it has nothing to do with my own set of beliefs (which agree with hers, I am a Christian and feel strongly that marriage should be between a man and a women, call same sex unions something else.)
What it comes down to for me is a fact that was brought up by Donald Trump and is so true … it’s a different information world now than it was when these pageants started, and even moreso than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Even back then, you didn’t have the push of the Internet which can expose anything you have ever done, and the ability for one person, vengeful or not, to post information to take someone down from their highest point. In the modern day, celebrities and people who have some level of popularity attached to them are there simply to be knocked off the perch, and social networking tools and blogs have that power now.
Because of that, the whole idea of someone being a perfect angel that wins these pageants is flawed from the start. People are not perfect, and in the case of the pictures posted online, there is probably truth on both sides of the argument. That’s how it almost always is. It’s not a reason however to say someone cannot accomplish something of value later on, or have a stand on something be meaningless. So we have it established, yes, Miss California is not perfect. It’s no reason for her to lose the crown. People in places of high stature can be easily attacked now. It’s not an excuse, never should be, but when it’s to the point that the smartest people are the ones who don’t push to do something great (like be President?), it’s quite sad.
The point that took this whole thing to really being a mangled cluster-mess came today. Apparently, the top pageant official in California, a woman named Shanna Moakler, resigned over the mess, saying that ”I cannot with a clear conscience move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it, or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth.”
Sounds nice, huh? Oh yeah, the picture on the CNN news story? Very glamorous. Maybe she’s someone above all of this reproach. But oh yeah, there’s this … near the bottom of the article, it mentions that she’s a former Playboy Centerfold. Wait, huh?!
So someone who has no problem taking nude photos is still talking about living up to the contracts they signed as a youth regarding how to carry yourself regarding representing your previous awards? It’s one of the most backwards things I’ve ever seen, and an obvious statement that it’s not about disagreement with the rules, it’s disagreement with the stance Carrie has taken on same sex marriage. Not that we have much reason to take any sort of purity these pageants claim to have seriously, but this is a major case of the pot calling the kettle extra-black!
(I found these centerfold pictures. Some of them are quite a bit more racy than just Playboy quality stuff. How this is being a role model for young women looking to do “clean” modeling like pageants is beyond me. She was very attractive in them though … sadly, that’s probably the actual part that matters.)
Oh yeah. This same organization? They paid for a breast implant for Carrie before the Miss USA pageant. Wait, double-huh?! Nothing more on that needs to be said.
This whole thing can be put to bed by simply saying that one woman had a stand, said it in a very classy way, has been attacked since, hasn’t been perfect before, and is showing her own state’s organization to be the backwards mess that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Anytime that the most on-target person in a conversation is Donald Trump, someone should take note and say … triple-huh?!