frickin sportswriters

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok I realize this is a pretty localized rant but it’s been pissing me off anyway so here goes. I’m from the Wilkes-Barre, PA, area and I go to school at Syracuse University. We just got an AHL hockey team last year, the Penguins, and they play in the same league as the Syracuse franchise, the Crunch. My family has season tickets at home and I see every game they play up here against the Crunch. Anyway, the Penguins are playing the Crunch this year in the first round of the AHL playoffs. I went to two games here and it was great. A lot of people from back home made the trip up and we made a lot of noise for our team, sometimes being even louder than the home team fans. Anyway, the Penguins dropped a close one, 3-2, last night to send the series to a deciding 5th game in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday. Here’s a quote from an article in the Syracuse paper today (not the game story, a side piece)

“But here we are, one good night in Wilkes-Barre, if you’ll forgive the oxymoron, removed from advancing into fairly strange territory.”

For the whole story, see http://www.syracuse.com/sports/index.ssf?/sportsstories/columnspoliquin/20010417_sbud.html

First off, what’s with the “we” stuff? This guy acts like he’s lacing up the skates every night and playing the game. Second, where the FUCK does he get off dissing Wilkes-Barre? Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Wilkes-Barre is by no means a bustling metropolis. But Syracuse ain’t exactly New York City, either. Talk about the pot and the fucking kettle. As far as I’m concerned, the only differences between Syracuse and Wilkes-Barre is that Syracuse has a bigger mall, a 12,000-student university, and the world’s most polluted lake.

One final rant–I sooooo hope the Penguins whip some ass Wednesday because Syracuse and their poor fan support just doesnt deserve to win. There was an announced crowd of about 2400 on Monday night, and way fewer actual butts in the seats. At least 100 of those people were raucous Penguins fans like myself. Wednesday night there will be at least 8,000 people cheering on the Penguins. We had 26 sell outs last year when we were the second worst team in the league. This year attendance has been even better. So in summary, let’s go Pens!

Then I saw this on the Onion today and it really put things in perspective. http://www.theonion.com/onion3714/you_will_suffer.html

Well that’s my rant. I know there’s a very limited audience for this but I feel better anyway. Thanks, SDMB.

2

He’s not lacing up the skates, but he’s still got to troop his ass out to Wilkes-Barre for the game.

3

Basically, sports writers are the guys who rode the short bus to journalism class. The sooner you accept that, the less their little nuggets of self-absorbed idiocy will bother you.

–sublight.

4

Gee, I don’t remember you being such an ignorant jackass in your previous posts. Do you really stand behind this little nugget of shit you wrote, or were you just goofing off?

Yes, I’m a sportswriter, and I’m so dumb that I only had a 3.6 GPA on the way to earning my bachelor’s of science in biology. No fucking short bus in my past.

5

I’m a sportswriter myself, and I’ve schlepped to much worse places than Wilkes-Barre to cover such exciting stuff as Little League baseball tournaments (hey I’m 20 and that’s how sportswriters start out, covering crap events for crap newspapers).

But all’s well that ends well. Final score tonight: Penguins 6, Crunch 2.

6

I didn’t mean to demean Wilkes-Barre. Sometimes ANY kind of travel is a pain. I can get a photo pass to get on the sidelines of pretty much any San Francisco 49ers or Oakland Raiders home game that I want, but getting up at some hideous hour of the morning and drive 40 miles to contend with snarling traffic, that sure makes it less fun.

7

I know, no offense taken. I was just making a point–that there’s much worse than traveling from Syracuse to Wilkes-Barre for minor league hockey. BTW, the guy who wrote this article did not write the actual game story, so he might not actually have been in the city at all.

8

It could be worse. You could live right by Hershey.

Talk about Bumfuck.

Speaking of which, how are the Bears doing? I’m always working, it seems, so I haven’t kept up with them.

9

The Bears won their first round series and are tied 1-1 in the second round (best of 7) against Norfolk.