Who was your sports hero growing up? Who is it today (if different)?

And which sports hero of yours let you down the most?

On the flip side, who is your original sports villain, and who is your chosen villain now?

Edited July 24, 20232 yr by TrueBlue4ever

4 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Next question(s):

Beat opening and closing scenes of a movie? (Also TV show if you are so inclined). 

Pulp fiction because the closing scene is actually continuing the opening scene.

Movie opening - tough call, some very groundbreaking ones but not one definitive I can pinpoint. Among the memorable ones: 2001 Dawn of Man scene, Star Wars title crawl and spaceship chase, Goodfellas, Scream (and I am not a horror fan), Lord of the Rings pre-history re-cap and battle scene, and any number of James Bond openings (Skyfall and Spy Who Loved Me are at the top there). 

Closing scene: Shawshank Redemption beach reunion, Usual Suspects reveal

TV opening: maybe Lost plane crash aftermath

TV closing: Newhart’s dream parody, or M*A*S*H’s simple “Goodbye”. 

5 minutes ago, Rich said:

Pulp fiction because the closing scene is actually continuing the opening scene.

Great call, can’t believe I overlooked that. Sam Jackson’s diner speech should have won him the Oscar that year. 

Oh man... I can't decide

 

Movie opening: 

Lord of War

Fight Club

 

No Country For Old Men

 

Soooo many...

Inglourious Basterds

A 20 min opening scene... that is riveting.

 

For me, best opening is Saving Private Ryan and best ending is The Usual Suspects.

Lots of great ones to choose from though.

Love the closing scene in Seven Psychopaths.

42 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

Love the closing scene in Seven Psychopaths.

Any scene with Tom Waits is worthy.

Time for another random question. This one was courtesy of Super 70’s Sports:

If you could change just one play in sports history, what would it be?

Easy one: 2007 East Final - Kevin Glenn's broken arm

The 1972 Western Final. Game tied 21-21. Four separate punts back & forth twice in & out of the end zone by both teams on the second last play of the game off a wide Jack Abendschan FG attempt by the Riders. The first place 10-6 Bombers Bombers flagged by those ******* officials for No Yards. Ball moved 15 yards closer to the goalposts. Abendschan's second attempt was good & we lost to the 9-9 third place Riders that season by a score of 24-21. A team we owned during the regular season. That game haunted me for 37 years until Cody Fajardo's pass hit the goalpost on third down on the last play of the 2019 Western Final & we beat those sodbusters in a similarily painful way that game. It took a long time but justice was finally served. 

Leggs makes the kick in 2022 and we win 3 GCs in a row. But then he might still be our kicker and we are better off without

Dinnwiddie could have ran for a first down instead of throwing that final pick in 2007. We were marching

 

To have the command centre look at all turn overs in 2007 Grey Cup. Because it would have been great to beat the Riders with a backup QB making his first start.

Kerry Fraser wouldn't blatantly ignore Gretzky high-sticking Gilmour directly in front of him.

Thought instantly of Bill Buckner's through the legs oops in 86. Make it and they win the series.

Had not thought of Glenn’s injury at first but now that it has been brought up, hard to argue that. Probably the fairest “wish that play was different” because it doesn’t actually change the result of the game that it occurred in, and doesn’t automatically guarantee a changed outcome in the next one, but gives us a fair fighting chance. 
Younger me would probably say Ben Johnson doesn’t test positive since it was such a blow to the country’s psyche, but I’d be a hypocrite hoping he got away with it when I have disdain for others who cheat, so I guess I could say I wish Carl Lewis’ positive result at the US Trials was not swept under the rug, and he would not have gotten away with his cheating. Other nominee would be Bob Cameron’s punt not being blocked in the Grey Cup in 2001. 

13 hours ago, bluto said:

Kerry Fraser wouldn't blatantly ignore Gretzky high-sticking Gilmour directly in front of him.

Me too, so that Leaf fans wouldn’t have the pretend “we totally would have won” fantasy when they could still have lost the game, conveniently forget the egg they laid in game 7, and ignore the fact that they still would have likely lost to Patrick Roy in the Finals anyway, and couldn’t manufacture an excuse. 😉

11 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Thought instantly of Bill Buckner's through the legs oops in 86. Make it and they win the series.

Don’t forget that they had already given up the tying run before that play, so Buckner’s gaffe did not cost them the win automatically.

 

 

Edited September 12, 20232 yr by TrueBlue4ever

On 2023-09-10 at 8:58 PM, TrueBlue4ever said:

Time for another random question. This one was courtesy of Super 70’s Sports:

If you could change just one play in sports history, what would it be?

So many but it would be interesting if Dale Hawerchuk didn’t get cross checked by JM how we would have faired against the mighty Oilers the next round. Maybe we would have won a game at least instead of the series quickly being over in four.

Next question, inspired by Speed’s Burger King comment:

What are the best and the worst commercials you have ever seen?

And worst is subjective, because a bad commercial still can draw eyeballs to a product, even if in an annoying way. Doesn’t matter if they love it or hate it, if people are still talking about a commercial and the product it is hawking, it has become a success. 
 

So my answers: for the best, I offer two - the one I consider the most memorable and best at delivering on it’s message, and then my favourite as the “best”. The memorable one won an award at the Cannes commercial festival, it was Australian and was two minutes long. Shot in black and white, it had no dialogue. It takes place in a dark, noisy factory basement. A lone figure stands in front of a conveyor belt. A blast furnace burns in the background while noisy machinery permeates the area. The conveyor belt moves at about two miles an hour. After about 15 seconds a tin can goes  by on the belt and passes the worker. Another 15 seconds of noise and another can enters the frame and slowly goes by the worker. Another 15 seconds and another can shows up and goes by. A fourth can goes by, this one on its side. The worker waits until it reaches him and then grabs it and stands it up on end, and returns it to the belt. Another 15 seconds, another can goes by, and another. A seventh can shows up, again in its side. As the worker goes to grab it, the screen goes black…..and after 10 seconds of black silence, three words pop up on the screen:

“Stay in school”

And my favourite “best” is this one:

And the worst, a local ad back in the 1980’s. Believe it or not, the company’s sales doubled after this as came out, even though the commercial was universally hated (and rumoured to have been used by North Korea to torture prisoners, lol)  

 

1 hour ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Next question, inspired by Speed’s Burger King comment:

What are the best and the worst commercials you have ever seen?

And worst is subjective, because a bad commercial still can draw eyeballs to a product, even if in an annoying way. Doesn’t matter if they love it or hate it, if people are still talking about a commercial and the product it is hawking, it has become a success. 
 

So my answers: for the best, I offer two - the one I consider the most memorable and best at delivering on it’s message, and then my favourite as the “best”. The memorable one won an award at the Cannes commercial festival, it was Australian and was two minutes long. Shot in black and white, it had no dialogue. It takes place in a dark, noisy factory basement. A lone figure stands in front of a conveyor belt. A blast furnace burns in the background while noisy machinery permeates the area. The conveyor belt moves at about two miles an hour. After about 15 seconds a tin can goes  by on the belt and passes the worker. Another 15 seconds of noise and another can enters the frame and slowly goes by the worker. Another 15 seconds and another can shows up and goes by. A fourth can goes by, this one on its side. The worker waits until it reaches him and then grabs it and stands it up on end, and returns it to the belt. Another 15 seconds, another can goes by, and another. A seventh can shows up, again in its side. As the worker goes to grab it, the screen goes black…..and after 10 seconds of black silence, three words pop up on the screen:

“Stay in school”

And my favourite “best” is this one:

And the worst, a local ad back in the 1980’s. Believe it or not, the company’s sales doubled after this as came out, even though the commercial was universally hated (and rumoured to have been used by North Korea to torture prisoners, lol)  

 

That ad like doubled Abalon's sales & made this guy a local celebrity. It's so bad that it's good. The company is using the song again in their ads on radio in Calgary 40 years later. 

 

Edited September 17, 20232 yr by SpeedFlex27

39 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

That ad like doubled Abalon's sales & made this guy a local celebrity. It's so bad that it's good. The company is using the song again in their ads on radio in Calgary 40 years later. 

Clearly it worked. Abalon the go to company for weeping tile repair and i guess they expanded to Calgary

 

5 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Clearly it worked. Abalon the go to company for weeping tile repair and i guess they expanded to Calgary

 

Been here for years. Back in the 90's Jack Wells was their spokesperson here in YYC. "And it turned out nice again". 

I actually thought that Scott paper "I'm only human" ad was brilliant.

48 minutes ago, Super Duper Negatron said:

I actually thought that Scott paper "I'm only human" ad was brilliant.

Obviously a shot at Charmin. 

14 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Been here for years. Back in the 90's Jack Wells was their spokesperson here in YYC. "And it turned out nice again". 

“Take it from the old observer”. 

Let’s try another random question after the commercial one did not take off. 

What is the best gift you have ever given or received? Trying to go beyond the obvious of “my love” or “my partner/my kids” idea. This is a tangible random birthday/Xmas type present. 

Mine would have been a Christmas gift from my mom in 1997. She had gone through literally thousands of old pictures (some print, some old slides that she had transferred to print) and made a memory photo album for myself (and two more for each of my siblings). Must have spent months putting it all together for each of us, and covered a quarter century of our lives. Was about a two hundred page album and I spent the entire Xmas break just going through the memories the first time through. Meant so much then, and even more now that my parents are gone and many old friends have moved on to different places. 

I was 11 years old in 1966. Since the Xmas the year before in 65, I wanted an electric road racing set. Well, after a year of waiting, wishing & hoping, my parents bought me that road racing set. A Scalextric set. I loved it. It still stands as one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. 

This was the set I used to have:

\

I had this car. It was so fast & balanced. Especially in the corners. It wouldn't go flying off the track. When I raced my friends I always raced with this car. I never lost. Plus the track was set up permanently on a table in our rec room downstairs so I could practice by myself all the time. I knew when to accelerate or back off the control stick. IT cost my folks $45 in 1966.