#Predicting The Biggest Gaming Controversies of 20 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burkymakar · 3 years

Note

Hi! I was wondering if you could post the Athletic's Olympic roster predictions please?!

ok here’s a lot under the cut, i’ve included men and womens for both Canada and USA.

Canada Mens

Remember how the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang unfolded? Canada won a hard-earned bronze medal playing a stingy brand of defence under coach Willie Desjardins and lost only a single game in regulation – to Germany in the semifinals – before defeating the Czech Republic to earn a place on the podium.

Just one thing was missing: NHL players. Hockey’s crème de la crème. Three years ago, the NHL decided not to participate in the Winter Olympics for a lot of reasons that made little sense to the hockey world which made the Games look a little like the Spengler Cup.

Thankfully, as part of the collective bargaining extension signed last summer, the NHL is returning to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing — assuming the logistical details can be ironed out among the league, the IIHF and the IOC and that the pandemic is under some sort of control.

With apologies to all the players who competed so hard for Canada in 2018, the selection process this time around will be far more difficult because of the staggering depth of the talent pool.

One thing Canada never lacks at the highest level of hockey is oodles of options at both forward and defence. The players who don’t make the grade for Canada would fill out a ‘B’ team that would contend for gold.

How might Team Canada 2022 look? Thought you’d never ask. In our eternal quest to be helpful to the managerial powers-that-be, here are our projections for a 25-player roster, which is what the IOC permitted for Sochi in 2014.

As always, remember that in Canada, for an exercise such as this one, there really aren’t many bad options. Just too many good ones.

The last time men’s hockey had a best-on-best tournament was back in 2016 and if that World Cup taught us anything, it is that the younger generation of players dominating the game today had no stage fright whatsoever when they were got a chance to play together as North America’s 23-and-under team. They were fun to watch and unlucky not to advance to the medal round.

In previous Olympics, sometimes Canada’s management team would opt for veteran players over young up-and-comers because of a fear that they might be overwhelmed by the moment. Team Canada’s biggest Olympic bobble in the NHL era came in 2006 and you wonder what might have happened if they’d injected the youth and vigour of Sidney Crosby onto a team that seemed slow and plodding on the big ice of Turin.

By contrast, the decision to go with the 20-year-old Drew Doughty in Vancouver proved quite prescient – he was one of the key contributors that year and then again in 2014 in Sochi, as Canada won back-to-back golds.

Nowadays, Doughty is one of the more polarizing players in the game. He still plays a ton of minutes for the Los Angeles Kings and oozes confidence. On a blue line that features a whole lot of next-gen talent – from Cale Makar and Shea Theodore to Thomas Chabot and Morgan Rielly — chances are they’ll opt for one or two steadying veterans on the blue line. We’ve selected Alex Pietrangelo and Doughty to fill out what is otherwise a talented but relatively green defence corps that’ll get the puck up to the forwards, with great dispatch and accuracy.

Canada’s 2014 gold-medal team won with a stingy brand of hockey and timely saves from Carey Price, whenever he was called upon. That can be a challenge sometimes – playing goal on a team that surrenders few Grade-A opportunities and tests your level of focus and concentration because there will be the occasional breakdown that you will need to be in a position to respond to.

Long-term, Carter Hart will likely take over from Price as Canada’s go-to starter in goal, but there are still some inconsistencies in his game that drops him down to the No. 2 position. One wild card I considered here was the Devils’ Mackenzie Blackwood, who had an excellent rookie season last year and was off to a good start this year as well. Chances are if Blues’ GM Doug Armstrong has the final say, Jordan Binnington would likely be the third goalie on this roster.

All of which leads us to the hardest, most controversial decisions which involve the forward group. There’s the usual problem of having too many natural centres on the roster and so someone will have to switch to the right wing. Among the elite-level centres in Canada, both Nathan MacKinnon and Mark Scheifele are right-handed shots and could swing over to the wing. One likely will have to and in this scenario, it’s Scheifele, if only so that MacKinnon and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who developed some familiarity playing for Team North America in the World Cup, can play together.

That creates some flexibility if the coach – we’re picking Barry Trotz – ultimately wants to shift Nugent-Hopkins up to Connor McDavid’s line.

Splitting Crosby and Brad Marchand may also just be temporary. In 2016, those two along with Patrice Bergeron were the clear top line for Canada, and scored all the important goal. But Bergeron will be 36 by the time the Olympics roll around, and thus, didn’t make the final group here. You could theoretically put Marchand, Crosby and MacKinnon (playing right wing) together on an all-Nova Scotia line and the chemistry could be magical.

The beauty of Canada’s roster is the versatility of so many of the better forwards – Ryan O’Reilly, Sean Couturier, Brayden Point and Bo Horvat could all play the wing as well as down the middle. Chances are, every line that Canada rolls out will include two natural centres making face-off match-ups easier for the coaching staff, if they can fit both a right- and a left-hand centre onto each line.

The bottom line: With a player pool so deep, Canada has incredible talent and flexibility. Talent enough to get the go-ahead goal in a tight game.

Flexibility enough to juggle lines as needed and get the defensive match-ups as required. The greatest coaching challenge is usually selling a one-for-all and all-for-one vision. If a star player is forced to adopt a secondary role, he’ll need to handle it with maturity and grace and cannot start pouting because he isn’t the first option on the PP or the PK the way he might be on his club team.

Managing egos is as big a part of the job for the coaching staff as setting lines and spooling out ice time. — Eric Duhatschek

I’m going to keep this very simple.

Hockey Canada has a formula. It involves a few key rules that have helped Team Canada dominate best-on-best competition to an unprecedented degree over the past decade:

1) Everyone plays on their strong side.

2) Wherever possible, bring pairs of players that play together in the NHL so you have an immediate chemistry advantage in a short tournament.

3) Bring extra centres and just have them play on the wall.

4) Experience and tenure matter. If you were on the last team and are still elite, you have an edge in the event all other factors are equal.

Now, Hockey Canada has also opted to play grinding, low event hockey over the past decade. It’s cynical, it’s ruthless and it delivers gold.

However, this approach stinks. It shows a certain ruthless focus, which I appreciate, but it actually lacks any grander ambition.

Hockey Canada could aspire for more. They should aspire for greatness.

They should aspir for a national men’s team with the purpose of articulating a national vision of a beautiful, skillful and yet still assertive and physical two-way brand of hockey. Canada’s men’s team could play hockey beautifully if Canada decided to play hockey beautifully, and that’s what this team is going to do — within the framework of Hockey Canada’s otherwise winning formula.

Right off the top, I’ve built the fastest first line in the history of the sport. McDavid moves to the wing mostly for handedness reasons. A top line of McDavid, MacKinnon and Mathew Barzal are going to test the limits of what’s possible to accomplish in hockey playing at the highest possible speed.

Until one of Marchand, Crosby and Bergeron fall off and aren’t among the NHL’s best individually, they’re a set line for Hockey Canada. This is the easiest choice there is. They have chemistry, experience, swagger as a group, and they bring the DNA of Hockey Canada’s decade-of-dominance to this forward group.

The third line is where things get interesting, particularly because this is where the toughest omission from my team — Jonathan Huberdeau — kicks in. Ultimately I’m going to make a decision to prefer John Tavares’ experience, ability to cover in the event of a centre injury and his chemistry with Mitch Marner over Huberdeau’s electricity.

I’m not bringing Rob Zamuner or Kris Draper to fill a role or anything, but my fourth-line definitely has the identity of the highest-end possible version of an energy line. Honestly, in some matchups, this trio may well end up being Hockey Canada’s matchup line ahead of the Crosby line, since it’s just a collection of the countries most willful two-way players.

I’m bringing Steven Stamkos and Couturier as extra forwards, basically two centremen — a lefty and a righty — which means snubbing Bo Horvat and Claude Giroux, my toughest omissions besides Huberdeau.

We weren’t asked to name coaches, but I should add that I’ve named Pete DeBoer and Jared Bednar as assistant coaches, partly because they’re deserving and partly so that my top-four can get reps together throughout the NHL season leading up to the 2022 Games.

There’s a factor in the international game that I still don’t think Hockey Canada has fully incorporated into their player selection process, but they really should: Puck-moving defenders are everything.

Which is why Samuel Girard — probably my most surprising selection — is a slam dunk no brainer for this team and is likely to play a prominent role. Thanks to Bednar’s colluding with me to win a gold medal, he’ll spend more time with Makar in the season leading up to the Olympics (although they’ve spent 200 5-on-5 minutes together the past two seasons, so they’re not exactly strangers). Same goes for Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore, who have played together a bit at 5-on-5 in the early going for Vegas (about 35 minutes so far), but will become the Golden Knight’s fixture top pair in 2021-22 for the purposes of Olympic preparation.

Doughty makes the team because he’s still performing at a high enough level that his status as the most important Hockey Canada veteran defender matters. And Morgan Rielly will be his partner on a mobile third pair, narrowly edging out Giordano.

Ryan Ellis is custom made for the international game and my Hockey Canada will have zero reservation bumping him up the lineup if injuries call for it.

In net, Price and Hart are coming to represent the past and the future while Jordan Binnington gets the nod to round out my trio of netminders. I’m comfortable enough with all three goaltenders that whoever is performing the best ahead of the tournament will go into the round-robin as my defacto starter. — Thomas Drance

Canada Womens

Picking a Canadian roster a year ahead of an Olympics is never easy.

And this time around, looking ahead to Beijing 2022, might be harder than ever, as the years since the 2018 Games have been unlike any other post-Olympic period for Team Canada.

First of all, Canada is coming off a silver medal finish at the last games in Pyeongchang — the first time that’s happened in two decades. If that wasn’t difficult enough, on the eve of the 2019 world championships, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League announced it would fold after nearly 12 years in operation, taking away most Canadians’ daily training environments. Canada ultimately lost in the semifinal of the tournament and took home a bronze medal, the first time Team Canada hasn’t won’t at least silver at a world championship. Then, the 2019 4 Nations Cup was cancelled due to contract disputes between the Swedish Ice Hockey Association and the Swedish women’s team.

On top of all of that, there have been further complications brought by a global pandemic, which led to the cancellation of the 2020 4 Nations Cup and the 2020 women’s world championships.

Essentially, the women’s hockey calendar through the first three years of the Olympic quad cycle has been almost entirely wiped out.

“This quad had been a huge challenge, not only for our program but certainly for women’s hockey globally,” said Gina Kingsbury, the manager of the senior women’s national team. “We’re sitting at Year 3 of our quad with a very little amount of critical experience that we were able to share across our athlete pool to be able to evaluate them and be able to prepare them for an Olympic Games.”

The last time Team Canada played at an international event was 660 days ago at the 2019 worlds. Since then, they’ve relied on games against the U.S. national team and mini-camps throughout the season hosted by Hockey Canada, but even those have been largely put on hold due to the pandemic.

Still, with all that being said, as part of The Athletic’s one year out from the Olympics package, we are going to try our best to project the 2022 Team Canada women’s Olympic roster.

Guided by 2018

To start, let’s take a brief comparative look at who played for Canada in 2018 and who would make the team today. Players selected for the 2022 team are highlighted in red.

FORWARDDEFENCEGOAL

Meghan AgostaRenata FastShannon Szabados

Bailey BramLaura FortinoAnn-Renée Desbiens

Emily ClarkBrigette LacquetteGeneviève Lacasse

Mélodie DaoustJocelyne Larocque

Haley IrwinMeaghan Mikkelson

Brianne JennerLauriane Rougeau

Rebecca Johnston

Sarah Nurse

Marie-Philip Poulin

Jill Saulnier

Natalie Spooner

Laura Stacey

Blayre Turnbull

Jennifer Wakefield

From 2018 to 2022, we’re projecting 15 returnees among the 23 roster spots. Nine up front, four on the blue line, and two in goal. It’s not a ton of turnover between the four years, but there are still several spots for younger players to break onto the senior national team and for others to make their Olympic debuts.

Now, let’s look at the projection.

How did I arrive at these names with so few evaluation opportunities?

Well, despite the cancellation, Hockey Canada still named its 23-player roster for the 2020 world championships.

And, in early January, 47 players were invited to a training camp at Hockey Canada’s home base in Calgary. Thirty-five athletes attended the two-week camp — players such as Rebecca Johnston and Sarah Nurse were invited but unable to attend — and were split into two teams for scrimmages, with the line rushes and defence pairings posted daily.

It’s not a huge sample size, but using the previous Olympic and World Championship rosters, and taking stock of the two-week camp, which ended on Friday, you can get a pretty good idea of where things stand one year out from Beijing 2022.

As mentioned above, this roster consists of 15 returnees from the 2018 Games. And 22 of the 23 players projected here were named to Canada’s roster for the cancelled 2020 Women’s World Championship. Brigette Lacquette is the only player on my roster who didn’t make the World Championship roster, as she was unable to play.

These lines and pairings certainly aren’t set in stone, but they were consistently used at last week’s camp, except for Nurse on the line with Emily Clark and Blayre Turnbull, as Nurse did not attend camp.

To start, there are some names on this roster that should be no-brainers.

Marie-Philip Poulin, 29, is now over a decade into her international career and is arguably the greatest player of all-time in the women’s game. She’s Canada’s captain and scored the game-winning goal in the gold medal games of her first two Olympic appearances (2010 and 2014). A knee injury kept her mostly out of the 2019 world championships, but she’s healthy now. And it would take something completely unforeseen for Poulin to not be in Beijing.

Her frequent winger for club (the now-defunct CWHL Les Canadiennes) and country, Mélodie Daoust, is also a natural choice. With three goals and seven points in five games, she led Canada in scoring at the last Olympics. And scored one of the most impressive shootout goals in the gold medal game.

Natalie Spooner and Brianne Jenner have been consistent staples for Team Canada in the last two Olympic Games, with Spooner making her World Championship debut in 2011, and Jenner in 2012. The duo ranked No. 1 and 2 in scoring for Canada at the 2019 world championships. Spooner scored six goals and 10 points in seven games, only one goal behind Hilary Knight, who led the tournament with 11 points. Jenner wasn’t far behind with nine points.

Lauriane Rougeau and Jocelyne Larocque are also steady veterans, albeit on the blue line, who have the 2014 and 2018 Olympics under their belts. While, Nurse and Clark, who played together at the University of Wisconsin, both made their Olympic debuts in 2018 and should be natural choices to return in 2022. Similarly, Fast made her debut in 2018 and has established herself as one of the top defenders in the women’s game.

Youth vs. experience

I wanted to strike a balance on this roster with returning players, veterans and young players, or those making their Olympic debut. Because according to Kingsbury, as much as you want to win a gold medal, you have to keep an eye to the future.

“Often you tend to lean on what you know, and the unknowns of the young players obviously is a little scary, but I do think we’re at a point in our program that we do have to sometimes take calculated risks,” she explained. “We’re aiming at winning a gold medal in Beijing, but we’re also making sure that we’ve got a sustainable success here down the road as well and that we’re looking ahead in the future of our program.”

With that front of mind, there are some obvious omissions on this projected roster.

Both Johnston and Laura Fortino, who played in 2018, were among the final cuts for the 2020 world championships. I left them off this roster.

Shannon Szabados was a steady presence in Canada’s crease from her Olympic debut in 2010 until 2019. She recently had her first child and is currently not playing. She could certainly decide to come back but will be 35 by the next games and 39 by 2026.

So, this feels like a natural time for a passing of the torch in the crease to younger goalies like Ann-Renée Desbiens, 26, and Emerance Maschmeyer, 26, who have been given a lot of the net over the last two and a half years, along with Geneviève Lacasse, 31.

Similarly, Meaghan Mikkelson, a three-time Olympian, was one of the most experienced players at last week’s camp, with just under 50 games for Canada at the Olympics (14) and world championships (35) over the last decade. She last played in 2017-18, taking a leave after the birth of her second child. This will be her second comeback to the national team.

This was one of the more difficult decisions for my projected blue line, and I assume this will be the same for the real decision-makers at Hockey Canada. Mikkelson will be 37 when the Games begin. If she can re-elevate her game, she can be a force on the ice. But could, say, Claire Thompson, 23, have a similar impact?

If we assume Rougeau, 30, and Larocque, 31, make this team, with two other returning blueliners in Fast and Lacquette, the Canadian blue line isn’t going to be inexperienced. So bringing Thompson to Beijing over Mikkelson could be one of those “looking ahead in the future” decisions.

There could be a similar decision in looking at a player like Erin Ambrose, who was the most difficult omission for me. Ambrose was one of the last cuts for the 2018 Olympics, but played her way onto the 2019 and 2020 World Championship rosters. She could realistically do the same for Beijing. But again, how much does Hockey Canada want to look forward to the future?

Admittedly, Ambrose, Mikkelson and even Meghan Agosta — a four-time Olympian who is a full-time Vancouver police officer who hasn’t play for Canada since 2017-18 — could be the ultimate wild cards for 2022. However, for this exercise, I decided that if I was undecided between a player on the way up and an older player, I erred on the side of the former.

This brings us to the Olympic rookies, projected to be: Jamie Lee Rattray, Victoria Bach, Sarah Fillier, Loren Gabel, Jaime Bourbonnais, Micah Zandee-Hart, and the aforementioned Maschmeyer and Thompson.

All eight of these rookies were named to the 2020 World Championship roster, and they were all featured in the 2019 world championships except for Bach and Fillier, who were among the final cuts. Rattray, 28, has been in the Hockey Canada program for a while now and has seemed to solidify a place within the core group. Bach was set to make her international tournament debut at the world championships, and while that debut has been delayed, her standing on the team remains.

There are two young stars to watch for here, too, in Gabel and Fillier.

Gabel, 23, made her senior team debut at the 2018 4 Nations Cup and won the Patty Kazmaier Award — the biggest individual honour in women’s college hockey — in 2019 after scoring 40 goals and 69 points in 38 games, including 11 game-winning goals for Clarkson University. She graduated that year as the all-time leading scorer with 213 points on 116 goals and 97 assists through 160 games.

Fillier, 20, was nominated for the Patty Kazmaier as a rookie at Princeton in 2018-19 after she put up nearly two points per game (1.97) to lead NCAA women’s hockey. Fillier, a centre, also led her team in scoring (22 goals and 57 points in 29 games) and was named the National Rookie of the Year. Like Gabel, Fillier made her senior team debut at the 2018 4 Nations Cup.

These two have been on the rise and should certainly crack the 2021 World Championship and 2022 Olympics rosters.

Bourbonnais, Thompson and Zandee-Hart further make up the young up and coming core of Hockey Canada’s roster, specifically on the blue line.

As mentioned, all of the above players were named to the 2020 World Championship roster, which shows a lot of trust from the decision-makers to put them into best-on-best competition. The world championships is often a dress rehearsal for the Olympics, too. That they were all chosen over veterans like Johnston and Fortino means a lot.

Finally, there are some other young players in Hockey Canada’s talent pool to be highlighted here, such as Élizabeth Giguère, Emma Maltais and Daryl Watts.

Giguère won the Patty Kazmaier last season, while Watts currently leads the nation with 11 goals and 21 points through 10 games to start the NCAA season. There are some key complications impacting their Olympic chances.

None of the three were at the recent camp, a key evaluator for the 2021 world championships. Kingsbury said “it was impossible” to bring any U.S.-based athletes to camp due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. (Fillier decided to take the year off from Princeton with the questions around if Ivy League schools would have a season and the Olympic considerations in mind.)

“Having our college players not here is definitely another challenge,” she said. “You’re trying to scout online, and it’s hard to see what they do in college and try to figure out if that’s going to have an impact at the international level.”

So while they are talented, without camps and potentially cracking the 2021 World Championship roster, it will be hard to jump into the 2022 Olympics. Especially if they are trying to take spots from returning players such as Turnbull, Jill Saulnier and Laura Stacey, who have all shown they can be reliable forwards who can play up and down the lineup.

For everything laid out here, all it takes is a really good tournament or training camp by one or two players to change my entire roster. Every year before the Olympics, Hockey Canada invites its Olympic hopefuls to Calgary for a six-to-seven month “centralized” camp before the Games.

Typically, there are some surprises on the roster, as Kingsbury said some players come in “like sponges” and elevate their game.

Such is the difficulty in this exercise. Anything can happen once we officially get into the final year of the Olympic quad. But regardless, Canada is going to have a deep talent pool to chose from when it comes time for Beijing 2022.

USA Mens

I remember covering the 2010 United States Olympic men’s hockey team — that came within a Sidney Crosby overtime goal of winning a gold medal — and before the tournament wondering: How the hell are they going to fill out this roster?

Ten years later, there has been a seismic change in the hockey landscape at the highest levels in the United States. Depth is no longer an issue for the U.S.

We often joke Canada could enter two teams in these best-on-best tournaments and both would be gold-medal worthy. The U.S. is not so far behind that and it’s illustrated by the difficult decisions we’ve made with this lineup and the hard decisions that await whoever builds the 2022 version of Team USA. There will be no shortage of heated debate about those tabbed to wear the red, white and blue and, of course, those whose names do not end up on the 25-man roster.

In starting to narrow down our roster here, we hearkened back to that scrappy 2010 team built by Brian Burke and David Poile and coached by Ron Wilson and looked for clues as to how to build not just the most talented team but the team most likely to win gold. What was it that allowed that group to defy projections and push a superstar-laden Canadian team to overtime?

Conversely, what was it that led a talented American roster to fall short of a medal in Sochi four years later and to flame out spectacularly in the 2016 World Cup? You will hear over and over that this version of Team USA will be the most talented ever iced in a best-on-best tournament. Maybe. But we focused in this exercise on building not just the most talented American roster but a team that can overcome disappointment, obstacles and the unexpected en route to what would be the first American gold medal in men’s hockey since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.

Let the shame-talking begin. Yes. No room on this roster for Johnny Gaudreau, Zach Parise or Paul Stastny. No room for 2019 first overall pick Jack Hughes. Sorry.

This is as good a team down the middle as any Team USA has iced, starting with Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel. A little bit of everything from this group of centers including solid leadership, ability to play shutdown hockey and, of course, create offense. That meant excluding worthy pivots like Kevin Hayes and Hughes even though one former coach and executive we spoke to felt Hughes would continue to evolve and push his way onto the roster before the end of 2021.

As for the wingers, there is so much to like from this group including the size and speed of Blake Wheeler, Jake Guentzel and Anders Lee and the offensive creativity of J.T. Miller and Kyle Connor. And of course, who will every team in the tournament love to hate from the word go? Matthew Tkachuk.

We kept Stanley Cup champion and Olympic shootout hero T.J. Oshie (T.J. Sochi as he is known after his exploits in 2014) given his experience. If you wanted more speed on the right side, you could go with Bryan Rust and/or one of our favorite emerging players, Conor Garland. We love the natural connection between usual Winnipeg linemates Connor and Wheeler and we wanted Stanley Cup champion Blake Coleman on this roster for his versatility and his ability to play both ends of the ice.

At one point, we had Gaudreau as one of our extra forwards in place of Max Pacioretty but the experts we spoke to felt Pacioretty needed to be on the roster and the fact that Gaudreau has struggled to produce in the playoffs we went with Pacioretty. Both the coach and former player we spoke to suggested two Brocks, Nelson and Boeser, and Columbus captain Nick Foligno should be considered. Another dark horse forward in the former player’s view is Alex Iafallo.

There will be no more critical decisions for Team USA’s management team than the ones made on the blue line.

The Beijing Games will be played on North American-sized ice so it will be critical to include not only those defenders who can skate fluidly and make good, quick decisions with the puck but who can defend vigorously. Team USA’s entry in the World Cup in 2016 is a good illustration of why you should never build a team with the notion of facing one particular opponent. But given Canada is in the same round-robin pool as the U.S., the ability to defend a physical, skilled team like Canada will be paramount.

As in all things, the balance will be crucial. This group is split evenly right shot/left shot and does have a good mix of youthful zest and solid experience. Some may quibble with leaving a guy like Zach Werenski off the roster, especially given his familiarity with Seth Jones. Fair enough. But a number of NHL sources we spoke to felt Torey Krug needed to be on this team.

Jeff Petry has established himself as one of the most effective defensemen in the game excelling in all situations and playing more often than not against opposing teams’ top talent. Jaccob Slavin, who is the motor that drives the talented Carolina blue line, must be on this roster. Charlie McAvoy has emerged from the shadows of Zdeno Chara to become the Bruins’ undisputed number one defender and he will be a key part of this blue line.

So having to leave Werenski off the list of eight is difficult but a function of the breadth and depth of options that will be available. Others who were on the radar included young John Marino, who has been so impressive in Pittsburgh, and the venerable Ryan Suter, who is a perennial participant in these best-on-best tournaments.

Goaltending is probably the most clearly established position for Team USA. Connor Hellebuyck is the defending Vezina Trophy winner. He’s an elite netminder who has endured his own share of ups and downs en route to his current lofty status.

John Gibson, playing behind a rebuilding Ducks team, won’t have the gaudy numbers that other top NHL netminders boast but he is recognized around the hockey world as an elite netminder and he will push Hellebuyck for the starter’s role in Beijing.

Ben Bishop’s lingering health issues excuse him from our list but if the multiple time Vezina Trophy finalist went on a roll later this season or to start the 2021-22 season he could play his way into the picture. Two-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick is Hall of Fame worthy but past his prime so we went younger with Thatcher Demko, who was stellar in the bubble playoffs for Vancouver.

We’ll admit one former NHL coach and executive with whom we shared our roster felt unequivocally Bishop should be on the team ahead of Demko. And one longtime netminder and analyst felt that the Kings’ Cal Petersen in Los Angeles might actually jump over Gibson by the time the Olympics roll around. — Scott Burnside

Let’s start with the fourth line. I was chatting with Blackhawks director of amateur scouting Mark Kelley for another story on the way about Team USA and he suggested this one. We were debating the merits of Jack Hughes on the Olympic team and he said, if he were to do it, he’d throw him out there with the two Tkachuks.

“No one will get near him,” Kelley said of Hughes. “It’ll be like he’s walking his two pit bulls.”

To pull it off, we’re probably costing a guy like Jake Guentzel a deserving spot, but it’s fun. I like the idea of T.J. Oshie as an option for shootouts but just couldn’t squeeze him in. I’d also like to find a spot for Joe Pavelski, who is averaging like three goals per game this season, but am skewing younger because we’re a year out. This team is loaded.

Quinn Hughes has gone from a guy knocking on the door to make the roster to the top pair over the last year. Just think of how good he’ll be a year from now. Zach Werenski could be penciled in to play in the place of Ryan Suter but it would be great to have Suter’s Olympic experience available in the top six. It’s also possible we’re suffering from some recency bias following Werenski’s slow start. Adam Fox, Neal Pionk and Matt Grzelcyk all have to be on a watch list this season.

The debate in goal will be about who starts between Gibson and Hellebuyck but the most interesting slot might be No. 3. Chances are, that goalie isn’t playing, so I’m bringing the future of American goaltending — world junior gold medalist Spencer Knight — to get experience on the big stage and soak in the experience much like a young Jonathan Quick did in 2010. — Craig Custance

Team USA is due in best-on-best hockey.

They lost the bronze medal game at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. They were embarrassed at the 2016 World Cup.

Now they’ve got a whole new generation of stars ready to bring USA Hockey back to gold-medal contention.

The difficulty in this exercise of selecting the roster for the Beijing Olympics is proof of how things got to another level for USA Hockey over the past decade.

It’s probably a crime to leave off T.J. Sochi but there’s plenty of time for me to change my mind before next year. Anders Lee, Jake Guentzel, Blake Coleman, Bryan Rust, Chris Kreider and James van Riemsdyk are among other names I passed over for now. It speaks to the elite U.S. depth. I’m probably one of the few who has young Brady Tkachuk on this roster this far out but, believe me, when we get closer to the final roster picks next December/January, he will have worked his way on to a lot of people’s lists.

I may also be one of the few to select Kevin Hayes but I wanted the extra center on the roster and given the fact the tournament will be played on North American-sized ice, I like his big body as a factor.

Four lefties and four righties, talk about balance in this defense group. I do worry I put too much offense on here but I’ve got my penalty-killing units in Slavin-Jones and McDonagh-Petry. Obviously, it’s tough to leave off a quality veteran like Suter and no doubt USA Hockey may not. Zach Werenski and Cam Fowler are other names to monitor over the year. But I really like the balance in those eight I put down.

Not much to debate in goal as Hellebuyck-Gibson is pretty much locked in at this point as the 1-2 punch. Now, I went with youth as the No. 3 with Demko but obviously, a healthy Ben Bishop or a resurgent Jonathan Quick would force USA Hockey’s hand. — Pierre LeBrun

USA Womens

It’s been nearly three years since USA Hockey forward Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson unleashed her gold-medal winning shootout goal at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The “Oops I Did it Again“ move shook Canadian netminder Shannon Szabados right out of her pads and sent the United States back home with their first goal medal since 1998.

Much has changed in the women’s hockey landscape since the national team was paraded around the United States media circuit. From “Ellen” to “The Tonight Show” to some players visiting the White House, we seemed on track to see the best leadup to the next Olympics ever.

However, the U.S. women’s team hasn’t competed in an official tournament since the April 2019 women’s worlds in Finland and has had very few competitive games since. It’s been a rocky road that has been only further complicated by the pandemic. The last official roster we got from USA Hockey was ahead of the cancelled 2020 world championships.

The 2022 Winter Olympics are officially one year away and soon we can expect USA Hockey to name a roster for the 2021 worlds and enter residency in the fall ahead of selecting the roster for the Beijing Games. Here is a look at all that has happened since the Pyeongchang Games and what we predict the final U.S. Olympic roster will look like.

The rundown

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded as Team USA traveled to Finland for the 2019 world championship — their last official tournament. New head coach Bob Corkum made some noticeable roster adjustments for that tournament, including bringing back the final cuts from the 2018 Olympic roster: Alex Carpenter and Megan Bozek. Kelly Pannek, Annie Pankowski and the return of 2014 Olympian Michelle Picard were other notable additions.

As Team USA was competing on the ice, they were also paving a future for professional women’s sports off the ice. Players made a bold statement with the #ForTheGame movement, vowing not to play for an existing professional league in North America. That was a loud and clear message to then-NWHL commissioner Dani Rylan. The movement has since evolved into the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association and the #DreamGap tour.

Games were already sparse when the Swedish national team held its own boycott for better conditions. Unlike what unfolded after the U.S. held out of the 2017 worlds, Sweden and its players did not reach an agreement and the 4 Nations Cup was canceled.

In lieu of 4 Nations, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada held a joint training camp in Pennsylvania. Canada opted for a young roster for the training camp, while the U.S. went with the usual suspects.

The next scheduled official tournament was the 2020 worlds. However, the pandemic shut that down and we haven’t seen USA Hockey in competition since. COVID-19 also greatly affected the PWHPA’s second year. Some players hit the ice last month in Tampa, but the organization has not yet been able to activate all of its five hub cities.

The 2020 world championship roster was announced and likely gives us the best glimpse at what USA Hockey will roll with as we approach the one year mark from the 2022 Olympics.

2020 world championship rosterFORWARDSDEFENDERSGOALIES

Brianna DeckerLee SteckleinAlex Cavallini

Hannah BrandtCayla BarnesMaddie Rooney

Hayley ScamurraMegan KellerAerin Frankel

Hilary KnightEmily Matheson

Kelly PannekMegan Bozek

Dani CameranesiKacey Bellamy

Kendall Coyne-SchofieldSavannah Harmon

Amanda Kessel

Jesse Compher

Alex Carpenter

Britta Curl

Grace Zumwinkle

Abby Roque

Roster changes

Notably missing from this roster compared to the 2018 Olympic team are Meghan Duggan, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, and Monique Lamoureaux-Morando. Duggan has since retired and it is unclear if USA Hockey is permanently moving on from the Lamoureux twins, who both returned to the team in November 2019 after each giving birth to their first child.

Defender Emily Matheson has announced she is expecting a baby boy in June 2021. Shelly Picard, who returned for the 2019 worlds, has also effectively retired and now serves as the deputy commissioner of the NWHL.

In goal, it would appear Nicole Hensley is on the outside looking in. Katie Burt and Aerin Frankel might be the two netminders Corkum brings in to join Maddie Rooney and Alex Cavallini. Overall, Corkum has shown he isn’t afraid to mix in some new faces with those synonymous with USA Hockey, such as Hilary Knight, Kacey Bellamy and new captain Kendall Coyne Schofield.

Annie Pankowski had a great world championship in 2019 but did not land on the 2020 roster. She was also missing from the 53-player roster tapped for an evaluation camp in October 2020, while younger players like Jincy Dunne, Natalie Snodgrass and Britta Curl were present.

Corkum emphasized in October the importance of bringing in new players and facilitating internal competition.

“We have a nice blend of youth and veteran talent here and the young players are certainly pushing the older players. And the older players aren’t ready to give it up,” Corkum said in a USA Hockey video recap.

Predictions

It is always difficult to make Olympic predictions, especially when USA Hockey hasn’t hit the ice in so long. I get the impression, though, that Corkum and USA Hockey are ready to shake things up. The roster for the 2021 worlds won’t be a complete youth movement, but it will feature some rising stars who have proven themselves in the 2019-20 Rivalry Series and in the NCAA. Here is my best guess at the 2022 Olympic Roster:

The 2020 world championship roster is the best indicator we have right now and I think we’ll see that team begin to take form as the go-to roster. I came up with line pairings based on the 2018 Olympics, 2019 worlds, and the 2019-20 Rivalry Series.

Alex Carpenter and Megan Bozek should make the next Olympics, though I’m more confident in Bozek than Carpenter.

Both are extremely skilled and are two of the few players currently getting in competitive games overseas. That said, there are a lot of good, young forwards coming up in the USA Hockey system. Abby Roque and Jesse Compher, for example, showed they are ready to play with Olympians in the 2019-20 Rivalry Series.

Roque, the 2020 Bob Allen USA Hockey Player of the Year, is an elite center and all signs point to her having a stellar international career. She scored two impressive goals in the Rivalry Series and injected some much-needed energy into USA Hockey coming off the lackluster performance at the 2019 November camp.

Last year would have marked the second consecutive world championship for Boston University product Jesse Compher. An injury kept her away from the Rivalry Series, but expect her to be back in the rotation. She has a great combination of size and skill for a USA Hockey team that is equal parts fast and furious on the ice.

Making the USA Hockey roster as a defender is tough, but ultimately, I think Matheson will need more time to return. I predict Savannah Harmon and Jincy Dunne will be the two vying for a spot this year, while Matheson will go for hers in 2022. I give the edge to the youth.

In net, Cavanelli and Rooney seem to be the mainstays for Corkum. Hensley attended the October evaluation camp, while Katie Burt did not. Frankel making the worlds roster indicates to me that she is being prepared for international competition.

As a journalist very fond of the eye test, this exercise was difficult, but here is to hoping we get to see players hit the ice for the red, white, and blue sooner rather than later.

#they haven't released other countries yet #but if u want them just let me know #yellowpinkrose #askos

2 notes · View notes

sticky-wicket-urn · 3 years

Text

IPL Round Up: Week 1

Toby Reynolds, 18/04/2021

It is one week into the start of the IPL and to everyone’s surprise, Mumbai Indians are not top! RCB have taken the tournament by storm, winning three from three under Virat Kohli’s leadership. At the other end of the table, Sunrises Hyderabad are propping up the table without a win. Although they have played two of the top sides, pundits and fans expected a much better start for Hydrabad.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

RCB have always had a star-studded side but this seems to be the year that it has finally come together. Kohli has moved to the top of the order to replace Aaron Finch, allowing Maxwell to slip in at number four. Maxwell went all of last season without scoring a fifty or hitting any sixes. This season everything seems to have clicked for him and he has returned to the player we know him to be. Maxwell is the leading run scorer with 176 runs at an average of almost 60 with a strike rate of 150. He has been ably assisted by AB de Villiers, who has come in towards the end of the innings and really excelled with a strike rate of 190! He has played two match winning performances so far: taking RCB right to the death against Mumbai and hit 76 against KKR today.

RCB have also been helped on the bowling front by leading wicket taker Harshal Patel and New Zealand pace man Kyle Jamieson. Patel took five in the first match and has continued his form since. Jamieson has been more expensive than Patel but has also chipped in with some handy runs down the order. RCB also have a threatening spin trio of Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed and Yuzvendra Chahal. All have had impacts on the matches but none with a match winning performance. As the tournament continues, I expect them to take more wickets and become more dangerous with the balls due to the pitches wearing.

Delhi Capitals

Last years runners up have had a varied start to season with a high scoring win and tight loss. They have an Indian packed batting line up with fifties for Dhawan, Shaw and Pant so far and have relied on Woakes in the first match and Rabada in the second to take wickets alongside opening bowler Avesh Khan. Surprise package of last season, Anrich Nortje is yet to play due to Woakes’ performances in the first matches while Nortje was playing for South Africa. It is likely he will come in for Tom Curran or Steve Smith as the tournament progresses. Curran has struggled to make a good impact on the tournament so far, being hit by Chris Morris to lose the match against Rajasthan and Smith can interchange with Indian vice captain Ajinkya Rahane as an anchor at number three.

Delhi will be hoping for their top order too keep making runs and converting their fifties into large scores and hopefully hundreds. Aussie all rounder, Marcus Stoinis has failed to score many runs yet and was hit for 15 in his one over of the tournament but todays innings bodes well as he guided Delhi to what turned out to be an easy chase after Dhawan batted very impressively for his 92.

Mumbai Indians

Rohit Sharma’s side were heavy favourites before the tournament started and since their first match against RCB have shown why. They lost a tight first match but have since shown they can hold their nerve against KKR and Sunrises in two matches that went right down to the wire. Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya have used the spinning wickets of Chennai well and are leading the attack well with Bumrah and Boult dominating at the death with perfect execution of their yorkers.

Their three matches have been low scorers with no side passing 160 yet which hasn’t allowed for their long batting line up to show off its skill. Suryakumar Yadav has continued his form from 2020 and leads their side in runs scored and is the only player in their squad to pass fifty. The return of Quinton de Kock seems to have made their batting line up more rounded, even after Lynn scored 49 in their season opener but Pollard and Hardik Pandya have not managed to find their form from the last few seasons as finishers.

Chennai Super Kings

CSK are surprisingly high on this table in my opinion (even if it due to Net Run Rate). They have a very mixed squad. It is full of all rounders with Bravo and Thakur down at numbers nine and ten, but their average age is extraordinarily high. They have six players over the age of 35 and half of their squad over 30. Dhoni seemed to have lost it a bit last year in the UAE and hasn’t found the form he had in the early years of the tournament.

Sam Curran and Moeen Ali are the two English players in the squad and have both been in fine form so far. Moeen Ali has shown why he was wasted sitting on the RCB bench over the past few years. He is their top scorer after two matches and is striking at 150, while Sam Curran is coming in lower down the order but still smashing the ball all round the park. He has a strike rate over 200 and won the battle against his older brother in the first match, taking him for over 20 in an over.

CSK failed to win the first match after a slow start meant they put up a score of 188, well below par and allowed the Delhi Capitals to chase it down with eight balls spare. In the second match, Deepak Chahar tore through the Punjab Kings top order taking 4-13 and limiting Punjab to 106 before they chased it down in 15 overs.

Rajasthan Royals

The English contingent of the IPL have had two ok first games. They have heavily relied on captain Sanju Samson in the first match, who blasted his third IPL century and was a few metres away from hitting a six off the final ball and carrying his side home to victory against Punjab Kings. The main controversy of this match was that Samson turned down a single off the penultimate ball to put Chris Morris on strike needing four to win. Morris was visibly angry to be sent back by his captain but in my opinion, Samson was more likely to hit a boundary (either the six needed to win or a four to take it to a super over) than his South African counterpart. The one criticism I have would be that Samson could have possibly come back for two and sacrificed Morris at the non-strikers end but would have risked running himself out.

Morris then showed why he Samson should have taken the single in the Royals second match, bludgeoning 36 from 18 after David Miller fell for 62. After the match, Morris said he knew his role was to slog at the end and was happy to do it for the team.

The biggest new for Rajasthan was that Ben Stokes would be out for three months and the rest of the tournament due to a fractured finger in the first match. This allows fellow Englishman Jos Buttler to slide up to the top of the order and Miller to take his place in the middle order. Buttler had an outstanding tournament a few years ago after he moved to the top of the order for Rajasthan and dominated so it is not all bad news for Royals fans.

Kolkata Knight Riders

Before the tournament, I predicted KKR would just about make the cut for the playoffs due to Eoin Morgan’s captaincy and their world class overseas players. This hasn’t been the case yet. Morgan has failed to fire with the bat; Russel, one of the most devastating batsmen ever in both T20 cricket and the IPL, has been more use with the ball; and both Shakib and Cummins haven’t made the biggest impact yet. I am sure this will soon change though.

For the first three matches, KKR have relied on their home grown talent at the top of the order to score their runs. Rana, Gill and Tripathi have all made runs at a good rate but KKR have failed to push on from being in good positions in matches with a lack of quick runs down the order. Against Mumbai, “DreRus” took 5-15 from two to slow Mumbai in the final few overs. However, he then struggled with the bat and scored a tentative 9 from 15 as KKR fell 10 runs short.

KKR have failed to win the tight matches so far which seems to be due to a lack of finishing ability from the middle order, if they can fix this problem (and with Morgan as captain, I am sure they can) then I think they have a good chance of finishing in the top four.

Punjab Kings

Even with KL “King Legend” Rahul averaging over 70 at 150, Punjab Kings (formerly King’s XI Punjab) have struggled so far this year. They have just lost to Dehli Capitals after setting an impressive 195 to win but their inexperienced bowling line up failed to defend it. Rahul and Agrawal put on 122 with Agrawal smashing 69 from 36, while his partner crawled along to 61 off 51 before Hooda and Shahrukh Khan came in to blast the ball round at the end.

This was the second high scoring match they have been apart of. They have a strong and experienced top order but have a younger and less experienced bowling line up and almost no tail a Richardson bats at number seven. Arshdeep Singh is only 22 and this is both Meredith and Richardson’s first seasons in the IPL. Shami is their only seam bowler over 25, but is backed up by two experience spinners. You could see this inexperience in the match vs Delhi as Dhawan took the game away from Punjab. As the tournament progresses, it will be interesting to see how the younger players will adapt to conditions and deal with an increase in pressure and if Punjab try to lengthen their batting lineup.

Sunrises Hyderabad

David Warner’s side are sat at the bottom of the table without a win. They have lost three close matches. With three players in the top 11 for runs scorers so far, you might expect such a strong squad to be further up the table, but the lack of power hitters down the order seems to be catching up with Sunrises. Bairstow slotted in at number four in the first matches to accommodate for Saha up the top and performed well but struggled to stay at the crease during the key moments. He was caught slogging across the line when Hyderabad were in a commanding position, causing a batting collapse and loss against KKR and has since moved back up to opening.

Hyderabad have been changing their team a huge amount so far during the IPL. They have played six overseas players, as well as having Kane Williamson on the sideline. Hyderabad were often selected as the side most likely to steal the crown from Mumbai before the season started but unless they can find some finishers, it seems unlikely that this will happen.

Rashid Khan, as usual, has been performing very well. He has four wickets with an economy rate of 5.33. He hasn’t blown any teams away yet, but arguably more importantly, his economy is under six, building pressure and helping others in the side take wickets. If he can keep this up, it is likely Hyderabad will continue restricting oppositions to low totals.

Predictions

From the first week it is always hard to tell how the season will progress. I think it is likely that Mumbai, RCB and Delhi will progress to the knock-out stages but the fourth place is up for grabs. Right now I think I would go for KKR, just because they haven’t hit their heights yet and I can see them start winning matches they shouldn’t if Morgan and Russell get into form.

#cricket #ipl #ipl 2021 #rcb #mumbai indians #csk #delhi capitals #rajasthan royals #kkr #punjab kings #sunrisers hyderabad #virat kohli #kohli #kohlibait #dhoni

1 note · View note

diarrheaofthekeyboard · 4 years

Text

#41

9.4.2020 - 9.8.2020

At age 5, sometime in the summer of 1983, I went to my first Mets game. I know they played the Montreal Expos. I’m pretty sure George Bamburger was still the manager. Tom Seaver was on the team. I do not know if he pitched that game. But I know I saw him pitch on tv as a Met that year.

My early childhood from that point forward was consumed with baseball (and cartoons) until about 1989 when the Mets were bad again. They just got worse until I went to college, but I still watched. I couldn’t watch Mets games in college, so I mostly forgot about baseball. I graduated in 2000 and came home to the Mets and Yankees in the Subway Series. And I was back in it.

The Mets predictably lost, and it was the worst because the Yankees were dynastic, but something else happened. After raising me as a Mets fan, my father outed himself as a Yankee fan.

My dad was born in Brooklyn in 1950 and raised in Sheepshead Bay, which is close to Coney Island. Story goes he asked my grandfather to go see the Dodgers and was told “next year”. That was 1957. He never got to see the Dodgers in Brooklyn. They, and the New York Giants, moved to California before the 1958 season. This is pretty fucked up. And though I never asked him while he was alive, it would make no sense for my grandfather to have claimed he didn’t know the Dodgers were leaving. It was the biggest news in Brooklyn.

For 4 years, there was only one New York team. The Yankees. They won the World Series in 1958 and 1961. They lost the World Series in 1960. The Mets first season was 1962 and promptly set the record for most games lost in a season, in the modern era. The Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants in the World Series that year. In 1963 the Yankees lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but who could root for the Dodgers after they left Brooklyn? That was traitorous. In ‘64 the Yankees lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. They were terrible after that.

In 1967, Tom Seaver debuted for the New York Mets. They were still the worst team in baseball. In 1969, led by Seaver, the Mets were champions. My dad, by this time in college, became a fan.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in tracing his sports allegiances, it’s that he’s a bandwagoner. We never watched hockey, but for some reason had 4 copies of an Islanders record from the early 80s. We never really watched football, but he did like to watch the Cowboys. Why wasn’t he a Giants fan? Or a Jets fan? It never really made sense.

The entire reason we went to that game in 1983 was my dad got tickets from work. The owner of the company he worked for had box seats about 10 rows behind the third base dugout. We would go once or twice a year and my dad would complain about traffic. We went to Game 1 of the 1986 World Series. I still have my ticket. It was a big moment for me, having just turned all of 9 years old. It’s still a big moment for me. We sat 6 rows from the back of the stadium and couldn’t see anything. But we were there.

I never had reason to believe my dad was anything other than a Mets fan. And then, there I am, freaking out in 2000 as Benny Agbayani hands the ball to a fan in the stands because he thought there were three outs, and my dad is outing himself further as a Yankee fan with every moment.

I don’t remember when this took place, but I know it happened. I was so angry I was raised a Mets fan. But it went something like this:

Why would you do this to your child? You know how bad they are. You read the paper. You never bothered to tell me the Yankees won the World Series in 1978. I could have gone through life as a carefree Yankee fan, not ever having to know the intricacies of the game, and never beating myself up in the years they weren’t competitive because they’re the fucking Yankees! They always come back.

At that point, I couldn’t give up the Mets. For the damage being invested in their losing had done to me, and for what it would continue to do to me. For 20 years until I left New York, I probably watched 150 games a year, whether on tv or at Shea. I didn’t just double down. It became all consuming. And gut wrenching. Hey! You had a shit day at work! Let’s agonize over this garbage team and argue with the tv announcers every day. As I bounced from apartment to apartment, job to job, there would always be the constant, soothing misery of the Mets.

The 2000 baseball season had been my introduction to Tom Seaver the announcer. Keith Hernandez too. I actually got to see him play. He was the quintessential first baseman. Now I got to listen to them regularly. Along with Ralph Kiner, Gary Thorne, and Howie Rose, they were fantastic. They talked about the game like a coach should talk about the game. Every game, regardless of how bad the team was, became a clinic in “How to Baseball”. I loved it.

In 2006, the Mets got their own broadcasting network and consolidated the announcing team. Ralph Kiner’s health had declined over the years and he would only return on home Sunday games. Fran Healy and Tim McCarver were finally, mercifully gone. Seaver left too. He had gone into winemaking in ‘05 and wanted to pursue it full time. Taking over play-by-play was radio announcer Gary Cohen. He had been Bob Murphy’s understudy and was a familiar pick. Keith Hernandez stayed and fellow 80s Met Ron Darling was added as well. They’re still in the booth today, and they’re fantastic.

Seaver would show up from time to time. There was never a down, dull moment with him. You’d get an adrenaline rush just listening to him.

I’m going to say something controversial. I hated Shea Stadium. It was a nasty, ugly place. But there’s one thing about it that CitiField just can’t replace. The entire stadium was built from concrete blocks and it was very closed in. Each entrance to the seating area from the concourse was like its own little tunnel into another world. You come out of the darkness and into the light of the greenest field you’ve ever seen. I got goosebumps and would nearly be on the verge of tears, every time I walked through, from that first game in 1983, until they tore the place down at the end of the 2008 season.

I did make sure to be there at the last game. It was terrible. The Mets needed to beat the Marlins to get into the Wild Card and it didn’t happen. Then we waited seemingly forever for the post-game ceremony to begin, absolutely fuming that we had been duped by this shit team again. Finally, things got started. Mets greats were announced. And Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza closed the centerfield gate together, formally closing the book on Shea. It was a good moment even though the season ended terribly.

We moved to California two years ago. This was my opportunity to finally get rid of the Mets. I was determined to do it. I started watching A’s and Giants games. I even started watching Dodger games. At the start of the season, I was set to ride the A’s and Dodgers all the way to a California World Series. Then COVID hit. The season was cancelled. I lost my job. School was cancelled. Bad news increased exponentially. And when the baseball season finally started in July, my wife said she wanted to watch the Mets. She wasn’t going to give me a choice either.

We met in 2006. She had moved to NYC the previous year and kinda bandwagoned her way into Yankee fandom. Because why not. She was really a football fan anyway. One of her previous boyfriends was apparently a huge Cubs fan. She says every time they lost he’d be upset for days. Which, historically, is a tough place to be as a Cubs fan. As we dated and got closer she saw just how many games I would watch on a yearly basis. It’s a lot.

She got used to me pacing around, guitar in hand, yelling at the TV. She studied for the bar exam through this. One time, I forget what was going on, she’s reading flashcards and I had taken issue with something Gary Cohen said. And I hear quietly, “don’t argue with Gary!” I can still hear the inflection in her voice in my head. I turned around and started telling her why I disagreed with him and her only response was “did I say that out loud?” Gary, Keith, and Ron were hugely important to not only her tolerance of my baseball tv domination, but also her appreciation of the game. She only knew Ralph Kiner as this cute old man. And every so often, Seaver would come back and she’d see me well up with visceral feelings.

I cried when Ralph Kiner died. Around 2014/2015 I wrote a blog titled “The Common Sense Mets Fan”. At the time, I was convinced the Sandy Alderson administration would right the team and keep the Wilpons at bay. I was wrong. Anyway, here’s what I wrote:

On the last day of the season, as usual, Gary Cohen said goodbye to Ralph Kiner. But there was something different about it this time. There was fear in Gary’s face, as though he knew this was his last opportunity to sign off with Ralph. I had seen hints of it in years past, but never like this. Sadly, Ralph passed today, I hope peacefully.

As a Mets fan, this is like losing a grandfather or great uncle. Ralph had always been there. From his stories about Elizabeth Taylor to his willingness to argue advanced metrics and hitting style with Keith Hernandez, he was ever present in the Mets broadcast booth. I’ll never be able to hear the game again the same way. Thank you, Ralph.

At the time, I said to my wife, “the next time I cry about the Mets, it’ll be when Tom Seaver dies.” This was before their 2015 run. Before the Wilmer Flores incident. Before I was sitting on my couch with a 1 year old, watching them in a World Series, as I did my best impression of Randy Quaid from Major League. I refused to allow myself to enjoy the success of the team because I knew they would lose. It was just a matter of when. And of course, they did lose to the Kansas City Royals. But they got a lot further than I thought they would.

When MLB decided to move forward with a truncated 2020 season, I was reluctant to watch. It’s not safe for anyone involved and seems to be all about corporate greed. But of course, like moths to a flame, we watched. And as I mentioned, my wife said, “we’re watching the Mets.” I didn’t want to. But she was right. In a year like we’ve never seen before, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez did something, and are doing something, nobody else is. They gave us levity and calm. Led by Gary, they are unafraid to address the news of the day while knowing the escape they provide. The BLM t-shirt moment was unparalleled. And unfortunately, they’d have another day to provide calm the next week.

As you well know by now, George Thomas Seaver died last week. He had contracted lyme disease years ago, while working in the vineyards. For some people, lyme goes undiagnosed for years while doctors treat the symptoms without putting it all together. This seems to have been what happened to Tom. It progressed with complications and he developed Lewy Body dementia. His family announced his retirement from public life and the Mets announced they would erect a statue to him outside of CitiField. They changed the address of the stadium to 41 Seaver Way. But in true Wilpon Mets fashion, still no statue.

Finally, last week, Tom died due to complications from COVID. I was sitting on the couch, watching some random baseball game and reading Twitter. I saw the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement on Twitter, exclaimed “oh no!”, and went upstairs to be alone for a minute. My wife was on the phone. She ran upstairs to see me sitting with my head in my hands and asked what happened. I told her and then told her how stupid I felt for letting this get to me. And she said, “yeah, but you said after Ralph died this would happen”.

Our son came upstairs to see what he was missing. I told him. He said “who’s that?” And we had a long talk I think bored him. And it’s then it hit me what had happened. As I’ve detailed in the past 4 pages of text, Tom Seaver meant a lot to me, even though in my experience as a Mets fan, he was really just a peripheral character. I saw him on the field a couple of times. He was talked about. He was an announcer for a few years, and he’s mostly been out of the spotlight for the past 15 years. Here I was, having a visceral, uncontrollable reaction to a childhood figure I never met. How the fuck were people who actually knew him going to keep it together?

They couldn’t do it. Gary and Ron did their best. Apparently, Keith’s mom also had dementia, and he lost it. There was a lot of silence during the game. A lot of big sighs from Keith. A lot of on air hurting. It was gut wrenching. I saw an Ed Kranepool quote that said, “this was a terrible ending to a horseshit year.” And it’s only September!

At this point, nearly a week later, it’s difficult to remember where I saw it. But here it is. The reason I’ve spent all this time spilling my guts about a guy I never met. Tom Seaver was a beacon. He wasn’t just someone who had a talent and pursued it. He was constantly trying to reinvent himself and pursue that passion, whether he was good at it or not. But even moreso, he was a positive influence on everyone around him. I’ve never heard a story about Seaver fighting with anyone. He wanted to be Rembrandt with a baseball. And he wanted to lift people up around him.

I feel isolated and alone. There’s not much I feel like I can control. I can get out my thoughts, I can be a good husband and a good father. I can explore my music. And I can use the latter to pull myself out of the former. That’s what Tom would tell me to do.

2 notes · View notes

pomegranart · 4 years

Text

cool girls

“You’re not like other girls,”

Sociopolitical and cultural system that values masculinity over femininity – valued less, and confining gender norms and placing people into predictable, placed into false dichotomies. From a young age – we are influenced from the stereotypess that surround us, and we compare ourselves.

Being Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker and dirty jokes, who plays video-games and chugs beer– loves threesomes and anal sex and jams chili-dogs into my mouth like I’m hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang-bang–-while remaining a size 2, because cool girls are above all, hot. Hot and understanding. Cool girls never get angry at their men, they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner, and then present their mouth for fucking.

- Gillian Flynn, from her novel Gone Girl (2012)

Differentiating yourself by putting other women down – not like other girls

In fact, there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to the all too common phenomenon of r/notlikeothergirls. Its description reads:

Is your music taste a cut above the rest? Would you rather stay at home and play video games than go shopping? Do you hang out with only guys to “avoid the drama”? This is the place for you. A place for poking fun at girls who think that being “different” makes them somehow better. NOT for demeaning women as a whole.

There’s a whole thought culture behind this - given there is a system that rewards those that say ‘I’m different, I’m inherently better’ with that of a higher social standing - to attempt to achieve a closer relationship with man.

Youtuber Tana Mongeau recently released a 40-minute long video to a platform of more than 5 million subscribers. The Youtuber is one of the most controversial figures on the platform and she utilizes this – she builds her online persona as a relatable, hot mess, and her brand is based on ‘realness.’ The very video we are talking about is premised on her deteriorating mental health during what was arguably the best year of her career – propelled in the spotlight with her relationship with actress Bella Thorne, she’s since collaborated with Youtube giants James Charles and Shane Dawson, and had a highly publicized 2 month whirlwind marriage to YouTuber Jake Paul (with 20 million subscribers). Her rise in popularity won her Creator of the Year at the Streamy Awards 2019, and signed her a reality show with MTV.

But continuing this persona is a road down self-destruction - a humiliation of the very real trauma of the 21-year-old, and a race to poke fun at herself before her actions can be used against her. in a way that seems remarkably like exposing the chaos of her life before it can be used against herwhich seems to have finally been broken down in her latest video.

But what Tana mentions in the video was not . She lies on her bed, clutching a pillow, words tripping over her tongue as her eyes stay glazed at the ceiling. She talks about her depression, behind the scenes of parties and collabs she shows us, and talks about the toxicity of her most recent relationships, and how she is still handling the loss of family members and friends. She’s smart, dating patterns with boys who didn’t have their shit together yet, and the hurt both she and him had caused each other. I have a few thoughts on our treatment of boys and girls, and the toxicity that leaks into their adulthood, where they can make real, lasting changes that affect you and I.

was a significant part of her relationship with Youtuber Jake Paul is her ability to be the ‘chill’ girlfriend, the girl who wasn’t like other girls, the one who was as low maintenance, the one who wasn’t like the line of crazy ex-girlfriends who had traumatized him. on her previous dating patterns with boys who didn’t have their shit together yet, and the hurt both she and him had caused each other. I have a few thoughts on our treatment of boys and girls, and the toxicity that leaks into their adulthood, where they can make real, lasting changes that affect you and I.

I was told I was not like other girls, like I was one of the boys. Like the manic pixie dream girl – she is impossibly unrealistic.

We are taught from young that male approval is what we need to be able to be successful. #TweetLikeAPickMe

Or you Should be like other girls – you don’t act like one.

Internalized misogyny – we are taught indirectly and directly to dislike women and what they enjoy

Shallow comment – or is it said with good intentions? Girls and Boys cannot be friends.

Performing gender

Open relationships are like any other relationship in that every partner should have boundaries, and a clear understanding of their own needs.

we live in a society that fetishizes power differentials between men and women

we consider men with money and status and sexual experience – are sexually appealing. We consider women with those same qualities threatening.

Muses

#opinion #muses #writing #not like other girls #pop culture

11 notes · View notes

moonlit-maiden · 5 years

Text

11/again!

tagged by @kaatiba again~! Thank you so much <3<3<3 Please check her out guys, she's wonderful and uber talented!

What is the biggest change that’s occurred so far with your WIP?

Well Gali became Disaster Bi so I consider that an improvement over Just a Trash Mess when my friend played her so.... XD But in seriousness, I'd say the 3rd book. For a long time I struggled with how I'd end it. It came super slow but luckily as I pinned down the first 2 books is came to me finally. I was very very stressed over it.

Was writing something you eventually picked up or was it something you’ve always wanted to do?

A friend of mine in 7th grade English was writing her own story (as 12 year old girls do) and she turned to me one day and said "You should write. You'd be amazing at it, you read so much!" I'd never considered how books came to be until that moment. So I started writing! So it kinda just... happened.

Any fandom related things that inspired your work?

Not really. I actually actively avoid fandom. I tend to have Controversial opinions on Things and even back in my youth (bitchyouarenotoldbutokay) people would NOT be happy and chase me out. So I've kinda always done my own thing. Floated on the edges of fandoms for books and video games I love. That's all.

Do you use face-claims?

Generally no. I always have in my mind how they look and rarely does a face claim match up. Chernolo is one of the few exceptions. I had a vauge idea for him, found a pic of it to-be face claim and it clicked. I'm pretty sure he was going "That's how I look mom. That. Nothing else will do." Tenshi I already knew how he looked. When I stumbled across his FC I was genuinely startled it was so eerie!

What is your main issue with the books you dislike?

8D Who has 2 hours? For everyone's sanity here be the highlights:

Women are only strong if they're masculine, reject traditionalism or refuse to be in love. This is bullshit. Stop it.

Stupid male characters in order to "empower" the female character. Stop it.

Homosexual love and romance being treated as something different then heterosexual romance. It's the same thing; love. Stop it.

Killing off parents. Stop it 8D

Making parents stupid and uninvolved. Stop it. 8D

Making siblings horrible or absent all the time. Stop it. 8D

Not drawing inspiration from non-Western mythos/lore. Expand your horizons.

Shoving in diversity just because. Stop it. Either write it in to start with or don't bother.

Making the villain dumb and predictable. I'm not scared by that.

Either sexualizing only the guys or only the girls. Stop that; equal fanservice if you're gonna do that nonsense.

Equating love to sex. They are not mutually exclusive. Stop it. 8D

Making daughters hate their fathers. Stop it.

Toning down scars, trauma and torture experienced by female characters despite it being applicable to the situation (such as being in a war, being a fighter). Stop it. 8D

Making authority evil. This is boring and untrue.

No chemistry between love interests. Better no romance then poor chemistry PLEASE. And yes, this applies to gay romance too. Being gay doesn't automatically make the romance interesting.

Being afraid of having religion in your work. PUT IT IN THERE YOU COWARDS!

Mary Sues/Gary Stus. Yes, they exist. And NO it's not when the character is OP. It's when the whole world bends to the will of the character to the point of ridiculousness. THAT is what a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is. OP characters just run a higher risk of falling in here if not handled well.

Not showing friendship between boys without it being homoerotic. Please don't put your fetish into the book and just show guys giving a shit about one another and caring.

Villainizing mothers. PLEASE STOP IT.

Promoting HeroxVillian pairings that are abusive/toxic. Stop. Hard. It's nasty.

I got lots more but we'd be here all day.

What message do you hope to deliver with your WIP?

Lol, like the above we'd be here all day. So here are the highlights.

Do not be afraid to ask for help.

Love in unbelievably powerful in all it's forms

You parents try VERY hard to raise you. Cut them slack and forgive them for their mistakes.

Women can be strong no matter what path they choose.

Racism is horrible, degrading and demeaning. And no, it doesn't matter who's doing it to which race. It's not an excuse.

The line between a hero and a villain is paper-thin.

Reality is huge and strange and terrifying.

If it's not human, don't trying to put human logic onto it.

Learn to forgive. Your own hatred will kill you.

Don't give up on a dream, even when the world is telling you to stop.

We always want what we don't have. Learn to take comfort in your own skills and beauty.

It's okay not to know your path when you're young. As long as you keep looking around.

It's okay to like the pre-laid out path your family/parents recommend. Don't feel ashamed if it feels right.

Consensual polyamourous marriage should be legalized.

You both make your own fate and are bound by it. It's a messy look with no start or end.

Stories are powerful.

Love is at the core of all motivation.

The world is not what it seems.

Favorite song to write to, if any?

sljd my music taste is so all over it's stupid. I've literally listened to Baby Metal while writing romance/smut scenes. There is no logic here. The only consistent is Lo-Fi/Vaporwave/Future Funk playlists.

Do you have the ending plotted out? If so, can you remember when you came up with it?

Yes, thank gods. I think it happened in 2017/2018, near the end of my brainstorming.

What is your strongest point in your writing?

Worldbuilding, character relationships, horror and smut. One of these things is not like the other.

What do you do when writer’s block rears its ugly head?

Okay. I'mma be real here. I don't GET writer's block. I legit don't. But I DO get "lazy brain". I'm sit out 20-30k words in a couple weeks and then my brain will check tf out for a few months. Rinse and repeat. This is a bad way of writing things. don't do it.

Would you travel to research your wip?

*packs bags* So who's paying for my trip to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seol?

tagging: @the-ichor-of-ruination, @ivonoris, @ikilledmyocs and anyone else who wants to do it!!!

5 notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 5 years

Text

Some Kingdom Hearts future thoughts

Have to get ‘em out! Went into some thoughts with my psuedo-review of III, but I’ve got others and stuff worth expanding on. I’ll put them under the cut since it clearly goes into spoilers, except for my boldest, most controversial guess: along with being announced either this year or next (since Kingdom Hearts has never reached the end of a calendar year after a release with nothing on the horizon) I think Kingdom Hearts IV is going to be a 2022 release. I recognize that sounds like an intensely generous timeframe, but I have several reasons:

1. Above all else by far: once again, Square Enix and Disney are going to be on Nomura’s ass, nose to the grindstone, to get him to start delivering these on a consistent basis again. Do you think they’re looking at Kingdom Hearts III topping sales charts and thinking “well, it sure was worth the wait”, or do you think they’re going “gosh, these are some nice sales, sure would be nice if it came out years ago and we had a bunch more similarly-selling titles by now, let’s try and aim for something closer to that in the future”. Especially-especially since Nomura and the actors aren’t getting any younger and the series is at a point where the core fanbase for the franchise as-is is going to be the primary target rather than new audiences, which means it has to wrap up in a timeframe where that’s still a viable market. So rapid, priority development and few if any more spinoffs. I mean, not as if there’s really a handheld platform for them to be on anymore.

2. My understanding (and this is going somewhat into the technical side of things, so I’m going thirdhand here based on what I’ve heard from others) is that the lifecycle of the current console generation isn’t going to run out for quite a bit yet, so they can reuse a lot of the assets and whatnot from III.

3. A big deal was made about Dream Drop Distance coming out on the 10th anniversary of the franchise, and given 20 is a much wilder number for this series than most equivalents when it’s about a single cast of characters going through a single story, I can’t imagine they won’t want to push that as at least a similarly big deal.

4. Finally, when things don’t go as catastrophically off the rails as III did, these games seem to have a fairly consistent 3-4 year development span (even III, once they announced the beginning of development in 2013, would have come out 2017-early 2018 if not for switching from Luminous to Unreal Engine), and for the reasons I listed above I think this is going to be on the speedier end of that.

* Firstly: the main discussion I’m seeing at this point regarding IV is “it’s gonna be a Kingdom Hearts/The World Ends With You/pseudo-Final Fantasy Versus XIII crossover!”, and I really expect and hope that isn’t the case. Not that I’ll be pissed if it is, I’m sure it would still be rad, but it strikes me as both unlikely and the lesser outcome. I don’t know that I see the powers that be diverting resources in one of their biggest cash cows towards a sequel to one of their minor games - one that’s already been in Kingdom Hearts, meaning its inclusion here wouldn’t reasonably be a huge enough deal to base a lot of the full story on - and a way to reimagine another project. And for that matter it strikes me as conceptually small-scale given the setup. Nomura went with a name in Yozora that doesn’t just have the bent meaning of Sora’s name but actually literally sounds like him, went with a setting that aside from the one cameo sign mainly screams to viewers “Sora’s suddenly in the real world, holy cow”, and unless I entirely misread it Verum Rex was presented as a total self-roast in Toy Box. It doesn’t strike me as spot-the-reference (even though that’s 100% in there) nearly so much as establishing a tonal contrast to Kingdom Hearts.

I joked initially about this being a Flash of Two Worlds! (linking to a description for non-comics readers who are here because I tagged Kingdom Hearts)/’Kingdom Hearts goes to war with its own gritty fanfic’ setup, but...I actually suspect that’s pretty close to what’s going on here? This seems like a send up of Final Fantasy’s relative self-seriousness and over the top Super Cool characters, as a contrast to Sora’s goofy open-hearted sincerity and optimism. It’s the Secret Movie aesthetic that some want not just more prominent but as the actual main tone of the series morphed into an entire universe all its own, and Sora, out of place, has to find his way through and back home even as the real threat mounts, and probably has to save this world and get through to its heroes who aren’t likely prone to grinning through off-the-cuff monologues about the heart. That is not only entirely my kind of ridiculous meta jam, it feels like a logical next step for the series: if the first trilogy was in part about growing up, the next (and I suspect last, as the Master of Masters and his Foretellers have been set up as the primordial antagonists of the entire mythology and this is where they’re coming to the fore; my old theory of Eraqus being the big bad of an intermediary trilogy looks solidly shot to hell) could very well be about reaching adulthood, in which case it makes sense Sora would have to pass through a near literal fire of Adolescent/Adult Cynicism.

* Speaking of where Sora ends up: I kinda doubt he’s literally dead, or that if he is it’ll last past the opening of the game. They’ve already made a big theatrical production of Sora dying twice now, the second time in the most literal way possible and just a few hours prior to this, so while third time’s the charm I think there’ll be more to it than that. The again common thing I’ve been seeing is that he’ll have to play the Reaper game to win his life back (not something I’m much familiar with but I think I’ve got the basics), but again, while it’ll certainly be part of the game I don’t think TWEWY is going to be the big thing here (like they’d really make that a bigger deal than the Final Fantasy elements have been), and he just dealt with the afterlife and had to essentially play a game to win his soul back, and this wouldn’t even be a game he’s unfamiliar with. My impression is he’s incorporated back and whole - if likely powered down from the ordeal to justify him being back at level one - and the mystery is less whether or not he’s truly alive so much as how he ended up here and how to get back.

* On the other end of things - and I realize it’s a risky prospect to suggest after her getting a shockingly small role compared to everyone else in III was the damning weak aspect of its otherwise basically perfect finale - I think this is where Kairi is actually going to start to come to the forefront. She and Riku would be at the head of a search that everyone would be a part of (they were there when it happened, they know death is negotiable in their world, and they’re good people who all owe him), her especially since he’s her boyfriend - they may not declare it outright but there’s clearly no ambiguity between the two of them as to their situation anymore - and the one he sacrificed himself for, and she’s out there fighting now even if she’s inexperienced. And Riku seems like he’s going to end up lost himself on the search, leaving her behind as the sole Destiny Trio representative. So even if she isn’t a playable co-lead I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one going on a more traditional Kingdom Hearts adventure searching with the rest while Sora and later Riku deal with the genre mindfuck. On the bright side if nothing else, she’s died twice now too and they’ve both been presented as dead in a “maybe this time for real” way for a finale, so while again third time’s the charm, I figure she and Sora are relatively bulletproof from here on out.

* Speaking of Riku, while this seems more like an old-school proof of concept trailer from I and II rather than the more recent actual scenes, meaning his appearance might well change just as Kairi was different in I’s Secret Movie than she really was in II, it’s very notable that he hasn’t aged at all. So likely instead of another tragic I to II scale timeskip of Sora being lost from his friends, it looks like IV will be picking up immediately and the search for him won’t take long to succeed. Also speaking of Riku, I seem to see people thinking he’s with Namine now? Not that that seems impossible, but while the scene as a whole is romanticized in that it’s basically a princess being carried away by chariot to her happily-ever-after, it reads to me less as an actual romance than Riku fulfilling his ‘brother’s promise. Though if Square/Nomura does want to really get into romance with the next trilogy, since Sora/Kairi is locked down maybe they’ll just say fuck it and do a whole Riku/Namine/Xion/Roxas Love Square situation.

* Actual prediction rather than analysis of evidence: I suspect this is the last major time the Destiny Trio is going to be split up, at least in the searching-for-each-other, not-knowing-if-everyone’s-alive sense. I was the search for Kairi, II for Riku, and now IV for Sora - that cycle looks to be completing. Wouldn’t be surprised if V and/or the finale was finally the three of them as the adventuring party as fans have wanted for so long, with III as the grand finale to Sora/Donald/Goofy.

* It seems early to predict the main villain, but at the same time everyone was accurate in assuming a Keyblade-wielding Xehanort would be the final boss of the trilogy circa 2006, so I’m gonna go ahead and say Xigbar/Luxu is gonna be the end-all with IV. The Master of Masters is still the end of the road, and perfect for it because he’s a real-world normal savvy guy who can manipulate this world of straightforward classical adventurers with ease, while Sora at the opposite end of the scale is silly and sweet even by that world’s standard. But Luxu addresses the same ideas in a way that’d be perfect for this game in particular as it seems to be set up, he’d be the villainous connective tissue as this game moves from one trilogy to another, and he has the dangling personal thread of the ‘reward’ he suggested was coming for Sora. Or hell, since now it looks like she’s at least somewhat privy to what’s going on, maybe Maleficent will finally step back up.

EDIT: Ooh, just remembered, speaking of what Xigbar says to Sora, his Olympus conversation also predicts Sora’s fate? The whole “if you leap in to save somebody, you might just end up in the clutch needing to be saved yourself” lecture, i.e. the premise for IV. Maybe his teach isn’t the only one privy to future events?

* Not both, they’ll wanna space it out, but I’m like 70% sure this is where Marvel or Star Wars are gonna happen.

* Finally, while I’ve heard speculation that the Mystery Star is one of the Foretellers or the person who died in that Union X game, I don’t think she’s one of them given it’s a new voice actor and she cites a name Sora knows. More likely she’s ‘Subject X’ (I went ahead and looked up the Secret Reports, haven’t gone back and done all the bonus challenges myself yet and won’t I imagine for some time), who does seem to be from that time but is I think someone new.

#Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts IV #Kingdom Hearts III #Analysis #Opinion

10 notes · View notes

stillunusual · 5 years

Photo

LEEDS UNITED 4 WEST BROMWICH ALBION 0 Leeds United: Casilla, Ayling, Jansson, Cooper, Alioski, Phillips, Klich, Roberts (Shackleton 90+1), Hernandez, Harrison (Dallas 77), Bamford. Subs not used: Peacock-Farrell, Berardi, Douglas, Gotts, Brown. It was so great to be back at Elland Road to witness our best performance of the season so far - against a team full of players who were playing in the Premiership last season - especially as our form since I was last here has been patchy to say the least, allowing Norwich City and Sheffield United to move ahead of us into the automatic promotion places. Leeds were third in the league ahead of this game, with West Brom, Middlesbrough and our next opponents Bristol City just below us in the remaining play-off spots. As usual, plenty has happened both on and off the field over the last few weeks. The EFL and the Football Association both launched investigations into "spygate" on 15th January, after receiving complaints from Frank Lampard and Derby County about the fact that Marcelo Bielsa had sent an intern to observe one of their training sessions. The next day, Bielsa called a press conference, and rumours began circulating that he was about to resign. Instead he took on the EFL, FA and all his critics by first of all announcing that he had sent a staff member to observe training sessions held by every other Championship team this season. He then treated the assembled journalists to an hour long coaching masterclass about the meticulous way he prepares for games. Bielsa has a team of 20 people who spend literally hundreds of hours doing video analysis of each of United's opponents, which builds up a huge database of information on players, tactics and formations to the extent that he knows exactly how the opposing team is going to play. Bielsa's obsessive attention to detail is truly mind-blowing. Sending an intern to peak over an opponenet's fence isn't really necessary and doesn't tell him anything he doesn't already know, but it's always been something he's done to reassure himself that he's covered all the bases.... To every Leeds fan watching this matchless display of shithousery, genius and football madness it simply confirmed the extent to which Bielsa is already a Leeds United legend. He completely owned Lampard, as well as demonstrating that he probably knows more about Derby County's squad than fat Frank does. Sadly, his audacious honesty was mainly spun in a predictably negative way by the media and a couple of days later the EFL announced that 11 Championship clubs had written to them demanding a detailed investigation of the extent to which Bielsa had spied on them. The 11 clubs behind the letter were: Blackburn Rovers, Brentford, Bristol City (whose owner Steve Lansdown also made a public demand for a points deduction), Derby County, Hull City, Middlesbrough, Millwall, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, Preston North End and Swansea City. The following clubs did not agree to back the complaint: Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Bolton Wanderers, Ipswich Town, Queens Park Rangers, Reading, Rotherham United, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and Wigan Athletic. It took the EFL over a month to decide that the appropriate punishment for Leeds United was a huge fine and a sanctimonious lecture. An EFL statement declared that: “After finalising its investigations into the incident at Derby County’s training ground on Thursday, January 10, the EFL reached the conclusion that the conduct undertaken by Leeds United in observing opponents’ training sessions is a breach of regulation 3.4. Leeds United has fully cooperated with the EFL’s inquiries and following a comprehensive review of all the evidence provided, the club has now formally admitted a breach of regulation 3.4. As a consequence, the club has been fined £200,000 (inclusive of a contribution to costs) and received a formal reprimand and warning to the effect that the club’s conduct fell significantly short of the standards expected by the EFL and must not be repeated. In addition, Leeds United has agreed to support a new EFL regulation that makes it clear that clubs will be expressly prohibited from viewing opposition training in the 72 hours immediately prior to a fixture, unless invited to do so. The EFL has informed all the Championship clubs who sought additional clarification regarding the conduct of Leeds United of the findings that relate to their club”....

Leeds United issued the following reply: “We accept that whilst we have not broken any specific rule, we have fallen short of the standard expected by the EFL with regards to regulation 3.4. We apologise for acting in a way that has been judged culturally unacceptable in the English game and would like to thank Shaun Harvey and the EFL for the manner in which they conducted their investigations. Our focus can now return to matters on the field”....

After the EFL made their announcement, the Football Association confirmed that they would not be taking any further action. Leeds United refrained from public comments while the EFL was making its deliberations, while being regularly pilloried in the media by various pundits and representatives of some of the other Championship clubs - which often included false claims about what had happened outside Derby’s training ground - and clearly took the view that it was better to accept the punishment and move on. At least there was no points deduction.... Leeds made two signings during the January transfer window - the first was goalkeeper Kiko Casilla, who joined from Real Madrid and immediately relegated Bailey Peacock-Farrell to the bench. The second was 17 year old midfielder Mateusz Bogusz from Ruch Chorzów - one for the future.... However, there was controversy on transfer deadline day when our apparently successful attempt to sign winger Daniel James from Swansea City dramatically fell through at the last moment. James, who wanted to come to Leeds, arrived in Yorkshire the night before, passed a medical at Thorp Arch and was driven to Elland Road around 6pm to complete the paperwork and go through the process of media interviews and photographs. Swansea owner Jason Levien is understood to have agreed the sale of James directly with Andrea Radrizzani. The deal was for Leeds to pay £1.5M to loan James until the end of the season with an obligation to buy the player in the summer, with the eventual fee dependent on whether or not Leeds achieved promotion to the Premiership. However, a late complication arose over United's initial intention to pay the £1.5m loan fee in June. Sources at United insisted they were willing to grant City’s late demand for £750,000 up front but were then met with silence from Swansea’s boardroom. Leeds claim that all attempts to communicate with Swansea in the last 90 minutes of the window were met with silence and as a result the deal could not be finalised. It later emerged that Swansea had pulled the plug on Leroy Fer's transfer to Aston Villa at the last moment in basically the same way. Swansea City are one of the 11 Championship clubs behind the letter accusing Leeds of breaching the obligations stated in the EFL's Regulation 3.4: “In all matters and transactions relating to The League each Club shall behave towards each other Club and The League with the utmost good faith”.... Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins resigned 48 hours later. After the "spygate" saga began, Bielsa began revealing his starting line ups in advance during his pre-match press conferences. Next up after Derby County was an away game against Stoke City in which we didn't play very well and lost 2-1. Pontus Jansson was sent off after receiving two debatable yellow cards, earning himself a one match ban. This was followed by a 2-1 victory against Rotherham that set us up nicely for an encounter with promotion rivals Norwich City at Elland Road. It was the biggest game of the season for both clubs but didn't really live up to the hype and turned out to be a relatively comfortable victory for Norwich, who won 3-1. Leeds as usual had most of the possession, but not for the first time were very wasteful in the final third - and at the other end, poor defending contributed to each of Norwich's goals. The only positive for Leeds was that Patrick Bamford returned to the bench and scored our consolation goal after coming on as a late substitute. A Leeds win would have left us six points clear at the top of the league, but we ended up level on points with Norwich instead. We picked up a decent away point at Middlesbrough a week later but the game was marred by a bizarre incident involving Jack Clarke. He played the entire first half, but after being substituted he collapsed while sitting on the bench during the second half, and had to be taken to hospital after being treated by paramedics. He hasn't played since then, although he is apparently back in training. The next game was an excellent 2-1 win against Swansea City, in which we somehow managed to lose yet another key player to injury - Kemar Roofe suffered knee ligament damage which might keep him out for the rest of the season. We also managed to beat Bolton Wanderers 2-1, but were then defeated by a mediocre QPR side who had lost their previous seven games. Izzy Brown played a 10 minute cameo during that game - his first appearance for Leeds. There was a lot of doom and gloom before the West Brom game but it turned out better than anyone could possibly have imagined. We got off to an incredible start with a goal after 16 seconds. West Brom kicked off and launched the ball forward, Liam Cooper headed it back into their half, Jack Harrison collected it, drove forward and then squared the ball to Pablo Hernandez who fired a clinical strike into the top corner from 25 yards out. Amazing.... Leeds dominated the game from start to finish and the fans were behind the team all the way, with non-stop singing, chanting and celebrating throughout. West Brom have a lot of dangerous players but they were never able to really threaten us because every time they got the ball we chased them down, harried them and took it off them. I don't remember Marcus Gayle having a single shot on goal and Kiko Casilla only had one notable save to make all evening. In contrast, we created several chances before scoring our second goal on the half hour mark. A neat passing move ended with Mateusz Klich sliding the ball through to Tyler Roberts on the edge of the box, who flicked it on to Bamford, who got behind the last defender and slotted the ball into the far corner of the net. We kept up the pressure and scored two more excellent goals in the second half. With 60 minutes on the clock, Roberts won the ball in the centre circle, beat one man and then found Bamford on the left side of the box, and his deflected shot beat the West Brom goalkeeper. Bamford has looked a bit rusty since making his comeback but on this evidence he's getting back to his best and will hopefully keep scoring goals for the rest of the season. Jamie Shackleton came on for Roberts in the first minute of stoppage time and started off another great move, which ended with Klich flicking the ball back to him as he ran into the box and provided a perfect cross for Gjanni Alioski to tap home from close range. All in all an incredible 4-0 victory that sent us temporarily back to the top of the league, but will end up meaning nothing unless we can somehow finish the season as strongly as we started it. With 35 games played it looks like a three horse race for the automatic promotion places, between Norwich (who beat Millwall over the weekend to reclaim the top spot, with 69 points), Leeds (who moved up to second, with 67 points) and Sheffield United (who only managed a draw against local rivals Sheffield Wednesday and moved down to third, with 65 points). Our next fixture will be a tough one, away at Bristol City. I still can't believe we'll get promoted, but at least we're still in the running....

#leeds united #soccer #football #championship #marcelo bielsa #efl #elland road #leeds #united #ticket #2019

1 note · View note

maybeyoumissthisf-kingpost · 3 years

Text

Biggest world events in 2020

So 2020 is about to end with a lot of remarkable events, but I'm not sure if it's optimistic or not, let alone pessimistic. When I was a child, I often heard my grandparents tell me about the difficulties in the past, how they lived hard in the past so that today we can have enough food and warm clothes. Heartbroken. I admire the old people so much. However, suddenly looking back at what happened in the past year 2020, I tapped my forehead and thought… and then unconsciously patted my thigh with pleasure because finally, I also had something to later "converse" with my children and grandchildren that I had How can we survive this year of calamity?

World events in 2020 to tell later on

The year 2020 has passed, gently leaving the Wuhan flu epidemic to continue raging with the strong rise of the global "cholera" pandemic. The public went crazy watching the politicians "go to solve" the crazy political affairs. People praising the smell, people pouting and criticizing. Meanwhile, the media invited the Weasel Foxes to play the game of hiding cats 💩 to hide their "hunter" nature. Faced with that gray prospect, suffering humanity raised its face to the sky and asked God, what could be more tragic? At the end of the year, God looked down and said, "Biden!" then banged on the table and cursed at the father who crossed his face.

Sorry for the rambling, but I like to sarcastic before I get to the post. Because rarely have the opportunity to experience with readers on the last day of the year. Here are some notable events in 2020 of the world that I would like to share again.

1. Wildfires in Australia and California (USA)

2020 witnessed two intense wildfires in Australia and California (USA). In Australia alone, it can be said that this is the most fierce wildfire disaster in the country's history, when forest fires continuously lasted from December 2019 to 2020 and destroyed nearly 20 million hectares of forest. , displaced thousands of people and killed at least 34 people.

Taking this opportunity, "radical" suffragettes immediately sounded the alarm about climate change, that global warming is the cause of forest fires, despite the fact that the number of fires Forest occurrence is much less this year than the average in previous years, according to the European Union's (EU) Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS). I think climate change also knows how to "distinct regions" because it only chooses forests in capitalist countries to burn, not other countries.

2. The US killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani

On January 3, 2020, amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran, the United States carried out a drone strike on a convoy near Baghdad International Airport that was carrying some The passengers included Quds Force commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi People's Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU) commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and soldiers. senior officials of the two sides.

From the scene images, Soleimani's body was identified by the ring he wore on his finger and the sausage bar (100% meat) that fell off but was still intact. At the same time, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also confirmed the death of General Soleimani.

3. Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle abandon the British Royal Family

Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan shocked the Queen in particular, and the world in general, when they announced they were relinquishing their status as senior members of the British Royal Family on January 8. Royal officials fear this will seriously damage the monarchy's future. It is interesting that while the world views this as an important political event, only Vietnamese people approach it as a showbitch comedy.

4. Wuhan flu (aka COVID-19)

On January 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced about a deadly virus that appeared in Wuhan, China. In just a few months, the virus has spread rapidly globally to more than 20 million people and caused at least 750,000 deaths. However, thanks to the relentless efforts of WHO Director-General Tedros and the effective support of the media, the Wuhan flu (Wuhan Virus) finally succeeded in… in turn changing the name Wuhan flu. into Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. Currently, this Wuhan Virus has many new strains, it is expected that the new name may be COVID-19 Pro or COVID-19 Pro Max.

5. Impeaching President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump faced an impeachment trial in January initiated by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, with the aim of removing his presidency in January 2020. Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani of abusing their power to press the Ukrainian government to investigate the corruption scandal of Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden. According to the indictment, Mr. Trump (probably) committed bribery by asking for political favors in exchange for official action.

Finally, President Donald Trump was acquitted on February 5 due to the lack of evidence of impeachment.

6. Stock market wobbles in 2020

The Wuhan pandemic not only caused heavy loss of life, but also greatly affected the world economy. Many countries were forced to close down (lockdown), causing a serious decline in consumption. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 2997 points as investors panicked about the impact of the continued spread of the coronavirus, a record since 1987.

7. Oil prices went negative for the first time in history

Also because of the Wuhan flu, the US WTI oil price for the first time in history fell to a negative level on April 20, with a selling price of -37.63 USD/barrel. That is, the seller must pay the buyer. Fortunately, that ridiculous thing did not happen in Vietnam, people at that time only had to fill up with gasoline at a "stable" price of about 16,000 VND per liter.

8. Black Lives Matter protest for George Floyd

In fact, Black Lives Matter protests are still as common as usual in the US, but the case of the black brother George Floyd died after being pinned down by the police, along with the viral saying "I can't breathe" (I can't breathe). breathe) has sparked a wave of powerful protests and riots across the United States to demand an end to police brutality and anti-racism. That movement was enthusiastically supported by the left everywhere, with Biden's knees on all fronts in memory of this "national hero".

However, the death of George Floyd was later revealed that he did not die of asphyxiation, and also that "no life-threatening injuries were identified at the autopsy of George Floyd". In addition, the cadaver nasal swab was tested and determined that George Floyd was positive for the Wuhan virus (which often makes it difficult for the victim to breathe). At the same time, the black man was also found to be positive for many other banned substances and drugs.

The video of the police arresting George Floyd was also posted and showed that this young man was accused of using fake bills, being drunk, showing signs of being high and opposing the police many times when he was arrested.

9. Joe Biden Becomes Democratic Presidential Candidate

Joe Biden officially defeated more than 20 other Democratic candidates (including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) to become the 2020 presidential candidate.

10. Twitter hacked by a 17-year-old

A young weitei-age in Florida, named Graham Clark, has successfully hacked the Twitter accounts of famous political figures, artists and businessmen - including Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Kanye West - to commit bitcoin fraud.

11. Explosions in Lebanon in 2020

A massive explosion at the port city of Beirut occurred on August 4 due to the accidental detonation of 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate, equivalent to 1200 tons of TNT, which was confiscated by the state from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus and stored at port for six years without any precautions. The explosion killed 190 people and injured thousands more.

12. Kamala Harris Selected as Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate

On August 11, Biden announced he had selected California Senator Kamala Harris as a co-conspirator in the office of president. Thereby Harris became the first black and Asian woman to serve as Vice President. Many predicted that Ms. Harris could become the legitimate president of the United States when Biden once said he would cede his presidency in case his health was not guaranteed. That belief was further strengthened when two days ago, on December 29, Biden continued to "confoundly" call Harris the President-elect of the United States.

13. Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away

United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18 at the age of 87. Amy Coney Barrett was later appointed to take the place of former Judge Ginsburg. Mrs. Barrett was an outstanding jurist, a pious person and known as a woman of traditional values. Barrett's appointment strengthens the Supreme Court's constitutional majority (6-3). Currently, the new Supreme Court Justice is only 49 years old (born in 1972), so she is facing the opportunity to influence US law for decades to come. It can be said that this is such a big political shift that it may have a deeper impact than the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election.

14. President Donald Trump infected with Wuhan virus

President Trump announced on October 2 that he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the Wuhan virus. He was hospitalized for three days at Walter Reed National Army Medical Center before being discharged to continue his recovery at the White House.

15. Joe Biden becomes US president on suspicion of election fraud

Joe Biden can be said to have almost become the 46th President of the United States with a questionable victory in Pennsylvania, among many other battleground states. Thereby ending one of the most controversial elections in American history.

16. Successful trial of Wuhan flu vaccine

The first Americans were vaccinated against the Wuhan virus on December 14 after the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) approved the emergency use of Pfizer's COVID-19 shot on December 14. The second US vaccine, developed by Moderna, was approved by the FDA a week later on December 18. The emergence of two vaccines, developed in less than 12 months. one year, which is considered one of the greatest scientific achievements in human history, proving the leading role of the United States on the world map of science and technology.

17. President Donald Trump becomes the most respected person in America

According to a new survey published on December 29 by Gallup (a consulting and data company, specializing in global surveys), US President Donald Trump for the first time surpassed former President Barack Obama to become the first US President to become the US President. The most respected man for the American people. Notably, up to 60% of people were satisfied with the way Mr. Trump handled the epidemic. This position was previously held by Obama continuously for 12 years.

Meanwhile, President-elect with the highest popular vote Joe Biden received only 6% of the support (one-third of Trump), reflecting the opposite of the current election results. Looking at it, if one had any conscience left, they would definitely question the last election.

All credit goes to trantuansang.com.

0 notes

thaliberator · 3 years

Text

The Clownish Way to Doom A Generation

By following Colin Kaepernick’s “they’re both the same, why vote” philosophy and skipping the 2016 election, progressives and Black abstainers opened the door for Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to reshape the federal judiciary in a way that’s set to have dire consequences for Black people and progressives for the next 30 years.

Late in August 2016 as the American National Anthem blared through the Levi’s Stadium loudspeakers, reporter Jennifer Lee Chan tweeted a relatively innocuous photo shot from high above the field where the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers were set to engage in a preseason contest.

A then minor detail captured in the picture confirmed the impetus for a story Chan’s colleague Steve Wyche had been keeping his eye on for the past couple of weeks. What it showed was 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting during the playing of the anthem while everyone else in view of the lens stood. In and of itself, standing for the playing of the national anthem before a sporting event is a peculiar ceremonial ritual so boring that it only makes it to the TV broadcast for title games and big-time celebrity performances.

But once Kaepernick explained his rationale for not standing, and eventually kneeling, during the anthem, suddenly those two minutes of pre-kickoff pomp and circumstance became the biggest thing in sports.

As he would later go on to explain many times across multiple platforms, Kaepernick’s decision came in the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Oscar Grant, and the ongoing systemic oppression faced by Black people in America.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color," Kaepernick told Wyche. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

From the moment Kaepernick made known the reason for his protests the backlash was as predictable as the outcome, and thus his fate as an NFL quarterback was sealed in such a way that only an MVP-caliber performance could have extended his run. That didn’t happen and he hasn’t played another down in the NFL in nearly four years.

Kaepernick’s on-field performance in 2016 and 2017 left a lot to be desired. After being relegated to backup quarterback he was thrust back into the starting role after the team got off to a 1-4 start. His presence under center didn’t really change 49er-fortune as the team won only one of its remaining 11 games.

While statistics suggest Kaepernick’s performance wasn’t atrocious, it wasn’t good enough for the 49ers to make a long-term investment in him either. At the end of the season, the 29-year-old decided to opt-out of his contract and try his hand as a free agent, a designation that would allow any interested team to add him to their roster.

But despite having guided his team to a Super Bowl appearance just four years earlier and having declining but decent stats, not one of the NFL’s 32 teams took a serious look at Kaepernick. A few coaches and front office people made statements that someone should definitely pick up Kaepernick, just not their teams.

Was his performance poor? Yes. Was his performance so poor that 31 other teams couldn’t find a spot for him even as a third-string quarterback? No. Clearly the controversy-averse NFL owners, even if not overtly expressed, were in cahoots to ensure Kaepernick never received another shot in the league — a theory born out by the fact that in 2019 the NFL and Kaepernick reached a confidential monetary settlement regarding his claims that owners colluded to keep him unemployed.

But that part of the story we know.

They're All The Same?

As the Kaepernick controversy ballooned in 2016, the quarterback became the avatar for everything from the opposition of systemic racial oppression, the opposition of police brutality, and opposition of institutional racism to disrespect of the flag, disrespect of the country, and even (bizarrely) disrespect of the military.

The opportunity to drive a golf wedge into America’s racial fissures and exploit the emerging culture war wasn’t missed by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump who infamously said to an approving crowd of hootin’ n hollerin’ red state whites, “Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners when someone disrespects our flag to say, 'get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He's fired. He's fired!”

With the presidential campaign coming to a head, football season well underway, and the pro and anti-kneeling camps firmly entrenched, reporters asked Kaepernick to weigh in on the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Kaepernick, clearly the most prominent voice in professional sports at the moment surprised many when he said he didn’t plan to vote because essentially all politicians are the same, including Clinton and Trump.

Specifically, he said, “Both are proven liars and it almost seems like they’re trying to debate who’s less racist. At this point, in talking to one of my friends, you have to pick the lesser of two evils, but the end is still evil.

"I think the two presidential candidates that we currently have also represent the issues that we have in this country right now," Kaepernick said. "You have Hillary, who has called Black teens or Black kids super predators. You have Donald Trump, who is openly racist.

"He always says, 'Make America Great Again.' Well, America's never been great for people of color," Kaepernick said. "And that's something that needs to be addressed. Let's make America great for the first time."

And that was the gist of his abstinence rationale —they’re all the same, so I’m not voting.

It’s a relatively juvenile argument most often posited by people who don’t want to do the work required to actually change the reality of their political choices. And not only was Kaepernick not going to vote, turns out he never even registered to vote in 2016 or ever as far as any records show.

However, to his credit, Kaepernick is not your average apathetic abstainer. In the years that he has been out of football, he has become a high-profile activist, highlighting the issues that led to his anthem protest, held forums on a variety of social justice-related topics, and raised and donated millions of dollars for various causes.

He even started the Know Your Rights Camp, a non-profit organization that holds seminars for young people across the country to “advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders.”

He even managed to get one of America’s most beloved brands, Nike, to side with his efforts. According to various financial news outlets, Kaepernick’s partnership with Nike for their 30th Anniversary “Just Do it” campaign resulted in $163 million in earned media, a $6 billion brand value increase, and a 31% boost in sales, which includes the $50 t-shirts and $150 jerseys that routinely sell out in hours, with a portion of proceeds going to charity.

But corporate sales numbers aren’t really the ones that matter.

Inside The Numbers

When the dust settled on the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary Clinton received 65,853,516 votes to Donald Trump’s 62,984,825 but lost the election thanks to the Electoral College, a holdover from a bygone era that lifted two of the last three presidents who received fewer actual votes than their opponent (George W. Bush and Donald Trump) into the White House.

Having long outlived its usefulness and practicality as a means to ensure less populous states have a voice in the election outcome, the Electoral College process has shifted focus away from states with the most people and onto a handful of smaller “swing states” whose election-day results typically determine who becomes president.

In 2016 it didn’t matter that Hillary received nearly three million more votes than Trump because Trump received 306 of the possible 538 electoral votes to Hillary’s 232.

Despite the electoral vote total, a closer look at the numbers shows just how close America was to avoiding the four-year national nightmare/embarrassment/sideshow that has been the Trump presidency.

In Pennsylvania, Hillary lost the popular vote 2,970,733 to 2,926,441, a difference of 44,292 votes that resulted in Trump receiving the state’s 20 electoral votes.

In Wisconsin, Hillary lost the popular vote 1,405,284 to 1,382,536, a difference of 22,748 votes that resulted in Trump receiving the state’s 10 electoral votes.

In Michigan, Hillary lost the popular vote 2,279,543 to 2,268,839, a difference of 10,704 votes that resulted in Trump receiving the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Had Hillary Clinton won these three states, she would have won the presidency, leaving “shithole countries” and kids in cages for the next Mad Max movie instead of the front page of The Washington Post.

A Midwest trifecta for Hillary was plausible because it’s not as if these three states are deep Republican strongholds. Barack Obama won all three in 2008 and 2012.

Exit Stage Right and Not College-educated … and White

Exit polling showed that Donald Trump was able to pull off the biggest political upset since Truman defeated Dewey in 1948 by turning out trailer-loads of Rust Belt whites without college degrees, many of whom had never voted or previously voted for the Democratic candidate.

This so-called silent majority of disaffected white people bought into Trump’s sales pitch and promise to save them from the murderous, marauding hordes of Brown people threatening to rush the border and sack their suburban enclaves while he would simultaneously rewind the hands of time, bringing back jobs technology and environmental regulation had long-since shipped off to the Third World and China. And most importantly, he would “Make America Great Again” — a curious phrase that simultaneously causes his white followers to well up with star-spangled pride, while Black people, women, immigrants, the entire LGBT community, Muslims, and many more wonder just what great period he’s referring to because America has only very recently begun to consider treating us relatively civilly.

And while pundits point to some questionable campaign decisions made by Hillary and the underestimation of her unfavorability among the electorate, Trump’s ability to turn out record numbers of white voters without a college degree was the biggest factor in his victory.

However, an argument can be made that the biggest reason that Hillary lost is that she was unable to turn out voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania at the same level as Barack Obama.

In fact, Hillary wouldn’t have needed to worry about the white voters that jumped ship to the Republicans had she reached the Obama threshold with Black voters.

Analysis of the polling data shows that Black voters who previously voted for Obama didn’t cast a vote for Trump, instead a large percentage simply didn’t vote at all — a critical mistake.

Turning Out and Falling Off

According to the Pew Research Center, overall Black voter turnout fell from 66.6% in 2012 to 59.6% in 2016. The 7% drop might not seem like much but it represented the largest turnout decline of any racial or ethnic group in 30 years and was the first time in 20 years the Black voter turnout rate declined. 2016’s numbers represented the lowest Black turnout rate since 2000.

Even among Millennials, voter turnout increased for every single racial group except Black Millennials. The general Millennial turnout percentage increased from 46.4% in 2012 to 50.8% in 2016. The Black Millennial turnout decreased from 55% in 2012 to 50.6% in 2016.

A Slate article analyzing the 2016 election results cited a study by researchers from the University of Massachusetts and Indiana University that found the Black voter drop-off was sharpest in states where Trump’s margin of victory was less than 10 points. In Michigan and Wisconsin, Black turnout dropped by more than 12 points.

The combination of rises in white votes combined with declines for Blacks set the table for Trump to claim the electoral victories in those key states and thus win the presidency.

With all else remaining the same, had Black voters turned out in the same numbers like 2012, Hillary would have won Michigan. If white voter turnout remained at its 2012 level instead of going up, Hillary would have won Michigan and its 16 electoral votes.

In Wisconsin, the turnout rate among Black voters dropped 19% from 74% in 2012 to 55% percent in 2016. Turnout for Asians and Latinos also dropped by 6%. Coincidentally, the 2016 presidential election was the first time Wisconsin’s new voter ID requirement was in effect. Critics of the requirement and multiple studies have found that minority voters are less likely to have a driver’s license or another form of ID that satisfies the eligibility requirement. And this could be the reason Black voter turnout was disproportionately low in the state, allowing Trump to be the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to win Wisconsin.

A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that nearly 17,000 potential voters in Milwaukee and Dane counties did not cast votes due to the voter ID requirement put in place by Republican Governor Scott Walker and backed by the majority of Republicans in the State Legislature. Hillary lost Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes by less than 23,000 votes.

In Pennsylvania, where Black voters comprise 10% of the electorate, the .2% decline in Black voter turnout wasn’t as sharp as it was in other key states, but it was the only turnout decline recorded among the voting groups identified in the Center for American Progress study of 2016 voter trends. Had Black voter turnout matched its 2012 levels, with all other factors remaining the same, Hilary would still have lost the state because of a 4% increase among white voters without a college degree.

The election outcome proved Trump’s effectiveness at weaponizing white grievance to drive up uneducated white turnout — gains that were not offset by a necessary increase in minority voters and were assisted by the low Black turnout, even though even more Blacks were eligible to vote than in 2012.

All-Star Influencer

In terms of the pro-athlete social activist hierarchy, in late 2016, Kaepernick was king. Even four years later he remains 1 or 1A with LeBron James despite their nearly 116 million combined Twitter and Instagram follower gap. While LeBron is famous for his willingness to tackle topics and causes of importance beyond the basketball court, his legendary basketball feats remain the primary draw. With Kaepernick’s NFL days increasingly far behind him, the activism is the draw.

According to sports marketing and data analytics firm Hookit, in the months before the Green Bay game, Kaepernick was gaining approximately 50 followers per day on his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

In two weeks just after his protest and the rationale behind it were revealed, Kaepernick began gaining approximately 18,000 followers a day — an increase of 35,394%.

According to Hookit, from Jan. 1 to Aug. 25, Kaepernick gained 40,372 followers on Twitter. Between August 26 and September 8, he added 98,730 Twitter followers.

In the same two-week period Kaepernick had seven unique social media posts that were liked, commented on, or shared an average of 46,553 times per post — nearly four times more activity than his posts received prior to kneeling.

His mentions were also way up, with Kaepernick’s name tagged or mentioned 235,549 on various platforms during the two weeks — nearly 10 times more mentions than in the previous eight months.

And those numbers have only increased with Kaepernick possessing 3.9 and 2.4 million followers on Instagram and Twitter respectively.

But in November 2016, long before reporters rushed to LeBron for comment on the latest racial injustice, Kaepernick was the man at the center of the storm.

With his profile, his voice, his exposure, his activism, and his traditional and social media presence increasing exponentially in short order, it’s even more baffling that Kaepernick would choose not only to not endorse a candidate but to simply not vote at all.

In hindsight, it is a move that was counterproductive and best and wildly irresponsible at worst.

Woke Dummies and The Big Problem

The so-called Woke community of activists, to whom Kaepernick and Bernie Sanders are probably patron saints, is looking to push American society far to the left concerning all aspects of public policy and social life. The progressive agenda includes defunding police departments, abolishing prisons, criminal justice reform, ending fossil fuel usage, free college, healthcare for all, universal basic income, etc.

Depending on where you stand on the political spectrum, these moves can be viewed as either necessary steps to achieve social equity and justice or pipe dreams from people disconnected with theories related to practical application.

The problem for supporters of these issues aren’t the issues themselves, but the fact that enactment of any of them requires a political solution, and when challenged, a legal outcome favorable to the proponents.

By adopting the Kaepernick, “I’m not going to vote because they’re all the same” position, abstaining progressives ceded critical political and legal ground to the Republicans who, in the past four years, have plowed ahead making moves that will entrench their policy positions as law to be upheld by the conservative judges they’ve helped install — for decades to come.

If we reverse engineer the Republican masterplan, we can start with the U.S. Supreme Court, where President Trump has successfully appointed three justices to life terms. With his latest appointment of Amy Coney Barrett, who replaces liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the balance of the court has shifted 6-3 in favor of the conservative and ultra-conservative wings.

What this means for progressives like Kaepernick is that any law that seeks to fundamentally change or challenge the status quo or anything not rubber-stamped by a conservative think tank is likely to be struck down by a court packed with justices who believe the words written by slaveholding, sexist, landowning, rich white men in frilly tops, writing with quills, are still the standard by which rulings should be made almost 250 years later.

And again, Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, with most serving well into their 80s. The three Trump-appointed justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett are 53, 55, and 48 years old respectively, meaning they will likely be ruling against progressive interests for the next 20-30 years, dooming a generation.

But that presumes the cases even reach the high court. The path to the Supreme Court winds through federal courts where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been hard at work for the past six years working to ensure his insidious plan to put a conservative stranglehold on the federal judiciary came to fruition.

When Donald Trump began his presidency 105 empty federal judgeships had not been filled by President Obama — and that was by Republican design.

When Republicans won back control of the Senate in 2014 they obtained the final say on who got to fill or not fill the federal court vacancies.

In the two years before Republicans took the Senate, nearly 90% of Obama’s nominees were confirmed. After McConnell and the Republicans took over, that rate fell to 28%.

To achieve this result Republican senators used various tactics to either obstruct or delay the confirmation process. A Democrat-sponsored effort in 2013 removed the filibuster, a classic delay tactic often used by the minority party to continue debating an issue to prevent a vote, as it pertained to nominations to executive branch positions and federal judgeships.

This led to the Senate confirming more of Obama’s nominees at a higher rate because they only needed a majority of senators to vote to end debate and move on to the confirmation vote. While Senate Democrats confirmed many of Obama’s nominees, many judgeships were left vacant because a backlog of potential federal judges was created by the Republican stall tactics.

However, in 2014, when Republicans gained control of the Senate, it became clear that the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster was going to come back and bite Democrats in the ass — and boy did it ever.

When McConnell became majority leader confirmation of Obama nominees ground to a near halt, culminating in the prevention of a confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, Obama’s pick to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who died in February 2016.

In what would turn out to be perhaps the millennium’s boldest act of hypocrisy, McConnell justified holding no hearings for Garland claiming that in an election year the American people should have the chance to weigh in on the decision by allowing the next president to fill the vacancy — despite the election being nine months away.

Once Trump was elected McConnell shifted his plans for the federal judiciary into high gear and the Senate began moving to fill every vacancy with what Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee member Diane Feinstein called, “young conservative ideologues, many of whom lack basic judicial qualifications.”

From expressed opposition to everything from the Affordable Care Act to Abortion Rights to equal rights for LGBT Americans to environmental regulations to voting rights, and much much more, Trump appointees check nearly all of the boxes the religious right, conservative fringe, and a sizable number of racists have been waiting for generations to see reflected in the federal courts.

And in the off chance some progressive policy enacted into law in a blue state gets challenged and lands before the Supreme Court, McConnell’s machinations will likely result in the court striking it down with the approval of the six conservative justices, including Barrett, who McConnell saw sworn in just days before the 2020 election, forgoing all that stuff he said in 2016 about not confirming nominees in an election year.

Do you Really Care?

It would be one thing if Kaepernick didn’t care about social justice or Black people or right and wrong. But the fact that he clearly cares about those things makes his “I don’t vote, they’re all the same” position even more infuriating because, again, every progressive idea he supports requires a political and legal solution to be put into effect.

And once they’re put in place, they aren’t necessarily safe from political or legal processes.

For example:

The Affordable Care Act — The Supreme Court full of conservative justices will decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act as Republicans seek to strip away the means through which millions of Americans are able to receive health care during a deadly global pandemic.

Police Abuse — The decision to bring criminal charges against police officers who abuse and murder Black people or any people is made by the district attorney, an elected official, or, as in the case of the killing of George Floyd, the state attorney general, also an elected official.

Elimination of Qualified Immunity — Qualified immunity is the doctrine that prevents government officials, police officers in particular, from being held personally liable for misconduct on the job that would get the average person locked up for life or paying a huge monetary settlement. In 1982 the Supreme Court expanded the definition of qualified immunity ( https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/ ) and police unions and prosecutors have used it for decades to justify a lack of criminal accountability in scores of cases involving claims of police abuse.

A Reuters investigation examined how qualified immunity has made it extremely difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct and abusive behavior.

In one incident, qualified immunity was invoked after a police officer in Utah gave an unarmed man brain damage after slamming him to the ground during a traffic stop.

In 2010 a Houston officer shot Ricardo Salazar-Limon in the back during a traffic stop after claiming he thought the man was reaching for a gun. There was no gun.

Salazar-Limon claimed his constitutional rights were violated and sued the city of Houston and the officer who shot him. In federal court, the defense argued that the officer was protected by qualified immunity, the courts agreed, a summary judgment was entered, and the matter never went before a jury.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, a majority of justices agreed with the granting of qualified immunity to the officer.

In the dissenting opinion Justice Sonia Sotomayor was joined by Ginsburg in stating, “Only Thompson and Salazar-Limon know what happened on that overpass on October 29, 2010 … What is clear is that our legal system does not entrust the resolution of this dispute to a judge faced with competing affidavits. The evenhanded administration of justice does not permit such a shortcut.

“Our failure to correct the error made by the courts below leaves in place a judgment that accepts the word of one party over the word of another. We have not hesitated to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity in cases involving the use of force. But we rarely intervene where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity in these same cases.”

Restrictions to the application of qualified immunity would require the Supreme Court to hear a related case and come to a different conclusion, thereby setting a precedent for lower court rulings.

Voting Rights — Efforts to suppress the votes of Black people in particular and people of color generally have deep roots in America. In recent years Republicans across the country have led efforts critics have said are specifically aimed at suppressing or denying the votes of African-Americans. The reduction of the number of polling places in predominantly Black communities leads to hours-long waits to vote. Voter ID laws disproportionately impact minority voters who are statistically less likely to have the necessary documentation. The attempt to reduce the number of ballot drop-off locations in densely populated urban areas disproportionately impacts minority voters. Solutions and corrections to all of these issues require a political or legal solution and sometimes both.

Gerrymandering — Gerrymandering is the process by which politicians draw voting district lines to create districts in which one party is all but guaranteed to hold power indefinitely and doesn’t need to be responsive to anyone other than members of their own party. This has been a crucial tactic for Republicans looking to maintain power even as political shifts show more people moving away from their party. Bringing an end to gerrymandering or even drawing districts in a more logical, straightforward fashion requires a political solution that will almost certainly be challenged in federal court.

Abortion — This is the Holy Grail for conservatives who have been waiting for nearly 50 years to get enough right-leaning justices on the court to reverse the landmark ruling that protected a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. With a court now full of conservative Catholics, that dream is closer to fruition than ever.

The Census — Conducted once a decade, the U.S. government uses the census to count the number of people living in the country. The census results determine how many representatives each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, how an estimated $1.5 trillion a year in federal funding is distributed for the next 10 years, and how many electoral college votes each state is allocated. The Trump administration made repeated attempts to undermine the census, most notably by trying to add a citizenship question to the census intended to scare undocumented people away from participating, thus driving down the population totals in key Democratic states such as California and New York, diminishing their political power. Even though COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions made collecting census data more difficult the Trump administration successfully fought to cut the count short. That decision was upheld by the Supreme Court despite the argument that the decision will prevent a fair and accurate count.

Felons Voting — In 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment A that restored voting rights to people convicted of a felony who served their sentences. Many expected that a large portion of the 1.4 million newly eligible voters would vote Democratic but we may never know because the Republican governor and lawmakers quickly passed a law in response to Amendment A requiring people convicted of felonies to fully pay back fines and fees to the courts before they become eligible to vote. Depending on the person, the cost could range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars — effectively nullifying their voting rights.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit claiming the new law was unconstitutional because it created a financial barrier for people attempting to exercise their right to vote. In 2019 a federal judge sided with the plaintiffs and agreed that the law amounted to a poll tax and was unconstitutional.

But in September 2020, just two months before the presidential election, a federal appeals court overturned the previous ruling that will prevent any former felons who have not paid all of their back fines and fees from voting. Five of the six votes to overturn the ruling came from federal judges appointed to the court by President Trump.

Republicans know that Florida is arguably the most crucial state in their bid to capture the presidency. If Joe Biden or any other Democratic presidential candidate were to win Florida, the handwringing over states like Michigan and Wisconsin goes away because of the Sunshine State’s 29 electoral votes. Hillary Clinton lost Florida by 112,911 votes, a number that seems minuscule if you consider a pool of 1.4 million new voters, a majority of whom may lean Democratic.

Good intentions Meet Reality

While Colin Kaepernick is clearly well-meaning and puts his time, energy, and effort behind the causes he supports, it was unimaginably negligent of him to brag and boldly promote the fact that he does not vote, didn’t intend to vote, and voting doesn't matter because all the candidates were the same.

The margin of victory was so narrow for Donald Trump that there is no reason to think Kaepernick couldn't have moved the needle by choosing to use the soapbox upon which he stood in 2016 and the social media megaphone he wielded to push and encourage his hundreds of thousands of supporters to vote.

Is it improbable to think that the most prominent and popular politically active Black athlete could not have convinced a large number of Black people to cast a vote instead of sitting the election out?

And if you still think voting doesn’t matter, consider this as we continue to live altered lives under the cloud of a deadly global pandemic: In 2009, after multiple recounts and legal challenges, Al Franken became the certified winner of the Minnesota Senate election by 312 votes and became the 60th Democratic senator, a key number that allowed Democrats to end the Republican filibuster and vote to pass the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare aka the only reason many millions of Americans have healthcare access.

Every single progressive cause Kaepernick advocates for can be broken down to a simple equation:

Progressive Idea + Progressive Activism + Progressive Political Action + Progressive Legal Victories = Progressive Laws that move America closer to the fair, just, and equal society we should all be aspiring to.

Remove one part of the equation and things fall apart.

The idea that voting doesn’t matter and all politicians are the same is a position that is factually wrong, strategically incompetent, and downright imbecilic. That position makes Kaepernick and the abstainers just as responsible for Trump’s 220 judges and the decades of judicial beatings liberals and progressives will face as the MAGA hat-wearing racist Proud Boy.

Do not make the same mistake twice.

Do not be that stupid.

Go vote!

0 notes

shorthaircutsmodels · 4 years

Link

Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts - 25+ - https://shorthaircutsmodels.com/kate-hudsons-short-hairstyles-and-haircuts/ - Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, She featured Penny Lane in 2020-2021, which almost famously won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. His shaved head was great, harpers Bazaar UK said. After her hair started to grow I really liked that I actually miss that she later told the TV show Lorraine. While I think she pulls off a shaven head incredibly well, we're pretty partial to her golden locks and all the amazing ways she's shaped them over the years. Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Kate Garry Hudson is the daughter of veteran iconic actress Goldie Hawn and a former musician named Bill Hudson but Kate was actually raised by Kurt Russell since she was 3. He considers Russell to whom he affectionately calls PA “to be more his father as he was the one who was actually there for him growing up. In an interview, he told Hello magazine that he was my father. Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, He was always there for recitals, for football games. But despite being raised by two of Hollywood's most iconic faces, Kate turned out to be a successful actress enough to make even her legendary parents proud of her. Kate Hudson's Short Haircuts Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Giuliana Rancic stirred controversy on Monday's episode of "fashion police" when she told actress zendaya who wore Oscar dreadlocks that she should smell like patchouli oil or maybe weed. Zendaya has been in the news recently for her precious baby bump which keeps growing and growing only after Instagram Kate Hudson responded to fabletics founder and. Kate Hudson's Haircuts Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Queen of our hearts later apologised for the offensive comment. But it's not her baby girl's ultimate debut into the world of celebrity chic that has caught our attention. What a perfect shortcut rocks at the moment. Kate Hudson's Hairstyles Kate Hudson's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, In this picture Kate appears to be the smashing woman with so many stories. It's so gorgeous to make loose curls seemingly easy. Loose curls are effective at making thinner hair look thicker, and can cover any outfit with an effortlessly chic look. Kate Hudson's Short Hair Just like Kate in this picture, she's very stylish with such a hairstyle. Kate Hudson has become one of Hollywood's biggest risk areas as long as her hairstyle experiments continue. A childhood attending the dazzling red carpet and film after its famous parents Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell premiered alongside. Kate Hudson's Hair Kate Hudson certainly knows how to charm Hollywood. But in addition to her charming smile and her enviably golden blonde locks that put her first on the map, some of Hudson's most memorable haircuts are some of her most extreme. Who can forget the shaved head of actresses that Australian singer Sia helped style. Kate Hudson brown hair In just the past two years we've watched how a man lose 10 days a blonde Fairy along the way to the sandy brown buzz of the star's Mane and a few hair extensions that finally cut off the grazing jaw of blonde bob. So you can only imagine how many different hair she has sported over the years. Kate Hudson Pixie | Thick hair styles, Short hair styles pixie Kate Hudson did absolutely everything and looked fabulous all the way through. From her signature long blonde hair to short hair she recently became Kate Hudson really a hair chameleon posting all over social media. As we celebrate the long-standing actresses as a beauty icon, we've put together some of Kate Hudson's most memorable hair moments over the years. Who's Kate Hudson? Obviously she wasn't famous yet but. What face shape does Kate Hudson have? We immediately met her hit and started working together. Soon after, the Skeleton Key came out, and that changed everything. When you think of Kate Hudson's hair, you immediately think of Golden boho waves. But Kate rocked blue hair for her bridal battles, making up for some daring hair over the years. Kate Hudson blonde hair Including her most dramatic and favourite hair transformation to date. a shaven head. Making a drastic change for her sister Kate Hudson's role in the movie shaved head was not the job of her long-time hairstylist friend David Babaii. Oh, My God. Check out our gallery of Kate Hudson's hair through the years. Why did Kate Hudson buzz her hair? Early in 2020-in 2021 the world fell in love with Kate Hudson as a bubbly magazine columnist on rom com how to lose a man in 10 days. Three kids is an activewear brand and countless haircuts since then almost two decades later OK we all know who the fabulous Kate Hudson is. Kate Hudson Hairstyles: Short Hair, Shaved Head We get rewatched on how to lose a man 10 days out of pure nostalgia or we are all following him on Instagram for fresh fitness tips that he can accept as amazing. Although this badass mother is known to. Kate Hudson long hair Have a wide range of abilities, we focus on her hair because it somehow rocked her. Check out this tribute to Kate's gorgeous look and be inspired to try a new cut yourself this summer. Does Kate Hudson have curly hair? Once synonymous with beachy California locks actress and entrepreneur Kate Hudson from being one of Hollywood's most iconic blondes last summer shaved her hair for a movie role for the buzz cut. Kate Hudson curly hair She is a famous Great Celebrity Stylist in her own right but David Babaii is better known as the hair guru of choice for actress Kate Hudson. And David has been his personal stylist for as long as anyone can remember almost anything. How do you get Kate Hudson curls? She was her stylist when a mutual friend asked her if she might want Kate's hair style for a premiere. Her answer was Who Was Kate Hudson. Like we said a long time ago. Everyone had really heard of the bubbly blonde actress as before. Hudson remained true to the same stylist who prepared her for her first red carpet. David Babaii Multihifenate 40. Kate Hudson hair now Since then we've seen everything from Leonardo DiCaprio-inspired gelled spikes and sleek side pieces to a Bob living with bangs held by embellished slides. Kate hudsons will make the hairdresser really want a fairy cut by alaina demopoulos on February 18 2020. The title of Kate hudsons shave turned into a cute fairy haircut. Kate Hudson Hair Stylist On Cut & Color Over The Years We provide tips on how easy it is to style as well as letting your hair know which facial shape will match your hair texture and hair density. That seems to be a new catchphrase for Pink, who took to Instagram on Thursday to launch her new short hairstyle. Kate Hudson Rocks Short, Asymmetrical Wig While Growing Growing your hair out can be a laborious process but kate hudson has a great sense of humour about her short style. The pinks photo shows the singers in a chic short trim top while she keeps her ripped. Kate Hudson haircut bob When Kate Hudson needed to shave her head for her musical Sister with Sia she called to go to her hairdresser and didn't ask for a while in her chair. In fact she didn't look for a stylist for the buzz cut. The pro behind pixie. What is Kate Hudson natural hair color? His 6-year-old son. For an appearance on the Lorraine show the actress delved into the story behind her now famous pixie cut revealing she was chopping it all up with some unexpected help. Both my little one and Sia have said Shears. Kate Hudson haircut short Not long ago Kate Hudson caught our first glimpse of the unexpected and utterly badass buzz cut and she starred in an upcoming film Sister. We were shocked by the photos because she was one of the last celebrities we would ever have predicted would join the buzz cut club. Kate Hudson Hairstyles, Hair Cuts and Colors These are our favourite Kate Hudson hairstyles and there are always hair makeovers. While some leading Hollywood ladies tend to stick to see a signature style. Ellen Kerry Michelle Kate Hudson keeps changing things and we love her. Kate Hudson new hairstyle Here's our favourite looks for eight years. Last year Kate Hudson proved she could wear anything from an ombré pixie, conducted by her six-year-old son Bingham Bellamy and pop singer and songwriter Sia. Kate Hudson Short Haircut - Best Haircut 2020 - 2021 But this time she decided to go with a professional hairdresser to update her look. he hired Chris McMillan to give him a bob. Hudson shared a video clip of her tousled blonde bob by the celebrity stylist known for giving Jennifer Aniston the iconic shaggy haircut to her friends, later known as Rachel. Kate Hudson Most Beautiful Hairstyles This is my wafting card that Hudson Calls cracking. The actresses new bob comes as Sia grows the buzz cut she's getting for her sister, a sober drug dealer, and a film about her autistic sister, which she wrote and directed. It's funny because you don't really think about it when you're doing it for a role because you're just ready for it. Let's call it doing it. Kate Hudson hair extensions To celebrate her birthday, Babaii shares some of her most memorable moments with Kate, including when she used deodorant in her hair. The following interview was told to Megan Decker and edited for length and clarity. I've known Kate for 20 years. Kate Hudson hair products Kate Hudson's hair. Create a simple rebuild and you will be eligible for any exceptions. The striking and elegant bun pin Crown is ideal for women looking for the official updo to style their golden blonde mane and compliment a round face. View yourself with Kate Hudson hairstyles. Kate Hudson hair 2020 - 2021 It provides you with tips on how to style your hair by letting you know which facial shape matches your hair texture and hair density as well. Kate Hudson already looks gorgeous all the time despite being a super mom. What face shape is most attractive? She is only 34; however she seems to know quite well how to live a fabulous life. How else can he be so successful at something? This time, let's take inspiration from Kate's best hairstyles and learn from this gorgeous woman. What a magician Kate Hudson is when she blows her blonde locks to one side. The Messily tousled locks are truly voguish. Kate Hudson natural hair color This haircut looks great on any face shape and is easy to achieve. If you like it the way I do at home. Kate actually gave time and pal singer/songwriter Sia the honor just six-year-old son Hudson. Rather than head on he says he found shaving his head “very liberating. These blonde locks are pulled back at face length and left in front of the frame pinned. Kate Hudson hairstyles short To the nape to create this faux bob look. This hairstyle will turn heads on any day or night occasion and it's easy to recreate it at home with the right tools. Kate Hudson loves experimenting with her hairstyles and make up her latest has yielded spectacular results. What is the rarest face shape? This fake bob look is not only stylish and trendy, but also perfectly suited to the square face shape and wavy hair type. Kate looks best with the middle part and has a low forehead that has grown out of the fringe as seen here. Kate Hudson new haircut This leaves Kate with a voluminous hairstyle with style and elegance. Kate naturally has dark blonde hair but is a fan of wearing lighter hair colours such as this honey blonde tone. This works well with her hot tanned complexion and blue eyes. Kate Hudson hair short The highlights reveal her features beautifully and give her hair a warm finish. Kate Hudson is an American actress. Other members include Katy Perry as Cara Delevingne and Kristen Stewart. On Thursday the singer uploaded a photo of herself with her newly shaved head aimed at the camera and tufts of freshly cut hair in her hand. Kate Hudson red hair Pink, who has 7.3 million followers, posted a picture of "Don't let go" “ the singer's post has already garnered more than 615 000 likes and hundreds of comments. First she spent autumn wearing her dark buzz cut from the ubiquitous red carpet date night. Kate Hudson hair color He then used Leonardo DiCaprio's famously spiky-gelled 90s style of growth by a few inches to revive the effect that caused nostalgia in December. And she was last seen sporting an asymmetrical chin grazing cut with the help of a hint. How do you give a buzz cut? It's always educational to see how celebrities grow the pixie cuts that make Kate Hudson's new asymmetrical bob so interesting. It inspires you how to handle this strange growth phase gracefully, which comes with short haircuts. Kate Hudson new hair The actress traded her signature beachy waves for a close-cropped buzz last summer for her upcoming role in Sisters directed by singer Sia. Sia felt a story about a sober drug dealer and his autistic sister would be better suited to a close-shave character and. Kate Hudson haircut It was Hudson. And he didn't do it in a fancy salon. It was apparently done without much fanfare, with both sia and Husdson's 6-year-old son Bingham buzzing his long locks. Kate Hudson hairstyle After reaching a few inches of growth the actress boosted the 90s styling of her hair by taking her gelled ends in all directions above her head giving her the appearance of a total of 41 band members. Kate Hudson Pixie To her credit the style looked particularly surprising compared to bold pink lipstick and a feminine dress but she poked fun at herself by comparing her crop to Leonardo DiCaprio's a few decades ago.

0 notes

ramajmedia · 5 years

Text

The Most Divisive TV Shows Of The Decade | Screen Rant

These are the most divisive TV shows of the decade. The 2010s has seen some major shifts in the TV landscape, moving from the Golden Age of Television into the Peak TV era, and with that have been changes viewers consume TV, and thus how they react to it as well.

Thanks to social media, there's been an increase in die-hard fandoms around TV shows, such as Rick & Morty, and it's never been easier for fans to express their opinion - and in particular their displeasure - about a certain TV series or specific episode. And while this decade has seen a lot of TV shows both good and bad, there has also been a number that have been controversial and split opinion, whether over their entire run or just in the final few seasons.

Related: The Best TV Series Finales of the Decade

It might be a case that there's a TV show critics hated but audiences clearly loved, or a series disliked by fans but that received great reviews, or otherwise a TV series that absolutely no one could agree on, but everyone argued about. From 2010-2019, these were the TV shows that tore people about and proved extremely divisive.

Aaron Sorkin is rightly revered as one of the all-time great screenwriters, especially when it comes to TV, but he couldn't please everyone with The Newsroom. Airing on HBO from 2012-2014, The Newsroom chronicled life at a fictional cable news channel, and attempted to portray the rapidly-changing world of news long before the term "Fake News" became so ubiquitous. However, despite a great pilot episode, the series continued to divide both critics and fans: there were those who loved its strong political messaging, and others who found Sorkin's decision to tackle whatever topic was on his mind in a way that meant he won the argument. Stirring stuff that spoke to the heart of news and real-life America, or self-satisfied and preachy? When it came to The Newsroom, no one could quite decide.

Hemlock Grove often feels like Netflix's weird, forgotten little show. It was part of its first slate of Original Series, but while both Orange is the New Black and House of Cards went on to have length-run, critical acclaim, and plenty of awards, Hemlock Grove was canceled after three seasons and didn't leave too much of a mark. Produced by Eli Roth, the horror series was unsurprisingly shlocky, and critics were largely put off by the series' tone and gore, with Hemlock Grove's Rotten Tomatoes score at just 38%. At the same time, it developed something of a cult following, with fans enjoying its horror elements, universe building, and characters and performances, holding a much more respectable 64% audience score on RT.

HBO's Girls largely garnered strong reviews over the course of its six-season run, but that didn't stop it from being both divisive and controversial among both critics and viewers alike. Following the lives of four female 20-somethings in New York City, Girls was quickly praised for its humor, fearlessness, and the fact it was so authentic in portraying female relationships. Conversely, it also brought a lot of controversy over its lack of racial representation despite being set in NYC, and there were arguments about Girls' approach to feminism too. A big part of Girls' division was creator and star Lena Dunham herself, who can divide people, and it was often the cast that if you liked Dunham, you probably liked Girls, and vice versa.

Related: The Best Movie Endings Of The Decade

When ABC decided to revive Roseanne, which had been a hit in the 80s and 90s, it at first seemed like a masterstroke: 18 million people watched the Roseanne season 10 premiere, and critics generally approved of it too. It was a return to the classic sitcoms of old, but most seemed content with what it was offering - yet the division came because of Roseanne Barr herself. An outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, Roseanne was already proving divisive because of her political views before she made racist remarks about Valerie Jarrett on Twitter, causing ABC to cancel the series. While many critics and analysts praised the move and condemned Barr, there were plenty of supporters who believed it shouldn't have been canned and that Roseanne instead should've remained on the air, causing more division off-screen than it did on-screen.

The Walking Dead is one of the biggest TV shows of the decade, and with that kind of fanbase - especially when it's a series with beloved source material and a whole lot of violence - is bound to come some division. Despite its huge ratings numbers, The Walking Dead has often been somewhat overlooked by critics and awards bodies, but it's also caused plenty of arguments among its own fans too. There are plenty of moments, from almost all of season 2 to deaths of characters such as Beth, but none better showcase how divisive The Walking Dead can be than the Negan cliffhanger at the end of season 6, and the season 7 premiere that followed. The latter was decried for being needlessly violent, but its defenders will simply tell you that's The Walking Dead, and while the ratings have dropped off now, at its height there were long arguments about whether it was actually any good.

Star Trek: Discovery was the first new Star Trek TV series in over a decade when it debuted back in 2017, so there was already a lot of pressure riding on the series from the outset. Aiming to put its own spin on Star Trek, Discovery was largely praised by critics, but its first season especially was very divisive among Star Trek fans. There were arguments that it "wasn't Star Trek", and some fans disliked new elements such as following a lead character who wasn't the captain, or just the personality of Michael Burnham in general, while others found it to be a fresh, exciting take on what's come before, exemplified by its Rotten Tomatoes scores: its 82% with critics, but just 43% with audiences.

Iron Fist was perhaps the MCU's first true failure, and certainly of Netflix's corner of the Marvel universe, which had looked as bulletproof as Luke Cage. Iron Fist's first season was roundly panned by critics, being savaged unlike anything else in the MCU for its weak fight choreography, poor plotting, and Finn Jones' performance among other things. However, there were still plenty of Marvel fans who enjoyed the series and defended it from the criticism, evidenced by season 1's critics and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes being 20% and 73% respectively, although things did improve slightly in Iron Fist season 2. There are people who'll say Iron Fist is the worst thing the MCU has produced, and others who'll say it's not even the worst of the Netflix shows.

Related: The Best Superhero Movie Performances Of The Decade

Starting off as a Batman series without Batman, Gotham has long received decent-enough reviews from critics, but where it's proved most divisive is amongst DC fans. Despite featuring the vast majority of Batman's key supporting characters and rogues gallery over the years, Gotham played things extremely fast and loose when it came to established Batman canon - or at least, mythology - and fans weren't always receptive to the changes, especially things like messing around with Ivy's character or having Barbara lead the League of Assassins. Other changes, such as Penguin's character, were more warmly received, but there was generally a divide between those who enjoyed Gotham's new twists on Batman lore and those who rejected it changing such core aspects of the character.

How I Met Your Mother was popular with fans and critics for the majority of its run, although things did take a turn in later seasons when the CBS sitcom started to run out of steam and drag out elements of its story. Its final season took that further by being set completely over a weekend, but it was How I Met Your Mother's series finale that made it so truly divisive. By quickly killing off the Mother and having Ted end up with Robin, a lot of fans were furious with the idea that they'd wasted so much time invested in the show only for those last twists. At the same, the HIMYM finale has been defended for its story, being true to life, and nailing its other aspects too, but nonetheless it remains one of the most controversial series endings ever made.

Lost may have only aired one season this decade, but that was enough for it to become one of the most divisive TV shows of the 2010s, because it was one of the most divisive seasons of television of all-time, and that's certainly true of its finale. Even prior to "The End", however, Lost season 6 was polarizing among fans and critics alike, with "Across The Sea" perhaps the most divisive episode of the series' entire run until the finale, hailed as both the best and worst of the show. And then there was the Lost finale itself, which was loved by some fans, despised by others, and spent most of the decade as TV's punching bad and go-to example of a bad finale.

13 Reasons Why is another of those shows that was always going to attract controversy, since it deals with topics such as teen suicide and sexual abuse, but few might've predicted just how divisive it turned out to be, with its first season in particular leading to strong opinions on both sides. Did the depiction of Hannah Baker's suicide go way too far, or was it important to show it? Did the show handle sexual assault delicately, or terribly? Is it sending the right message to its teenage audience, or dangerous for them to watch? Both sides of those debates have, and continue to be, argued by critics, fans, medical professionals, school officials, classification bodies and more, making 13 Reasons Why Netflix's most divisive and controversial series so far.

Related: The Most Divisive Movies Of The Decade

It's tempting to say that all of Game of Thrones' backlash started and ended with season 8, and it's true that the final season was the one where the controversy and division boiled over: where petitions were signed, the internet raged, and many declared the TV show ruined while quieter corners of the internet tried to defend it. But Game of Thrones has long been divisive. Certainly, from season 5 onwards, when it really started moving past George R.R. Martin's books, it's been less universally praised, and even before then there was some division amongst show-watchers and book-readers, alongside controversy and anger over its depiction of sexual assault and lack of diversity. Game of Thrones is the biggest TV show of the last 10 years, so it's not much of a surprise that it's also the most divisive TV series of the decade as well.

More: Game Of Thrones Has Replaced Lost (As TV's Punching Bag)

source https://screenrant.com/divisive-tv-shows-decade-2010s/

#screenrant

0 notes