What if Elle magazine had a sports section?

Over the last couple of weeks, a certain blog attracted a lot of attention after being commissioned by the CBC. They've broken new (old) ground with their streaming commentaries of hockey games by introducing women to the subtle nuances of the game, such as some players have penises AND cute faces. Yeah, that's basically how While the Men Watch rolls. Their MO is essentially to watch games and go, "I have no idea what's happening, ha ha ha. By the way, I'd totally have sex with Henrik Lundqvist." Now while I too would have sex with Hank, despite being a straight male (excuses, excuses), I've got to wonder what they were setting out to do.

It's not to lend a female perspective to hockey, that's for sure. Between Kate Beirness, Ellen Etchingham, Cassie Campbell, and many other respectable female hockey authorities, there's a wealth of insight from a woman's point of view. They don't deal in asking Ken Daneyko if he likes sex or not. So considering that, maybe I'm just not getting it. I'm outside the target audience; not every woman is the same, and they're having fun with it. So it's not that bad, right? I thought so too until I found out they actually wrote an article saying to coddle your man with beer and sex if his team gets eliminated.

This isn't a blog about women's outside take on sports. A large amount of the articles are about looking good for men, period analogies, celebrities, and "what this means about your man". It's Cosmo with a sports veneer. You know how Onion Sportsdome had that panel with the girlfriends of guys who watched last night's NBA game? This is that panel, except it's not a joke.

Again, maybe I should calm down about this. Yeah, I think what they do is foul, but it's their right to do so. Here's the thing though. My mom watches hockey and pays attention. My sister can put guys to shame with her knowledge, even with baseball being her #1. I know women that are die hard fans, and woman referees. My second cousin played with someone who won gold in women's hockey at Salt Lake. For these two tarts to come in and claim to be a voice for women in regards to sports is a flat out insult. CBC ought to be ashamed for alienating their woman fans like this.

Jules and Lena, your show is bad and you should feel bad.

Alternate reality: What if the Toronto Raptors got the LA Kings media treatment?

Why root for Canada when when there are Canadiens on all the teams?

I've thought about for a while, and though it still causes bile in my throat to admit it, I'm not rooting for Canada in the world championship. I know, I know. I'm writing this while drinking my last Sleeman ever, and waiting for immigration services to deport me to Montana. But before they take the maple leaf tattoo off my ass with sandpaper, I should at least explain my reasoning.

First and foremost, if Canada wins the gold medal this year, people are going to think that Brent Sutter is a good coach. Assuming you actually watch hockey, you can easily figure out that ol' mumbles is as good at his job as he is handsome. Nobody liked him on the Red Deer Rebels, especially when he took that Memorial Cup winning team, and took them to consistently last in the division faster than you can say "Mike Milbury". The only times I ever see him coach a successful team these days is whenever he coaches Canada in international competition. This is about as brag worthy as me saying I won the Stanley Cup singlehandedly in NHL '12 on easy. Enough about coaches though. What about the players?

By my dumb homer philosophy, the way I support countries in international competition is based on this equation: 3Xhabs + Ystyle of uniform - (Aleafs + 2Bbruins). Higher values denote the countries I support. So let's look at Canada. Carey Price and PK Subban are out due to injury, so X = 0. If we take a look at their uniform, it looks like the 80s have come back to haunt us yet again. I'll give Canada's uniform a Y value of 0.5. Looking at the rest of the lineup, we have Dion Phaneuf and Luke Schenn, but thankfully, no Bruins. A + 2B becomes a managable 2. So if we do the math, the equation translates to 0 + .5 - (2 + 0) = -1.5

How would this score compare to say, Team USA?

Right off the bat, we have Max Pacioretty on the roster, so that's an X value of 3 for the Americans. But wait, their sweaters must be uglier than sin right? After all, they have the letters U, S, and A in succession! It's a travesty on the eyes, right? Well, I'm nonplussed. So I'm gonna say something like 0.4 for a Y value. Thankfully, there's only Joey Crabb from Toronto on the team. So the final equation comes out to 3 + 0.4 - 1, for a very respectable 2.4. In the interest of fairness, we should examine a neutral team to see how the numbers match up. So let's look at Team Latvia.





Latvia as far as I can tell, has only one NHLer from the Ottawa Senators. So we have a value of 0 for three variables. So what about their sweater?

Oh. Oh my god. That is beautiful! This jersey is clearly at a value of 100 and automatically makes Latvia my choice for gold. Go Latvia!

Now that the government agents have arrived, I hope that I can enjoy my new life in Riga. Until then, uz redzēšanos!