Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

Ever notice the response when a  Steeler or  a Penguin lays out an opposing player?

Fans love it.

Despite all the talk about concussions and life changing injuries, fans are still watching the games.

Maybe that’s because, even if some of us won’t admit it, we like violence.

John Allemang of the Toronto Globe and Mail pointed out in a column that, despite all the violence and all the suspensions handed out during the first round of the NHL playoffs –ratings are way up.

(He’ll be a guest on my talk show today at 1:30 on TribLive Radio.)

 

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JOHN ALLEMANG

Sports violence is within us all

It’s a truth that’s impossible to deny as the bodies are carried off the NHL’s battlegrounds: Violence may be denounced and disallowed in the rest of our lives, but in hockey it remains a primal pleasure.

Fans love the thundering hit, especially in the playoffs when the stakes are raised, the referees back off, and the emotional level of a high-energy game is constantly on the boil. TV ratings are up by 50 per cent on TSN and NBC, and it’s hard not to see a connection with the bad-tempered side of the grinding Stanley Cup quest that has even the recently concussed SidneyCrosby throwing punches and trading insults.

 

 

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A wild weekend in the NHL

“That’s really playoff hockey, isn’t it,” Philadelphia Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Crosby took on Philadelphia’s star player, Claude Giroux.

Cross-checks to the throat, heads crushed into the glass, punches traded by guys who are usually content to let lesser teammates play the goon role: This is all part of the heightened emotion and physical drama that the NHL promises fans and advertisers in the postseason.

“It’s adrenalin,” said Brian Burke, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager famous as a proponent of on-ice belligerence, truculence and intimidation. In the heat of the moment, players can’t help themselves, or so the argument goes, and hockey fans are the beneficiaries: We watch with fascination to see what kind of carnage comes next.

Then a Marian Hossa is laid out flat by a professional NHL headhunter, and the blood lust takes a brief pause. Maybe the sight of highly paid gladiators savaging each other isn’t such a pure pleasure after all?

Introspection about violence in contact sports is a fleeting thing, and not just because the games would disappear if we took away the basic element of aggression. The larger issue sports fanatics are trying to evade is this: Who knows what we’d learn about ourselves by confronting the fact that other people’s suffering makes us happy?

“Moral outrage about sports violence comes and goes in fits and starts,” said Kevin Young, professor of sociology at the University of Calgary.

“We like to think we’re living in a society where violence is increasingly an anathema. So it might seem inconsistent with where we’re headed in a civilized culture for us to pay athletes to hurt other people and knock them out of the game. But that kind of reaction is just naive: This is what conventional, orthodox North American sport has always been about.”

John Mara is like Art Rooney II. He’s NFL royalty — a descendant of one of the league’s founders.

And Mara actually admitted that NFL owners considered eliminating the kickoff before coming up with the stupid, sissified rule that moved kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line last season.

Notice that the writer of this story says that you shouldn’t worry — that kickoffs won’t be eliminated because there will be no need to.  As I said at the time of the rule change, NFL coaches will just find kickers who can kick it at least 70 yards every time.

And, since return men who ran it out from the end zone only made it to the 20 yard line 43% of the time, the same coaches who see nothing wrong with punting from inside their opponents’ 35, will just tell their return men to never run one out of the end zone.

The writer also seems to think that’s wonderful in what he calls the “safety first” NFL.

Sorry, but you can’t make safety the first priority and still play football.

Player safety should be a serious consideration, but if safety is your number one priority and that causes you to eliminate the kickoff, you may as well just stop playing the game.

As a fan, I want to be entertained. The fact that it’s not safe is what makes the game appealing.

You can’t play hockey and have safety as your first concern either. You can’t tell large men to go over 20 MPH on skates carrying sticks and make staying safe your number one priority.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do everything within reason to protect serious injuries but when you start taking something as basic as the kickoff out of football, you’re either really stupid for ruining the game or you’re really stupid for playing it in the first place.

I appreciate all the comments from you loyal readers and posters and now I’m very conflicted.

I’ve spoken to my webmaster and he suggested trying a donation option. I’m going to look into that and also linking the blog to Twitter and  Facebook.

In the meantime, check out this feminist who was saved from being hit by a cab by the actor Ryan Gosling and then whined about being portrayed as the damsel in distress. Maybe she would have preferred playing the role of a bug on  a windshield.

http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/295445/ryan-gosling-s-thankless-save/suzanne-venker

I have decided to stop doing this blog before the end of April.

Two years ago, I started a website for the purpose of selling a book. Then I decided to try a blog.

The response was unbelievable.

I now have 30,000 visitors per month including 6,000 new visitors.

I think it could grow more but I’ve been advised by my friend who does internet marketing that I should move to social media.

I had considered trying to make this a subscriber only blog, but I just can’t presume that people who have been  joining in here for free the last two years would be willing to pay $25 or $30 a year to continue

I’ll still be posting here for a while, and looking for your responses, and I want to invite you to join me on Facebook and Twitter where I will be expecting lots of people to continue to trash me for my brilliant insights and observations into and about sports, politics and anything else that pops into my head.

I enjoy the debate. I hope we can keep it up.

Meanwhile, let’s have a free for all. You can comment on anything you’d like –whether you’ve seen it here at JWTG or not.

Let it rip.

Al Morganti (former ESPN NHL analyst) of the Flyers radio/TV broadcast and host of the top talk show in Philadelphia will be my guest on TribLive Radio Tuesday at 1:00.

NBC analyst Mike Milbury was a guest on his show Monday and referred to Sidney Crosby as a punk and a whiner. Also said Dan Bylsma should take off his skirt.

I’ve been calling for this for at least 20 years.

There is going to be a new USFL and it will place teams in non-NFL cities and serve as a true minor league.

This is the solution to 90% of the corruption in college football.

We’ve been having the usual discussion about what I consider to be the ridiculous situation in Major League Baseball.

I consider the revenue disparity and the lack of a salary cap to be an insult to my intelligence.

I came across a perfect way to explain how I feel about MLB and what it has done to the Pirates.

It’s a trailer for the movie “The Dictator.”

Stay with it and watch the race at the end. I take MLB as seriously as I would take this race.

Enjoy.