I live in the south, and I think hockey is the most exciting sport you can watch. I heavily promoted the Olympic USA/Canada matches to all my friends, and gladly the games did not disappoint. However, I think there are a few obvious reasons why people normally don’t give hockey a fair chance.

1. They’ve never played it. Many people follow sports they play or have played before, even if only recreationally.
2. The scores are low. At least the NHL no longer allows ties. I celebrated the day they instituted a shoot-out. And offense is a bigger factor now than in the 90′s. Maybe if hockey used the artificial method of football and awarded 6 points per goal, people wouldn’t notice?
3. They can’t relate as much to the players. Since most players are from other countries, a sense of connection is missing for some fans when they watch the game.

For myself, I can say that none of these three things matter. What got me into the game was NHL 94 for the Sega. I enjoyed playing that game so much, I had to find out more about the real thing. The scores might not have been 12-2 like I was used to, but I still loved certain things about the game. Here are a few reasons why hockey could catch on if promoted properly:

1. ONE timeout per team, per game. This is a massive advantage for hockey over basketball and football. How many times have those sports slowed to a crawl simply because teams are allowed to say “Hold up!” whenever they want?
2. It combines a bunch of things people already like: slapping a small item with a stick (baseball, golf), fighting and hitting (UFC, football), 5 on 5 goal-oriented setup with slick passing (basketball). Plus it adds the wacky element of doing it all on skates.
3. I am firmly convinced that the NHL has the best announcers of any sport, by far. Doc Emrick and Jim Hughson are masters of their craft, and most of the teams’ local guys are fantastic as well (as I have found from subscribing to NHL Center Ice). There seems to be more passion and less detachment from all these guys compared to other sports. It’s like we’re all in on a great secret, and can’t get enough of this great sport. Here are just a few favorites.

NOTE: This post initially appeared in slightly modified form as a comment on an ESPN article by John Buccigross.

Watch Conan’s farewell speech here.

Thanks for doing what you do, Conesy. Karma will always be on your side!

When I was five years old, my family moved to Frankfurt, Germany. I was an Army brat who attended kindergarten at the military base where we lived, and I distinctly remember having an ethnically diverse group of friends. The famous axiom that kids are color blind could not have been more aptly reflected in the schools, both public and private, and my church in Frankfurt. I truly believe that my own attitudes about race were largely formed in this wonderful place. I have nothing but positive memories of my three years in Germany—yes, even the times I needed stitches after any of my patented recreational injuries. When my parents, my recently born sister and I flew back to the states, we settled near Fort Polk in Louisiana. Once again I found myself in a fairly diverse environment. My elementary school was named after George Washington Carver and was located on a street named after Martin Luther King, Jr. My next-door neighbor, who was one of my best friends and a little league baseball teammate, was Hispanic, and I never thought twice about it. It wasn’t until we moved to Ripley, Tennessee, before my fifth grade year that I started to understand something about racial prejudice in this country.

Ripley itself was racially mixed, with an especially heavy black population. The three years I spent there shed new light on the deep-seeded racism that was still prevalent in the U.S. and particularly the south. Most of my extended family on both parents’ sides lived in this area, and through them I could witness the attitudes held by so many. Most of them lived through a time when segregation was still in effect and the civil rights movement was necessarily exposing its gross injustice. Even now I find it incredibly hard to believe that such battles had to be fought and won so recently in this nation. And I continue to feel strong emotions when considering the struggle, perhaps due to a childhood spent blissfully unaware of racial conflict and a profound sense of indignation when eventually faced with its existence.

My mom has told me a bit about those times of desegregation at Ripley High School. Those first few black students faced a firestorm of attention and often hatred from the rest of the student body and the surrounding community. Their situation was representative of what was happening in small towns all throughout the south. I can hardly imagine what those experiences must have been like for anyone living through them, whether black or white. But I do know that resentment was still harbored by both sides decades after the fact—I saw it firsthand. Several relatives of mine, all of whom I yet love dearly, used the word “nigger” routinely. Sometimes it was hostile, sometimes it was simply habit, but I could never stand it. I even called out my grandfather about it once—you can imagine how some outspoken kid fared against a grizzled farmer and World War II veteran during this showdown. He sternly assured me that he was too set in his ways to think about changing now. But through the ensuing years I could see the man’s heart soften. He was jovial and friendly with several black people, so I began to realize that I had merely been seeing and hearing remnants of a culture that was drawing to a close, an old southern way of thinking that seemed shocking to my generation but was mostly just residue from the bombastic civil rights revolution of the 1960′s. I also saw the bitterness of certain members of the black population, though not as personally. Some wore their intense hatred and distrust plainly on their faces, a tragic but almost inevitable result of being treated as less than human for far too long.

So my parents basically grew up during segregation, and their generation bore the responsibility of moving our society forward in the aftermath. Not all of them succeeded, but I think many more did. When my dad joined the Navy and later the Army, he and my mom were thrust into an environment of diversity and comraderie that I am forever thankful to have been born into. Meanwhile towns like Ripley dot the south, and they are still trying to shake off the last vestiges of the old ways of thinking. Obama’s election might be one of the final acts needed to complete our emergence from that past. Though I chose not to vote for him because of our disagreements on social and economic policies, I can still readily appreciate what his victory means for the United States and the world. The impact of this moment in history is bound to be pivotal. Already I can walk the streets in my town and see brighter countenances on the faces of those who lived to see a fellow minority finally fulfill that sacred “dream” of the civil rights movement. Our nation faces definite challenges in the years ahead, and time will be the ultimate judge of our next President, but there is much to be optimistic about. The least any of us can do is reflect on how far we have come as a society and strive to improve our lot even further as we take our next steps. I might even humbly and controversially submit, fully realizing the disparity of viewpoints on the matter, that abortion is the next major human rights issue for our civilization to reexamine.

First, take a look at Obama’s opposition to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Bill. You will likely be hearing about this more and more during the campaign, and for good reason. While a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama voted against a bill that would protect the life of a baby born during a botched abortion. No matter how you slice this, he explicitly supported infanticide. So Barack believes that a newborn baby, out of the womb, can justifiably be left to die simply because an abortion was not performed correctly? That is nowhere close to the type of “change” I could ever “believe in” for our country.

Meanwhile Senator McCain has just been featured in an incredible Washington Times article about his role in turning the tide in Iraq. I plead with every one of you to read this article. McCain has worked tirelessly to incorporate the proper strategy in Iraq to secure our victory there. The successful military surge that you’ve heard about during the past year was largely due to his efforts with support from fellow senators Joe Lieberman and South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham.

I think these articles confirm what most of us suspect. While John McCain is not a great public speaker, probably not much better than the hapless George W. Bush, none of us should vote for the highest office in the land based solely on speaking ability. Nor should we place undue importance on fringe issues such as technology in deciding our vote. This election should be about the confidence we have in our next leader. John McCain has been through the fire. We all know the story of his experience in Vietnam as a POW, repeatedly tortured yet refusing to submit to his captors. I believe that prepared him well for his role in public service, where any opposition or difficulties he has faced must pale in comparison. Now that I realize the amazing effort he put forth in ensuring Iraq did not turn into another Vietnam, and knowing he is not afraid of dissenting with his own party when he trusts his own convictions, John McCain merits my vote in a big way. I hope he will merit yours.

Three of my favorite players during the modern era achieved their dream this week when the Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship. Before the season began I declared that I was rooting for this team to go all the way, and that my anticipation for the coming season was higher than it had been since the Jordan Era. Tuesday night, it all came together. Lifelong Celtic fan Bill Simmons said everything as well as it could be said.

Congratulations to the Big Three. You guys were a ton of fun to root for, and you might just be good enough to do this again next season.

My favorite player of all time is Dale Murphy, the former Atlanta Braves star. Dale was my hero in the late 80′s, toiling for a then-wretched team that happened to have most of its struggles televised every other night on TBS. Dale is quite revered in baseball circles for being a man of unrivaled class and dignity, not to mention his fantastic ability when he was a player. He has removed himself from the limelight since his retirement over a decade ago, so it was a major surprise that during the Giants game the announcers relayed an extended quote attributed to Murphy in the Salt Lake Tribune, wherein he provided his thoughts about Bonds. Simply put, Murphy was quite harsh, calling Bonds out as a bad teammate and a cheater who used steroids to assist him in breaking the most hallowed record in sports—the career home run record once held by Hank Aaron. Of course this accusation is the one that Bonds has faced regularly since he broke the single-season home run record in 2001 and continued to pile up bomb after bomb thereafter, all the while looking quite a bit bulkier than we remembered him in the early 90′s. Murphy’s comments gave me pause, since I greatly admire him as a player and a person, and thus respect his opinions highly when he chooses to offer them. But ultimately I do see things a bit differently.

When I saw Bonds connect for the record-breaker last night, I felt a considerable sense of excitement. Bonds has been the greatest player of my generation, and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching him play the game of baseball at a level beyond elite. I will also admit to a fascination with his personality and his willingness to alienate himself from the media, who often are far too self-righteous and judgmental for their own good. I do not endorse everything Bonds says or does, but I could say this about everyone, even my hero Dale Murphy (although that might require serious effort). I do appreciate players—and people in general—who show a genuine passion about things that are important to them, and over the years I have seen that passion from Bonds. His wife and three kids clearly adore him, and that fact ranks foremost on my list of his admirable qualities. Whatever we find out later about his steroid use (for at present we do not truly know anything), we need to respect his love and commitment towards his family. I have seen several interviews where Bonds becomes emotional when speaking about his family, his teammates, or the fans in San Fransisco who have supported him for years. That resonates with me.

So what do I make of the steroid allegations? Frankly on my list of evils that men perpetrate against society, using steroids probably wouldn’t crack the top 100. While I would never use them or condone their use, I cannot say that my opinion of Bonds would drastically decrease if I found out that he took them. Instead I would probably wonder why he risked his long-term health, because the issue of steroids eventually boils down to one thing: side effects. If steroids were free of side effects and thus legal, they would be sold at every GNC by now, and probably most athletes would be using them. Then the only debate to consider would be the extent to which modern players have an advantage over the players of yesteryear for whom steroids were unavailable, and the impact of that perceived advantage on the record books. I have never been fully convinced by the argument that players are “cheating the game” by using steroids. Players do not—indeed they cannot—change the rules of the game simply by becoming stronger. Becoming stronger is a goal of any athlete. But they still need to go out and display the abilities relevant to their chosen sport. Using steroids without a prescription is illegal solely because of their extreme health risks, and steps were taken to outlaw them only as recently as the late 80′s, after which sports leagues proceeded to ban their use, Major League Baseball doing so much later than others.

Two factors need to be minded in this debate. The first is that steroid use in baseball is just the latest form of “cheating” that has riled sports writers across the country. Each generation has had its share of problems, and I would argue that steroid use is one of the lesser assaults on the actual integrity of the sport. More serious offenses that have plagued the game include gambling and bribery, mainly in the early 1900′s but here and there since. Baseball has also enjoyed a long and storied tradition of players’ attempts at gaining a competitive edge via the use of sandpaper, pine tar, stealing signs, and phantom tags, among others. MLB was also segregated until 1947, so who’s to say whether a black player could not have given Babe Ruth a run for his money on several of his records, or whether Ruth would have had quite as much success if he had had to face the best black pitchers of that day? Personally I feel the Babe might still have been regarded as history’s best player, but my point is that if you want to slap asterisks on Barry’s records, you may as well dole some out to Ruth’s as well.

The second factor we need to remember is that a few decades from now, we will probably view this situation quite differently. I would not be surprised if by that time a “safe steroid” exists that professional athletes will be allowed to use freely to become as strong as they can. Then will we be able to accuse them of cheating? Might we then look back with less chagrin at the accomplishments of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, and others who have been accused of using strength-enhancing drugs? Did they really disrespect the game of baseball, or did they simply want to become more effective players? Did we as fans enjoy the show? Heck yeah, we did. The celebrations of 1998′s single-season home run chase have now turned into holier-than-thou indignation, and I have a hard time stomaching that. We should not allow the fervor of zeitgeist to sway our emotions so easily. Bonds seems more like a scapegoat right now than a true criminal—many have had a longstanding dislike of him simply because of his aforementioned bouts of impoliteness with the media, so they are merely using the steroid accusations as another excuse to pile on someone they regard as the proverbial spoiled athlete. But as I said before, Bonds has shown an emotional side of himself—the human side that we can all identify with—on a number of occasions, and when I assess his overall worth as a fellow human being, I choose to stand with him, not against him. With all due respect to the living legend himself, Dale Murphy, while you will always be my favorite player, I have to believe that time will bring more clarity to the career of Barry Bonds, and someday we will be able to say that he did much less harm than good.

Wired magazine’s newest issue features an article about the new movie and its director, Michael Bay, who has put out various unimpressive tripe over the years. In response to the article, I wrote the following letter:

I suspect that the final question posed in your Michael Bay article best captures what Transformers fans such as myself are wondering: will we even recognize Optimus Prime (or anyone else) when we see him in Bay’s live action experiment gone awry? I have tried to remain open-minded about the new movie, hoping that it will deliver something for me to get excited about, but it’s starting to look like Megan Fox might be the only surefire reason to check it out. I don’t demand much from the story. I just want the characters I grew up with to look like themselves. Bay’s supreme arrogance and disregard for fans’ memories came through strongly in your article, and that type of attitude could spell disaster for the film, which really only needed to portray the original character designs faithfully to ensure success. These new bots look no better than those cheap knockoffs that used to be foisted upon us by Family Dollar and the like. Even as a kid, I knew they weren’t good enough. Why should things be any different now?

That sums up my feelings at present. I will watch the movie, and I will try to latch on to the entertaining aspects of it, as some are apparently able to do. But I have little doubt that it will fail mightily to live up to the 1986 animated movie that my fellow Transformers fans and I remember so fondly.

First, shout out to my peeps for an entertaining Memorial Day. Much grub was grubbed, much drink was drunk, and much entertainment was provided by Kammer’s outfit The Redemption of Sans Foy. Thanks to them I now know the feeling of experiencing a concert from a living room couch, and they brought their A-game. Subsequent prolonged conversation about life, religion, music, sex, and film with fellow Christians who “get it” was heartily welcomed and enjoyed.

I’ve watched several quality films recently, including The Foutain, Dreamgirls, and Babel. Perhaps we can discuss the first of those in more detail later. For now I merely want to offer that while Jennifer Hudson was quite deserving of her Oscar for an incredible portrayal of Effie White in Dreamgirls, for my money I was utterly blown away by the amazing work of Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko in Babel. My heart was wrenched for her character, and still now I am in awe of how the actress handled the difficulties of her role—not only was Chieko deaf and mute and thus forced to convey her feelings solely through body language and a few written notes, but her desperate desire to be accepted as a beautiful woman and not regarded for her disabilities required several nude scenes, all of which I believe advanced the character and made me feel great pity towards her. Her performance left me with much to think about, as any outstanding acting performance should. Later I read an interview with Rinko and was truly struck with how intelligent and insightful she seems to be. I certainly hope she gains even greater notoriety through whatever future performances she has in store.

So the aforementioned hiking excursion in Cali begins in just over a day, and I am ready for it. This will be my first time west of Missouri, not counting my birth date in Texas (we moved when I was still 0 years old) or my time in Alaska when I was but a lad of age 2. We will be hiking through Yosemite and Sequoia parks, checking out Monterrey Bay and Big Sur, and hitting Napa Valley and San Fransisco for good measure. I anticipate hijinks and hilarity, great views and great fun, and that something unexpected yet enriching will probably occur. Pictures to come, I’m sure, but for now I bid you adieu.