You gotta read this.
http://deadspin.com/5868584/how-a-senior-league-hockey-fight-ended-with-one-player-pooping-in-an-opponents-glove
Showing posts with label hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hockey. Show all posts
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
"This Is Your Brain on Ice" by Nick Paumgarten - Newyorker.com
Look at the high and mighty New Yorker showing up late to the Poop Reads party. On Monday I posted the following about the Times' much lauded series on Derek Boogard's death and the role fighting in hockey may have played in it:
"...you can't go around pointing fingers at sports like hockey and football and say that's why people do horrific things to themselves. Yes, there is evidence that some of the hits these guys take fuck them up later in life. But also, violent sports, by and large, attract people that are a little bit crazy, guys that "do" first and "think" second. Personalities that live life hard and take things to extremes. It's the same profile of someone who abuses their body until they die.
In short, we love to watch these guys on the ice and the field because they are crazy, and sometimes crazy people do crazy things. So while it's very easy and apparently in vogue to blame the sports for its participants' actions, I think you really need to look at the people who choose to participate in those sports, and see the larger pattern for what happens to them as their lives proceed. Just my two cents. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
And then today along comes probably the most prestigious magazine in the world saying this about the very same Times piece:
"It may be that people who have the aptitude and the appetite to play contact sports at the professional level are those who have a certain disregard for longevity. If risk-aversion, across the population, could be graphed with a bell curve, pro-hockey players, like pro-football players or motocross racers, might be found clustered at one end. The part of society that makes its living sitting at a desk and thinking about the world sometimes finds it hard to believe that there are people out there with a different set of values—people for whom, say, sacrificing their health to make millions of dollars playing the game they love makes perfect sense."
Now I'm not here to imply that maybe the editors at a second highly prestigious magazine are all over Poop Reads jock or anything. I'm just saying that Poop Reads is doling out some of the best commentary on the internet and it's doing it 48 hours before the New Yorker can digest what's really going on in these streets.
Now I'm not here to imply that maybe the editors at a second highly prestigious magazine are all over Poop Reads jock or anything. I'm just saying that Poop Reads is doling out some of the best commentary on the internet and it's doing it 48 hours before the New Yorker can digest what's really going on in these streets.
Poop Readers, you are in good company.
Oh and here is Paumgarten's piece. It's shorter and less researched than the Times' is, but I think its better too.
p.s. Now seriously, somebody come up with a better name than Poop Reads for me.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
"Derek Boogard: A Brain 'Going Bad' by John Branch - NYTimes.com
Ok so this is the second installment of the Times 4-part series on hockey enforcer Derek Boogard's death, and I guess it answers some of the questions raised in my blog from last night about the first piece. But it doesn't answer all of them.
That being said, if you don't get a little emotional when Branch recounts Boogard's brothers finding his body, go read Brobible or SociopathsRus.com or something, cuz I got nothing for ya.
This is good shit.
Monday, December 5, 2011
"Derek Boogard: Blood on the Ice" by John Branch -NYTimes.com
This is a pretty cool article on the former hockey enforcer Derek Boogard, who recently OD'd on an alcohol and painkiller cocktail. It was on the main page of the Times today and is mostly cool because it is interactive--as the writer describes fights and locations you can click on videos of them. Otherwise I'm not sure why it garnered so much attention. It's pretty well written, and it's an interesting subject, but I feel like I've read this before. Hell I think I might have posted this before from Grantland or something. All these articles about the hockey enforcer deaths as of late (Rick Rypien and Wade Belak were the others) kind of half postulate that they're the result of traumatic head injuries, but serve up little evidence that that's actually the case.
Listen, not to be callous, because nobody, especially stand-up guys (by all accounts) like these guys should lead lives this short, but you can't go around pointing fingers at sports like hockey and football and say that's why people do horrific things to themselves. Yes, there is evidence that some of the hits these guys take fuck them up later in life. But also, violent sports, by and large, attract people that are a little bit crazy, guys that "do" first and "think" second. Personalities that live life hard and take things to extremes. It's the same profile of someone who abuses their body until they die.
In short, we love to watch these guys on the ice and the field because they are crazy, and sometimes crazy people do crazy things. So while it's very easy and apparently in vogue to blame the sports for its participants' actions, I think you really need to look at the people who choose to participate in those sports, and see the larger pattern for what happens to them as their lives proceed. Just my two cents. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Monday, September 26, 2011
"The Survivor" by Chris Jones - Grantland.com
Chris Jones weighs in on the recent rash of hockey enforcer suicides. He's Canadian and he boxes, so he's probably got an inside edge on this story I'd think. That being said, is all these guys dying recently really that surprising? Like, if you're a hockey enforcer, you are a fucking nut right? You're a big white okie kind of dude who could probably drink 40 Labatt Blues and drive your pick-up truck home right? I could be wrong but that's the impression I get. Plus they like to fight so they're already a little nuts. From anecdotal evidence I've heard they juice a lot. I don't know, being an NHL enforcer seems to me like one step above being a professional wrestler. Not to be insensitive, but no shit they're dying.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
"Amazing Stories" by Barry Petchesky - Deadspin.com
The actual title of this is "The Canucks Fan Who Drove 1,000 Miles For A Game, Partied With The Owner, Drank With Beautiful Women, Nearly Died, And Got Comped For Game 5". But I thought that was too long for a blog title. God's honest guys, I haven't read it, and I usually read everything that goes up here. But I had a long ass day, a crazy one. I ate a pig face. Literally. And this title sounds about right.
http://deadspin.com/5807325/the-canucks-fan-who-drove-1000-miles-for-a-game-partied-with-the-owner-drank-with-beautiful-women-nearly-died-and-got-comped-for-game-5
http://deadspin.com/5807325/the-canucks-fan-who-drove-1000-miles-for-a-game-partied-with-the-owner-drank-with-beautiful-women-nearly-died-and-got-comped-for-game-5
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