I'm Late...Didja Start Without Me?

Frequent readers of EIP know I’m a hockey fan, or more specifically a Detroit Red Wings fan. Being a hockey fan isn’t easy. Our sport is probably the most misunderstood and least appreciated of all the major professional sports in the US of A, sucking hind teat, as it were, to the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Hockey is marginally more popular than, say, soccer, but that’s subject to change since Beckham came to the US. I just think we’re misunderstood, all other criticisms aside. So, Gentle Reader, it’s in the spirit of understanding that I give you Hockey 101. Excerpts:

Stereotypical fan

When it comes to NHL fans, they tend to be fairly vocal and quite particular about how they view the sport, especially if they are fans of one of the Original Six who tend to have something of a superiority complex when it comes to expansion teams.

However, fans of the various national teams are rabidly patriotic. For many of the more prestigious nations – Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden, to name but three – ice hockey rivals football as the most popular national sport.

In Canada, ice hockey outweighs every other pastime as the most popular, and as such Canadian NHL fans tend to be the most patriotic and outspoken of all.

[…]

Why should I watch/play it?

The sport is fast and furious and while a live game may make it difficult to follow the puck at times, the action is unbelievable up close.

There is nothing quite like the sound of skates scraping against the ice as player twist and turn at break-neck speed and the atmosphere inside the arenas of the NHL is unlike any other sport in north America, especially when it is one of the well-worn rivalries in Canada or the northern states. (ed: Like Detroit and Colorado. Go watch…and understand. Full story here.)

Still, if you get the chance to catch a live game on TV, it is still worth a watch and since the rule changes in the NHL last season the game is more exciting than ever – marrying the speed and excitement of the skating with the raw power, brute force and sometimes down-right passion that comes when players get a little too hot under the colour (sic) and start trading blows.

It’s all true. Read the whole thing to glean an understanding and…hopefully…a better appreciation of the greatest sport in the entire freakin’ world. Bar none.

Speaking as an Original Six fan, of course.

So. Rupert Murdoch is gonna own what might rightly be called the Crown Jewel of American Journalism…the Wall Street Journal. (And please don’t go talking about The Gray Lady’s former glories. Past is past.)

Rupert Murdoch's courtship of the Bancroft family appears to have triumphed, with enough shares pledged to make News Corp. the owner of the newspaper whose Web site you are now reading. Readers are naturally asking how this will change the journalism we practice. Our sincere answer is that we intend to stand for the same principles and standards we have for more than a hundred years.

[…]

The Journal has had to adapt many times over the years to changing technology and reading habits. In the past five years alone, we have redesigned the U.S. Journal twice and the foreign editions once, while adding a Saturday paper and investing in online publishing. To the extent that News Corp. can provide capital for further innovation, the Journal's future as a business should be enhanced. And make no mistake: Business success is vital to editorial independence, precisely because it provides the resources to report and comment in ways that might offend advertisers or governments.

I came to the WSJ rather late in life, back in 1981. A former commander of mine (in England) turned me on to what I previously perceived to be a rather stuffy, totally business-oriented rag read only by Fat Cats. I was wrong. And I became a subscriber shortly after the revelation, halting my subscription only when the Journal couldn’t come to me in a timely manner. (The WSJ is delivered by US Mail here in the hinterlands, arriving a day late. Who wants to read yesterday’s news?) The WSJ was part of my morning coffee ritual for well over 20 years, closer to 30, actually. I still read it occasionally (at the library) and always read the freebies posted on Opinion Journal. But, Lordy, do I ever miss the paper…the physical paper. Reading on-line just ain’t the same, and that’s why I’ve never sprung for the on-line pay version of the WSJ.

Let us pray nothing much changes…in the all-important editorial and hard news areas…when Rupert assumes control.

NewsBusters has more, including lots and lots of “media reaction,” and it’s pretty good stuff.

You can take this with a grain of salt, but it’s interesting:

"The cease-fire acted as a life jacket for the organization [at the end of the Second Lebanon War]," a Hizbullah officer said in an interview aired by Channel 10 on Tuesday.

In the interview, the unnamed officer said Hizbullah gunmen would have surrendered if the fighting last summer had continued for another 10 days.

Unnamed or not, I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for this guy’s chances, given the organization he’s a member of and the fact he’s directly contradicting his CinC. Unless, of course, it’s more makara.

Today’s Pic(s): In direct contrast to yesterday’s pic of El Casa Móvil De Pennington outstanding in its field, here we have cheek-to-jowl parking in an urban RV park, specifically in Reno, NV. I never stayed in these sort of parks for very long, given the crowded nature of the accommodations, and the associated fact that I need a little more space and a LOT more distance from those extraneous “noises in the night” that emanate from folks’ homes…fixed OR mobile. But especially mobile.

And about those flags… the owner of the flags was a minor cause célébré in the local media just before I arrived on the scene. Briefly: The RV Park owner delivered a “cease and desist or MOVE” letter to the owner of this RV about those flags. Not willing to take the “lose ‘em or move ‘em” alternative he was given, the owner went directly…not passing Go…to a local TV station who did a human interest piece on the flags. The resulting outpouring of mail and negative comments to the park owner got him to back down, and the flags remained flying. The Little Guy won one…

May, 2000.