Are there any decent sports left?

[Janik]

Are there any decent sports left?

Hockey isn't that I am aware of. And talking of watching hockey, tickets for the 2015 European Championships (called EuroHockey), to be played in Stratford in late August, are currently on sale. The Finals are sold out, but most other days/sessions have seats available. England and Ireland are in the Men's event and England and Scotland in the Women's.

[Ray de Galles]

Are there any decent sports left?

Yes, I'm thinking of taking the family to a couple of games of that.

.

[Duncan Gardner]

Are there any decent sports left?

Green Calx wrote: Gaelic football and hurling

[Wizardous]

Are there any decent sports left?

That looks like a kids playground?

[Janik]

Are there any decent sports left?

Janik wrote: Moving on...

How about Ski Jumping. This is a pretty extraordinary watch. Ski flying indeed. I was watching the qualifying competition yesterday, and someone just missed the old world record then, coming down a metre short. So the conditions were obviously right for it.

Definitely right for it; Prevc's record has lasted all of 24 hours, as Anders Fannemel jumps 251.5m. Fannemel was the fella I saw jump 245.5m in qualifying on Friday. I think we can say he is in good nick.

[jason voorhees]

Are there any decent sports left?

In football, I root for the Oakland Raiders because they hire castoffs, outlaws, malcontenets, and fuckups, they have lots of penalties, fights, and paybacks, and because Al Davis told the rest of the pig NFL owners to go get fucked. Also, they don't have a lot of Christians kneeling down to pray after touchdowns. Christians are ruining sports. Someday, the Raiders will be strong again, and they will dip the ball in shit and shove it down the throats of the wholesome, white, heartland teams that pray together and don't deliver late hits.

You know the best thing I did for myself during the past five years? I told sports to go take a flying fuck. I was fed up with the way I related to professional sports, so I reordered the relationship on my own terms. I became a little more selective.

I can't believe how much time I had wasted watching any old piece of shit ballgame that happened to show up on TV. I must have thought there was some inborn male obligation to tune in and root every time a bunch of sweaty assholes got together to mix it up in a stadium somewhere.

I also realized I was wasting perfectly good emotional energy by sticking with my teams when they were doing poorly. My rooting life was scarely better than those Cubs fans who think it's a sign of character to feel shitty all the time. It's absurb.

I decided it's not necessary to suffer and feel crappy just because my teams suck. What I do now is cut 'em loose for awhile. I simply let them go about losing, as I go about living my life. Then, when they've improved, and are doing well once again, I get back on board and enjoy their success. Yeah, I know, I can hear it: diehard, asshole loyal sports fans screaming, "Front-runner!" Goddamn right! Don't be fuckin' juvenile. Teams are supposed to provide pleasure and entertainment, not depression and disappointment.

It is also completely unnecessary to suffer several days' emotional devastation just because your team loses some big postseason deal like the Super Bowl. Why on earth would you place your happiness and peace of mind in the hands of several dozen strangers? Listen, folks, if they win, fine; if they lose, fuck 'em! Let 'em practice more. As for you, for Chrissakes find something to do! Get your ass down to the massage parlor and spring for a blow job.

If you really want to enjoy sports, do what I did. Become a Harlem Globetrotters fan. There's no losing, no stats, no strikes, no trades, no contract hassles, no postseason, and no annoying media. Just winning, all the time, every night. By the way, I'm diseased enough to root for the Washington Generals, the team that loses to the Globetrotters every night. At least you wouldn't have to put up with all that annoying, preseason optimism bullshit.

One common sports gripe I do not share: I am not like those radio call-in, sports-fan asswipes who think athletes are overpaid. I believe the players should get any amount of money they want, and the fans should go fuck themselves. I'm tired of fans whining all that weak shit about how "we pay their salaries" and "without us there would be no games." Bullshit! Fuck you! If you don't want to spend the money, stay the fuck home! And shut your mouth. Sports fans eat shit.

Sports fans rate even lower than the media and the franchise owners on my scale of miserable, shit-eating vermin. Here's the descending hierarchy: athletes, sports media, team owners, fans. Fans on the bottom. Most sports fans are fat, ignorant, beer-soaked, loudmouth, racist, white male cocksuckers, and they're totally unnecessary to the playing of the games.

The athletes are the only players in sports who count; they're the only ones who are indispensible. Everyone else is superfluous. Think about it. The entire pro-sports sewer began because groups of men got together and played these games in parks, vacant lots, and gyms simply for the fun of it. No money involved; just personal bets. And if today, all the owners, media, and sports fans suddenly disappeared, the athletes would simply go back to the parks, vacant lots, and gyms and play the games by themselves. No one else is necessary.

Of course, if they did, the usual dull people who lack direction would stand around watching, and some businessman would get the idea of charging admission and giving the players a tiny percentage of the money, and the whole miserable pool of steaming liquid shit would start all over again.

But in spite of these negative feelings, I still enjoy watching a good close game played by well-matched teams. Lots of scoring, a few good fights, and then preferably fourty innings or an octuple overtime, so that both teams eventually run out of players, and many of them are injured because they're tired.

The score of the game is not the only thing I'm interested in. I also root very hard for slumps, losing streaks, penalties, fights, injuries, team dissension, athletes cracking under pressure, and widespread gambling scandals. An earthquake in a ballpark isn't such a bad thing to me, either. I don't give a shit about the outcome of the game, I'm just looking for an interesting story.

I pray that some year the baseball postseason will include only teams with outdoor stadiums in cold-weather cities. And then I hope there are repeated freak storm systems that keep coming through the Midwest and the East, and all during the playoffs there are constant rainouts and postponements. And I pray for the whole thing to continue for months, so the games are pushed further and further back, and eventually the World Series is played in January. And then I hope it's cold and windy and icy and snowy, and a lot of players get hurt, and the games turn out to be a national disgrace. That's the kind of shit I root for.

Athletes like that physical shit. When they're pleased with each other they bump chests, butt heads, and bang forearms. Why don't they just punch each other in the fuckin' teeth? Wouldn't that be great? Teammates, I mean. After a touchdown pass, why doesn't the guy who caught the ball just go over and kick the quarterback right in the nuts? Same with a slam dunk in basketball. The guy who scores oughta grab a chair and beat the living shit out of the guy who fed him the ball. For about fourty-five minutes. If this type of celebration were more common, the postgame show from the winners' locker room would be a lot livlier.

And I think there should be at least one sport where the object is to kill someone. A team sport. Deathball. Let's face it, athletes are mostly physical freaks with serious personality defects where competition is concerned, and they just love someone to "motivate" them. Well, what greater motivation can there be than trying to avoid being killed? It's a fuckin' natural! And for me, what could be more fun than watching one of these jackoffs motivate his ugly ass into an early grave every game?

-George Carlin R.I.P.

[tee rex]

Are there any decent sports left?

Netball is a major sport in New Zealand, if nowhere else, and there hasn't been the slightest hint of a scandal for years. Everyone is angelic. The last time headline-writers reached for OUTRAGE was when the Australian coach called the NZ team "scrubbers".

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Are there any decent sports left?

Have I accidentally wandered into the New York Times thread? Anyway I think the Fermentation Olympics are pretty kosher.

You poshters are really into all that gentlemanship business, aren't you?

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Are there any decent sports left?

jason voorhees wrote: One common sports gripe I do not share: I am not like those radio call-in, sports-fan asswipes who think athletes are overpaid. I believe the players should get any amount of money they want, and the fans should go fuck themselves. I'm tired of fans whining all that weak shit about how "we pay their salaries" and "without us there would be no games." Bullshit! Fuck you! If you don't want to spend the money, stay the fuck home! And shut your mouth. Sports fans eat shit.

Sports fans rate even lower than the media and the franchise owners on my scale of miserable, shit-eating vermin. Here's the descending hierarchy: athletes, sports media, team owners, fans. Fans on the bottom. Most sports fans are fat, ignorant, beer-soaked, loudmouth, racist, white male cocksuckers, and they're totally unnecessary to the playing of the games.

The athletes are the only players in sports who count; they're the only ones who are indispensible. Everyone else is superfluous. Think about it. The entire pro-sports sewer began because groups of men got together and played these games in parks, vacant lots, and gyms simply for the fun of it. No money involved; just personal bets. And if today, all the owners, media, and sports fans suddenly disappeared, the athletes would simply go back to the parks, vacant lots, and gyms and play the games by themselves. No one else is necessary.

Of course, if they did, the usual dull people who lack direction would stand around watching, and some businessman would get the idea of charging admission and giving the players a tiny percentage of the money, and the whole miserable pool of steaming liquid shit would start all over again.

-George Carlin R.I.P.

Never thought about it in those terms but he's dead right, before spivs and fans all there was was the players. The complaints of paying punters (who were/are partly responsible for the "open sewer" of professional sports) should be taken with a grain of salt. You don't like how things operate? Stop subsidizing it.

[laverte]

Are there any decent sports left?

I was tempted to argue for judo as a decent sport, and I can't decide if the events of the past few days confirm or refute that opinion.

The European Judo Federation (EJF) has torpedoed its own championship tournament, which was due to take place in Glasgow in April, over a sponsorship row. The British judo association planned on hosting the championships in partnership with deep-pocketed mixed martial arts promotion UFC, as part of a megabucks deal. But the EJF, and in particular the French delegation, vehemently objected. France is one of a handful of places that does not recognise MMA as a sport, considering it too violent and "without sporting or educational value".

Is the EJF acting out of principle or self-preservation? Probably both. I don't like MMA at all. Where competitive judo is only one part of a whole philosophy, UFC's focus is more cynical: competition, violent spectacle and making money. But is it without value? Does it really (as the senior French judo coach suggests) attract jihadists? Is it popular with young people only because of UFC's almighty marketing budget? And is the EJF right to want nothing to do with it?

[Janik]

Are there any decent sports left?

Confirm or refute? A mix, I think. The decision is clearly political, and if mostly on the right side of politics it is... unfortunate that the tournament ends up in Azerbaijan instead. There are, shall we say, some issues with that country both in sport and in general.

[Uosdwis R Dewoh]

Are there any decent sports left?

A few have mentioned Alpine Skiing above. I'm fairly new to it, but the missus has been into it for years. Just back from the Ladies' World Cup event in Maribor, and I don't think I've been at a happier sporting event. Great organisation, great atmosphere from the crowd (even when the local champion crashed out twice), great sportsmanship from all concerned, and very little to leave a sour taste in the mouth. It's a pity the season's nearly over, but I'll be paying close attention again after the summer.