“Aye, There’s the Rub!”

Current events, Rugby

American Rugby Fans Thrown Under the Bus by Setanta Sports…

5 Comments 29 January 2010

One of my contacts from an old boys rugby group shared the following (bad)news
release the other day:

http://www.setanta.com/us/Customer- Info-Articles/ SETANTA-SPORTS- USA-AGREES-
TO-TERMS- WITH-FOX- SOCCER-CHANNEL/ gnid-59836/

Like any news story, there is always what the journalist, the late Paul Harvey
would say "There is the REST of the story".  Here is my "rest of the story" as
an American who has tried to follow the sport of rugby in my country for the
past several years.

About 10 Christmases ago, my wife surprised me with Direct TV, as I could not
get my regular fix of rugby or English soccer/football watching cable TV. In the
beginning, I was able to watch a lot of rugby on Fox Sports World: 6 Nations,
Super 12 (at the time), Tri Nations and the Rugby World Cup. For somebody who
had to follow rugby by having news clippings sent from my Beziers-born friend
Jean-Paul in France, this was a MAJOR step in the right direction.

Life was good.

Over time, it seemed like Fox Sports World was showing rugby less and less. To
the point where "The Rugby Club", with Max Bretos holding court was on only once
a week...at 4 AM. Finally, the break was complete and Fox Sports World sold
their souls and became Fox Soccer Channel. My disappointment could only have
been more complete had my lovely red-headed bride decided to tell me she
preferred women.

Then I found out that Direct TV had Setanta Sports, which offered 6 Nations,
Tri-Nations, Heineken Cup, The Guiness Premiership, The Magners League, The New
Zealand and South African Domestic competitions, and all of the World Cup
matches back in 2007. I was able to watch as much rugby as I could watch and
record.

Life was good, again.

Good news, like fame, is a fleeting thing. The decision by Setanta sports to
throw American rugby fans under the bus and sell out it's USA programming to FSC
may not have been as catostrophic as the events in Haiti and the Middle
East...but it was still a very bitter pill to swallow that programming on
Setanta will stop in the USA at the end of February. The key to the Setanta
kingdom is their rights to the EPL and SPL in soccer-that FSC surely coveted.
The question in all of this will be if FSC will exercise the option to show any
of the rugby that was shown on Setanta.

One little bit of good news is that BBC America announced that they will show
some of the 6 Nations matches starting the first weekend in February with
England-Wales.
http://www.bbcamerica.com/comingsoon.jsp 

Still, for those of us who love the game of rugby in the USA, the loss of
Setanta Sports and it's rugby programming is a huge blow to us all, and we are
very much in a state of flux.

To be continued....

American Football

A Texas-Sized Beat-Down…

0 Comments 19 January 2010

I have to apologize for a rare jotting on American Football, but you have to
understand that I am still in a really good mood after the Minnesota Vikings
gave the Dallas Cowboys a major 34-3
mauling at the Metrodome in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon.

Being a Minnesota Vikings fan means that you are used to being disappointed- not
too unlike a Leeds Carnegie fan in rugby, or a Manchester City fan in
football/soccer. In the 50 years that the Vikings have been in the NFL, they
have been to and lost 4 Super Bowls. They have not even been to a Super Bowl
since I was a sophomore in high school, back in 1977.

I confess, I used to dislike the Cowboys, particularly after Drew Pearson's
infamous offensive pass interference against Nate Wright back in the 1975
playoffs when he hauled in Roger Staubach's "Hail Mary Pass" and broke Viking
hearts back at the old Metropolitan Stadium(where the Mall of America sits now).
I loved living in Texas during the 4 years I lived in San Antonio when I was in
the Air Force back in the 80's-but I confess I grew to hate the Dallas Cowboys
during my time in the Lone Star State. The reason was the Cowboy fans were just
insufferable. They were gloating winners and on the rare chance when they lost,
their fans could never give your team credit for playing a good game, they would
invariably drawl "Well, you know, that was not the REAL Dallas Cowboys that lost
the game."

It should be said that in American Football, the Dallas Cowboys are in the rare
group of teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49'ers, who have
won the Super Bowl 5 times. It's a team that oozes money(The just built a new
Billion dollar stadium in the Dallas area) and sex appeal(The Dallas Cowboy
Cheerleaders were the first group of NFL cheerleaders to take on a life of their
own beyond the football team) The Cowboys are an NFL team that transcends sport,
and has a national following in the USA.

That means that I enjoyed yesterday's Cowboy  beat-down at the hands of the
Vikings...immensely.


The Vikings played a very complete game in beating the Cowboys. Brett Favre
threw 4 Touchdown passes, 3 of them to Sidney Rice, who until this season had
not done very much wearing the Viking purple, but has played very, very well
this season with Brett Favre getting the ball to him. As impressive as the
offense was, the Viking Defense played an even better game, holding the pokes to
no touchdowns and just a field goal. The defense gave the type of beating to
Cowboy offense that one usually associates with Elin Nordegren laying out on her
soon-to-be ex-husband, Tiger Woods.

The Cowboys, not used to such a throttling on national TV, took umbrage with a
late touchdown pass that Favre threw to Visanthe Shiancoe with two minutes left
with the Vikings with a 4th down with 3 yards to go, and the Vikings leading
27-3. Immediately after the score Cowboy linebacker Keith Brooking sprinted over
to the Viking bench to accuse the Vikings of trying to run up the score. I guess
he would have been happier if the Vikings had just gone for he Field Goal. What
a whiner...

The Vikings are a game away from making it back to the Super Bowl, This year to
be played in Miami. To do that, the Vikings will have to go down to the New
Orleans Superdome and hope that they can bring their A game again against a
very, very good New Orleans Saints team-a team that in over 40 years has never
been to a single Super Bowl. It's a city that can use a shot of good news after
it was all but obliterated and flooded out during Hurricane Katrina back in
2005.

 It's been tough sledding for the people of New Orleans recovering from
that disaster. As much as I would like the Vikings to win, I can honestly say
that I would not be that heart-broken if the Saints win next Sunday.

There is a more than a Super Bowl riding on next Sunday's game. Way back when
the Minnesota Vikings signed Favre this summer, I was very skeptical about
having the 39(now 40) year old quarterback wearing purple. For starters, he had
played many, many years for the Green Packers, the arch-rival of the Vikings.
Rooting for Favre was going to be like having an ex-girlfriend marry your
brother. You want to be happy, but you feel really conflicted about it. The
other part of my concern was how poorly he played last year for the New York
Jets-particularly in the last month. I made a bet with my work on the Spinal
Cord Unit a the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis that if Favre could bring the
Vikings to the Super Bowl, I would wear a dress-of my co-worker's choice- to
work for my co-workers and the patients to see.

If the Vikings win and I end up wearing a dress to work, my embarrassment will
be worth it. To be continued...

Current events, Family

I Need a Vacation

2 Comments 15 January 2010

Winter in Minnesota and dealing with some insufferable people at my phone triage job have me looking to get out of the Upper Midwest for a few days in February. I have been studying air-fares like mad for the past few weeks. By the end of the weekend, I should know where my wife and I are headed next month.It’s tough, because our budget is tight, but I need a change of scenary in a bad way.

This picture of my bulldog Buddha sums up my mood this week.

Stay tuned…

Healthcare and/or nursing

A Shout-Out to the 10 Most Famous Men in Nursing

0 Comments 09 January 2010

In a rare foray away from the world of sport, I would like to share this
 little tidbit from the blogosphere on Thursday night.

When you are man in the nursing profession, you owe it to other men who put up
with
a lot of flack and sniggering about what they decided to do for their
line of work. After thinking about it,  I thought this top 10 list
was worth sharing with visitors to my blog.

These men are to my profession what Gareth Edwards, John Eales and Jonah Lomu
are to rugby players, they are a benchmark of heart and excellence...
they are what we strive to be. 

Here is the link with the list:

http://bsntomsn.org/2009/10-most-famous-male-nurses-in-history/

Rugby

Invictus-A Review

2 Comments 24 December 2009

I finally got around to seeing the film Invictus last night. I had been waiting
in keen anticipation to the Clint Eastwood- directed movie (based on John
Carlin's" Playing the Enemy") that stars Morgan Freeman( who also was a
producer) as South African President Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon, as Springbok
captain Francois Pienaar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus_(film) 

The movie Invictus
is the tale of how Nelson Mandela used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite
a very
bitterly divided country that was trying to shake off it's post Apartheid
hangover.

The title is based on William Ernest Henry's 1875 poem that
Nelson Mandela kept a
scribbled copy of it on a scrap of paper:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Going into the movie, I was concerned if Matt Damon could pull off playing
François Pienaar. It's true that in real life, Pienaar is a good head taller
than Damon, but to his credit, Damon really
got
himself into rock-hard shape for the movie,
and I thought Damon did a decent job
doing a South African accent, as well as showing that the Springbok captain saw
himself as a sportsman first, but over time used his influence to get his mostly
Afrikaner team mates to get on board with learning the new South African
national anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"
and going to the black townships to do
rugby clinics as a way to introduce rugby to a part of the South African
population who considered rugby a white man's game.

Morgan Freeman should get an Oscar nomination for playing Nelson Mandela.
Freeman nailed President Mandela's manner of speech, his gait, leadership
skills, charisma  and Zen-master patience-of which Carlin wrote about in great
detail in his book. Freeman's Mandela showed the high-wire act that he had to do
with reconciling black hopes and white fears when South Africa went to "one man-
one vote." The movie did not go into minute detail, but did explain that
Mandela's personal relationships with his wife and children suffered greatly
while he was in prison, and did not improve after he left Robben Island. The
movie also showed the incredible self discipline Mandela had in his day-to-day
routine, from waking up before dawn, making his bed, exercising (There is a
reason why he is still alive and healthy in his early 90's) and having a simple
breakfast. 

Clint Eastwood showed us once again that he has a wonderful eye for the
visual-the movie images of Cape Town alone should be a shot in the arm for
tourism in the home of Newlands Stadium. Many of the shots of South Africa are
simply stunning. As good as he is with the visual in Invictus, Eastwood's real
gift is his ability to tell a story and make the viewer care about the
characters. He did this in Unforgiven and Gran Torino, but those movies were
fiction. Most of what happened in Invictus was based on real events. 

For me, the most compelling parts of the movie are when the Springboks go to a
lack township to do a rugby clinic for the kids, and watching these large,
white men just being playful boys to the black children of the township, and how
they were able to connect. It showed how sport and just playing can transcend
socio-economics and race.  The second compelling part of the movie for me was
when the Springboks go to Robben Island, the prison that housed Nelson Mandela
for so many years.  Pienaar actually goes into the cell where prisoner # 46664
(Mandela) spent so many years. The scene showing Pienaar imagining Mandela in
the cell(Eastwood actually got permission to shoot the scene in the actual cell)
and out in the rock yard, made this Afrikaner rugby player realize just how much
Nelson Mandela had been through, and the fact that he did not seem to hold any
bitterness or hatred towards him or the other Springbok players really touched
Pienaar greatly.

Oh yeah, and Invictus has rugby. A tremendous amount of rugby, by the way. With
some minor exceptions, I thought the rugby sequences were very well done,
particularly in getting down the physicality of the game. A big chunk of the
last 30 minutes of the movie is the tight final between the Springbok and the
New Zealand All Blacks. There are a great many details that Eastwood and his
team got right: The uniforms, even the ugly jersey's the referees were wearing
in 1995, the heroic job of dozens of South African Women draining water off the
rain-sodden pitch in Durban before the semi-final with France, and the brutal
conditions under which that game was played. 

You don't have to be a rugby fan to appreciate Invictus.(My wife and daughter
both loved it, and were very moved, as well) Clint Eastwood did a superb job of
putting John Carlin's tale to the big screen, which showed just what a
remarkable statesman that Nelson Mandela was, and how he avoided a potential
civil war in South Africa. (That's not hyperbole-things very easily could have
spun out control) That said, I don't think rugby fans will be disappointed,
either. I went into the movie a skeptic, but left the theater giving Invictus a
very, very enthusiastic thumbs up.