I don't understand sports movies sometimes Pt. 1

I call this part one because I'm sure not how many parts I'm going to do of this...but it is something I'm probably going to end up doing more than once. But I watch a lot of sports movies, currently The Waterboy is ending right now, case in point. And I'd like to think of myself as a pretty decent sports fan, not an aficionado of any kind, but I'm relatively active in the pro sporting world...and yet some things sports movies just plain baffle me. This series of blogs will be exploring the minutia of pop culture stuff I love to pick apart.

1) Luis Mendoza is a horrible hockey player, and a horrible human being.



Now granted, I'm new to the sport of hockey just recently watching it now (Go Pens) but I'm an expert at the Might Ducks movies. Now the first Mighty Ducks movies, the kids were not expected to be talented, and most of them weren't as evidenced by the fact that they axed a lot of kids without any explanation (i.e. Jesse's brother and Little Pete). But the second movie was when the Ducks were given an influx of so-called "ringers." Now I have no issues with the smoking hot Julie "The Cat", the enforcer Portman, the puck-wrangler Dwayne, or even Mr. spinny-flippy Ken Wu...but Luis Mendoza, he's an issue.

The man could not stop in a fast break on skates. Now the very few times I've been ice skating in my life, I have realized that stopping is a very important aspect of the sport, especially in hockey. There is no way that he should be considered a "ringer" if the man can't stop. And despite his shortcomings the one time he does stop, he sprays so much ice in the face of the goalie that it could be counted as interference. Mighty Ducks 3 only explains the horribleness of Mendoza further, as he has apparently not only forgotten how to stop (way to go Coach Orion) but scams on a varsity player's girlfriend and just shrugs it off with "Our little secret". If the boyfriend had done something openly horrible to his girl I can accept that, because that's the movies...but no, Mendoza probably just said he was in Menudo and broke up what appeared to be a perfectly happy relationship. So, in short, fuck you Luis Mendoza.

2) The Rick Vaughn situation

Pitcher characters in sports movies have always been somewhat of a mystery to me. It seems like every time a pitcher takes the mound in a sports movie, he always pitches complete games and there is literally no bullpen. However, Rick appeared in both of his movies as a starter and as a reliever. I'm not sure if this is a Joba Chamberlain-like scenario, but it can be very confusing for baseball fans who actually watch these movies...or for that matter just take it way too seriously.

Okay well that's all for now, or at least all I can think of right now without getting too wordy.

High School Hearthrobs...

Okay, this is going to be yet another random over assessing pop culture blog posts...so strap in, make sure your tray tables are in their upright and locked position, and the captain has turned on the "being awesome" sign.

I'm sitting here watching the last episode of Saved by the Bell, the Malibu Sands summer, and as the classic early 90s love music kicks in as Zach says goodbye to Stacy and Slater walks off with a young, hot Denise Richards, I'm left to wonder...did either Zach or Slater ever get laid? For that matter did any TV high school hearthrob get laid?

I'm talking Fonzie, Zach Morris, Shawn Hunter, Will Smith, Eddie Winslow and a whole slew of others...we were led to believe that they were the macks of their respective schools and had the girls falling all over them. But it doesn't seem like they ever got more action beyond the no tongue closed mouth kisses we saw on screen.

It's a very odd concept that the illusion these shows tried to create, because in actuality if these guys existed in real high schools, they would probably be crawling with so many diseases it would make Courtney Love blush. Yet it didn't matter how many girls these guys hit on, kissed, asked out, dated, or what have you they were back a week later with a new one.

High school TV sure tried to teach us some weird values.

Anyway for those still playing the little game I mentioned last week, here's another one to crash your internal hard drive. Imagine the country's first black president Mays Gilliam, the evil alien from Men in Black 2, Severus Snape, Frida Calo, independent pornography star Lester The Molester Cocknshtuff, and the Warlock trying to track down Daredevil and Will Hunting all while being thwarted by Earl, his brother Randy, and Rufus, and thus you have a really interesting re imagining of Dogma.