Updated: 2/11/2005; 5:28:55 PM.
Notes from the Metaverse
Writing, working, open source
        

Friday, December 12, 2003

It's a working-class trait, I suppose, cheering on the guy with no chance. Considering my first political campaign was George McGovern's and my last few have been Green Party standard-bearers, I have carried on the tradition well. But this isn't a political post--I continue to try really hard to not make this just another screed-of-the-day site. Today it's sports.

Earlier in the week (courtesy of Google News Canada) I found out they want to revive the World Hockey Association. Bobby Hull is the front-man/commissioner of the "new" league, and they want to be ready to roll if the NHL locks out its players this time next year, as expected.

The Canadian hockey press is less than gung-ho about the economic prospects for the upstart league, but they've got a few guys putting up some dough for the project. The first WHA put more money in players' pockets--always a good thing. The new WHA has a $10 million per team salary cap, with one exemption for a star player. If it winds up putting more money in players' pockets without taking too much out of fans' pockets, I'm all for it.

But I love the idea of second sports leagues. I still have a copy of The Sporting News Guide to the first season of the US Football League. Football in the spring! While I never saw an American Basketball Association game, I used to have a red, white and blue ball and became a vicarious fan of the Indiana Pacers (the closest team to Milwaukee). Check out RememberTheABA.com. Something about challenging the dominant paradigm, I guess.

Saturday I'll be rooting for another underdog, as my UW-Milwaukee Panthers take on the UW-Madison Badgers at the Kohl Center (though I prefer to call it the Herb Garden, for the Senator who funded the building) in Madison. The Badgers are still a top-25 team after going to the Final Four a few years ago, but UWM went to the NCAAs last year, too, nearly knocking off Notre Dame in the first round.

The exception to the underdog rule in our house shows up (as they always do this time of year) on Sunday. One set of Green Bay Packers will show up in San Diego to play the Chargers. You just never know which set: the team that annihilated the Vikings a few weeks ago, or the bunch that got beat by Arizona in the September heat.

And I have a 12-page paper to write this weekend, too. Oh joy!


11:14:47 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Mike McCallister.
 
December 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31      
Nov   Jan


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website.

Subscribe to "Notes from the Metaverse" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.

Blogroll