ESPN does a yearly feature over in their neck of the woods called “Uni Watch” wherein they rank the quality of uniforms across the four major North American sports. Conveniently, they’ve broken down the rankings into league sections as well so we can see where the World Leader in Tebow scores the NHL’s threads.
List below the jump.
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You won’t find this commercial on this list, because Kolzig is awesome.
Big-name athletes, like actors, are celebrities. As celebrities, they’re often asked to appear in commercials, either to endorse products or promote their team and their league. Unlike actors, however, the vast majority of them cannot act. At all. This is particularly true of NHL players, most of whom have their personalities surgically removed in Junior and are confused by any dialogue that isn’t “It’s good to get the two points” and “We have to play a full 60 minutes.”
Most directors realize this and either give NHL players a great concept that doesn’t require good acting (Daniel and Henrik Sedin as dancing Swedish twins) or hire Alex Ovechkin and give him no material to work with (Ovechkin for Eastern Motors) and end up with a great (or “great” in the case of Eastern Motors) commercial.
Some directors, however, haven’t figured this out and actually ask NHL players to recite dialogue and emote. This is usually a mistake and NHL players have given some of the worst acting performances in the history of commercials. Here are 10 of them. Anybody expecting Adam Oates’s infamous “Loose Rebounds” commercial, look elsewhere: that’s some great acting with some terrible material.
I may be the only one, but I actually enjoyed the NHL Awards show this year. Thankfully, they chose to forego having the painfully unfunny Jay Mohr as the host for the third year running, instead choosing to go with no host at all. It turned out to be a good decision: the celebrity presenters were hit and miss, but considering they were only on stage for a few minutes at a time, the misses didn’t ruin the show and the hits didn’t overstay their welcome.
It wasn’t perfect by any means: the entire feel of the show doesn’t really fit the humble, team-first style of hockey and they’re a little too desperate to validate their celebrity guests by naming the specific team that they’re a fan of and that they really do go to the games. But overall, it was an enjoyable and functional show: there were a few laughs, a few endearing moments, and NHL players received NHL awards. Considering that’s the entire point of the exercise, it was a success.
After the jump, the highlights and lowlights of the NHL Awards.
Ladies and gentlemen, the League's hardest hitter
Sports Illustrated continued its release of player polls yesterday, this time laying out the names of players that were voted the League’s hardest hitters.
The list below, then some thoughts:
Guess why Andy Sutton is the picture. ....Got it? You're smart.
Well, here we are - it’s finally the Christmas season. Or the “holiday season,” if you prefer. Or “that time of year where you spend entirely too much time with family,” if you’re more honest (kidding, kidding, family).
My older brother got to town and suggested I do a “naughty and nice” list on the NHL this season, so for his gift (I drew him in the family gift-buying pool), I’ve taken him up on that idea. So without further ado, here we go: the naughty and the nice from the 2011-2012 NHL season.
Thanks to the wonderful people in theScore’s video department (I know, we’ve discussed this before), we have the option to run a lot of great compilations every week. The thing is, they can’t make hockey highlights be awesome.
Kyle didn't crack the top five, but this picture represents those who did nicely.
Last night, PK Subban headed into a game against Carolina as the NHL player who’d taken the most shots on goal without scoring. D-men are more prone to owning this prestigious honour, especially ones who see a good amount of ice time. Throw enough wristers from the point on net hoping for a screen or a tip (and not get either), and your shot total can build fairly quickly.
Well, PK finally buried:
Jo Innes, Ryan Lambert, Daniel Wagner, Cam Charron, Ellen Etchingham, Jake Goldsbie, Darren Kritzer
