The NHL is back. Here’s the best thing you can read about it.

The NHL freezeout finally thawed a few days ago, and like the slow, first drips of a spring melt, hockey writers’ earnest material is starting to trickle out. Breakdowns of the new CBA. Recommendations for how the league can bring back the fans. Wonderings about whether the league is better off as a lesser sports entity. Psychoanalyses of players who might not want to come back to the NHL. Discoveries of a beauty pageant winner’s role in the 2011 Vancouver hockey riots. Something about junior hockey championships. Remembrances of the Great One. I’ve read it all.

I’ve read it all, and it’s all fine, but none of it really satisfies. Just textual workouts over the same old themes. Nothing revelatory or even thought-provoking. None of it, at least, until the last hockey article I read, which might be the last stretch of hockey writing I read until I can get my hands on a commemorative magazine retrospective of my team’s Stanley Cup-winning run.

I don’t care if you call me biased. (Our phone lines are down anyway.) But if you dismiss this piece because I’ve declared my position on the author’s merits and you assume I prejudged the article and was going to like it and highlight it regardless, you’ll miss out on the best bit of post-most-recent-lockout hockey writing and the best swatch of sports writing in recent memory.

Norm Macdonald’s latest article is a short story in two parts– two short stories, really– with some light humor, of course, but more compellingly, real, emotional, suspenseful, rising action conveyed in absolutely compelling fashion with two lovely turns of phrase, one for each part.

I hope I haven’t over-hyped it for you the way that one girl over-hyped Shanghai Knights back in high school. Bring your expectations back to norm(al) levels and click here.

Richard Ben Cramer: A hero missed (via ESPN)

I did not want to work with Richard Ben Cramer.

OK, I did. I adored him as a writer and journalist. I’d devoured his works, from “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life” to “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” to “What It Takes: The Way To The White House.” The latter had been assigned reading, widely considered one of the greatest political books of the 20th century. The other two I’d bought for permanent placement in my office bookcase.

So yes, of course, I wanted to work with the Pulitzer winner. I had dreamed of working with him on some project at some point in my career. I just didn’t want to work with him on this particular project at this particular time. This one was mine.

What an idiot I was. … Read More

(via ESPN)

Bowl Pick ‘Em: Dénouement

With Bama’s drubbing of Notre Dame in the National Championship, the inaugural (Or did we have one last year?  You tell me.  Seriously, tell me.) ALDLAND Bowl Pick ‘Em Challenge is over.  I promised I would write a post about the winner, and so here I am, writing something again for the first time in what seems like forever.  The actual winner was blog founder AD, who is widely believed to have cheated to win.  Just kidding, I don’t want to tag him with that kind of label because it might one day adversely affect his candidacy for the Bowl Pick ‘Em Hall of Fame.  Since you know everything there is to know about AD already (quick recap: is a brony, believes he has a pen pal in Burkina Faso, although in reality it is just Chris Cunico humoring him, favorite athlete of all time is Bobby Higginson) I am going to write about the runner up DRTAZ 1.

DRTAZ 1 is an interesting guy . . . or girl.  The reality is that we don’t know anything about him . . . or her.  An APB was put out on the tweet yesterday which received no response, so I am just going to make stuff up, much like I just did about AD (or did I?).  DRTAZ 1’s name derives from his or her favorite Looney Toons character of all time, the Tasmanian Devil.  Interestingly enough, DRTAZ 1 hates Dizzy Devil, the Tasmanian Devil analogue from Tiny Toon Adventures as he or she thinks that Dizzy Devil destroys the integrity of the Tasmanian Devil.  Let’s be real, DRTAZ 1 is totally right about Tiny Toons.  That show suuuuuuuuuuuucked.  It was all about Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, am I right?  Anyway, DRTAZ 1 can often be seen wearing gear with the Tasmanian Devil on it and has many Taz stuffed animals lying around the house.

Now, you might have heard “stuffed animals” and said, “I know who DRTAZ 1 is: popular podcast humor fodder, Bad Jeremy!”  I can confirm that Bad Jeremy is not DRTAZ 1, because he knows absolutely nothing about college football.  Furthermore, he is not allowed to use the internet so he couldn’t fill out a bowl pick ‘em entry.  He is also not a doctor, which DRTAZ 1 obviously is.  DRTAZ 1 graduated at the top of his or her class from the University of Miami’s medical school, where he or she was best friends with Marvelous of 7th Floor Crew fame.  After graduation DRTAZ 1 decided that he or she did not want to practice medicine and instead embarked on a career making art using those little plastic things you put on a peg board and then iron so that they make a shape.  Contrary to what you might think, DRTAZ 1’s favorite subject for little plastic thing art is not in fact the Tazmanian Devil, rather it is the Busby series of video games.

I don’t have much to say about DRTAZ 1’s entry.  It’s linked above, so you can check it out for yourself.  He or she simply picked better than everyone except AD.  As such, he or she is entitled to a receipt signed by AD as well as a signed Andy Brink head shot.

Mid-week oral history jam

Forty-five years ago today, Stax released Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” a recording Redding never heard due to his death in a plan crash less than a month before the hit’s release and just eighteen days after the recording session. The Wall Street Journal has an oral history of the recording of the song.

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Previously
Up in smoke: Duck Dunn, dead at 70

Related
Time to retire #27?

What team would you rather have seen play Alabama last night?

I think we can safely say that Notre Dame wasn’t up to the task of competing for a college football national championship. The game was by some accounts “boring” and others “hilariously disastrous.” People tend to like to see these championship games be competitive affairs. What team other than the Irish do you wish played Alabama last night? 

Another question: Do or should any AP voters vote Ohio State #1?

The most essential national championship preview

If there’s one outcome-determinative piece of information I can give you in advance of tonight’s college football national championship game between #1 Notre Dame and #2 Alabama, it would be this: Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron brought along thirty pairs of shoes for the occasion. Everything else you’ll read is nonessential.

That said, I’ll add my prediction, which is Continue reading

ALDLAND Podcast

So the holidays are over.  The BCS games were mostly boring.  The NFL wild card games were also mostly boring.  You are probably sitting around pondering if life is even worth it any more.  Don’t fear, loyal listener(s), it is.  There’s a new ALDLAND podcast for you to listen to in which we discuss all that boring stuff and make sense of it.  As the great philosopher John L. Smith once said, “SMILE!”

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

This is what is right with Grantland

Earlier, Brendan told you what’s wrong with Grantland, and I can’t sit here and say that the world needs 3,100 words on a made up basketball statistic modeled after the play of Kobe Bryant.

I’ve already outlined my thoughts about the site in general, and nothing has happened since then to make me want to walk away from my generally positive view of the site

No sooner had Brendan fired his shot across Grantland’s bow, though, than I saw a post from Grantland’s newest writer and my favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald, about how he made a New Year’s resolution to resume his crippling sports gambling habit. Norm Macdonald is what is right with Grantland, and Grantland has never been more right.

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Previously
This is what is wrong with Grantland

Related
Writing about writing about writing: Grantland
1500 words to say that Conan never was that funny and he isn’t getting funnier and TBS doesn’t seem to care
Norm Macdonald’s 2013 PGA Year in Preview