Initially I had only sent an email to some Chicago sports fans about the departure of Jay Mariotti from the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week but something happened after that which bears repeating.  In just about any workplace there is going to be inevitable conflict.  Sometimes it’s more magnified in some places than others but usually cooler heads prevail and it doesn’t become a public matter.  When that person leaves, people usually either say something nice about that person or they don’t say anything at all or are secretly happy that the point of conflict has been removed.

Thankfully I’m not the only fuddy duddy who thinks that baseball’s claim of success comes with a price.  One of the more well known fans of baseball, Stephen King, went on a rant in the past issue of Entertainment Weekly.  As much as I loathe when politicians use the “But what about the CHILDREN?” line, King actually makes valid points in his argument.

Even though it’s the middle of summer, I’m going to relay yet another story of why hockey players are tougher than any other athletes when it comes to pain tolerance.  A buddy/ex-coworker of mine plays in a hockey league down here and this past weekend he suffered a rather gruesome injury while playing.  Rather than try to rehash the story, I’ll include snippets of the email conversation he had (with his permission). 

I’m going to expand upon some of your comments from my post yesterday and also add some more about the All Star Game last night.

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Here’s what the steroid issue in baseball has done to this lifetime fan.  Instead of fully enjoying what was truly a wonderful story in last night’s Home Run Derby with Josh Hamilton and his unbelievable comeback from his self-inflicted personal problems, I couldn’t help but think what kind of masked drug he was taking that allowed him to hit so many 500+ foot long home runs. 

There was a wedding on the ice between the first and second periods of Saturday’s Gwinnett Gladiators game.  As you can imagine, unless they’re trying to recreate the ceremony from the Princess Bride, it wasn’t going to be done in a few minutes.  There is supposed to be an 18-minute break between periods and the team is fined if they go over that.  Long story short – the ceremony was taking so long our supervisor was forced to sound the arena horn in the middle of the ceremony to remind them they needed to get to the exchanging rings part ASAP.< ...

I can’t stress how much I love the internet and all the great info it gives us.  From game box scores to reviews of a movie from critics around the globe, there’s more info out there than one can possibly consume in a lifetime.  Add broadband access into the mix and now our computers have become extensions of our TVs.

This might be one of the most cringe-inducing stories I have ever had forwarded to me.  Every guy who reads the text below will know what I’m talking about.  By the way, the player’s last name is pronounced “PEE-ay”, not “Pie”.

This past week has been an aberration where there are more pictures than text but something was sent to me today that I absolutely have to post.  One of my ex-coworkers, Bree, is a huge hockey fan (along with her husband, Chris, whom I also worked with) and she sent me two photos of the Atlanta Thrashers’ mascot Thrash.  Normally he’s dressed up in standard mascot attire – hockey jersey, hockey pants, hockey socks, etc (see the first picture).  Since last night’s game was near Valentine’s Day, Thrash decided to dress in Cupid attire.  The problem is, it didn’t translate well.  As Bree succinctly put it, “…I guess this was supposed to be the Thrash ...

After last year’s successful promotion where they painted the ice green, the Gwinnett Gladiators hosted three games this past weekend with the ice surface colored pink.  It was a Pink In The Rink promotion for women’s cancer research and the players jerseys were auctioned off after the game to raise money for various related charities.