Thursday, March 9th

1 - Today is Christmas for hockey fans. Best deadline day deal so far: Dwayne Roloson to Edmonton for a 1st round pick. Minnesota just got a first round pick for what was essentially their back-up goalie. Doug Risebrough should hop in a car, drive to the most remote part of Minnesota, and have a good, long, laugh.

2 - Ever wonder what possesses normally pacified Europeans to riot during a soccer game? Most people think they just take their sports way to seriously, but most people have no idea how seriously. I stumbled upon this article a few nights ago. It's about the Houston 1836's a team in the MLS, North America's top pro soccer league. 1836's, not a name that rolls off the tongue, but that wasn't what they were going for. The owners wanted to pay tribute to a great American historical event, the Battle of the Alamo. Unfortunately, this didn't go over well with many people, who felt 1836's was a loaded name. The funny thing is that it's normal for soccer teams to have a meaningful name. Take, for example, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa, two giants of Israeli club soccer mentioned in the article. They're both named after the Maccabean Rebels, you know, the ones in the Apocrypha (1 and 2 Maccabees). Compare the 1836's with the Winnipeg Jets (named after 'The Golden Jet' Bobby Hull) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (named by the daughter of the founder, who thought Penguins were cute) whose names mean very little. And I won't even mention the Toronto Raptors, Minnesota Wild, and Nashville Predators. North American team names are all about marketing, which flies in the face of European soccer, where everything carries some sort of meaning to it: the name, the logo, the name of the official fan club, even team colors. One might wonder why Celtic F.C. and the Glasgow Rangers of Scotland have a history of violence, until you realize that Celtic's fans and players are all Catholic, while the Rangers are all Protestant. Or take West Ham United and Millwall of England. Their hostility dates back to 1926 and a general strike. The shipbuilders of the Royal Docks (West Ham supporters) went on strike while shipbuilders and dock workers in Surry and Millwall continued to work (petty?), thus cutting the legs out from under the workers at Royal. Or how about Ajax-Amsterdam, one of the top three clubs in Dutch soccer. Their supporters call themselves 'Super-Joden' or 'Super Jews', a tradition that dates back to pre-W.W.II times. Why? To pay tribute to the clubs earlier players and supporters, who were almost all Jewish. Loaded language, anyone? Then there's AEK Athens, a club that was founded by Greek refugees who were driven out of Turkey in the early 1920's. Think there's a bit of animosity when they play a Turkish team? Think other Greek teams accept them as one of their own? Kind of makes Labor Day at Taylor Field look like child's play:

'So why do we hate the Bombers again?'

'Cause Troy Westwood called us banjo pickin' inbreds, that's why!'

'Isn't his mother from Saskatchewan?'

So here's the moral of the story. If you happen to be traveling around Europe, and someone asks you who your favorite 'football' team is, tell them you don't have one. Your favorite soccer team tells a stranger way more about you than you may want them to know.

P.S.

M.O.F. does not condone soccer riots, or consider any of the above evidence as an acceptable excuse for starting a riot. I just wanted you to know what gives.

3 - Speaking of soccer, here's an article that quotes a guy who thinks soccer riots start because soccer is a violent sport.

Quote: "And unlike Dr. Galea, who refers to soccer as a 'gentleman's game', Dr. Russell says soccer is violent. 'The players get into vicious tackles,' Russell observes. 'Fist fights are rare, but they kick and trip each other instead.'

I wonder what Dr. Russell would think of Todd Bertuzzi?

4 - This is an interesting article by the editor of the Danish newspaper who originally published 'The Cartoons' that have everyone so worked up. Here's a snippet:

"Critics of my decision to publish 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not mean insulting people's religious feelings. And besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day.

I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.

But the cartoon story is different.

The above-cited examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out."

5 - And the pendulum swings the other way.

A student paper at the U of S gets in on the freedom of speech act. I can't believe anyone could be this careless, much less a publisher and editor. One thing is fore sure; the people who run 'The Sheaf' won't be getting jobs in the newspaper business anytime soon.

6 - Okay, I really have no idea what to think about this:

--Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, criticized the West for insulting Islam's prophet, complaining in a video broadcast Sunday on Al-Jazeera the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus "are not sacred anymore."--

And

--"The Prophet Mohammed, prayers be upon him, and Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, are not sacred anymore, while Semites and the Holocaust and homosexuality have become sacred."--

I've never heard a radical Muslim refer to Jesus as 'Christ' before. Come to think of it, I've never heard a moderate Muslim call him 'Christ' either. Is al-Zawahri trying to find some sympathizers among the 'religious right'? Maybe he's thinking 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

7 - So now David Emerson's floor crossing is going to be investigated. Good. As far as I know there was nothing illegal about it (it was still a low blow) and this will prove it. Then everyone can stop whining and complaining about MP's crossing the floor. I won't even talk about it anymore. Unfortunately, Harper seems loathe to cooperate. The Prime Minister has a point. Politicians from all parties think Shapiro is in over his head. However, as former NDP leader Ed Broadbent noted, there has got to be a better way to get rid of him than this.

8 - I was having a chat with Captain Kirk the other day. He was showing me a few news sources he likes to check up on, and in the process we found a story about a website that was sold for six hundred million dollars ($600 000 000). It's a site for women called iVillage, so click here and see what a six hundred million dollar website looks like. You want to know what else you could buy for six hundred million? Two years ago you could have bought the Boston Red Sox and had enough money left over to purchase the Expos.

9 - In all fairness, I should end off by noting that Wayne Gretzky is, by all accounts, innocent of any wrong doing as far as the gambling conflict goes. The New Jersey State Police Department on the other hand, has some explaining to do.

Cheers

M.O.F.