Why There Shouldn't Be Hockey In Phoenix

Check out this "crowd" last night. The second home game of the Phoenix Coyotes' season, coming off a season in which they finally made the playoffs, drew an announced attendance of 6,706. Yet the NHL insists on having a team in Phoenix. They've lost tons of money over the years, they still don't have a new owner (I can't even begin to sum up that debacle, but here's a Wikipedia link), taxpayers in Glendale (where their arena is located) are on the hook for $25 million to be paid to the NHL to pay for the team's losses this year...and according to left winger (and former Flyer) Scottie Upshall, they can't even make ice properly, as evidenced by this tweet after the team's home opener:

He later issued a clarification...

There are too many NHL teams in markets that simply can not or will not support hockey. The Coyotes should have been allowed to move back to Winnipeg (where they used to be the Winnipeg Jets) or to Hamilton, Ontario or some other location.

And now, for the non-hardcore sports people, here's a picture Upshall tweeted earlier this summer...

Follow These Celebs On Twitter, Everyone!

Last weekend I blogged about the Gumpathon -- the British and American Marines running across America to raise funds for injured soldiers from both countries. After I wrote that post, I had an idea. I follow a number of famous people on Twitter -- some more famous than others, obviously -- and have seen times when they retweeted messages from their followers. Sometimes it's just a funny comment, sometimes they're congratulations on some accomplishment (hit record, movie, etc.), sometimes they're requests for birthday greetings, and of course, sometimes they're posts with a cause.

So I decided to tweet a number of these people I follow with this request: "Can you pls RT this link about @TheGumpathon? They're raising $$ for injured soldiers. Thanks!" I was going to do it with every celebrity I follow, but cut the list down somewhat. Some of the cuts were because either they haven't been active on Twitter lately, or at all. The few celebs that actually follow me back I also left off the list, since they would have had my link already in their timeline (although I have no expectations that they'd actually click on it). Other choices were just arbitrary. I ended up with a total of 50 Twitter accounts, and by late Sunday night I sent out all 50 tweets (and two or three others to non-celeb accounts as well).

My request upset John Mayer so much that he quit Twitter.