Chicks Dig the Long Goals

On Wednesday night, Southern Methodist University defender Ryan Rosenbaum scored a 70-yard goal against the nationally ranked Tulsa Golden Hurricane en route to a 3-1 victory. Rosenbaum took an errant Tulsa pass and cleared the ball out of his defensive end. The ball travelled the length of the fielf and bounced off the artificial turf, rocketing over keeper Andy Aguilar’s head into the back of the net.



As if that weren’t cool enough, last night, Washington Capitals defenseman Jeff Schultz scored a 175-foot bouncing goal against Atlanta Thrashers goalie Ondrej Pavelec, who then quickly let in two more goals in the next 88 seconds before finally, mercifully being pulled.



(Both Via)

Cheap Seats

On Saturday night, I went to the Rangers home opener against the Ottawa Senators. A friend has season tickets, which, in previous years, were located 8 rows behind the net, on the 7th Avenue side of the Garden. This year, however, he downgraded his two seats to the 400s, all the way up on the ninth floor of the Garden, where smoking is not necessarily discouraged, the roof leaks, and the nearest bathroom is one flight down, two sections over. 

This is the only place to watch a hockey game. 

The fans, most of whom sported a Rangers jersey and/or a mullet, were completely into every aspect of the game, from before the team introductions to well beyond the final buzzer. You haven’t experienced a hockey game until a zaftig woman in a Jeff Beukeboom road jersey a few rows over starts yelling about the waning efficiency of a team’s line change from period to period. She was right, too, and if the NHL had enough sense to broadcast every hockey game from the cheap seats, sports fans would flock to hockey faster than an Alex Ovechkin slap shot.

Bruins Rules

You don't need to be a fan of hockey to enjoy the following commercials for the Boston Bruins. They're the best thing to come out of Boston since Kevin Garnett's injury report.

Fisticuffs

This is one of the primary reasons why people still watch hockey. And the only reason people still say things like, "I went to fight last night and a hockey game broke out."



(Via With Leather.)

The Embalmer, On Ice

Before this afternoon, I had never heard of Alf Pike, a key member of the New York Rangers 1940 Stanley Cup-winning team, the last Rangers team to win the Stanley Cup before Mark Messier's ice squad recaptured Lord Stanley's Cup 54 years later, in 1994. After reading Pike's obituary, though, I wish he had popped up on my radar years ago, for two reasons: 1.) he reportedly predicted, in between periods, that he and his teammate, Bryan Hextall, would score the tying and winning goals, respectively, against the Boston Bruins in the decisive Game 6 of the 1940 final; and 2.) he was nicknamed the Embalmer because of his off-season job at a funeral home, which I just find wonderful on so many levels.

Badasses on Skates

There’s an old sports adage that referees should be invisible. Refs are only noticed when they either blow a call or, in the case of National Hockey League, get crushed, like a mosquito, between two opposing players, near the blue line.

From this morning’s New York Times profile of hockey’s unheralded corps of linesmen, comes this horrifying anecdote about veteran linesman Pat Dapuzzo, who took a skate to the face during a Rangers/Flyers game earlier this month, essentially wrecking the lower part of his face and ending his career.

On Feb. 9, 2008, in a game between the Rangers and the Flyers in Philadelphia, the veteran linesman Pat Dapuzzo was pinned between two players at the blue line. Dapuzzo had jumped to avoid a collision between Philadelphia forward Steve Downie and Rangers defenseman Fedor Tyutin. But Tyutin upended Downie, whose skate blade slammed into Dapuzzo’s face, slashing it open.

Dapuzzo, 50, who lives in Rutherford, N.J., had planned to retire after the 2008-9 season, but the Flyers-Rangers game turned out to be his last. He sustained broken facial bones and severed nerves, and most of his teeth were knocked out. 

If you're into this sort of thing, you can watch Dapuzzo's accident here. What's amazing is Dapuzzo gets up and tries to break up a fight about 15 seconds after severing some nerves, breaking a number (as in more than one) of bones in his face and getting his teeth knocked out.

That's tough, man, stevedore tough.  “There are highs and lows,” Dapuzzo deadpanned, while presumably supping whiskey from a hollowed-out rebarb straw. “I must have really gotten smoked with that kick in the face.”

A lot of readers have requested I post more about hockey (Ed. Note: I'm lying). So, in recognition of Dapuzzo's badassery, here's a bonus clip of badass-in-arms Alexander Ovechkin's ridiculous goal against the Montreal Canadians. 

Ta-Nehisi and the Mad Dog?

A few weeks ago, Andrew Sullivan, in a Dish post about the NRA, threw out a pretty funny line about Plaxico Burress, which kind of blew my mind. Sullivan is literally the last Atlantic voice I'd expect to write about, even tangentially, contemporary American sports. Dead last. Even behind Barbara Wallraff. 

In fact, outside of an occasional Ta-Nehisi Coates post, The Atlantic, in my experience, rarely even bumps up against professional sports.

Imagine my surprise then, when I read not one but two interesting sports-related pieces in the December issue of the magazine. The first, in their revamped "Dispatches" section, is about the political significance of patriotic Czech--and former New York Ranger-- Jaromir Jagr lighting the lamp in Siberia. This is at least somewhat in keeping with the Atlantic's provenance. 

The second? Not so much. The feature, written by David Samuels, is a terrifying look at Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, the defending light-heavyweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, as Rampage prepared for his July title defense against Forrest Griffin. It's full of interesting tidbits. Did you know, for instance, that Rampage was knocked out twice by Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva? I, for one, did not.

I wonder if this new attention to the world of sports is just a one-time deal, or if the 150-year-old magazine is going to stick with it, as part of their rebranding.

Perhaps a call-in radio show is currently in the works.