A Celebration of Sports Hate

Who wants a nice cold glass of Haterade?

Sports hate is the best kind of hate, and is really the only acceptable kind, because sports hate is pretty much benign. Sure it’s loud and vulgar, and potentially offensive, but is rarely violent (at least in North America, which I have a theory about), unless it involves Red Sox (I’m looking at you, Lavin) or Canadiens fans. Sports hate gives us a venue for us to take our blatantly and blindly partisan love for our team(s) and express it outward (with some exceptions that have nothing to do with our own teams, but are just objectively detestable) in an arena with practically no real-world stakes. And so here is my celebration of sports hate, a list of all the teams I can’t fucking stand and reasons why. If you disagree with this list, you can eat shit and die, because whatever you think is just ignorant. If you agree, good for you; feel free to add more reasons why these following teams can go fuck themselves.

As an outward, negative extension of love for a team, sports hate of course has varying degrees, ranging from out and out, bile-filled hatred (Anaheim Mighty Ducks) to even a slight affinity (Washington Capitals), that can waver over time. The Colorado Avalanche, for instance, would have been at the most reviled extreme of the scale ten years ago, and now I just don’t care, because they suck and don’t matter anymore. The same with the Illinois basketball team. Generally, I just want my teams to finish first, and I don’t care what else happens. It doesn’t matter to me if the Twins or the Royals finish second or third in the AL Central, as long as the Tigers win. That said, I want the White Sox to finish last and the Indians to finish fourth with a run differential of –18,000,000,000, because that’s just how sports hate works. So for the sake of time, I’ve included only those teams which currently turn my schadenfreude knob all the way to 11 (so no Canucks or Miami Heat, though I can’t stand either), in the order in which they come to mind:

Chicago White Sox—There’s objective hate and there’s partisan hate. The White Sox fall squarely into the latter category. To be perfectly honest, if I were from Chicago I’d love the White Sox like nobody’s business. They’re a bunch of assholes, and they play like assholes, and they’re managed by an exquisite asshole, who happens to be hilarious. This is the kind of team for me. But they’re in the AL Central and the Tigers have something like a .100 winning percentage against them in the last six years, and I fucking hate them. They’re the team I look for first on the out-of-town scoreboard, and I legitimately want them to go 0-162. Yes, that’s right, I hate them so much I would willingly give all the other AL Central teams 18 extra wins to spite the White Sox. Well, not Cleveland. Okay, I want them to go 18-144, only because of the embarrassment it would cause Cleveland to get swept by the team that lost every other game. One of my top-five baseball memories ever involves Dean Palmer coming back onto the field after being ejected to get into the second brawl of the game against the White Sox in 2000. That was freaking awesome.

Chicago Cubs—I also hate the Cubs, but for purely objective reasons. I’m tired of hearing about curses and loveable losers from a team that’s simply incompetent, but happens to be located in a big city. I don’t give a shit and I’m tired of it; you suck, go annoy someone else. Also, Cubs fans are whiny, smug, rich, frat-boy assholes and the whole North Side-South Side divide with its severe racial undertones is pretty disgusting. The thing about objective sports hate is that it just can’t measure up to partisan hate, so in order to further hatred for the Cubs, I give you the Brewers’ perspective: http://milwaukee.decider.com/articles/talkin-baseball-why-we-hate-the-cubs,25908/

Cleveland Indians—Pure competitive hatred. It’s pretty clear (at least to me) why I hate the White Sox so much, but I’m not really sure why I hate the Indians like I do but not, say, the Twins. There’s of course the rivalry between them and the Tigers, but like with the Twins, it doesn’t quite explain it. It’s just a gut feeling, which I guess is what sports hate is all about. The Cleveland teams may be one of the few cases of geography influencing my sports hate. Ohio is a shithole, which goes a long way in explaining why it smells as bad as it does. But whatever the reason, I love knowing the Indians, and really all Cleveland teams, no matter how well they play, will blow it in the end. Just love it. Plus Grady Sizemore annoys me and Jhonny [SIC!] Peralta should be on the Typo All-Stars with Dwyane Wade.

Cleveland Cavaliers—Ditto. I hate LeBron James, but only because he fucks up the Pistons. I’d kinda like him otherwise. But again, I love how Cleveland teams choke in the playoffs. When was the last time they won a championship, and had North America separated from Pangea at that point?

Ohio State—Remember this list is in order I think of teams, so I’m rolling with the Ohio sucks theme. While college hoops are much more important to me than football, this includes both their football and basketball teams (it would include hockey, too, but they choke in the playoffs even worse than the other teams). Maybe if Greg Oden had chosen a basketball team with semi-competent coach (like, I don’t know, Michigan State) he would’ve learned how to defend someone in the paint without hacking at their hands. That guy picks up fouls like they’re on sale. I’ll just say this: I don’t like the University of Florida, but I did two years ago. Ditto for Louisiana State.

Wisconsin—The team that ruined Big Ten basketball, giving legitimately talented and exciting teams like Michigan State a bad name. (Shut up, Tim.) They have made a living playing ugly basketball with ugly players (seriously, look at that, as long as you haven’t eaten in the last half-hour and don’t have a heart condition) and losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They’ve mastered the snail’s-pace offense and stand-there-and-be-tall defense, and they win 14 games a year in the Big Ten where that’s legal, and then get smoked everywhere else. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
His name is Brian Butch.

Chicago Bulls—This one, like the Colorado Avalanche, has waned considerably over the years as they got real, real shitty, but I wanted to mention one of my favorite basketball moments ever, which was the end of the 1991 Eastern Conference finals, when Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer walked off the court before the game had ended to avoid shaking hands. Poor sportsmanship? Absolutely. But, as Laimbeer said in an interview in 2007 (!): “I’m glad we didn’t shake their hands. They were a bunch of whiners. Piss on them.” Amazing. (Everybody, including me until I looked this quote up, forgets that Larry Bird did the same thing to the Pistons at the end of the 1988 Eastern finals.)

While it may seem like I’m picking on Chicago in the same way I did Cleveland, I’m really not. I’m quite fond of Chicago, and hate these teams based solely on their own merits. I actually felt good for the Blackhawks this year, though that could all change by this time next year, and just as I hated them (particularly Eddie Belfour) with a passion back in the 90s.

Anaheim Mighty Ducks—Yes I know the name is technically no longer correct, but I don’t want them to forget their beginnings as the ultimate example of a Disney movie marketing tie-in. What a bunch of dirty fucking cheap-shot artists. Chris Pronger headhunts more than the anonymous natives in ol-timey racist cartoons (too soon?), not to mention STEPPING ON OPPOSING PLAYERS with his skates. And I wonder if Sidney Crosby went to the Scott Neidermeyer School for Whining before he joined the NHL. While I hate the White Sox, I can totally understand how someone could cheer for them; I can’t understand how anyone could like the Ducks.
That ain't right.


New York Yankees—These arrogant sons of bitches actually named their spring training facility Legends Field. LEGENDS FIELD! (They did so in 1996, so it’s all traditional and shit.) First, how full of yourself do you have to be to do that? Second, there are no legends in spring training, there are pitch-count limits and split-squad scrimmages. (Actually, that second point isn’t totally true; Alex Rodriguez is a spring training legend. That boy sure can hit in March.) Their arrogance also led them to build a soulless, overpriced new stadium, which pretty much ruined any mystique or home-field advantage they had in their old building, which is kinda funny (see also Centre, Bell; karma; schadenfreude). Anyone who cheers for the Yankees who isn’t from the Bronx, Westchester or Manhattan is a front-runner who needs a good ass-kicking.

Italy—Speaking of arrogant assholes, there’s the Italian soccer team. I hate the way they play, how they get all their goals off of set pieces and fall all over the field in order to get them. I hate their boring, defensive style that sucks all life out of the game. (They’re like the Spurs but way more annoying.) I hate that they may have the most homogenous team in Europe. I LOVED the 2006 Italy-USA World Cup game, where the US held off the future world champions with nine men for the whole second half, and would have won had Brian McBride not been in an offside position on DeMarcus Beasley’s goal. The US was the only team that didn’t lose to Italy in the tournament, so logically they were the second best team in the world. If you too care to feel the hatred, just look at this clip from that game, and tell me you don’t want to take a swing at that guy:


Plus two days ago they beat the US 3-1 with two goals scored by Giuseppe Rossi, who’s actually from fucking New Jersey, and gets to play on the Italian team only because his name is Giuseppe Rossi and he talks with a comical accent. The game also featured some fantastic fouls by the Italians, enough that the Mighty Ducks actually felt ashamed to watch.

Mexico—Not arrogant, just dirty, captained by Rafa “What, I Can’t Kick My Feet Out at Face Level?” Marquez. Dos a cero, mes amigos, dos a cero.


Detroit Lions—Self-hate still counts.

Pittsburgh Penguins—I’ve hated them for years, but I don’t hate them more for winning, cause they wouldn’t have won without the Red Wings’ wonderful generosity in giving them the series. I was impressed with Sidney Crosby’s ability to play with Gary Bettman constantly fellating him.

So that’s about it, those are the teams that pretty much unfailingly get my Irish up (is that racist?). It just occurred to me to include individual players I hate, too, like Chris Pronger or Patrick Roy or Robert “Right Place, Right Time, No Talent” Horry, but that might get a little unwieldy. If you’re wondering where the Celtics are on this list, I really don’t like the Celtics, but they just don’t arouse the requisite amount of vitriol in me to make the list. Fuck them, though. Feel free to agree with me and celebrate the catharsis that is sports hate.

The Red Wings Autopsy

The Autopsy

[As usual for my blog posts, the language gets a little salty. What can I say? I’m pissed off.]

What happened? Seriously. A 2-0 lead? How do you lose that? 42 of the 45 teams ever to take a 2-0 lead in the finals have won. The Detroit Red Wings don’t blow that kind of lead. In the first round, maybe, but not in the finals. That just doesn’t happen. So what happened?

What happened is they blew it. They didn’t get beat, they lost. The Red Wings, when they played like the Red Wings, were the better team in this series. Even when they weren’t playing to their capabilities they were still pretty evenly matched with Pittsburgh. Usually in finals, whether in hockey or basketball (baseball’s too dependent on who’s pitching), if a team is off on a given day, no matter the relative talent level, it’s a blowout. (Think the first four games of the Pistons-Spurs finals. None of them was within 15 points, yet the series went down to the last six minutes or so of game 7.) That just didn’t happen to the Wings, even when they were playing horribly, as in games 4, 6 and 7. The goal differential over the seven games was 17-14 in favor of the Red Wings, and statistically speaking, teams should not get outscored over a series and still win. Now you could argue that the game 5 blowout accounts for the whole disparity, and if the Red Wings had won 3-1 or 4-2 there would be no such disparity, and you’d be right, but that’s not the point. The point is to show just how good the Red Wings are, even when they’re off their game. Remember, game 4 went about as badly for the Red Wings as game 5 did for the Penguins. Both teams were totally out-of-sync and melting down, and both ultimately gave up three goals in under ten minutes in the second period. Yet despite the similarities, the Wings won their game 5-0 and the Penguins only 4-2, and at one point the Wings had a 2-1 lead and what looked at the time like a legitimate chance to completely steal a game they had no business winning. Because the Red Wings don’t get blown out; they’re still in it, even when they’re playing like shit.

Speaking of playing like shit, the question ‘what happened?’ should really be directed towards the last two games, which were complete copies of each other. The Wings were utterly discombobulated for the first two periods, but more than that, they were lackadaisical, and then they turned it on in the third, already down 2-0, to make a game of it. (And it was close, especially in game 7, despite how bad they were. Forget Kronwall’s crossbar in the closing minutes, Cleary accidentally blocking Zetterberg’s clear shot at the end of the second was the bad omen/killer moment for the Wings. If that goes in, they probably win the Cup.) Again, it’s a testament to how good the Wings are that they can take two periods off against the best team in the East and be down only by two. The problem is, they never should have been in that position to begin with. They looked lazy and listless during those four periods, and that’s something that has to be put on Mike Babcock. It’s his job as coach to get the team mentally prepared, and they weren’t. They were completely lacking in urgency and purpose, something absolutely unacceptable in an elimination game in the finals, whether a game 7 or not. Babcock gave an interview the day before game 7 and was asked how he had told the team to prepare, and he said he told them to treat it like a regular game and stick to their routines. And while that’s not bad advice, it kind of misses the point; this wasn’t a regular game. On top of all that, the Wings had been having slow starts the whole series. Seriously, Mike, you didn’t want to address that for game 7?

The thing is, I didn’t think, until game 7 actually started, that they could lose. I thought there was no way the Detroit fucking Red Wings would lose a Stanley Cup in game 7 at the Joe. I know a lot of Wings fan felt that way, as did the media, and it seemed so did the Red Wings themselves. And that’s true: the Detroit Red Wings do not lose a Stanley Cup game 7 at home. The problem was, the team that came out those last two games wasn’t the Detroit Red Wings, it was the Detroit Pistons, ca. 2006 and 2007 playoffs. You know, the team who thought they were better than everyone else and would nap their way through playoff series only to wake up and start playing once it’s too late. The Red Wings seemed to think, especially after game 5, that they had it, that there was no way they could lose to a team that they not only beat the year before, but took their best player in the interim. They thought, like the Pistons, that all they had to do was show up and the Cup was theirs. And we all know how well that worked for the Pistons. (I think, by the way, had they played anyone other than Pittsburgh that they win in five or six. I think the rematch factor and the addition of Hossa lulled the Wings into their false sense of confidence, which wouldn’t have been there against anyone else. Even if they had trailed the Penguins in the series 2-1 or 3-2, there’s no way they lose like they did.)

This brings us to the topic of Maid Marian. If the only Red Wings games you watched all year were in the finals, you could be forgiven for wondering why all the fuss over an unaggressive second-line winger with two assists for the series who’s shaky in his own end and prone to horrendously bad giveaways. It is for these reasons, as well as the fact he never really seemed to fit within the Wings offense (he had a shockingly high number of unassisted goals in the regular season, which shows both a welcome talent for creating turnovers and poor chemistry with teammates), that I don’t think the Wings should keep him. [Ken Holland, if you’re reading (and I know you are), we need defensemen, not overpriced forwards who think forechecking is something offered free by banks to attract new customers (http://www.instantrimshot.com - thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress). Do a sign-and-trade or just let him go outright and keep the money; Lebda and Lilja are not the future of the Red Wings blueline, and neither are Lidstrom and Rafalski, for that matter. See if you can’t get Quincey back from the Kings.]

Though as you may have noticed I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Maid Marian, it is unfair to single him out among the Red Wings in this series. Stuart didn’t play like he can, and Holmstrom just looked old and worn out. But again, crapping the bed this badly was a team effort, from the coaching staff down. Case in point: the Penguins’ first goal in game 7 came off a turnover at the side of the Wings’ net by Stuart. Detroit was breaking out, and Stuart was moving the puck from the corner into the middle, which is a break-out play the Wings use all the time, but Malkin jumped the play and stole the puck. Now while Stuart should never let that turnover happen, Malkin had been regularly jumping that play and disrupting their break-outs since at least game 4 (when I first noticed him doing it). So why was Stuart in that position to begin with? Why hadn’t the Wings adjusted their break-outs to something the Penguins (or at least Malkin) weren’t expecting? That’s not Stuart’s fault, that’s on the coaches.

Since this is an autopsy, I’ll declare the cause of death was playoff suicide. They had this series. The problem was they believed they already had it. And that’s why there’s a dead body of a season to be autopsied at all. I disagree with all the Wings fans who say it was a good season despite the loss. No, it wasn’t. And it wasn’t because they lost in the finals, it was because of how they lost. They gave it away. And that’s worse and ultimately much more disheartening as a fan than Michigan State getting smoked by North Carolina, or the Tigers forgetting how to throw after one amazing season, or the Pistons running out of fouls, big men and big men without fouls in the fourth quarter against the Spurs. This is worse. It’s not even like they choked, they just stopped playing. Hopefully this loss will wake the Wings up and get rid of any lingering Piston similarities. They are still the best team in the NHL, and by far the best organization. Chris Osgood was fantastic this spring, and the Wings will be back next year with some minor tweaks, most of them mental. Maybe they’ll face the Penguins in the finals again next year. I’m sure Maid Marian will sign with them over the summer (it only makes sense).

And if they do face Pittsburgh again, maybe Helm (my new favorite Red Wing, by the way, replacing the certain-to-retire Darren McCarty) can clock Sidney Crosby in his stupid fucking face. Seriously, how do you not shake the other team’s captain’s hand? What a prick.