Mighty Mo Owns Texas

Look, this is Texas. In the summer, we rival Hell for heat, and beat the h-e-double L outta Hell for mosquitos and chiggers (well, the chigger thing is mostly east Texas, but rattlesnakes and Mesquite thorns make up for their absence in west Texas.) In the winter, we get just enough freezing rain every year to challenge our ability to drive our SUVs 70 everywhere we go. We like our trucks monster size, our women hot, and our sports, well, football. This is not hockey country.

Every other sport is judged against the national sport of Texas. Basketball is fine once football season is over. At least it keeps us from having to watch American Idol with our wives. Baseball is ok, too, except the Rangers suck and the Astros are in Houston, and Houston sucks. But football! Football is king. Churches plan big days around the great game. Pastors cut sermons short and some churches have even decided Sunday evening services are superfluous, I am convinced, because people get suspicious when the preacher calls in sick every time the Cowboys play a late game.

Texans' three favorite sports are Cowboys football, high school football, and either Longhorns or Aggies football (depending on whether you prefer gay military cheers and girls that look like goats or the classy confines of Austin town and super-cool stylings of Burnt Orange-and-White.) We grew up playing football anywhere and everywhere we could, from asphalt streets to gravel pits. What we did not grow up doing was playing hockey. The only ice we could find was in the fridge or the cold stare we got when we dared approach the homecoming queen with a date proposition. We didn't play hockey. We didn't watch hockey. And we didn't see how any right thinking person could call Wayne Gresky "The Great One" when he never even met Bob Lilly, let alone got his ass tackled by him.

Enter Mike Modano. When the Minnesota NHL franchise decided to head south and introduce Dallas/Fort Worth to hockey, they had one ace in the hole...Mighty Mo. Singlehandedly, Modano made fans of us all. He showed us that grace, class, toughness, and speed could be demonstrated somewhere other than the gridiron. His rugged good looks and boyish grin made our women fans. His quiet voice, understated persona, and high profile female trophy bagging won over Generations X and Y. And his leadership style, his willingness to bite his tongue when mistreated by management, and get up and go again when clocked by a cheap shot won over the Baby Boomers and their parents.

Modano is our kinda guy, a Texan's Texan, even if he is from the frozen tundra of "up North." We forgive him all that. We embrace him. And we celebrate his new status as greatest American-born scorer of all freakin' time, baby!

Move over Roger. Make room, Troy. Time for Mike to join you.

Detroit Journalist Rips On Bloggers

This McCosky guy is just way too proud of his pedestrian journalist gig. He hates bloggers and their blogs, but he says he respects the American idea of everyone having an opinion. How magnanimous! What a pompous ass(hole)!

Truth be told, he is likely just smarting over the fact that he and his craft are becoming more and more marginalized, and enjoying less and less "celebrity" status. He is having to learn to live with the notion that any asshole with one eye, half a brain, and a marginal command of the language can do his job.

All of that and he has to live in Detroit. I'd be pissed, too.

Poor fellow.

Why The Eagles Wear Green

There are few things more annoying than Philadelphia Eagles fans. Not only are they obnoxious, they are annoyingly delusional. They tell themselves they have a legitimate reason to scorn the Dallas Cowboys and belittle their fandom. They point to recent years, which have featured some very nice Eagles teams and some admittedly atrocious Cowboys' squads and squawk about superiority. The trouble with all of this is that, historically, the Philadelphia Eagles are little more than a pedestrian pro football franchise that has enjoyed marginal success and has floundered much more than it has thrived.



Consider some comparative facts regarding the Eagles and the Cowboys:

• The Eagles have won three NFL Championships, all of which predate the merger and the Super Bowl. They won them in 1947, 48 and 60. The Eagles have managed two trips to the Super Bowl. They are 0-2 in the big game. The Cowboys organization was not founded until 1960, yet they have represented their conference eight times (an NFL high) in the Super Bowl, winning it five times, tying them with the 49ers and Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins by a franchise.


• The Eagles have been to the playoffs twenty times in their sixty year history, or 33% of the time. Their post-season record is 17-17 and they are below .500 in regular season wins and losses with an all-time record of 474-521-25. Conversely, the Cowboys have been to the playoffs 28 times since 1960, or 61% of the time. their playoff record is 32-23, and in the regular season, they have posted a stellar record of 408-300-6.


• Furthermore, despite the recent relative success of the Iggles against the Cowboys, the all-time head-to-head record favors Dallas: 52-41.

There is no doubt the Eagles fans hate the Cowboys, and with good reason. They hate them the way any fan of any team hates the team that is everything they wish their team could be. Meanwhile, the Cowboys' fans can barely muster the interest to hate the Eagles. They have other fish to fry, like the Redskins and the Giants, whom they detest at least as much, if not more. I don't blame Eagles fans for feeling the way they do. I just wish you could find one that is honest and rational enough to admit that the "Cowgirls" are a pretty damn good sports franchise.

It was great fun last Sunday night seeing the defeated look on the faces of the dozen or so fans who took their humiliating 38-10 defeat at the hands of the hated Cowboys like men and stayed in the stands to the bitter end.

I doubt a single Eagles fan will ever admit anything good can come out of Dallas, but at least when they wear their team colors, there is honesty in that.

You know they have to be green with envy.

Jamaal Charles Is Real Fun

Two weeks running, the Texas Longhorns have won in dramatic fashion with unlikely back-to-back comebacks. A week ago against Nebraska, the comeback was made possible by a 216-yard, three touchdown fourth quarter performance by tailback Jamaal Charles. Yesterday, against the Oklahoma State Cowboys, Charles went off for over a hundred yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, fueling a 21-point come-from-behind win.

Twice in yesterday's game, the 'Horns fell behind by 21 points. They started the contest by digging themselves a 21-0 hole, managing to close the gap to 28-14 by half. In the third quarter, the porous Texas D gave up another big touchdown to make it 35-14, and that is where the score stood going into the final stanza. That's when the Texas defense woke up and began to get some stops and the Texas offense unleashed Hell's fury on the poor Cowboys (Hell's fury being, of course, Jamaal Charles.)

One could argue that if Texas were the elite team many thought they would be at the beginning of the year, they wouldn't have to keep pulling rabbits out of hats and wins out of their butts to defeat pedestrian programs like OK State and lowly Nebraska. But maybe it is time for the Longhorn Nation to realize that they are what the are: not quite as good as last year, and not remotely as good as two years ago, when they hoisted the National Championship trophy.

This Texas team had to replace nine players who last year wore burnt orange and white and this year populate NFL rosters. Filling the holes they left is no small order. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that this might be a rebuilding year? And if you can win, say, ten games and get a nice bowl victory in a down year, what's wrong with that?

Whatever the outcome of the final weeks, it has been some fun watching the rise of the most electric Texas tailback since Ricky "Bag O' Weed" Williams. It's been real, and it's been fun. Might even say, if Charles keeps this up, it's been real fun.

Dear Dave, All Athletes Are Not Created Equal

Someone please check Dave Tippett for fever. Surely, he is delirious. How else do you explain demoting the man who is not just your best player, but your only true superstar, and the face of your franchise to the fourth line? That ought to be a fireable (is that a word?) offense!

Lookit. This notion that all athletes are created equal is just poppycock. We all know better. There are the worker bees, the stars, the superstars, and the transcendent athletes. Mike Modano, arguably the greatest American-born offensive player in NHL history, is, for the Dallas Stars at least, a transcendent player.

Whenever the Stars do a radio spot or a TV spot or a billboard, who do you think they feature? When they take a prospective free agent to dinner, which player do you think they assign to schmooze with him? When they are trying to pump up season ticket sales, who do you think they promote? Mighty Mo is more than a nice player. He is the heart and soul of that team.

It was insulting enough a couple years ago when they ripped the "C" off his chest. Now, they decide to send him a "message" by demoting him? Moronic. And that excuse about putting him down there to work on his game is just as lame. How does a scorer improve his scoring by skating with a couple guys who are barely good enough to make the ice at that level?

You don't put Joe Montana on the scout team. You don't make Walter Payton or Michael Jordan come off the bench. And you don't friggin' send Mike Modano to the fourth line. And if you do...you should be a) fired, b) closely examined, and c) committed to the loony bin.

Good thing no one in Dallas really gives a damn about hockey anyway.