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What are you following this week? Weekly sports round-up thread
Little late this week but let's hear it, what's happening in the wide world of sports? Anything special on the cards for this weekend?
Little late this week but let's hear it, what's happening in the wide world of sports? Anything special on the cards for this weekend?
In an impressive feat, the NHL's Arizona Coyotes have had what I can only imagine to be one of the worst off-seasons in the history of sports. There may have been off-seasons that have put teams in worse position for on-the-court. But for the Coyotes' situation I really want to zoom out beyond the ice to explain why this is just an abomination. So lets start with some context, then the on-the-ice bad things, then the truly terrible things. The Arizona Coyotes' are a team that had terrible attendance numbers this year, and even worse for them is that it is part of a trend of bad attendance. You could argue that their numbers went up this year, which is a glimmer of hope, but having their best attendance year in a while still be that fucking bad is... not great. They also got a new GM, who is a really good GM in my opinion! So that's good right? Well.... First, they lost their best scorer Taylor Hall to the Buffalo Sabres. That is a big loss for the team. The Coyotes had huge scoring troubles before Hall signed and really only made it into the playoffs because of Hall. So his departure hurts a lot. But you might think to yourself "well that hurts, but the 2021 draft class looks solid so maybe they can pick someone up?" A great thought! Except Arizona lost their first 2 round picks for scouting violations. It can be debated if what they did was worthy of losing 2 picks, but there isn't really any denying what they did was against the rules. OK so they lost Hall, and then they lost 2 rounds of draft picks. That's a pretty deep hole to dig yourself.
Now is where things get truly terrible. I've debated the way I wrote this post many times because this next story is so much bigger than hockey and so disgusting it feels wrong to discuss in anything other than a serious manner. I'll have more on that later. First: Trigger Warnings: Extreme racism, violence, bullying (specifically of the developmentally disabled), assault, suicidal thoughts. I will link to the story but will leave most the specific details out so that those who would be triggered by those things are more likely to be able to finish reading this post.
The Arizona Coyotes took and used their first draft pick to draft known-monster Mitch Miller. Before I link to any articles, I want to really really stress those trigger warnings from before. This is your last chance to go through your day without being infuriated and/or depressed. You can read the specifics here. The vaguest summary I can give is that in 2016 at age 14, Mitch Miller and another student were charged with assaulting a black mentally disabled student in their middle school who was looking to be their friend. According to the mother of the bullied child Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, the other boy broke down crying and personally apologized to Isaiah and their family and has worked hard to grow and change as a person, and both Isaiah and the family have forgiven him. The family states that Mitch Miller has never apologized to their son, and allege that he continued to harass and intimidate Isaiah until he was 16. The bullying only ended because Miller moved to a different area in order to play on a team that would improve his chances of making the NHL. In the 2016 court case, the judge even is quoted in sentencing as saying nothing in the trial showed Miller had any remorse for his actions other than the fact that he got punished for them. Before going any further I want to pause and say what Mitch Miller did is beyond inexcusable if you read what he did, and no he doesn't deserve a second chance because he has shown no remorse for his actions nor has he made any attempt to make amends with the family. Above everything else I want to make sure we remember that the main victim in all of this is Isaiah, who was bullied so badly he has PTSD and is suicidal to this day, and had to watch his bully's dreams come true of getting to play in the NHL even when the teams knew the full details of what he did. While some of the other aspects of this story are bad and inexcusable (like drafting an openly-racist kid is not great for a league struggling with race relations and racism), more than anything my heart goes out to Isaiah. I am happy to know he has not taken his own life in spite of the abuse he suffered, and hope he is able to get the help he needs and is able to live a life where is happy to be alive.
The drafting of Mitch Miller is really bad by itself. But it gets compounded by things like their new GM defending the draft of Miller, or that Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez was named to the NHL's Executive Inclusion Council, a group the league said "will focus on combating racism and fostering diversity in the sport." After thoroughly destroying their reputation, angering both their own fans and the fans of the rest of the league, and kicking a bullied kid while he's down, the Coyotes then renounced the rights to Miller. So after all the damage they did drafting the guy, they won't be playing him. To clarify: I think the decision to renounce rights is the correct one. I mean, the correct decision was to not draft him in the first place, but renouncing rights is the correct thing to do in this situation (in my opinion). That said, they Coyotes are now in a place where:
and to top it all of
There is a real chance that the Coyotes as a franchise dies in the next few years, and it will be almost entirely due to self-inflicted wounds.
I appreciate your break down on this as I don't follow NHL and just saw bits and pieces come up on my twitter feed. Wild stuff. Much worse than I thought.
A few days ago I revisited the Vasiliy Lomachenko vs. Teofimo Lopez lightweight unification bout from two weeks ago. Two of my friends who I'd watched the fight with live had thought it was a draw, and though I'd supported Loma going in, I thought Lopez pulled off the win. Watching the fight again with more neutral eyes, I actually thought Loma did better than I initially gave him credit for and got a draw. Now, most fans agree Lopez deserved the belts, but practically everyone who saw the fight also agreed the scorecards were an absolute travesty - 117-111, 119-109, and 116-112. The fight was undoubtedly close, and you could forgive maybe a two-round swing to Lopez as it's all subjective... but 119-109???
The fact that this kind of nonsense just happened to be in Nevada (yet again) makes me more than suspicious that the result was fixed and judges were bought (probably yet again). That made me start thinking about commonly accepted corruption in sports in general. Soccer had problems with corrupt administrators within FIFA for decades, and yet the fans never paid too much mind because it was beyond the pitch. A supposed clean-up a few years back hasn't done too much besides install new cronies, as far as I can tell. There's also a ton of influence by betting pools in smaller leagues in Eastern Europe and Asia, but even the Italian Serie A has had its own scandal not too long ago, and Spanish La Liga has long had it's rumors of briefcases of cash being exchanged at the end of every season for convenient results. Any examples in other sports that you know of?
(Also, to be fair, there is some possibility that the Loma-Lopez scores are down to something besides mob money... but still, bloody hell.)
But if it was fixed wouldn't they try to make it less obvious? I mean lopez clearly won rounds 1-6 I'd say, so they could've given some of the later rounds to loma and still have lopez with an edge going into the 12th, which he clearly won. I mean I absolutely cannot explain a 119-109 score so maybe you're right. I also thought it was much closer to a draw. I just wish loma didn't take so long to get going. Wish more rounds looked like the final one.
I think the clear rounds were 1, 3-6, and 12, all going to Lopez, and 9-11 going to Loma. 2, 7, and 8 are arguably debatable. I gave 2 to Loma both times, and on first viewing I was unsure about 7, shaded 8 to Loma, but gave them both to him convincingly on review. Even if you tend to side with Lopez, it's very hard to justify giving him all three of those rounds.
Considering all the egregious scorecards that have gone uninvestigated and unpunished, especially when it's repeat offenders that are responsible, I don't think they'd care much about appearances if those in position wanted to fix the result.
Fair point. I only watched the fight once so maybe I'd change my tune a bit on a rewatch. I just seem to recall loma barely active in those earlier rounds. Do think there should be a rematch? If not what's next for loma? Should he go back down a weight class?
That's a great question. I think this fight showed Loma's at about his limit handling a fighter of Teofimo's stature, reach, and quickness, in the sense that he won't absolutely outclass his opponent. He's gone up as far as he can, and though Teo says he's confident he can make the weight again, his father said otherwise. I'd like to see a rematch just for Loma to whoop that ass, and I think he'd be more than able to handle a rematch if healthy, but Teo's already said he's not interested. And who can blame him? I'd take those belts and run if I were him. There may be room to to negotiate though, because Teo and his dad apparently weren't even on the same page as to what his next step can be.
I have heard rumors that Loma once again had issues with his right shoulder going into the fight, and that would explain his strategy and low punch output to some extent... but it also highlights the fact that he is getting older and will slowly decline. Even so, I don't know that he has too much competition below 135, honestly. OTOH, Teofimo definitely showed more boxing IQ and skill than most expected him to, and while I still thinks he talks way more than his ability justifies, he earned my respect. I'd like to see what he could do at 140.
I'm agonizing over my fantasy premier league selections after a 4-game losing streak in my draft league. My team is very strong on paper but underperforming, plus it's a weird season without fans to sway momentum (and thus results) in the ways I would normally anticipate when setting my team up in fantasy.
Also I thought I would prefer the spaced out kickoff times of premier league rather than the normal 10 AM ET/3 PM GMT time slot, but it has actually kept me from getting to watch other leagues as much as I used to.
This is such a weird season for fantasy football. Covid is gonna mess with squads, injuries are sure to pile up, we've already seen some freak scorelines and there'll probably be more upsets too.
Yea, it's the same story for my NFL fantasy team. Dak Prescott was my QB2, so that didn't work out too well.