All posts by Jason Kurylo

Rangers win!

Much like Ichiro Suzuki and other Japanese superstars in the major leagues, pitcher Yu Darvish draws hundreds of his countrymen and women to Texas Ranger games. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.

I had the good fortune of catching a game at Ranger Stadium in Arlington, TX this week, and it was one hell of a game. Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish started well, earning four strikeouts in the first two innings, then imploded. He gave up six runs in the third and another in the fourth before more than 42,000 hometown fans.

Interesting note for those of us who have experienced the phenomenon of Ichiro Suzuki in Seattle. While Darvish is a popular young pitcher amongst Ranger fans of all nationalities, there were a considerable number of Japanese fans in the crowd, almost all of them sporting Darvish jerseys. It’s a considerable market for MLB teams to tap into, and we’ve seen it with Dice-K, Godzilla and a few other import stars. For anyone who has heard entire sections of gleeful college-aged Asian girls squeeing for Ichiro, you’ll know what I’m talking about. As an ex-ESL teacher, I’m interested in things like this.

But I digress. Back to baseball.

Continue reading Rangers win!

Shuttlecock Scandal!

Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China embarrassed the entire Olympic movement when they intentionally threw a match to draw a more favourable quarter final opponent. They were disqualified along with three other teams.

It’s obviously not the first time anyone has tried to lose a match for a better draw in a tournament, but these badminton players are by far the highest profile example of match fixing to be caught in the social media age.

Check out this video of the world champion Chinese women’s doubles team “competing” with a highly ranked South Korean pair at the London Olympics:

 

Both of these pairs, as well as another from South Korean and one from Indonesia, have been thrown out of the 2012 Games. And rightly so.

The countries these women represent should be ashamed, and willing to make an example of their unsportsmanlike conduct.

Sad to say, my good friend Ryan Kesler has taken more than his fair share of dives over the last couple of years. Get up, RK17, GET UP.

Now if only we could suspend or disqualify players in soccer and hockey who dive. Yes, that includes Ryan Kesler. Play the damned game, people, every shift, every point, every time. Play, and to every South American soccer player, I echo the same thing I yell at Kes when he pulls this kind of crap: “GET UP!!!”

7 Things from Waukegan

I’m writing from enemy territory today: Chicago. Famous for Sammy Sosa, deep dish pizza, that huge statue of Marilyn Monroe, and the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Blackhawks.

Well, to be fair I’m not actually in Chicago. I’m in Waukegan. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, so here you go: Where’s Waukegan? (In case you don’t want to check out the link, it’s just north of the Windy City. Or, as Hockey Broad put it, Waukegan is “far suburban Chicagoland”.

I haven’t seen any Hawks paraphernalia around town just yet, but then again it’s 30 degrees Celsius hereabouts – not exactly jersey-wearing weather. Lots of Cubs and Bulls stuff on the streets, though.

Anyway, here’s 7 Things from Waukegan:

Continue reading 7 Things from Waukegan

Knee Hockey

You too can be an Asian child – for just $49.95!

If you’re among the gross majority of the human population currently, sweltering under record temperatures, there are two things on your mind:

1) “George W. Bush and his scienceless brethren are idiots for denying the existence of climate change. Crack a frickin’ window, you brain-dead zealots!”

2) “I just wish there were a way for me to play summer hockey while kneeling on a sprinkler-surrounded slip and slide!”

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Canada wins… at Wimbledon?!?!?

Eugenie Bouchard became the first-ever Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title when she took the girls’ junior championship match at Wimbledon.

This year was supposed to be the year Wimbledon history was made. And it most certainly was, if not for the right reasons.

Continue reading Canada wins… at Wimbledon?!?!?

Canadians have it pretty good

Fred Perry is the last British-born tennis player to win Wimbledon. Check out the pants!

If you think it’s been a long time since a Canadian team hoisted the Stanley Cup, try being a British tennis fan.

In case you’re counting, the last time the Cup was won by a team north of the 49th parallel was in 1993, when Patrick Roy’s Montreal Canadiens beat Gretzky and the LA Kings in five games. A lot of people consider the Stanley Cup, and even hockey as a game, to be incontrovertibly Canadian, but since the Habs won 19 years ago, every championship series has gone to a US-based team. The Ottawa Senators, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and the Vancouver Canucks (twice) have appeared in finals since then, but northern fans have gone into the summer empty-handed and broken-hearted each time.

So, wah. The Brits haven’t celebrated a hometown men’s singles hero on Centre Court since the Great Frickin’ Depression. How long ago was that? Players wore PANTS during matches.

Continue reading Canadians have it pretty good