That's Church

I want you to honest to goodness try, okay, close your eyes, go to your happy place (Mine is a beach. There are self-united husbands. And Zima. And a pile of dead pigeons.), take a deep breath and REALLY REALLY TRY to imagine Sidney Crosby, or Geno Malkin, or hell, PICK A PENGUIN, ever doing this to a child.

You can’t, can you?

If anyone ever deserved a shoulder-launched hockey puck to the unprotected junk, it’s Ovechkin.

Let’s go, Pens!

(h/t @pghsciencenerd)

A local Burgher, Andy Kelemen needs some votes to win ABC’s “The Ultimate LOST Fan Promo” contest in which the winning fan-produced Lost final season promo commercial will be shown on TV.

Andy sent me an email:

The ABC show LOST held this promo contest, and out of 10,000 entries my promo is in the top 5. Based on votes the winner will air nationally on ABC during LOST.

We shot the promo around Pittsburgh using all Pittsburghers (and fans of the show!).

My promo is called the Lost Life – by Andy Kelemen. People can vote once a day for 5 days.  It would be great to see someone from here win a national commercial contest – any help in spreading the word would be huge. WTAE will have a piece on it tonight at 6 – and the Post-Gazette will run tomorrow.

Here’s the WTAE link and here’s the P-G article.

We only have until the end of the day Friday to help Andy out by voting, and remember, Pittsburgh is the new Hollywood, you guys.

Rock the vote, Burghers far and wide!

The NFL, as you’ve already heard, has suspended Ben Roethlisberger, AKA ALL YOU BITCHES AND HOS, TAKE MY SHOTS, AKA Big Ben, AKA The Duke of Fug and the Earl of Gross, AKA The King of Quarterbackylonia and the Prince of Douche, AKA The Creator of the Mullethawkenberger– whew! I have a lot of nicknames for him and only one of them is complimentary — for six games which will be reduced to four provided he undergoes some behavioral evaluation (oh, to be a fly on the wall) and also behaves himself.

I agree wholeheartedly with this suspension without pay.  It’s fitting for his behavior, because whether or not he’s sexually violent, he is without a doubt a slimeball who has shown no regard for the NFL’s rules governing players’ off-field conduct.

So now the question is this … Trade Ben?

You know what? I go back and forth on this.

• On one hand, punish him and let him serve his punishment and then let him try to earn back some fans.
• On the other hand, he’s a SLIMEBALL not deserving of the black and gold and he really needs to learn that even for NFL super stars, actions have consequences.
• On one hand, he DOES know how to throw a football well.
• On the other hand, what good is that if he can’t throw the ball for four to six weeks?
• On one hand, he has led the Steelers to two Superbowl victories and should we just turn our back on him?
• On the other hand, he apparently walked around a nightclub with Little Ben airing out and that is an image I’d like severed from my mind’s eye.
• On one hand, can Byron Leftwich or Dennis Dixon or Charlie Batch lead this team to a championship?
• On the other hand, is winning everything?
• On one hand, should how a player behaves off field have any bearing on how we view them on the field?

And here’s where I need to stop and talk with you.

Not for EVERYONE, but I think for lots of us, that last bullet-point comes down to a male/female sort of thing.  Here’s what I mean.  I think that men generally have a much easier time separating a player’s athletic ability from a player’s penchant for being a douchebag, whereas women see the player and where his face should be, they see an ACTUAL douche bag.  The men generally see a player’s skill and his off-field antics as separate books, whereas women tend to view them as two chapters of the same book. Am I way off base there?

I’m not saying either view is right or wrong.  I’m just saying what I’ve noticed in talking to people about Benny or Tiger Woods.

Recently, when Tiger Woods was playing in the Masters, me, my sisters and our husbands were huddled around the TV and this happened:

BIL: You know, I see Tiger Woods, the golfer.  I don’t see Tiger Woods “the Cheater.”

Me: I see a man-whore.

Sister Pens Fan: Me, too.

Former Ohio Sister/Current Princess Aurora: Man-whore.

We girls spent the Masters taking turns shouting insults at the TV every time they showed Tiger’s face. We got creative. We used sheer mind-power to will him to miss shots. We used to love Tiger. One of my sisters in particular used to adore Ben Roethlisberger and used to yell at me regularly for being so mean to him on my blog.

That same sister would make sure my body parts were never found if I ever wrote anything negative about Sidney Crosby.

There are loud rumblings that the Steelers are shopping Ben for a trade, and you know, I’m okay with that.  As a writer, I’d like to not have to try to separate his football-throwing performance from what I’ve learned about him over recent months, because I just don’t think I can do it.  I still see Michael Vick, the dog-killer.  I still see Jeff Reed, the paper-towel-dispenser-kicking, slut-loving, drunken duke-put-em-upping child. I still see Matt Spaeth, the public-urinator.

If Benny is NOT traded, this Fall I’m going to see Benny the Roethlishawklett-sporting, Little Ben-waving, shot-buying, allegedly sexually-violent stupidhead out there on the field and I’m going to have a hard time caring about him or what he does.  I know it.

I understand those who want to keep him around just as much as I understand those of us who would really like to not have to deal with the noise that will surround him this football season.

Either way … LET’S GO, PENS!

Giant tip of my cute little hat to the boys over at the Kiss Morning Freak Show for this clip of Regis Philbin talking about how he wants the Pirates to win this year, and then Kelly Ripa takes that ball, drops it, picks up a football and runs with it in the wrong direction by turning the conversation to the Pittsburgh Air Mall.

Hey Kelly, WE’RE TRYING TO TALK BASEBALL HERE.

Now, I would like to say three things.

1. This is still the year even though we lost yesterday because Charlie Morton spilled his suck all over the pitching mound.

2. Regis says, “Every time they get a good player, like Jason Bay, they lose him…”

Um, we don’t lose our good players, Reeg. The Buccos management is not running around the clubhouse all, “Have you seen Jason Bay?  Freddy Sanchez? Nate McClouth?  I left them right here and now they’re gone.  Check the closets!”

The management traded those good players away because the management has dollar signs for brains.

3. Let me be clear about this, my love for the Pirates this year in no way at all negates one little iota of loathing I have for the Nuttings and their special brand of baseball team mismanagement.  Suck doesn’t even BEGIN to describe them. We’d need to invent a new word. Let me do that right now. Hang on.  Suckharm. Suckerosive. Suckplosive. Diticklable. Despicsuckosity. Offensuck.

Pick one.

My hope is that the Pirates can win this year in SPITE of the Nuttings, because they sure as hell aren’t going to win because of them.

This past Friday, I attended my first Penguins game since I was about 16-years-old, and if you know any math at all, you know that that was mumble-mumble years ago.  Okay. Fine, let me do the math for you 36-16=HOLY NUTS, SHE’S OLD.

Twenty years.

Why did I wait twenty years to go to a second Pens game?

Well, when I went as a teenager, my father took my sister and I along as his guests when a customer of his at US Steel invited him.  Pre-game was awesome as we went up to the Igloo Club (is that still there? Not the Igloo Club seats, but the Igloo Club with the kickass buffet?) Anyway, my sister and I daintily inhaled everything in sight while squeeing to each other under our breaths, “THIS IS SO FREAKING AWESOME! I feel important. I wonder if Mario will come in here or maybe that big stuffed Penguin.”

Then we went to our seats and it was very not awesome.

The seats weren’t bad or anything, maybe midway up.  But here’s something I discovered at the time — from midway up, I could not for the 16-year-life of me follow the stinking puck on the ice.  I mean, where’s THE DAMN PUCK?!  Is it there?  Is it there? I do not see the puck.

I ended up just sort of following the players’ bodies and figuring, they must be chasing the puck, right? I don’t know if my eyes just reject the small black dot on the white ice or something, but I didn’t see the puck until one landed in my dad’s customer’s lap. I’m not even making that up.  He and my father were all, “Blahbitty blah steel tension blahbitty [more words I don't understand about steel] blah bl–” BAM! Puck in the lap.

So THAT’S what a puck looks like. This is stupid.

I spent the next twenty years watching the Pens from the comfort of various living rooms, because at least on TV, I can see the stupid puck.

Then last week, Mike and I were offered — are you sitting down — FIFTH ROW BEHIND THE PENGUINS BENCH tickets!  Of course, we jumped at the chance to sit that close to the action, the closest either of us have ever sat at a Pens game.  We took our spouses along and made it a date.

Long story short? So THAT’S what a hockey game is supposed to be like!

Oh, my God, you guys. I had no idea what I have been missing.

My thoughts in random order because there’s no way to bring order to this much random awesomeness:

1.  I saw Michelle The Knitting Lady’s husband across the ice! I even took a picture!

Michelle couldn’t go to the game because of work.  Also, I should tell you that she has generously offered to knit me a version of that scarf I was coveting.  WOO! Can’t wait to sport that this fall or winter.

2.  Dan Bylsma? HOT.

3.  When you sit high up, the players kind of look like they’re skating a moderately fast version of a Smuckers Stars on Ice program; however, up close, five rows back, the incredible speeds hockey players can reach is mind-blowing.  They must have bionic thighs or something.  And they make it look so easy!  But here’s something I learned from curling … looking easy is not the same thing as BEING easy. I’m going to have that etched on my gravestone.

4.  In my opinion, and THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, so don’t write me evil letters, sister Pens Fan AKA I’d Leave My Husband for Sidney Crosby, I found that the fastest, most fluid skater seemed to be Geno.  There were times he literally took my breath away with his graceful power.  He’s like a cheetah on skates. Mmrowr.

5.  Player most likely to become an NHL coach?  That’s easily Billy Guerin who spent more time instructing players on when to enter the ice than Bylsma did.  He’s the one player that looked like both a player and a coach at all times — watching the ice like he was memorizing everything.  Love him.

6.  Letang is sex. No, I didn’t forget the y.

7. I never understood why hockey fans bang on the glass, but after sitting through that intense game, holding my breath without realizing it, jumping up and screaming and high-fiving when the Pens scored, and the general feeling of “I COULD KILL A BEAR AND BITE THE HEAD OFF OF A SNAKE RIGHT NOW,” if I was sitting by the glass, I’d have been banging on it like an angry zoo gorilla. That intense.

8.  There were some other kids in our row, and the reason I say “other” is because me and Mike’s wife Meg were basically little kids.  “Oooh! That sound when they hit the boards! Oooh! That punch! Ooooh! Look at the glass shake! Oooh! That guy just killed that Penguin! Oooooh! SQUEEE! Oooh! Eek! CAN I HAVE SOME COTTON CANDY?!?!”  She and I did not leave our seats one single time during the entire game.  We sent the husbands for food and they missed Leopold being knocked the hell out by some jerk and they missed Max Talbot’s fight.

9.  Speaking of fighting and knocking out, I could never be a hockey mom because I was aghast at how hard they drive each other into the boards and how serious about fighting they are.  If any one of those Penguins was my child, I would have been arrested after I used the business end of a broken hockey stick to beat the shit out of a Senator. This sport might be more physical than football. Way more brutal hits. Way less padding.  Hockey guys are incredibly tough, but Mama-Bearitis would easily trump that if I got my hand on a broken hockey stick.

10. I saw Letang and Geno have a little tiff during a commercial break and because I am an expert lip-reader, I shall now transcribe what they said:

Letang: You didn’t go around.

Geno: I did!

Letang: You didn’t. Right there. [points to the ice].

Geno: I did!

Letang: You did not!

Geno: I make many score.

Letang: My hair is pure sex.

Okay, so I made up the last two, but the rest is, like, verbatim. You’re welcome.

11.  I had so much fun that I spent the entire game wondering how I could become employed by the Penguins or the Arena so that I could go to every game for the rest of my life and get paid to do it.  I mean, there’s this guy whose entire job it looks like is to sit in the bench with the Penguins and hand them sticks.  No lie.  I could do that.  How hard could it be? I bet you don’t need a Ph.D. in Hockey Sticks to be all, “Here’s your stick.  Here’s a stick.  Sticks here! Get yer STICKS HEEEEERE! HEY, SEXY LETANG, YOU WANNA STICK?!”

Or how about this guy’s job?

He would spend the breaks heading to the locker room and retrieving hockey gloves. That’s easy! I could retrieve the hell out of some hockey gloves for the Pens.

Or what about the guy whose job it is to fly that little blimp around the arena and drop prize envelopes?  I could do that!  I fly my kid’s remote-controlled helicopter like I’m saving lives over the Pacific. Precision handling is my middle name.

Or what about the Ice Crew?  It appears that some of those guys are in charge of shuffling across the ice after the Zamboni drives over it.  I guess to test the smoothness?  I could do that.  “HEY! YOU MISSED A SPOT!”

Or maybe I could be the person that opens the doors for the Zambonis? Or maybe I could drive a Zamboni provided I don’t have to ever ever ever parallel-park the Zamboni on account of my inner-ear thing? Or maybe I could be an usher? A hockey-stick cleaner? The lights-turner-offer? The person that hides in a locker and watches the players get undressed?

What do you MEAN that’s not a thing?

LET’S GO, PENS!