Sometimes you hear about a movie, book or tv show and you think it could be the greatest thing ever made. This is how we felt when we first heard about 'Puck Fiction'.
Detroit Red Wing Chris Chelios, was paired up with Samuel L. Jackson in a short film that aired on the ESPY awards in 2002. For the short, Jackson revived one of the greatest movie characters of all time ... Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction:
What a classic scene.
We didn't see 'Puck Fiction' when it originally aired but we were giddy with anticipation ... thank god for the internet. The actual clip didn't quite live up to our expectations but it's pretty close:
Really makes you wish that ESPN was still broadcasting games.
Our high points are when Jules demonstrates the 'Englewood Jack' and the last thirty seconds where Chelios thinks about catching up with Jules. It's almost "Hall of Fame" worthy but just falls a bit short, probably because a Jules without a 'motherfucker' just isn't Jules. Too bad they couldn't get Quentin Tarantino involved as well.
Recently, the Australian Olympic Swim team thought it would be a good idea to embarrass themselves by recording this song and donating the proceeds to charity. Very noble of them but you think there would be a less humiliating way to earn some money.
This song reminded me of history's greatest example of a song that is pure awesome even though it is extremely crappy: This wasn't the first time a NFL team created a song for marketing purposes. That honour goes to the 1984 San Francisco 49ers who put together the creatively named 'We Are The Niners'. The Philadelphia Eagles gave it a shot in '88 with 'Buddy's Watching You' ... which is worth watching just for the awkwardness of the kicker rapping. The 1986 Dodgers gave it there best shot with the embarrassing"Baseball Boogie".
Unfortunately for mankind these three were not the last teams to hit the recording studio.
The most successful recording by an player or team would go to either Oscar De La Hoya or Liverpool FC. The Golden Boy's album featuring 'Run to Me' was nominated for a Grammy. Liverpool's 'Anfield Rap' reached #3 on the UK charts in 1988. It's corny but it has a bit of catchiness to it and it pretty comical in parts:
Most of the team songs, while painful to listen to, were made in good fun and with the idea to raise a bit of money for charity ... who is buying these albums anyway?
On the other hand, some athletes have released solo albums or songs ... usually to epic failure and ridicule.
Shaq is one of the better musical athletes out there ... which isn't saying much. He's managed to release five albums, including his debut album "Shaq Diesel" which included the classic "Shoot, Pass, Slam". If Shaq is one of the best out there Deion Sanders must be one of the worst. In the song "Must Be The Money" Sanders gargles his way through over four minutes of pure torture:
We couldn't really find many current examples of teams or athletes recording music. We here are Waikiki Hockey are hoping this changes as these videos are great for posting!
In our research we found a few other videos/songs you might find interesting...and by interesting we mean hilarious:
Tony Parker plays professional basketball, has a hot wife and is a french rap star. Here he is singing 'Balance Toi'
The Cincinnati Bengals brought in funk legend Bootsy Collins to bring some creditability to their 2005 song "Fear Da Tiger" ... it didn't work.
Ozzie Smith recorded a song called "Cupid", we'll give him points for not rapping like almost every other athlete. It does sounds like he's impersonating Kermit the Frog though.
Each day of the 2008 Olympics we're going to find a bizarre clip or story from a past Summer Olympics. Today we'll look at Belgium Weightlifter Ingeborg Marx.
Due to the lack of decent television options this week we were forced into watching Olympic highlights. There wasn't even an interesting event on... just the men's 62kg weightlifting. We thought we struck sport obscurity gold when Columbian Oscar Figueroa stepped up for his lift and had his hands slip off the bar six times. We thought we had found out newest "Bizarre Olympic Moment" but after some internet research we discovered that Figueroa's collaspe was due to an injured thumb and not the 1 in a million breakdown the announcers made us believe. Collapsing like that in front of 100's of millions of viewers would have definitely qualified Figueroa for this list but not for his injury. Oh well, maybe next time.
Luckily in our searches we found something even more bizarre and obscure from the world of weightlifting...and no it's not Hungarian Janos Baranyai's graphic injury(are you sure you want to click that?)
The bizarre moment in question involves Belgium weightlifter Ingeborg Marx's performance at the 2000 Games in Sydney. As far as we can tell -- our Dutch is a bit suspect -- Marx was a decent cyclist who decided she would have a better shot at the Olympics as a weightlifter. She eventually made it to the Olympics but in her shining moment she embarrassed herself in front of the entire world:
We're a classy bunch here are Waikiki Hockey so we'll avoid the toilet humour ... but feel free to lower the bar and post yours in the comment section below. If her accident wasn't funny enough her screeches had to be.
You would have thought that Marx would have had enough of the Olympics but we're reading that she's signed up to be on Belgium's bobsled team for the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
Take a look at the 16 most bizarre Olympic moments in history:
Each day of the 2008 Olympics we're going to find a bizarre clip or story from a past Summer Olympics. Today we'll look at the Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team.
While not technically part of the Olympics, this particular team has to squeeze in here somewhere. We have no plans to do a 'Bizarre Paraympics Moments' segment anytime soon and this story was just too crazy to pass up.
A Spanish writer, Carlos Ribagorda, reported that 10 of the 12 members of the team were not intellectually disabled. In an interesting twist to the story Ribagorda was actually one of the 10 members - so he had the real inside scoop. Ribagorda isn't intellectually disabled but his suspect means of getting the story don't indicate a high level of intelligence. Apparently, when officials approached him to play for the team in Sydney he accepted their offer with the intent of breaking the story later ... after he got his free trip to Australia.
Rules state that to be intellectually disabled a player must have an IQ of 70 or lower (good thing they don't test the major leaguers). According to Ribagorda, none of the athletes were tested to see if they met these standards. The 10 players without disabilities included a lawyer, an engineer and some University students ... I guess they didn't test players ethics either. He also reported that some Spanish athletes participating in other events were without disability as well.
The Basketball team did SO well that a photo of them ended up on the front page of a daily Spainish newspaper. Some of the players were recognized and the plan started to unravel. Ribagorda's article came out and the gig was up, resulting in senior officials retiring in disgrace.
The International Paralympic Committee eventually scrapped the 'athletes with an intellectual disability' category, deciding that determining athlete eligibility was too difficult ... which is incredibly sad for society.
Way to lower the bar Spain! (Information from CNNSI and BBC)
Take a look at the 16 most bizarre Olympic moments in history:
"Waikiki Hockey" is a collection of the most obscure, weird, bizarre sport videos, pictures and stories. The best and brightest make it to the Hall of Fame. If you think we're missing something let us know.
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Sometimes you hear about a movie, book or tv show and you think it could be the greatest thing ever made. This is how we felt when we first heard about 'Puck Fiction'.
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