Which would you rather have:

The NHL playoffs are exactly what professional sports playoffs should be like. Game 7 of the Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers was AWESOME. There was one point in the third period where there wasn’t a stop in play for a good 5-7 minutes. I almost shit my pants I was freaking out from the intensity. I don’t even give a shit about both teams, but I was holding my ankles the whole game. And here is how the NHL playoffs are better than the NBA playoffs. Remember in the beginning of the NHL playoffs they were a bit touchy with their calls? Well Game 7 was OLD SCHOOL HOCKEY. Was there some shit that could have been called penalties? Hell yeah. But this is pro sports, not the WNBA. Get your weak shit out of here and win LIKE A MAN. The refs will not score the goals for you. You need to check a bitch, take a check, and slam that shit in. Hold on to your balls because if you’re not man enough to withstand the intensity, fuck off.

Here is a quick mixtape review of the NHL playoffs just for you:

Now let’s talk about the embarrassment that is the NBA playoffs.

Remember when I had my objective analysis of the best and worst refs in sports? One of my criteria was that the refs should not overtly determine the outcome of the game. Was game 5 between the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks rigged? “Rigged” is a pretty strong term. Too bad that’s what it was. Many of you know Bill Simmons from ESPN. He’s probably their top writer. I like him even if he hates Kobe, so that should say something. Simmons puts the rig best:

Dwyane Wade shot as many free throws (25) as the entire Dallas team in Game 5. I just don’t see how there’s any way this can happen in a fairly-called game. It’s theoretically impossible.

Source: ESPN

So much was determined by the refs in game 5 of the NBA finals that the NBA should be ashamed of the whole series and their league, especially after the amazing show the NHL put on. Some people have said that Wade got all those fouls because he drove in more. While I appreciate their opinion (I really don’t), they must have then seen Devon Harris get the same contact four times in a row and get no calls to where Avery Johnson had to get T’d because he was so pissed. Phantom timeout calls, ridiculously suspended players, and this series had more talked about in terms of the officiating and defense thereof than the actual games themselves. By the way, the suspension was bullfuck. Finish reading the link I provided on Simmons’s article and you’ll see my exact opinion why.

So while people in Miami are talking about how Shaq is better than Kobe and Wade is better than Kobe (because they both had the same talent on their teams, right?) and phantom conversations between David Stern and Mark Cuban (see Cuban’s blog for more), the rest of the media is talking about how the reffing was or was not fair. In fact, as Cuban puts it:

The hilarious thing is that Stern defends his refs. Asshole, PLEASE. You’re an idiot and eventually when you ostracize your main audience, Black culture, with your country music halftimes, bans on hip-hop clothing, and age bans that only affect Black youths, the NHL will take you over because people prefer to talk about the game than how shitty your refs are and how they determine the game.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 9:35 am and is filed under On the Offense. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.