Winter has finally come to Hanover. With day-long blizzards, freezing temperatures and icy winds, it looks like we'll all be spending more time inside. But we've also entered that period of the year that I know as the "Sports Winter."
Stretching from the Super Bowl to March Madness, it's six weeks of sports doldrums. The NBA and NHL are at midseason and baseball is eight weeks away. We were lucky this year to have the Olympics, which could stem, but not overcome the depths of Sports Winter. But now even that is over, and so the Sports Winter continues.
I was so desperate for some sports-related diversion today that I watched highlights from the 2006 BassMaster Classic, dubbed the "Super Bowl of Competitive Bass Fishing" for thirty minutes before realizing how asinine it was. Looking back though, I can see some bright moments in this Sports Winter. Without further ado, I present to you: the diamonds in the rough, the little known stories of the 2006 Sports Winter.
1) Feb. 6. You may remember that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit. Well, during the ridiculous buildup to the Super Bowl, he was presented with the key to the city. The last person to receive the key to Detroit was -- wait for it -- Saddam Hussein. Hand to God. I couldn't make up stuff like this if I tried. I wonder if he had that down in the spider hole with him.
2) Feb. 19. Just days after I made fun of his native country in my Olympics column, Lascelles Brown, a native Jamaican competing for Canada, won a silver medal in two-man bobsled. He was the first Jamaican to win a winter Olympic medal. Cool runnings, mon!
3) Feb. 21. American speedskaters Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick had a bit of a hissy fit, trading accusations and insults that culminated in a fantastic press conference in which they sat at opposite ends of a long table and talked about each other as if they were in separate rooms. I guess you can be a prima donna even in a sport nobody watches. These guys are going to be really, really bored for the next four years.
4) Feb 22. The Philadelphia 76ers, along with the Philly police department, announced a landmark "guns for tickets" program. Anyone that brings a gun to a police station receives two tickets to an upcoming Sixers game. Only problem: Allen Iverson, finally realizing that rapping "40 Bars" (sample lyric: "You got the wrong idea ... get murdered in a second in the first degree.") never increased his street cred, went straight to the station, turned in his arsenal and bought out the stadium for the rest of the season.
5) Feb. 26. Vince Young got into trouble at the NFL scouting combine after allegedly scoring a six on his first try at the Wonderlic IQ test. To put that in perspective, according to Wikipedia the average score for an NFL quarterback is 24, and the average for a security guard is 17.
There are 50 questions on the test, including brainteasers such as these from a sample test posted on ESPN.com:
Q: Paper sells for 21 cents per pad. What will four pads cost?"
Q: When rope is selling at $.10 a foot, how many feet can you buy for sixty cents?
I for one don't really understand Vince's troubles. Who could have forgotten how articulate he was during his press conferences after the Rose Bowl?
6) Feb. 28. Kevin Garnett, after being called for a charge, threw the ball into the stands, hitting a fan in the face. Garnett was ejected, and the fan wheeled out on a gurney. So what's funny about this? Let me explain: This is not Roger Clemens throwing a beanball (like he did at his own son during spring training). Garnett flipped the ball into the stands and it nicked the guy. This is like quitting a pong game after getting hit with a slam save. Wow.
See, Sports Winter isn't so bad. I leave you with this paraphrase of Bill Murray, from his virtuoso 1993 movie, "Groundhog Day."
When Chekhov saw the long Sports Winter, he saw a Sports Winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that Sports Winter is just another step in the cycle of sports life. But standing here among the people of Hanover and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous Sports Winter.
