& a blog

There were 36,218 people in a stadium East Hartford, Connecticut on May 25th, 2010. It was impossible to park, as thousands arrived with hours to spare before game time. Inside the stadium, almost everyone in attendance was wearing some form of official apparel. Jerseys, t-shirts, scarves, and goofy Uncle Sam hats attired the crowd to [...]

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there’s been a lot of smack (trash) talking going down over the upcoming USA – England match up in the soon to be started 2010 World Cup. fate would insist/force/require that i be in the midst of a wedding when the game kicks off, but i will be a living example of those commercials where [...]

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At a recent Philadelphia Flyers game, in which I saw no less then eight goals (and no more than four fights) I came to the conclusion that not all sports are created equal. In some, scoring is something routine and expected, something that defines the pace of the game. In others scoring is something extraordinary, [...]

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They announced that Boston would be hosting the 2010 Winter Classic back in April. I was ecstatic. Never a fan of hockey in high school, a few years of intramural ice time at Brown has made me a devoted fan of the sport. I have gone from hating hockey in every and all permutation to [...]

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i hated lacrosse in high school, but its become a lot more fun in college. maybe its because i no longer have to deal with the lacrosse players (who were the reason i disliked the sport) or maybe its because i’ve just started liking sports more. (i also hated hockey in high school, but now [...]

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Canada is like a popular American movie remade by amateurs with French subtitles. You recognize certain scenes, and the plot feels familiar, but somehow the whole thing is off. Not that this is bad thing. Indeed, I rather like it. Valentine’s Day Trip A recent jaunt up to Montreal for a weekend both confirmed everything [...]

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The Brown Band and their buttons. The Ivy League. The Brown-Harvard football game. The stadium. It feels so empty to me. Empty as a signifier that once had meaning but has become divorced from that which it represented. And the thing is, I don’t want it to be empty. I want it to be meaningful, familiar, quirky, fun, believable. I want to know that it can be Ivy League again. I want to know that a white sweater with a discolored B knitted into its fabric can be collegiate pride again. Where do you go to buy these signifiers back? Do they sell them at the bookstore, or do you have to go to the stadium, sit on a full game in the rain, and find them yourself?

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it’s nice to see someone express my thoughts on the AIG bailout as of late. namely, that when this goes through the us government will be technically backing my least favorite team in europe. i wonder if i could make it a condition of my tax-payer dollars that ronaldo has to wear a boa. that [...]

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i couldn’t sleep last night. i’d a rather too substantial afternoon nap, and wasn’t feeling ready for bed (though it was 2 am). so i turned on the television, and tuned in to my new favorite station, setanta sports. setanta is the yellow and black branded dream that broadcasts english premiership soccer, worldwide and rugby, [...]

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following up on my post quantifying the rough costs of world cup 2010, i thought i would offer a brief assessment of the costs of seeing club soccer in various places around the world. we start with the home team, the new england revolution, who can be seen at home about every 10 days for [...]

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