What happened to Hockey?

Remember the good ol days of hockey? Red Wings Avalanche, always a guaranteed fight. What happened to those days? Gary Bettman happened. Who in their right mind would want to take fighting and hitting out of hockey? My favorite players as a kid were Joey Kocur and Vladimir Konstantinov, two players who wouldn't exist or be totally different in today's NHL. I think it's a damn shame. There are no rivalries. Oh sure the media loves Crosby verse Ovechkin, but until there are bench clearing brawls, it's not a true hockey rivalry. They NHL was at its prime when it was on ESPN done by Bill Clement and Gary Thorne. They were the voices of hockey. And now you ask? It's done by Doc Emrick and Eddie Olcyzk on Versus. Who even gets Verses Mr. Bettman? Not many do. He botched the ESPN deal and the new NHL is a far cry from what it was when it was popular. The media looks down upon the Sean Avery's, Darren McCarty's, and other tough guys of the NHL, but those are the guys that can bring it back to glory, more than these pretty boys that do all the dangles and score all the goals. People love fights, that's the bottom line.

I leave you with a nice youtube clip of one of my favorite fights of all time... Enjoy

A Bear at Spartan Stadium?!?!?!

So how many of you out there watched the Iowa State game last Saturday? Epic game wasn't it? Iowa yet further proved my belief that they are the most overrated team in the nation. They should have lost to State, Michigan, and Northern Iowa (that's 1aa school.) But that's not what I'm blogging about.

While at Spartan Stadium, I saw this guy in a bear suit doing the pregame ring toss for pizza. Amazingly, he went five for five, throwing the hoola hoop perfectly everytime to his partner on the field. But why was in he a bear suit? It wasn't Halloween, State's not the bruins... so I did a little investigating. And here's what I found out.

In 1909 Michigan State, coached by Coach Chester Brewer, had a live brown bear named Monty, or Brewer's Bruin, as it's mascot. For those of you that missed it, 1909 was exactly 100 years ago. So these gentlemen at the stadium had a purpose for the bear suit. The man in the suit was none other than Brewer's Bruin.

The Bear sat front row by the band, and got some attention. The bear got his airtime while Iowa was driving to win the game. But for those of you that saw him, it wasn't just a drunk fan in a bear suit, they had a reason. They brought back Brewer's Bruin.