Call 1-800-ref

C ya Andy!

“In hindsight, did I let it go too far?” he said. “Yeah, probably. I think it was a very correctable mistake, and I probably let it get to me more than it should have. Yeah, sure.”

ACK!

Excuse my English but, This post makes my mind spin at the speed of dark.

A true spam Subject that I just got… Ha! My mind spins at the “speed of dark” all the time!

Sisters of No Mercy

This is stunning! How Power Has Transformed Women’s Tennis (New York Times) Lovely slideshow

Watch the slow-motion videos here. Beautiful work!

WooHoo! U.S. Open starts August 30th.

FIFA fotos

Maybe you didn’t get Football Fever, but these photos are quite stunning.

Best of the World Cup Photography

This too! Excellent work!

Triple Crown

In honor of Duncan Keith’s Norris trophy, I bring you this:

Thanks Chicago Trib. for the stoopid graphic.

Congrats Dunks! A career-high 69 points, Olympic gold, top defenseman honor and the Stanley Cup. BadAssed!

HAHA!

Thanks diplo!

Pain Begins at 125dB

NHL.com is monitoring audio levels at the United Center for the Stanley Cup Finals. Fun Stuff!

Game One:

FootieFEVER!

Bubbz and the Black Notez Kutu Kutu – SO HOT!

Slam DUNC!

Duncan Keith, my Olympic MVP, notches the first goal in the Hawks victory last night over Smashville WOOHOO!
28 minutes of ice time last night, one goal and one assist.

Now a Norris Trophy candidate for leagues best defender.

He led all NHL defensemen in goals (10), assists (38) and points (48) at even-strength. Keith also was proficient on the penalty kill, leading all defensemen with 5 shorthanded points (1 goal, 4 assists).

Keith, 26, was second among all defensemen with 15 multi-point contests, and also excelled defensively with 143 blocked shots and a plus-21 rating. He was second in the NHL with an average of 26:35 of ice time per game. Keith played more than 30 minutes in a game eight times, including a team season-high of 32:40 March 14 against Washington. He averaged 2:58 on the penalty kill and 2:48 on the power play per game.

Fuk YEAH! Doughty and Green are both badassed, but Duncs is the man! He has carried the Hawks D for weeks (due to injuries to Campbell and Johnsson) and he doesn’t take any shit!

Next! Canuuks FAIL!

Damn Swiss Clocks!

This was AMAZING!

Photo Chang W. Lee/New York Times

fō’kəs

Wednesday night watching Shaun White win his second gold medal in the halfpipe I was awed by these pro snowboarders ability to channel every watt of energy in their bodies to the extent that they seem to alter the limits of time and gravity. This is no 5th dimension.

Photo courtesy of UGC Images/Transworld Snowboarding

That same night my hockey team coasted to a fairly easy 10-4 victory over the lowly Gang Green. Been playing this game for a while. Pretty familiar with the stench of a hockey bag, the rituals of stick taping, the poor calls of perpetually under qualified officials and yet, in most game situations, when that puck is on your stick and you know that you should be turning and looking up ice for your centerman to be breaking out, that moment, the briefest of blips in chronology, you can’t look up. That bitch from the other team in the throwback Oilers sweater, breezers hanging over his knees, socks tied on with old skate laces, he’s coming hard after you. The ability to take time into your control, hold the puck, look to the blue line and connect the dots with a tape to tape saucer pass– it just doesn’t happen… You want to breathe, you need clarity, but your monkey-mind overpowers.

The philosopher Hugo Rahner has put it; “To play is to yield oneself to a kind of magic … to enter a world where different laws apply, to be relieved of all the weights that bear it down, to be free, kingly, unfettered and divine.”

Bobby Orr scoring his first Stanley Cup winning goal against St. Louis, May 10th, 1970.

These pros, the masters of their form, make it look too easy! We spectators grow complacent, bitch when player X can’t do Z. Television has flattened everything! Seeing my first live pro baseball game was an eye opening experience. The outfield is HUGE! The time the ball takes to get to the plate from the mound is a blink! I once read that hitting a fastball is the hardest thing in sports. Try the Fastball Reaction Time game. Damn!

Exactly how humans are able to estimate the expected position of a quickly moving ball is unknown. Obviously, this remarkable skill is learned through long practice. Eye-brain-body coordination is acquired only by going through the motions over and over

The Times had a fabulous piece Federer as Religious Experience in August of 2006 that describes the “kinetic Beauty” that is Roger Federer

The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.

“Learn how to do it, then forget you know how.” Italian proverb

In the Zone: The Zen of Sports in Shambhala Sun Andrew Cooper writes:

The zone. All athletes know it, strive for it, prize its attainment. It is that realm of play in which everything-skill, training and mental discipline-comes together, and players feel themselves lifted to a level of peak performance in which limits seem to fall away.

The zone is the essence and pinnacle of the athletic experience, for it reveals that, at their root, sports are a theater for enacting the drama of self-transcendence.

You cannot get into the zone through an act of will; you can only prepare the ground for it to happen. To quote a Zen master, “Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident prone.”

Ace climber  Chris Sharma on focus:

I don’t think I’ve been able to be focus the way that I’ve been when I’m climbing. It totally channels my energy in such a way that I completely lose myself. And that is such a good feeling.

Photo by Corey Rich

In his journal Sharma writes:

These moments are so pure; there is no separation and there is nothing to think about or understand because it’s all right there. The here, the present, the moment. Everything!

I fear that I am loosing my focus in this piece… As an athlete and a photographer, I am acutely aware of the moment. I have never been 24 feet above the halfpipe, never taken a penalty shot against Marty Brodeur, and I dream of the day that I might see Roger’s “great liquid whip.”

Wallace concludes his Federer adoration with this footnote:

great athletes seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, move through space, interact with matter. Granted, what great athletes can do with their bodies are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important — they make up for a lot.

But really watch those crazy kids in their baggy jeans at Cypress Mountain. That last possible moment when you don’t think that extra twist can even occur, BOOM! 1260°!

Focus on the task, the mind closes, and the self falls away. The ice is not so crowded. Oiler dude is moving in slow motion and the path (pass) is clear.