Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Make It Rain
Friday
February 23, 2007
You have to hand it to Adam "Pac-Man" (or is it "Pac Man" or "Pac-man" or "Pacman") Jones of the Tennessee Titans, who made sure that the NBA wasn't the only pro sports organization to come top-of-mind in Las Vegas last weekend.
The story is fascinating to me. Through the actions of one night, Jones managed to do the following:
-Brought "Make It Rain" not only into the vocabulary of sports fans nationwide, but possibly also into the vernacular of otherwise less educated strip club attendees. Click here for a breakdown of what I'm talking about, if you're on the outside looking in on this.
-Gave the Titans reason to spend some of that salary cap space on the other corner spot. This needed to happen, and now it will, if for nothing else just in case there are other "incidents" with Pac-Man this off-season.
-Provided Richard Karg with some ammunition in his anti Pac-Man argument, which he was clearly losing. Since Rich's ill-timed statement about Pac-Man's ability at the Titans/Giants game (right before Jones helped spur that incredible comeback and then came alive as a defender down the stretch), it had been one-sided for me. Thanks to Pac-Man for at least making the debate interesting.
-Reminded me that buying a "P. Jones" Titans jersey might be a good idea, just in case something worse happens and the NFL bans the production of his jerseys (even on a custom-made level), a la Rae Carruth of the Carolina Panthers.
In that same spirit, last night the NHL managed to be the lead story on the late (11 pm-ish) SportsCenter. How? By bringing violent back, that's how. A huge fight broke out in last night Sabres/Senators game, appropriate enough since the Sabres were wearing throwback uniforms.
ESPN did a great job of breaking it down here with this video recap. Ottawa's Ray Emery is a great fighting goalie, it turns out, and after owning Martin Biron, he had to deal with an attack by Buffalo enforcer Andrew Peters.
As Barry Melrose said, "A player fight[ing] a goaltender, that's sort of agaaainst the code." I love the Canadian pronunciation of against. Same with about (uhBOOT.)
|  | Ray Emery once sported a special Mike Tyson mask.
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Ironically enough, last year Emery wore a customized Mike Tyson goalie mask, which lasted just one game (team officials strongly suggested that he not wear it anymore.) Ah yes, violence in hockey: it feels like old times agaaaain.
Of course, I can't help but think of the NHL not being on ESPN anyone and feel sad. The Nashville Predators are having a great year, and I'm lucky to find them on Versus (formerly OLN) if I ever think to look there, or otherwise buried on SportSouth. NBC has some weekend hockey, but that doesn't help me during the week. I wanted to watch that Montreal/Nashville game last night, but it wasn't on here, so instead I tuned into the NBA double-header on TNT.
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