The 50 Worst Sports Ideas Ever

Washington Times ^ | April 25, 2002 | Patrick Hruby

[L.N. Smithee]

Like leisure suits and the Ford Pinto, it was an idea to suit its era.

Which is to say, surpassingly ill-conceived. On a warm summer evening in 1974, the attendance-starved Cleveland Indians held their first

[Dan from Michigan]

I wasn't 21 when that was introduced(94?)..so it wasn't the Guiness..nope wasn't that.....really.

[Dan from Michigan]

Guinness

[hole_n_one]

[riley1992]

so it wasn't the Guiness

Guinness

LOL. Point made.

[BluesDuke]

Never mind Dennis Miller - Monday Night Football itself should have been on the list!

[BluesDuke]

Another should-have-been candidate:

Televising the NFL Draft - You can't possibly be serious that it takes the equivalent of The Jerry Lewis Telethon to run the NFL's annual draft. At least with Jerry Lewis you get some laughs about once an hour. It didn't take that long to find Eichmann.

[Revolting cat!]

Postseasons in which damn near every team in the league gets to compete for a championship, even if some of them lost or tied more games than they won.

Oh yeah, that's my favourite too. In fact, I'd like to see our leagues organized the same way that futbol leagues abroad are organized. The leageas are tiered. There is the top tier league with say a dozen teams and then a second tier league with two divisions of a dozen teams each and a third tier league with maybe four divisions. At the end of each season the top teams in each tier below the top one graduate to the higher tier while the bottom teams in each tier drop down to the tier below. That learns 'em I tell ya! Needless to say, this is an impossible dream here where we have kindergarten arrangements - everyone wins a prize of some sort as noted above. .

[Mid-MI Student]

I kept waiting for Disco Demolition.

GO TIGERS. That was one game they won easily.

[BluesDuke]

You can keep that barely-much-of-an-improvement to football, or futbol, or foosball, but I'll still take a legitimately-earned, legitimately-contested World Series. (For that matter, baseball, away with regular-season interleague play! The proper place for interleague play is the World Series...)

[Rightwing Canuck]

Fox's Glowing Hockey Puck

LOL. I remember when that came out. Everyone up here was having a good laugh at you guys' expense (since Fox is an American channel, and it seemed like something Americans would do). 'Twas all in good fun, though :)

[mseltzer]

You crazy Canadians, eh?

[Rightwing Canuck]

Hey, there ain't much else to do up here other than watch hockey and drink, so when we can take potshots at someone else, you better believe we're gonna do it :)

[Windshark]

You better be drinking after tonights game....

[fnord]

I would add the obligatory, 'spontaneous' Gatorade cooler drenching of the coach after each football playoff win. It was almost appropriate the first time; ever since it causes me to flinch in empathetic embarassment.

[BluesDuke]

Jeeez, when I used to see that dumb Fox gimmick, the contrail made it look like grown men chasing an electric eel with sticks

[Rightwing Canuck]

Hell yeah. That hit on Zednik was disgusting. He clotheslined him! This ain't wrestling, and I suspect that our Habs will explain that to them next game.

Other than that, we played very well, and controlled most of the game, but the penalties killed us.

[Windshark]

You must be drinking already...you mean the ten in a row against the Wings at the beginning?

the Canucks are going to be great...someday...if they get rid of that nutcase Bowman envier coach they have....but for now they are seriously outclassed...and yes...they been lucky so far.

[Dan from Michigan]

I thought there would be a riot in Hockeytown USA, over that damn thing, but then our friends in Windsor had CBC, and the Wings were usually on UPN 50 or Fox Sports Net(then PASS Sports).

Half of Detroit watches hockey on CBC unless the local Wings announcers are on, and for national coverage, usually Detroit(and other Michigan homes with CBC) tunes in to CBC, if nothing else because of Don Cherry.

What got me was that there was a poll(by FOX) that said that Americans liked "Foxtrax". The Hockey News poll said that 90% hated it.

[Dan from Michigan]

Marc Crawford? I love it when that SOB loses. I still hate the guy going back to his Colorado years. What a little homo.

[Rightwing Canuck]

Oops wrong game. I was referring to the Boston-Montreal game (the Canuck in my name refers to Canadian, not the team :)

I am rooting for the Vancouver squad in that series, though, if only because I'd like a Canadian team to win this year. Lord knows we need it. It's getting tiresome watching Canadian players hoist Lord Stanley's Cup while wearing a Detroit or Colorado jersey.