Day-to-Day Nonsense

Soccer and the American Psyche

Recently on NPR, someone observed that American sports are all about winning. Football, baseball, and basketball always have winners. There is no such thing as a tie.

Hockey with a long tradition of tie’s was tweaked by the new NHL to ensure that there would be fewer ties. Everygame now ends with a penalty shootout so that at the end of play a victory is declared.

Soccer is not like that. In soccer a great many games end in a tie. A great many games end in a 0-0 tie. Appreciating tie’s is critical to appreciating soccer.

I wonder if America’s winner-take-all attitude can ever permit a sport where tieing is an integral and unavoidable result.

Add comment June 24th, 2006

No-way Jose.

It doesn’t seem possible, but only four years after rescuing this franchise with his incredible goaltending, jose theodore is out. And of all places: he’s going to Colorado. You’d think that GM’s in Montreal would be forbidden from trading French Canadian goaltenders to Colorado after Patrick Roy went there. But you’d be mistaken.

Add comment March 8th, 2006