The Greatest Video In History...

Sorry we haven't been around in ages. I'm sure all five of you who visit have been crushed with disappointment. The greed mongers at work seemed it a good idea to ban blogger.com at work. We're thinking we're the only ones in the office who use it, so it's a pretty big smack in the face to get back to work.

We're not dead yet though. In fact, our good friends at Fantasy Hockey Scouts have just been picked up by theScore.com's blog network. Congrats to them. Their success has inspired us. One day soon we may reach the coveted double digits in readership!

Even though our Internet access has been severely shortened we came across this video courtesy of Ghostrunner on First:

Now we know two important things:
1) You can do the Haka on skates.
2) New Zealand has a ice hockey team

We feel all the better for it.

Kris Versteeg Must Like Hazings...

Kris Versteeg is this year big rookie on the Hawks. He's got ten points this year and was impressing us enough we were thinking of picking him up on our fantasy team. Now we thing we'll pass:

Rookies in the NHL get a bit of stick from their teammates. How bad will Kris get it after this disgrace?

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 27th to Nov 9th

A bunch of videos that weren't entertaining enough for us to post individually but together might be worth your time.

- A very awkward Nike commercial featuring LeBron. Would this really sell more shoes?

- There are many, many crazy Philly fans that have been posted after the Phillies big win. There are two of our favourites: Utley drops the f-bomb. A crazy women threatens another fan with a bat. Brotherly Love indeed.

- Shaq showed up at a Devils game. Obviously not a hockey fan, but we appreciate his effort. Not as cool as Snoop Dogg's NHL appearance but if we had a video of this moment it might be a different story.

- You know if ESPN is showing a hockey highlight featuring a nine-year-old it must be pretty good.

- A high school baseball coach thought it would be a good idea to take target practice on his players. (Article)

- Steve Nash is one funny dude...and he's Canadian!

- This is one from last week but it's a nice (clean, in our opinion) hit and worth a look. Brandon Sutter learns the hard way to keep his head up.

And our Clip of the Week is from the world of Rugby League. It may be the only time we'll write that line. In a match between New Zealand's Maori team and Australia's Aboriginal Dreamtime team the pre-match antics must have been more entertaining than the game. We've always been a big fan of the Haka (what the Maori's are doing) but putting it up against the Aboriginal war cry makes it even better:

< Last Week <> Next Week (coming soon) >

Kypreos vs. Zaun Part 1...

This story has already been covered more than capably by the excellent Sean Leahy (who was filling in for Puck Daddy) but we just had to have this video up on Waikiki Hockey.

What would happen if an (almost) NHL-calibre player faced off against an (almost) regular Joe? We got to find out as former NHLer Nick Kypreos faced off against Blue Jays backup catcher Gregg Zaun in a shootout:

So what did we learn from that video? Skating is important to play goalie.

The two now have a rematch set up where Kypreos is going to take some batting practice and try to catch a fastball. With Gregg Zaun being a free agent we're worried this might not happens. We are very anti-Kypreos both as a player and especially as a commentator so we would love to see him embarrassed.

Speaking of Kypreos getting embarrassed, it's time to relive our favourite Kyreos moment (not for the squeamish):

Ryan Vandenbussche throws our second favourite punch of all time in that clip. What tops our list?

The Price is Wrong Bitch Revisited....

We told you a few months ago that the Kings were going to be on The Price is Right.

It looks like 'David' wasn't much of a hockey fan as he didn't look to impressed at the Kings showcase. Looked pretty good to us. Two of the best tickets to a Kings game, some Kings gear we could sell on eBay, and most importantly a trip to Switzerland with tickets to the Worlds. Oh yeah there was also a boat. Did they run out of hockey connections?

David, the dumb non-hockey fan from Florida, passed on the Kings showcase but ended up winning puny $17,000 showcase. Too bad for him as the Kings showcase was worth $29,000! Way to go, jackass! That's what you get for not liking hockey!

Here is the showcase in it's entirety:

Our Belated-Quasi-Halloween Post...

We were planning on doing a big Halloween post last week but then we remembered two things:

1. Going Five Hole stole our post idea (by stole we mean we had the same idea but were too lazy to post it before Halloween.)
2. We hate almost everything about Halloween

So we cut the Halloween idea but it still bothered us that we wouldn't get to include this photo:

(From College Humour via TheScore.com Blog)

Hockey fans, know what's going on and are probably thinking one of two things:

1. Wow, that is totally tasteless!
2. Wow, that is totally awesome!

We're only slightly embarrassed to admit we're in category #2. For those of you in #1 ... come on, it's been 15 years, let it go!

For those of you that don't know what we're talking about ... you should probably just move on. Seriously leave. Still here? Alright don't say we didn't warn you ... here you go.

We just finished watching the infamous clip again ... the first time in years. We kinda forgot how horrific it was. Now we feel terrible that we said the costume was awesome. Ummm .... we need to make it up to Clint now. No better way to do that than by posting his 2006-07 Parkhurst hockey card. Sorry Clint:

The Hidden Puck Trick...

Were you watching the Leafs - Devils game last week? Probably not. You, like us, were expecting a blow out. Something along the lines of a 4-0 shutout at the hands of Marty Brodeur, maybe? In reality, the Leafs managed to score 5 goals on the future Hall of Famer and the game went to a shootout. Stupid Leafs.

Anyway, our post today isn't about Leaf bashing, well not all of it. In the shootout, Nik Hagman pulled the hockey equivalent of the hidden ball trick:

First off, is Nik Hagman really the best the Leafs can dredge up for a shootout? Yikes. Things are worse than we thought in Leaf Nation ... which makes us quite happy actually.

We've always been a bit unsure of our feelings on the hidden ball trick in baseball. We know it's legal (assuming the ball is live and the pitcher never steps on the mound) ... but it just seems like such a cheap play. On the plus side, any team that is asleep on a play deserves to get caught out. So we're a bit unsure on the ol' Hidden Ball Trick.

Enough baseball talk. Even though Brodeur found the play quite funny, he couldn't really have done anything to stop the tomfoolery from happening. For this reason, we vote a big thumbs down on the the play. Now we worry that all the no-talent players (aka: the rest of the Leafs) will be trying to duplicate Hagman's success. First Marty had to put up with Avery and now this!

Maximum Exposure...

Colby Armstrong, Max Talbot, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin did a commercial for A L Motors last season. It's awesome. Check it out. (The stupid person who posted it disabled embedding for some reason).

Both Gonchar and Talbot make that commercial one of the greatest in hockey history.

Going Five Hole made our day as they reported that Max Talbot is back in the role that made him famous ... guy who bought a BMW.

What a World Series...

How good is this year’s World Series? The many errors and base running mishaps haven’t resulted in good 'actual' ball but the story lines are fantastic. After one of the craziest games we have seen in ages in Game 4, the Phillies and Rays followed it up with a 2-2 suspended tie in Game 5.

We’re not huge fans of either the Phillies or the Rays but we do like both teams. What we’re really rooting for is a Game 7. No more sweeps! No more sweeps! So we were pumped in Game 5 when, with the Rays down 2-1, the umpires decided to start the 6th inning. B.J. Upton gets a very rain-aided hit, steals second and scores the tying run. Commissioner Bud Selig made us even happier suspending the game to be finished at a later date. No Cole Hamels (likely for the rest of the series) and a possible David Price ‘start’ means that the Rays have a very good shot at forcing a Game 6.

The Phillies? They weren’t as happy as we were (from the blog at the Courier Post Online):

“That (expletive deleted) guy,” one pitcher said as he saw commissioner Bud
Selig before walking out the back door of the clubhouse. “I wouldn’t let him
supervise one of my (bowel movements). He has no clue. Not one (expletive
deleted) clue.”

“(Expletive deleted),” one position player said in the direction of one
television pausing only for a moment before leaving. “He’s a moron. How stupid
can one person be?”

Do you think the Phillies swear more because they hear the fans talking that way? You know, the same kind of thing that happens to sailors. Bud Selig is an idiot but this is a pretty tough situation for him and he managed to only screw it up a little bit.

We just can’t wait to see what is going to happen next in this series? Game winning Grand Slam? Balking home the tying run? Perfect Game by Matt Garza? The way this series has gone anything can happen!

The Anti-Rays ...

Before we begin, let's make sure everybody is up to speed:

- Oren Koules, the guy who produced Saw V (and Saw 1-4, we assume), bought the Tampa Bay Lightning as became the CEO of the team.

- This off-season, he traded for a flock of forwards but forgot to pick up any defenders.

- His team is currently in second last place in the entire league.

- He thought that his new movie Saw V needed some extra promotion and did the mildly disturbing move of having the Tampa goalies wear this monstrosity for a game.

And now...the most recent stunt by owner Oren Koules was to show the following video before the Lightning-Sharks game last week:

Awful. Just awful. Maybe Ryan Malone felt so bad about taking 31.5 million of Koules' dollars that he agreed to be in this disgrace. What the hell was the guy doing lying on the ground with a hockey stick down his pants?

We figured Koules was just some rich Hollywood punk who wanted a million dollar fantasy team to play with. Were were surprised to find out he played minor hockey in the 1980's -- he wasn't half bad either (in his best season he scored 73 points in 67 game for the Spokane Flyers). The fact that his guy was a hockey player makes us think this little stunt even more disappointing.

Poor Tampa Bayians ... would you want the owner of your favourite team to be described as 'wacky, but good hearted'? So how about those Rays?

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 19th to Oct 26th

You know we love you, right reader? Just to prove it to you, we've put together our greatest ever week of the best (and worst) the sport world has to offer:

- They are making a movie version of Moneyball? Brad Pitt may play Billy Beane? We enjoyed the book but we can't see how it would make an interesting movie. Maybe Billy Beane will be an international spy as well the A's GM.

- A Gamecock gets tackled by the ref. We're not talking about a bump, the ref forearms the QB. Not sure what he was thinking.

- Nothing we like more than awkward press conference moments. Here's a compilation of some of the best of all time.

- A goalie scoring a goal in soccer. Not as exciting as Ron Hextall but still exciting.

- Who said the Tampa Bay Rays have no famous fans?

- You know those days where you feel like you're hitting your head against a wall? What about the days where you feel like your getting smashed on top of your head with a hockey stick?

- Sure it's not a video but Puck Daddy put together a great little interview with director and Devils fan Kevin Smith. Worthy of a read ... if you like hockey and Kevin Smith.

- Another non-video, but in case you missed it Sarah Palin said if she had another child she would call it Zamboni. Hockey moms everywhere groan. At first we thought it was a bit of a joke, but she's already called children Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig ... so you never know..

- You've probably already seen this video as it's been making the rounds. A-Rod, Kobe, Phelps and Tony Hawk are all Guitar Heroes. How much money did Sony have to pay these four? Is the extra money really worth the embarrassment of this ad for these superstars?

- The Batting Stance Guy is back. This time with a tribute to walk off home runs in World Series history. We love this guy.

- NHL teams keep putting out some solid commercials this year. The Canadians add to the flock with another great one.

- Some guy from Winnipeg wrote the Tampa Bay Rays theme song. It's called "Feel the Heat, Rays". Get it? It's a 'clever' play on words. It's also awful. We were rooting for the Rays but now we're not so sure.

With a hat tip to the World Series our Clip o' the Week is from the world of Baseball. We saw the 'Rejected Yankee Stadium Memories' clips and thought they were pretty entertaining. They are also a very accurate representation of ALL Yankee fans. Number 1 (below) is our favourite but 4 and 8 are worth a look as well.

< Last Week <> Next Week >

We Kick Ball...

Over the last few months we've received a few emails letting us know that we don't have enough football content here at Waikiki Hockey.

Isn't there enough football news out there already? I believe ESPN only shows NFL-related news now, so if you're looking for gridiron videos maybe turn on ESPN. However, our readers are always right so we thought it might time for a football related post.

One of our biggest NFL related posts was Super Bowl Shudder. Today we're going to show you some more NFL inspired music. The classic "We Are The Kickers":

This 'song' is from a 1987 episode of 'Saturday Night Live' hosted by Walter Payton. What was with SNL in the late 80's? Based on this song and our namesake 'Waikiki Hockey' they obviously had problems writing a decent song. Not to worry ... judging by one recent example SNL's song writing skills have increased dramatically:

Yes! We got 'Dick in a Box' into a sports post. It was a pretty big stretch, but we made it.

It's hard to believe but 'We Are The Kickers' isn't the only song about kickers. One of Adam Sandler's crappiest songs is also about kickers; The Lonesome Kicker. Alright that's the last we'll ever talk about kickers. We promise.

Crazy Uncle Bill...

Is he drunk? Is he crazy? Is he crazy drunk? We may never know. One thing we do know, we're thankful ESPN put that on the air.

Dil-don't...

From Deadspin.com:

We really wish we read 'The Local' on a daily basis because we would have loved to sit down with our morning paper and read that headline.

Here's how we got to the above photo:
- Player Jan Huokko) made a dirty little movie with his girlfriend on his cell phone
- Huokko gets cell phone stolen
- Video ends up on the internet
- Fans decide to 'delay match with dildo downpour' (did we mention we love that headline?)

We would write more about this but we have a weak stomach. Click here for all the dirty secrets.

Another Sarah Palin Interview Part II...

Last week we showed you an interview that potential VP Sarah Palin did with 'Coatsey'.

We never thought Waikiki Hockey would be posting a single Sarah Palin interview. But now it looks like we have to post another one. Make sure you watch this through:

CanucksTV...

While our last post (Goals of the Week) may not have been typical Waikiki Hockey fare this one certainly is.

Did you see the excellent hockey references from "How I Met Your Mother?" this week? Well the good people at NHL.com were good enough to get the clip from 20th Century Fox.

A hot Canadian hockey fan. Dion Phaneuf has options now.

This NHL reference was much better than the last one that appeared in the show (from IMDB.com):

Robin: We can split a cab to work together, we always have a standing lunch date, and last night, at the hockey game, Curt got us into the locker room and I met Mason Raymond.
[gang looks clueless]
Robin: Left wing for the Vancouver Canucks!
Barney: What's the opposite of name-dropping?

We like this show but with all these Canucks references we're going to have to keep a closer eye on things. It won't be too long before the Sedin twins make their second television appearance:

Goals of the Week...

We're not in the habit of posting highlights very often. They are neither bizarre or obscure. But we figured with the start of the NHL season we would make an exception.

There's no better way to get pumped for the new hockey season than by watching the Goals of the Week:

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 12th to Oct 19th

Another week big of the best (and worst) the sporting world has to offer...

- The Minnesota Wild may play a boring brand of hockey but at least they have an entertaining commercial.

- We've got two borderline police brutality moments for you this week. First a drunken Red Sox fan gets tazored in Tampa Bay. With five cops standing around is tazoring a drunk fan really necessary? Next, an over-zealous cop tackles a fairly docile fan at a Rough Riders game.

- Pittsburgh is now the best place to watch hockey. Who knew we could learn something from a Puck Daddy article.

- Check out Tampa Bay coach John Maddon checking out Craig Sager during the ALCS.

- Another video from the 'so bad it's good' list, that we love so much at Waikiki Hockey. Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks is cooking steaks with two seemingly mentally challenged hosts. Plenty of akward moments.

- Jaromir Jagr tends to Alexei Cherepanov on the bench minutes before he passes away. Tragic.

- Some crazy lady yells at Sean Avery (go to the 2:00 minute mark).

...for the first time ever we have two Clips O' the Week. The new hockey theme for CBC and TSN are up and running. As you probably already know TSN is using CBC's old anthem and the fans voted in the new CBC anthem. TSN obviously has the better theme but in our opinion CBC has the better graphics. You be the judge, here are both intros:

CBC (click here for a top quality version)


TSN

< Last Week <> Next Week >

Crazy Awesome...

In Game 4 in Philadelphia on Monday night Shane Victorino hits the game tying two run home run in the 8th inning. Matt Stairs then hits another two run shot in the eight to give the Phillies the lead and the eventual win:

40 year old (Canadian) Matt Stairs! Crazy. No, not crazy...crazy awesome. When we saw the big smash we immediately thought of Kirk Gibson ... and we didn't even know it was the 20th anniversary of the famous HR.

Stair's home run was huge. It gave the Phillies a 3-1 series lead and the eventual win. But since Gibson's home run was twenty years ago you might need some refreshing on how amazing it really was:

• Game 1 1988 World Series
• Bottom of the 9th, 2 out
• Los Angeles is down 4-3 with a man on base
• Gibson (with an injured hamstring and knees) gets called to pinch hit against the best reliever in baseball
• Gibson gets two strikes on him but somehow manages to work the count to 3-2

...and this happens:

Now that is crazy! Seriously ... if we saw that home run in a movie we would start bitching, like we always do, saying "why can't somebody make a realistic baseball movie?" Not only is it a truly unbelievable sporting moment but Gibson's moustache and fist pump in between first and second are Fonzie cool.

Ass Hammering...

We here at Waikiki Hockey do solemnly swear that any time a player mentions 'ass hammering' in a press conference we will show it to you:

Another Sarah Palin Interview...

You've probably seen the clip of potential VP Sarah Palin dropping the puck at the Flyer's home opener last week. But have you seen the clip of her on Coatesy's Corner?

This might be the crappiest show to ever have somebody as famous as Palin as a guest. We just hope Tina Fey does a parody of this interview as well.

We all make mistakes...

Here we see a uniform with a mistake (from the Bolts Report):

and here we see a uniform that IS a mistake (from Icethetics)

Above you see the new 3rd jersey from the AHL's Toronto Marlies. It has to be one of the worst uni's we've ever seen. Now the Leaf's AHL affiliate can look as bad as the Leafs play.

Welcome Back, Carter

Yeah, that title is pretty pathetic but the name 'Carter' is pretty tough to be clever with. At least it lets us up put a picture of the real Mr. Kotter ... something we won't get many chances to do.


Kuklas Korner posted a video from Maxim.com where Jeff Carter was being interviewed by some dorky Maxim guy (we always imagined Maxim writers would be cooler):

It's pretty standard fare ... although seeing how many pucks it takes Carter to pull a 'William Tell' was mildly interesting. The best part of this video was that they mentioned this famous YouTube clip from last season's playoffs:

Over the summer we must have forgotten about this classic fan moment and are disapointed in ourselves for not including it in our Fightin' Fans article from a few months back -- a big oversight on our part.

The fans must be getting a bit more confident nowadays as a female fan gives Sean Avery (go to the 2:00 minute mark) a tongue lashing in the Blue Jacket - Stars matchup last Saturday night. We're sure Avery deserved it.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 5th to Oct 12th

A big week for sports fans. The MLB playoffs are in full swing, the NFL season is well underway and the NHL is now up and running.

- As we mentioned Hockey is back. In Game #1 (in North America) the Leafs pulled off a miracle win over the Red Wings. Could it be the Leafs only win of the season? Will the Wings go 81-1 now?

- Are we the only ones who has a strong desire to drive the golf cart on the green? This french guy does what we've been longing to do in grand fashion in this prank.

- Craig Sager (who is apparently a legend) got champagned by Jonathon Papelbon.

- Mike Tyson's Brunch Out. It has Mike Tyson in it which is awesome, it references his video game Punch Out which is also awesome, but the rest of the Brunch Out clip is pretty ordinary.

- Apparently, Curtis Joseph is dating Shaina Twain. We'll add them to the pile for our next visit to the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante

- This week we wrote an article with 5 reasons to hate the Red Sox. Here's another reason. It's too bad Jason Bay is a Red Sox because we really like him. Very conflicting.

- Having hot girls shovel the ice seems like a pretty cheap promotion to us but we guess some people really like it.

- Our Clip O' The Week is a video we showed you yesterday. Def Leppard get signed up to kick off the NHL season and then total embarrass the league because "they are soccer boys". Way to go NHL.

< Last Week <> Next Week >

Def Leppard?

The NHL season is now in full swing. We're pumped here at Waikiki Hockey and other than the Leafs pulling off the miracle upset it was a great first day of the (North American) season. Alex Burrows and Jonathon Cheechoo are on pace for 164 goals and the rebound that everybody is expecting from Kiprusoff will have to wait for at least one more game.

One thing that we thought was truely bizarre was the NHL signing up Def Leppard to play for the crowd before the Leafs-Wings tilt. Isn't the NHL supposed to be young and hip? Or at least convince people they are young and hip. Even Ron McLean was puzzled by the move when discussing the band with Grapes on the Coaches Corner.

Just came back from a visit at Fantasy Hockey Scouts and they had an even better clip of Def Leppard ... so we'll pinch it. Here we see exactly why Def Leppard is a terrible choice to open up the NHL season.

Athletes in Jail...

When you're busy or stressed out at work the best thing to do is to past the buck onto somebody else. The Waikiki Hockey equivalent is forwarding you on to a few good articles for your reading pleasure.

With OJ Simpson's (most) recent legal trouble and Michael Vick getting convicted last year it's looking like athletes are losing their get out of jail free privledges and are actually serving time.

Here's a list of seven players who ended up on the wrong side of the law ... the NHL even had TWO players on the list. Who said the league isn't mainstream?

Of course that list missed a few famous contributors ... we really can't have a list about athletes in jail without talking about Bob Probert can we? SI.com has a slideshow that covers off most of the players that were missed.

Red Sox Suck?

Did you hear what John Lackey said after the Angels were eliminated by the Red Sox for the second straight year?

"It's way different than last year, we are way better than they are. We lost to a team not as good as us. [On Sunday] they scored on a pop fly they called a hit, which is a joke," said Lackey, referring to a popup that was misplayed into three runs. "[On Monday], they score on a broken-bat ground ball and a fly ball anywhere else in America [except in Fenway Park]. And [Pedroia's] fist-pumping on second like he did something great."

Somebody is a sore loser. Well, at least we're not the only ones with a nice amount of Red Sox hatred going. The Score.com went as far to say the Red Sox are replacing the Yankees as the the new team to hate. We're not sure we would go that far ... but there's plenty of hatred to go around.

The Score.com lists a couple of reasons why the Red Sox are so easy to loath but doesn't really back it up with the best evidence. That's where we come in...

1) The Fans
Finding a video showing the typical Sox fan is as hard as finding a drunken Irishman...wait, we think we just repeated ourselves. These two clowns from 2007 were the most entertaining we could find. "If Jon Lester can beat cancer he can beat some (beep'in) Indians!" Nice.

2) Yankees' Suck Chants
In Little League, kids are taught to cheer on their team instead of trash talking the opponents. At Red Sox games chants of "Yankees Suck!" are to be somehow encouraged. We don't mind a bit of trash talking as long as it's clever ... this is a looooong way from clever.

3) Jonathan Papelbon
When Papelbon was a rookie his antics were mildly amusing. He's no longer a rookie. His infamous riverdance ruined a perfectly good Dropkick Murphy's song, he can't speak Spanish, and he does a terrible Milli Vanilli impersonation. Added to the fact he's a bit of a jerk (as the video in the Score.com article shows) and you've got a nice focus for your hatred.

4) Celebrity Red Sox Fans
Watching Game Two against the Angels we saw TBS show Timothy Hutton wearing a Red Sox hat at the game. Do they think we care that Timothy Hutton is a Red Sox fan? Who is Timothy Hutton, anyway? Once celebrities start jumping on your band wagon you know you are close to being the most hated team in America. Luckily for Red Sox fans (like Dane Cook) the Yankees will always have this guy.

5) Fever Pitch
We never like it when Hollywood takes a good book and turns it into a crappy movie. We really don't like it when they take a good book and turn it into 'Fever Pitch' starring Jimmy Fallon. This movie sucked balls and must have made Red Sox haters out of half of America.

We can come up with as many reasons as we want to explain our hatred of the Sox, but it really comes down to one thing .... they win too much and we're jealous. Go Rays Go...did we just say that?

HoffSpace Revisited...

Since it's a boring Tuesday with three hockey-free (except for a couple of pre-season tilts) days ahead of us we thought we would look back in on one of our favourite videos ... the man, the myth, the legend that is David Hasselhoff going to a U of A football game with his daughter and her two young friends which we featured as our 'Clip O' The Week' about a month ago.

There we so many things wonderfully bizarre and creepy about that video that we had to pay Hoffspace (yeah that's the name of the Hoff's website) another visit to see if they posted any more goodies from the game:

We're so glad our father isn't David Hasselhoff. Even though we find it insane he's going to the game with his daughter and her friends we'll admit it's an improvement over the other infamous video featuring both The Hoff and his daughter.

No video from inside the stadium but we did manage to dig up a few photos:

"Watch me creep out a dozen girls at
the same time....woo hoo!"

"No better spot for a recovering alcoholic
than a College Football game...gooooo Wildcats!"

Keep up the good work Hoff!

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 22nd to Oct 5th

With our technical difficulties last week this will be a double shot of the best (and worst) sports videos that were posted to the net the past two weeks:

- Amare Stoudemire is doing his 'dancey-dance' on a show for toddlers (we assume).

- When the Cubs clinched a playoff spot it looks like their curse might finally be lifted. Three playoff games later and the curse is still going strong.

- A couple of Los Angeles Kings made guest appearances on 'The Price is Right', as reported by Waikiki Hockey earlier this week.

- Vancouver made a lot of noise when they named their goalie, Roberto Luongo, captain this week. Here's a good article on goalie captains in NHL history and why a rule was created to make sure they couldn't wear the 'C'.

- Three drunken female Cleveland Brown fans kiss each other for a free $5 t-shirt ... Stay classy, Cleveland!

- SportsCenter has made some good ads. Their newest, featuring author Stephen King, is another classic.

- Another CFL TD celebration clip. With the NFL outlawing this kind of behaviour the CFL is trying to fill the void. We're not sure a quick game of duck, duck, goose does the trick though.

- FIFA unveiled their new mascot for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We're normally pretty horrified by sporting event mascots (for example) but this cheap looking lion is in a class all by himself.

The NHL season started last weekend in Europe. Now that we've had a taste, we have to make it through 5 more non-hockey days. Our Clip o' the Week may have been selected because we have hockey on the brain but it's still a dandy of a save from Carey Price. As Pierre McGuire says it's the save of the year and the year hasn't started yet. Bring on the 2008-09 season!

< Last Week <> Next Week >

Grand Final Day...

Today is the Grand Final in Rugby League. This year the Melbourne Storm will attempt to defend their title against the Manly Sea Eagle. If you're Australian you already knew that and if you're not you probably don't care.

If you want to see who wins go and check Fox Sports but if you want to see a bizarre rugby play continue reading.

In 2004, Wests Tigers winger John Hopoate was suspended for 12 weeks after being found guilty by the NRL Judiciary of poking his fingers up the anuses of three North Queensland players:

This is normally where we try to say something clever but we got nothing. Hopoate said that he was trying to give the players wedgies but he's clearly lost his mind.

This definitely fits the bill as one of the most bizarre moments in any sport. Some of the quotes from the incident are just as crazy:

"There was pressure there. I know he wasn't doing it accidentally. He was definitely pushing." -- Paul Bowman, North Queensland player

"I think I know the difference between a wedgie and someone sticking their finger up my bum," -- Peter Jones, North Queensland player

"It is reasonably common to be touched in the region of the testicles [during a game]" -- West Tigers Coach, Terry Lamb

"Between his arse and his nuts" -- John Hopoate after he was asked where he was directing his finger

You can always count on Waikiki Hockey to continue to lower the bar.

Alexander the Cheap...

It's not very often our internet searches lead us to CNBC.com. That's exactly what happened when we came across this story about Alex Ovechkin's new endorsement deal with 'The Hair Cuttery'

Ovie (the guy with the $124 million contract) gets his hair cut for $14 at 'The Hair Cuttery'. The company found out about their famous client and quickly arranged the following ad campaign:

Ovechkin is fantastic. The more we hear about him the more we like him. Whether it's playing ball hockey with some kids or appearing on a bizarre Russian Game Show dressed as a shark:

It's not often you see a player with the most skill and personality in a league. All hail Alexander the Great!

New NHL Ads...

NHL.com has been completely redesigned and it looks pretty impressive. Way to go NHL.

They are premiering their new ad campaign, 'Is This The Year?', on the site before it hits Versus, TSN, CBC and the NHL Network (what no NBC?). Definitely worth a look as they are pretty flashy.

In addition to the new ads, the NHL is set to launch their new 'Game Center Live'. Wow, we're impressed. It definitely deserves this medal:

We've heard rumours that it will cost $100-$200 for the season ... which means it looks like it's a few weeks of Kraft Dinner for us.

The Price is Wrong Bitch...

Up until this week, if somebody said 'Price and Right' and Hockey you would have thought of this classic clip from 'Happy Gilmore':

(Adam Sandler made a guest appearance on the show to promote the movie when it came out in 1992. Go to the two minute mark to see Sandler cavorting with the Price is Right beauties. )

But now we have another Price is Right hockey moment courtesy of the LA Kings:

With this promotion LA looks to capitalize on the valuable game show demographic.
Some of the King's best players (Dustin Brown, Denis Gauthier, Derek Armstrong, and Kyle Calder) showed up ... showing us how bad the Kings will be this year.

It's not 'Happy Gilmore' but second place isn't bad!

Claude Lemieux is the devil...

We realize is this kind of old news now. But we wrote it before we had some technical difficulties ... and we're too lazy to just pitch it and write something else.

RDS is reporting (in french) Claude Lemieux is thinking of making a comeback this season in the AHL or NHL. That’s no typo. 43-year-old Claude Lemieux who hasn’t played professionally since 2003-04 in Switzerland is thinking of making a comeback.

“Most people will think I’m crazy, but I miss being with the players and the feeling of being on the rink. We only have one life and if we feel something in our heart or in our head, we have to go for it.”

Puck Daddy put in his two cents on Lemieux’s comeback and his man-love of the most hated player in hockey history is a bit sickening. Our Red Wing bias puts us on the opposite side of the spectrum. Claude Lemieux is the devil and should never be allowed to play again. Here's a picture we found of Lemieux taken in the off-season:


Why is he the devil? How about this play where he nearly kills Kris Draper? (Go to 1 minute mark)

I might have a shred of respect for Lemieux if took the backlash after a cheap shot. But Lemiuex has never been know for his courage:

We don’t understand how you could be happy about having this guy on your team. If he signed with the Wings (wouldn’t that be an awkward first day) we would be embarrassed to have him on our team.

Judging from his performance on "Pros vs. Joes" the rotund looking Lemieux is a very long way from being in game shape:

Just a couple of thoughts to finish with:
- Pros vs. Joes ... greatest show in television history?
- 'Clode' gave a Joe a high stick! How cliche is that?
- Lemieux is only one of two NHL'ers to appear on the show (the other being Grant Fuhr). How much would it cost to get Bob Probert on this show? We want to see that.

Technical Difficulties...

We're experiencing a few technical issues that we are trying to get ironed out as quickly as possible.

If you're craving some bizarre sports clips make sure you come back early next week as we'll be back to full capacity and hopefully back to our post-a-day pace.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 15th to Sept 21st

A slow week for the best (and worst) sport videos on the internet this week. It may be that there just isn't too much going on or it may be that we were slighty distracted by our two fantasy hockey drafts. On to the list:

- A bonehead play by Eagles WR DeSean Jackson, as covered by Waikiki Hockey earlier this week

- The Bulgarian Women's Ice Hockey Team lost 82-0 to Slovkia last week and we finally got some video. The annoucer really earned his money that night.

- Ever wonder what's in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's wallet? No? Yeah us either. Well don't click here then.

- The NHL season is only weeks away now. Here's a Versus ad featuring Brandon Coburn to help get you through.

- Groin shots. Good enough for Homer. Good enough for Waikiki Hockey. Check out this painful skiing mishap.

- If we had access to a laser we would probably use to take over the world or something. This guy had a different idea...burn a NY Giants logo into a hotdog. Of course!

And our Clip O' The Week:

If you type 'drunk fan' into a YouTube search you get over 2,000 clips. For some reason sports fan think it's a good idea to tape themselves smashed and put it on the net. Some of them are very boring but the large majority of them are very embarrasing. But our clip of the week is something completely different. It runs nine minutes long, which is unusual for a drunken fan video, but we found ourselves watching almost the whole thing ... we had to see how it finished!

< Last Week <> Next Week >

Our Date With Hockeywood...Third Visit

Buon Giorno. Welcome to the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante. The Ristorante has been fully booked so it's been awhile since we've been able to come in.

If this is your first visit to the Ristorante you may to want to look back to our first and second visits where we looked at some couples in our quest to determine who the most interesting hockeywood couple is.

Today we'll add another five couples to our ever growing list. Let's get to it:

Jordan TooToo and Kellie Pickler – dated for most of 2007
When an American Idol contestant is considered as a celebrity things are getting desperate. Kellie finished sixth on Idol in 2006 but after her elimination she was signed to a record deal and released her first album…“Small Town Girl”. The country album went gold and three singles reached the top 15 on the billboard charts. Kellie Pickler is also infamous for conclusively proving she is not smarter than a fifth grader ... shouldn’t somebody have told her that going on this show would be a bad idea?

Tootoo is best known for being the first NHL player of Inuit descent to play in the NHL. He’s only 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds but he plays much bigger. He’s been called a cheap shot artist lately … mostly because of the one punch knockout he gave Stephane Robidas in 2007. Number 22 (a clever play on his name) has scored 22 NHL goals in 232 games so scoring isn’t part of his game. The relationship ended after Jordin cheated on Kelly.

Dinner Potential: During their courtship, country girl Pickler was planning on visiting Jordin’s family in Nunavut where she was going to “build an igloo”. We can't find any news if the trip actually happened but we would definitely love to hear those stories. Judging by her performance on 5th Grader Pickler would have been entertaining enough to even warrant her own reality show. We really need to consider the length of our meal before we invite Pickler…we can see her act getting old veeeery fast.

Quality Quotient: 3 (her) + 4 (him) = 7 total

Jose Theodore and Paris Hilton – weekend hookup in 2006
What do we say about Paris? She’s the pinnacle of no-skill stars … famous for no reason. She does it all: model, write, act, sing … but none of them very well. She’s also famous enough to get mentioned in a John McCain speech. That’s pretty famous. Her response to McCain was probably her best piece of acting work to date.

Theodore put up a few monster seasons with the Canadiens … especially in 2001-02 when he won the Vezina trophy. Since the lock out, he hasn’t faired too well (a GAA above three every year) but he got his career back on track with a good season last year ... which he translated into a two year $9 million deal with the Capitals. Jose must be one of the stupider NHL goalies out there -- his weekend fling with Paris happened while he was dating Stephanie Cloutier. Cloutier, who had just given birth to their first son only three months earlier, broke up with Theodore after seeing photos of him and Hilton in every single newspaper! Here’s a tip Jose: If you’re going to cheat on your girlfriend don’t do it with one of the most famous people in the world.

Dinner Potential: Even though Paris has always annoyed us, she probably has some pretty good stories to tell. She would also be invaluable if we wanted to check out some clubs after dinner, we probably wouldn't even need to wait in line. We could get used to being a VIP.

Quality Quotient: 6 (her) + 5 (him) = 11 total

Sergei Fedorov & Pavel Bure & Anna Kournikova - married? dated? we've got no idea
We realize Kournakova isn’t a Hollywood starlet but her modelling work puts her on the same scale as a lot of the ‘talent’ we’ve looked at. Sergei and Anna dated in 1999. They broke up and Anna started dating Pavel – who lived in the same apartment building as her. Rumours surfaced that Pavel and Anna were engaged … both denied the rumours. In 2001, Pavel and Anna broke up and Sergei and Anna got back together. Rumours then surfaced that Sergei and Anna got married … both denied the rumours. In an 2003 interview with The Hockey News, Sergei admitted: “We were married, albeit brief, and we are now divorced." The two were said to be married in a Moscow registry office but are no longer in contact with each other. Anna still denies ever being married to Sergei to this day.

Dinner Potential: Sergei and Pavel are two of the best players to ever play the game but with the Melrose-style love triangle going on here we wouldn’t want any part of it.

Quality Quotient (Sergei): 3 (her) + 8 (him) = 11 total
Quality Quotient (Pavel): 3 (her) + 7 (him) = 10 total

Valeri Bure and Candace Cameron – married with kids
Since we’re on the Bure’s we’ll take a look at Pavel’s younger brother Valeri and his relationship with Full House star Candace Cameron. Bure and Cameron were introduced by Dave Coulier (the guy that played Joey). Coulier must have thought they had so much in common since they are they are younger siblings of a much more famous brother.

Other than a 75 point campaign in 1999-00 Bure has never scored more than 55 points. So other than regaling us of the time he won gold for Russia in the Olympics we probably won’t have many good hockey stories over dinner.

Dinner Potential: Bure’s hockey stories may not be up to snuff but his true value may come when we order the wine … he is a bit of a wine connoisseur after starting up Bure Family Wines. In addition to their winery, the pair have also opened up a restaurant called The Milk and Honey Café ... making Valeri the first hockey player to open up a restaurant not featuring their name in the title.

Quality Quotient: 3 (her) + 4 (him) = 7 total

Eric Lindros and Kate Hudson – allegedly dating again in 2008
Perez Hilton (we can’t believe we just linked to Perez Hilton) reported in July that Hudson and Lindros hooked up again after Lance Armstrong dumped her for being “too needy”. Both camps deny the rumour and from our 3 minutes of research it looks like they truly are just friends. But we’re not going to let the opportunity to discuss an actual Hollywood star pass us by.

Like her mother, Goldie Hawn, Kate is a really big movie star who really doesn’t have many really good movies on her resume. Other than the excellent Almost Famous, she has been in ho-hum comedies and a lot of terrible romantic comedies. She’s very attractive, if you like the tall leggy blonde look (which we do) and she comes from a hockey family … kinda. Kurt Russell is Kate’s quasi-step-dad and he’s a big hockey fan, going as far as playing Herb Brooks in Miracle. His son and Kate’s half-brother, Wyatt, is also a goalie playing Division 1 in the NCAA. So it may just be a matter time of time before she ends up dating a hockey player anyway.

After a 57 game - 149 point season in the OHL, Lindros had the potential to be one of the greatest players in history. But other than a 115 point campaign in 1995-96 he never lived up to the hype as he missed 160 games due to injury in his first eight seasons in the league. In 1999, he almost died due to a collapsed lung which was misdiagnosed by Flyers training staff. The resulting feud with GM Bobby Clarke ended with Lindros to be traded to the Rangers where he had a few decent seasons but nothing like earlier in his career.

Dinner Potential: We can see it now. We pick a restaurant. Lindros says he’ll never go to that restaurant. We play hardball and go there anyway but Lindros doesn’t show up. We decide to instead have dinner with Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, two 1st round selections and $15,000,000 cash. Sweet deal for us.

Quality Quotient: 6 (her) + 6 (him) = 12 total

We still have a few more couples to look at so keep coming back to Waikiki Hockey to find out who we pick as our most interesting Hockeywood couple.

Waikiki Dictionary...

1. Homer
- American bonehead.
- "Pull a Homer": to succeed despite idiocy.
"Looks like I just pulled a Homer!" - Laker Magic Johnson, after slipping on water and having the ball fly out of his hands, off a ref's head, and into the basket for the game winning three pointer.


2. Nuske
- Permanent rookie, friend of Waikiki Hockey
- "Pull a Nuske": to fail miserably while making a rookie mistake
"Looks like I just pulled a Nuske!" - Eagles WR DeSean Jackson, after he dropped the ball one yard in front of the end zone, thus missing a touchdown.

Jackson must be a pretty big fan of Nuske's as he also pulled a Nuske when he used to play in College:



If Jackson keeps this up we may have to change the name to 'pull a Jackson".

When Better Doesn't Mean Better...

We here at Waikiki Hockey take great pride in finding clips that offer the "so bad that it's good" effect.

We've given you some great examples of this in the past ... like this clip, or this one and especially our namesake.

Another great example of this effect is the official team song for the Toronto Blue Jays, "OK Blue Jays (Let's Play Ball!)". It's a bad song by any measure ... but it's so bad, it's good:

The song was written by Keith Hampshire in 1983 (and even made it to number 47 on the Canadian charts) but it really caught on with the fans during the 1985 ALCS. It has become a fixture during the seventh inning stretch at Jays' games since.

This season the Toronto brass decided to re-mix song ... making it 'better'. Only problem is that with the improvement it no longer has the 'so bad it's good' effect. What a shame.