Sports I lustraded

Well, it looks like the push for world domination by the NFL has completed a new offensive to the north The Official site of NFL Canada . Looks like we might need to change their name to the International Football League, or we just need to finally make Canada a state, which may actually not be that far off in the future the way things have been going.

The great news for Canadians is that they can now avoid the harsh winters and stay home and watch football 24hrs a day. The NFL network makes it's Canadian debut just in time for the superbowl, and they have every bit of footage since the dawn of NFL time to rehash and rerun for ever for your sports entertainment pleasure during the off season.

NFL Canada announces:

"It is every football fan's dream. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a television network solely devoted to the most popular sport in North America, professional football. "

You know what my dream is?

That every football fan could name all their elected officials and at least the name of one of their children's friends. But with 24hr football available in addition to all those other sports channels and games on satellite, me thinks the kids of fanatics had better find something else to entertain them. Mommy and daddy will be too busy watching that famous pass from twenty years ago or making sure they know what the whole team had for breakfast to make you any.

Great, the kids rot their brains with 24hr MTV, and now the Jocks have yet another 24hr mind numbing channel of guys in tights throwing balls around and slapping each other on the asses. Just what TV needed and just what the world didn't.

Back in September the AFL football league in Australia experienced it's largest brawl during a game ever. It happened just as the game was about to start and included up to 50 players, officials, coaches and fans. Somehow they managed to calm everyone down and continued with the game.

Now the AFL claims tribunal has declared the game "not fair and a no result" and is suspending players and coaches for as long as five years and up to 400 matches! Wow, when they say Australian Rules, the emphasis is on rules!

Twenty players pled not guilty to bringing the game into disrepute and are appealling the decision. It doesn't sound like they have much of a chance though. Yahoo Sports reports:

AFL QLD chief executive Richard Griffith confirmed the appeal had been received from the North Cairns Tigers. "Our commission ... will meet soon to determine our position," he said. "It will decide whether to sit (sic) up an independent appeals board."

Sounds like they are getting right on that appeal thing. Good for them. Fighting at a match with the officials, coaches and fans? I know aussie sports are a litte rougher when compared to some american sports, but I'm glad to hear the voice of reason prevails and these jockos got what they deserved for letting their testosterone get the better of them when they were supposed to be playing a game, having fun and entertaining the masses.

I wonder if our NBA friends who beat their fans will get anything remotely similar?

This post at Rotten Tomatoes Forums - Looks like the end of ESPN NFL Football Series:

"this isn't that bad for football fans because Madden was the overwhelming favorite anyways. I mean it's a low move but still, it's not THAT bad. But EA better not buy out the NBA license, because Sega's NBA 2k series is FAR superior to EA's NBA LIVE series, meaning if EA does indeed buy out the NBA license too, then the best basketball video game series out there will die. Well Sega can still make games, but who wants to play with fake players?"

Shows how sports fans are. It's not that bad as long as it's not our game that's affected but no matter what we don't want to play unless we get to have our favorite superstar or team on the screen. It's not about football or basketball, it's all about the color of jerseys.