Sports

[Massa 0]

Tell me about sports. Sports you watch, teams you follow, athletes you like. Sports you play, sports you played, sports you wish you could play or had played. Post videos. Share stories.

Commence.

[Rainmaster 7]

I am not really the sporty type in terms of actually playing (my greatest sporting achievement being a gold medal in high jump at school ), not because I'm not the right build for it, but more because of being a lazy and laid back person. I never understood in school the guys who treated a game of football in "Physical education" (the sports lesson) as if it was the World Cup. Then again, I was never really all that interested in any of the games we played and I guess that's kind of relevant to whether you actually get competitive about something; if we'd had a karting track at school I think I would've punted anybody off the track to win, and lately I realise I've become much more competitive about plenty of other things.

So yeah, mainly a spectator. MotoGP and F1 being the main diet, but also on occasion boxing. On rarer occasions tennis and lately snooker, and chess is great too. But those last three I think of more as games. I don't mean that in a derogatory way (a brilliancy in chess can be just as interesting to watch as a classic F1 race, providing you appreciate the subtleties of both ), but the danger element definitely separates the participants in my opinion; something which it is easy to forget but we were reminded of this year.

But really, I only follow F1 and MotoGP: those are the only ones I am confident in my understanding and knowledge of. In the others, I know enough to talk about them but I can't be as sure in my opinions, as I simply don't watch or read about them enough. For example, I'm a big fan of Manny Pacquiao in boxing (great guy, and usually both an exciting and technically good/great fighter) and I wouldn't miss one of his fights, but I am not confident enough to judge exactly how good he is in historical terms, or how he'd do against that lovely bloke Mayweather if that ever happens; although I am comfortable enough in my knowledge to admit Manny was absolutely gifted his last victory on his reputation!

Anyways, I've rambled on and I don't want to ramble on any longer, but this is a good thread I'll come back to it to discuss my awe and hatred of Casey Stoner, amongst other things

[JHS18 0]

I guess as most will already know, I'm not big into sports outside of motorsports.

But sometimes, in winter I need something exciting, so I love winter sports. I love the Winter Olympics. Not so bothered about the summer games, I really wish London 2012 wasn't happening, but it is, so oh well.

So yeah, winter sports. I try and catch as much of it on TV as I can.

Downhill/slalom skiing (some of the downhill courses as just insane)

The snowboard half pipe stuff (some of the tricks are just insanse)

Ski/Snowboard cross (just crazed mentality)

Red Bull Crashed Ice (not in the Winter games yet, but probably will be in the future)

And occasionally the odd game of ice hockey (I watched the final between the US and Canada in the 2010 Winter games and was hooked to it all the way through).

As for sports I actually do...well, I used to ski and snowboard a lot when I was younger, but haven't for years. So it'd probably be a disaster waiting to happen if I did it now.

I play badminton quite a bit in the summer - I have a net I put up in our garden and I play family/friends quite a bit. Not in a serious way though - I think in an awful lot of sports if you take it too seriously it stops being fun. I also play pool from time to time.

But yeah, more a "watcher" than a "do-er." Most sports don't really interest me to be honest.

[Caesar 0]

F1, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

[Massa 0]

I think my karting stuff is well-documented here. In summary, I was a few seconds per lap slower than a driver who sort of made it to NASCAR despite having at least 30 or more kilograms on him (the karts weren't balanced by weight; lighter driver meant lighter kart. Makes no difference when you suck as badly as I do. No one was ever quicker in the S-turns as I was, and I had good straightaway speed because I was so damn small, but I didn't have the balls to hold it flat in the final corner, having had a concussion years prior for holding it flat in a corner, though the difference was that corner wasn't a corner you were supposed to hold it flat in and this was, and beyond that, I wasn't very good at hairpins).

I had the same problem with most sports. I was tremendously good at one or two aspects (and by tremendously good I mean I wasn't embarrassing at the very low level in which I was playing). Usually my advantage was speed; I used to be a pretty fast ****er and I still am a fast ****er when I think it's important. To me, it was important to be fast in soccer or baseball or tennis because I wanted to be good at them; it wasn't important to be fast in track, which is why I was always slower in a 100m run than I was in real life, if that makes any sense. You just get that 1% difference in competitive fire and it makes a huge change. I had no pride for track, had a lot of pride in what I considered "real sports." My track coach taught me about "real sports" by having the sprinters run five miles in the ice and snow one winter in shorts. So I lost the bad attitude, but I still had no motivation.

Soccer I was fast as a forward, but I couldn't pass for the life of me, and my control of dribbling wasn't that impressive, so I was pretty useless unless I had a nice clear field ahead and could get a shot off. I was really good at penalty kicks, too, no idea why because it's usually the "skill" stuff that I suck at. So they had me play defense. I could take the ball off of anybody, but once I had the ball, I couldn't do much with it because my passing still sucked. I tried goal. I made a great save once. There was a Brazilian kid who was leagues better than all of us, and it really gives you respect for professionals in any sport whether you like that sport or not to know that the best you've ever played against who could do absolute laps around you wasn't even good enough to get much further than you did, and I made the number one mistake you can make as a goaltender: I thought about who was shooting. Psyched myself out. Kid ripped off this crazy shot and I was so awestruck I didn't even react. Ball drilled me right in face. I went into the net, but luckily the ball went the other way. It was the last save they ever let me make...

Baseball...I'm an "okay" hitter (again, "okay" at the level I played), was the fastest base-runner on the team (not necessarily the best; you have to be smart, too ), but I was so bad at fielding. You could throw the ball right at me nice and slow and I would still have to really make an effort to catch it. I have all the speed to get to things but damn, I don't know if I psych myself out or if I just have weird spatial awareness or can't handle pressure...I suck!

I never made it in ice hockey because I just can't play a physical game given my small build. I hate that because I love skating and I obviously love hockey. Never played no-contact beyond floor hockey, which is fun, but damn. I want to be Pavel Datsyuk or Patrice Bergeron or Ryan Callahan!

I do love to compete in real competitions (and not in things like grades in school where it's not actually a competition), win or lose. I have a lot of fun playing and wish there were more opportunities in adult life for people who aren't very good or experienced at sports but like to play sports to still have fun. I know uni has intramural sports and there are rec leagues in town, but almost all the people in those are people who used to play that sport in high school or whenever and are still leagues ahead of me. Throw the losers a bone once in a while!

I'll talk about some sports I watch later and of course some stories about athletes that I really enjoy and perhaps even some events I've attended and people I've met. I can't give you too many dissertations all at once.

(my greatest sporting achievement being a gold medal in high jump at school )

That's actually a huge accomplishment given you had to hoist all that KFC over the bar. Don't sell yourself short.

I did high jump way back in middle school (the thing that comes between elementary and high). I was half-decent. Then I went to high school and, I don't mean to make a generalization or offend anyone, but once you start competing against schools from other districts, particularly ones that are closer and closer to Boston, you're not going to win at basketball, and you're not going to win at high-jump, and you're not going to win at American football when you're a super-suburban 98% Caucasian town. I think that was the least offensive way of saying that.

So I didn't do high-jump in high school. I was a sprinter, which I actually was in middle school, too, I just also did other things. Then something happens and I'm head over heels...or my heels started to rip, I don't remember. I hated track anyway, so it didn't bother me. All the other athletes got cool uniforms and pretty girls and were allowed to be c*cky. When you run track, you're about on the level with the kids in the pep band at the American football games.

And of course I was always jealous of the camaraderie those band geeks had...

Red Bull Crashed Ice (not in the Winter games yet, but probably will be in the future)

Crashed ice looks pretty interesting, actually. Had never seen it before. Thanks for sharing that. SEE THIS IS THE BEST THREAD I'VE EVER MADE!

Seriously, if it weren't Red Bull sponsored...

F1, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Is F1 a sport you do, or a sport you watch, Caesar?

[Massa 0]

Really, though, thanks to all for replying! I think it's very interesting. I find sports to be one of the most amusing parts of being human.

[Caesar 0]

as an antitalent for all sorts of sports ( i am doing light weightlifting and jogging-but you don't need talent for that) i have chosen one that you can't participate easily in, Formula 1.

most of my friends are playing basketball or soccer ( football ), watching games on TV and talking about it all the time .

i like my weekends with F1.

[JHS18 0]

Crashed ice looks pretty interesting, actually. Had never seen it before. Thanks for sharing that. SEE THIS IS THE BEST THREAD I'VE EVER MADE!

Seriously, if it weren't Red Bull sponsored...

Yeah, thought you'd perhaps find it interesting as a lot of the guys who do it are unsurprisingly, ice hockey players.

I'll PM you details of when the 2012 events are taking place if you want, as they're all shown online.

[HandyNZL 1]

Well, the first organised sport I played was Midget Soccer, where 10 kids wearing shirts of one colour huddled around a soccer ball, whilst 10 kids wearing shirts of another colour also clamoured into the melee and tried to get the ball off us. At either end of a 15m long pitch were two white sticks acting as goal posts, tendered at each opposing end by the fattest kid in the team of 11, whom stood there picking his nose or scratching his butt. Teams were divided into "Nations", along the lines of the World Cup. I played for Belgium one year, and Argentina the next.

After that, it was into the Under-(insert age here) leagues, advancing up to Under-18's where I was selected for first division, playing anywhere from goalkeep to centreforward....along the wayside however I was also learning to sail, and used to race Optimists, skipped P-Class (NZ secret weapon in terms of producing yachties), and went and bought an international Moth, which is a 13-foot skiff with a 20-odd foot high fully batoned sail, that in a lick over 10-knots would be a real handful to sail because the thing only knew top gear, and I was a good 10kg too light for it. It was an "International" Moth as it did not follow the NZ formula for a Moth, and was a boat eligible to race in other countries (not that I did) and it was designed by this fellow called Bruce Farr...just some chap that also happened to design the P-Class, and several Round-the-World Yacht Race winners (of the rear type...ie maxi's like Lion and Steinlager and the fantastic Flyer, though I liked Drum (Simon Le Bon's (Duran Duran) entrant one year) and Cote 'Azur which was a beautiful red maxi, though not all that fast). Oh yeah, and Bruce Farr even won that America's Cup thing too...

Also, I was doing Judo at that time, and got up to Brown Belt, but stopped before going for any black tabs as I was in college/high school by then and I fancied chasing girls over spending the next three or so years trying to make black belt, Judo being one of the harder martial arts to get to black belt, or higher (yes there is higher in Judo, namely red, and above that red and white belt, of which only a dozen or so people in the world have attained).

At high school I played more soccer, and rode on the school road cycling team, as well as for the schools top volleyball team, and coached the Junior (freshman for the yanks) Girls Team, because I was so *cough*charitable like that*cough*.

Once college was over and I was on to tech, I kept up the cycling but switched to mountain biking, where I was once nationally ranked in the top ten in cross country, and in two years of trying to be selected for the NZ Worlds MTB team, I broke a wrist each season in training and was unable to race in the National's to be selected, and so ended my idea of turning pro, and I turned to the 9-to-5 life instead, though still rode MTB, racing, and eventually running the Auckland MTB Club with over 1500-members, and also organising the 2000 National Championships that ran over the summer through 6 stops across the country.

And now, instead of my legs being my engine, I work on the Historic Race Cars my Dad and I have, pit crewing, driving and the like...currently though pulling my hair out (as Steph knows ) as my car just doesn't want to play nice and I just can't seem to get the oil pump going correctly...

As for watching...well there is:

Rugby League

Motorsport (F1, National Tier One, Indy, WRC, WTC, anything else on Sky, V8 Supercars, anything else on terrestrial TV stations)

Mountainbiking

Pro Cycling (Tour de France, of which I'm probably more mental about than F1 as F1 is usually midnight to 2am for me, where as TdF is 10pm to 5am six nights in a row, then a rest night, then another six nights in a row, then a rest night, then another six nights in a row, and not once will I miss a major climb stage (this years were fantastic), also Paris-Roubaix, Tour Downunder, Tour of California, and other European Tours such as the Giro)

So-called "extreme sports" are also a watch for me, like X-Fighters, X-Games etc

During Olympic and Commonwealth years I also watch all the Track Cycling as it's one of the better sports at the Olympics.

Oh yeah...and Beach Volley Ball for the, er, *cough*skills*cough*

And this guy was my hero: (old skool footage of the all-time-best ever Jonny T)

[Massa 0]

Bear with the hockey stuff...it's going somewhere more general I promise...

The NHL Winter Classic is this afternoon (in about an hour). It's the lone outdoor event of the NHL season, with the rest being inside arenas. Partly brings hockey back to its origins of pond hockey, mostly brings in huge revenue since they put it in baseball and football stadiums that hold twice as many people as a typical arena does, and it's on national TV to get nice ratings...but anyway...it's a pretty cool game.

I had posted some video of Ilya Bryzgalov, goaltender of the Philadelphia Flyers, on my blog. Those came from HBO's 24/7 series which focused on behind-the-scenes happenings of the Flyers and the New York Rangers leading up to today's game; locker-room stuff, on-ice audio from players and coaches, team-building stuff. He's certainly a character, and easily the star of the series with his deep thoughts presented in priceless broken English...

...but he won't be playing today. Sergei Bobrovsky gets the call, given that Bryzgalov has put up awful numbers (has only saved 89% of shots, 3.31 goals against average...I know you guys don't follow hockey but those are both really terrible, especially for a guy that the Flyers gutted their team to sign). I want you to watch his interview:

I think it's interesting, that when an athlete makes light of a situation, and doesn't take himself or the sport too seriously and recognizes that what he's doing for a career is a bit silly, he's said to have no confidence, and that his interest in pondering the size of the universe and talking about husky dogs is to blame for his poor numbers. His having a life apparently hurts him so we tear him to pieces for being someone who seems to enjoy his life and realize how lucky he is to play professional hockey, such that he can't be too upset when he's not performing well.

Yet those athletes who are so focused on the sport and take winning and losing as if it's either the greatest societal triumph in history or the absolute end of the world are also torn to pieces. They're corporate machines and completely ungrateful or unappreciative of how easy they really have it with the job they get to do and the money they get paid to do it, even when they're not winning.

So what do we want from athletes? Do we want an Ilya Bryzgalov, who can joke about his poor performance and see there is more to life than a game? Or do we want guys like we may see at times in F1 who, in their losing days come across as cold, entitled, and spoiled in their frustrations with losing despite all they have going for them off the results sheet? We hate committed athletes because we can't relate to their inhuman ways and find ourselves detesting competitive, ungrateful people like that in everyday life. But the "good guys" aren't committed enough for us. Do we need "good guys" who put up good numbers too? Or can you only show yourself as a "good guy" when you're losing? Perhaps we just want the "cold, entitled" guys to also be winners so they don't have to act so cold and entitled?

Do we like humans, are do we like the ones, as Bryzgalov says, "made from the...STEEL?"