Okay, so maybe you’ve heard enough about hockey and violence, but I just have to rant for a bit. Last weekend I got the chance to go see a hockey game at Mile One between the Hershey Bears and the St. John’s Maple Leafs. My wife, my parents and I have really good seats , three rows back form the corner on the home side of the rink. When the first guy got checked into the glass in front of us, I thought my mother was going to leap out of her skin. And no matter how many times it happened, I don’t think she ever got used to it.

That’s the variety of violence that I can handle in a hockey game. It’s the hand-to-hand combat that seems to be more and more prevalent in today’s game that I just don’t understand. First, let me point out that Saturday night, there was no fighting (not that a couple guys didn’t look like they wanted to start a few). The game however was no less entertaining. If fact, with four-on-four overtime and a shootout to decide the winner, I would say I got more than my money’s worth (especially since the tickets were free). Yet it didn’t seem to please all the fans.

There were the people who got all excited and cheered whenever there looked like there might be a little fist action. There were the people who yelled out the occasional “deck him” or “fight” whenever they felt one of our players had been wronged. Then there was the section that for a good 10 minutes in the third period when it looked like there wouldn’t be any bloodshed who kept chanting, “We want a fight, we want a fight.”

I can’t understand this mentality. The people who believe that fighting is an integral part of the game. The people who feel they have been inflected with injustice if not one set of gloves hit the ice during a game.

Now, I’m not saying that I would walk away from the television and boycott the sport if there was a fight, they’re bound to happen. I just think that the leagues should do more to hinder them. Take the NFL for instance, where fighting is met with stiff fines that discourage most to refrain. This doesn’t stop all unnecessary fighting, but it limits it to a more tolerable level. If you want to see hockey, you should go to your local rink, if you want to see fighting, try boxing.

Of late, I have been feeling more and more tired. It seems that my normal practice of using the weekend to catch up on the sleep I lost over the week just isn’t working anymore. I have never really been able to sleep when I am tired, I just seem to lie there for hours thinking about nothing (the Barenaked Ladies described it best as “thinking about, oh what to think about”). Lately that problem, combined with earlier mornings, has me wishing for a national one month mandatory sleeping period. (I’m having trouble trying to push that one through parliament .

So the other night, during one of my “what could I think about that will make me sleepy” periods, I started trying to figure out how I developed my sleeping problem. I have in the past blamed my problems on the Sprung Greenhouse, a failed attempt to grow weird looking cucumbers in Newfoundland at the cost of Millions in tax payers money. See, the project was basically set up in my backyard, and for the duration of operation, my street was cursed with perpetual sunlight (it made playing spotlight suck). The other night though, I strayed away from this idea and move to TV and time zones.

Now you’re thinking “TV, I can see that, but timezones?” Well, its not really timezones and its not really TV, its the combination of them both. You see, I used to watch a staggering amount of television. Throughout high school and undergrad, when I was in the house and not studying, you would find me in front of a TV in one form or another. I watched all sorts of different programs, and like most people, I was drawn to primetime.

Here in lies the problem, “Primetime.” See primetime is 8-11pm, except that is 8-11pm where large portions of people live in North America. In my case, I am closest (1.5hrs by the timezones) to the large mass of people living in Eastern Standard Time. So, for me (and everyone else in Newfoundland) “Primetime” is 9:30pm-12:30am. Not exactly the kind of hours to base a good sleep regiment around.

Being a fan of the one hour drama such as “Law and Order” that come on late, I quickly developed a stay up late and sleep to the last possible minute lifestyle. For many years that lifestyle suited me well, but it seems that I am not immune to time and it is now catching up to me. I’m sure I will adjust sooner or later, but for now I am left to feel tired. Maybe as we move toward TV-on-Demand, future generations will have the freedom to schedule their own TV and avoid sleep deprivation in their later years. Or maybe, my sleepless state has caused me to ramble on about nothing.

I know they have been doing it for a while now, but I really hate theaters playing commercials before the movie. Trailers for coming releases I totally understand, in fact I even look forward some of them. I have been know to make a final decision on whether or not to see a movie based on the trailers I will get to see. Commercials on the other hand are just wrong.

I know why the advertiser want the commercials played, where else do they get such a captive audience? It’s not like you are going to get up out of your seat and come back when they are over (like with tv commercials). They’re so loud and you can’t even ignore them really, you just have to sit and watch. Now, so will say, “there are only a couple, does it really hurt that much,” but that is not really the point. I am a big fan of movies and go see them quite regularly. I already put up with the fact that movie prices seem to increase more often than I change my socks. Or the fact that I have to pay $5 for about $0.10 worth of popcorn (I can get twice as much for just over $1 from a local rental store). You would think that the theaters make enough money as it is, but no, they need to sell commercial time to make even more. Maybe someday that money will go to price reductions on tickets and concessions. Okay, maybe not, but a guy can dream can’t he?

When the Olympics started a couple weeks ago, I’ll admit that I was not really into them. I don’t know if it was the crazy time difference, the 12 hour opening ceremony (they always seem that long), or the fact that without a national program to hide the illegal use of steroids, Canada was going to do poorly yet again. There are only so many stories about the US track team that you can read before you feel bad for Ben Johnson getting caught.

At first I did not really watch very much coverage, but as time went by, I resigned myself to the fact that there really wasn’t anything else on. The more I watched though, the more I got interested. However, it wasn’t really the Canadian team that got me interested. I wanted to be excited for Canada, but let’s face it; they didn’t give us much to cheer about. My interested came more from the side stories: the gymnastics judging; the “great” security Athens for $1.5 Billon; and the record number of cheats caught at these games.

I really though no games could match Salt Lake City for controversy after the Sale and Pelletier fiasco, but these games tried there best. In gymnastics it is hard to believe any of the results. In one case the judges awarded a low score and changed it after enough protest from the crowd (reminiscent of “Ask the Audience” from “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”). In another they awarded a mathematically impossible score, but decided to stick by it. Although, nothing tops the fact that they awarded a gold medal to the wrong person due to a error in calculation, but are not willing to do anything to fix the travesty the freely admit to creating. Maybe the IOC should consider offering medals for officiating to increase the quality of judging.

Before the games, one of the big concerns about this Olympics was the security of the athletes. Terrorism was thought to be a problem, and as such, $1.5 Billion was spent to make sure everyone was safe. Early in the games, a British journalist exposed holes in security by leaving suspicious packages throughout the venues. This was quickly brushed off because the packages were not actually dangerous (they just could have been). Then a Canadian made a splash (literally) by diving into the pool during a competition. We were then told the security would be further tightened to prevent such happenings. However, on the last day of competition, Vanderlei de Lima basically had his chances of winning the marathon destroyed when a protestor ran out into the street and dragged him into the crowd. Right about now I’d say the Greek’s are trying to figure out how to get their money back.

On a brighter note, there have been more than 20 cheats caught at these Olympics. This may seem like a negative point, but the more people caught, the more medals that will go to people who deserve them. That being said, the IOC and WADA will always have to strive to be ahead of the cheaters. There have been a lot of drugs in the past for which it has taken far too long to produce tests to accurately detect. If the process of catching drug users gets better over time, maybe we’ll get back to being able to enjoy a world record performance without actually worrying if the athlete is the real thing.

With that, I will end with 5 things I learned from watching the Olympics on the CBC:

1) According to Tim Horton’s, their coffee mug is more recognizable than the Canadian Flag.
2) There does not exist a decent recording of the Canadian national anthem in Greece.
3) In Men’s Vault you get at least 9.5 if you feet hit the mat first. It doesn’t matter if your ass is the next body part to touch.
4) No matter how much fun it is to annihilate the competition, sooner or later, NBA players just get bored.
5) Canada would win significantly more medals if we were to enter “The Little Blue Cow” in all events.