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In Which I Gain a New Secret Admirer

Trolls are a fact of life on the internet. And while trolls can be annoying, I can respect a good troll, the same way I can respect a good villain in a movie. In fact, there’s one troll — Joe “Big Cock” Johnson, who bedeviled this website for several years — who I respected so much that I ended up interviewing him and eventually even created a separate website for him.

Joe Johnson admittedly set a pretty high bar — you don’t come across a troll like that every day. (The Jeff doesn’t count — he’s a contrarian, not a troll.) Still, I’d like to think we can do better than the copy/paste hack who showed up here on the site yesterday morning. He fired his first salvo at 8:50am (for all of these, you can click to enlarge):

It went on like that for about another two screens’ worth. Pretty tedious, eh? Obviously, I deleted the comment and blocked the guy who posted it, but not before he added this:

That one scrolled on for another few screens’ worth. Now, it’s possible for juvenile name-calling to be effective, or even entertaining (“The Ballad of Jerry Curlan” comes to mind). But “Paul is gay,” times a thousand? Seriously? Come on, man — I’d like to think Uni Watch readers are more creative than that.

Based on his IP address, this little shit is apparently a student at UMass. Son, I hope you’re better at your classwork (or beer pong, or getting laid, or any of the other things college students are supposed to be doing) than you are at trolling, because you’re never gonna make it in this game with that lazy-ass approach.

I wouldn’t have bothered to mention any of this except that another Uni Watch troll emerged yesterday, and on a new platform to boot! Check it out:

That’s a screen shot from the home page of a new Twitter feed called Uni Watch Watch, which apparently launched yesterday afternoon. For now it’s mostly just retweets of my tweets, with a short put-down appended to each one — okay, so that’s kinda meh, but I still feel it has potential! Frankly, I wouldn’t have even known about it except that Phil and reader BSmile both spotted it yesterday and brought it to my attention. (Unfortunately, Phil also “reported” it to the Twitter authorities, so it’s possible that this troll account will be deleted by the time you read this, but I’ll try to deal with that as we go along. Here, see if this link to the troll account still works. If it doesn’t, blame Phil!)

Let’s take a closer look at Uni Watch Watch:

The “Uni Watch Watch” handle: I like it! The double-“Watch” effect works nicely, and the troll gets bonus points for knowing that “Uni Watch” is two words, both capped, with a space in between (which is more than I can say for, ahem, lots of you non-trolls out there). On the standard Uni Watch spectrum of Good to Stupid, I’d say this handle is very, very, Good.

The troll’s name: “Luke Paulass”? Dude, you just undid all the good work you’d done with the handle. “Paul is gay” looks like literature compared to this. Should’ve just stuck with “Uni Watch Watch.” Very, very Stupid. Hey, he just changed it from “Luke Paulass” (awful) to “Watchy McWatcherson” (not great but definitely less cringe-inducing)! I like this — a troll who takes advice. Still pretty Stupid, but he’s getting there.

The avatar: Looks like he just used a stock illustration for the little guy with the magnifying glass (it’s clearly watermarked). Still, the idea of his avatar looking at my avatar is pretty clever — a good visual representation of “Uni Watch Watch.” I like! Good.

The little statement of purpose: This wasn’t originally part of the guy’s page, but then he added it a few hours after creating the account. It’s a pretty straightforward manifesto: “The only thing worse than watching minor changes to sports uniforms is watching the tweets from the guy who watches the changes to sports uniforms.” I like that — you get in, you say your piece, you get out. Good.

The header design: The baseball diamond and basketball net feel pretty random, but whatever. The real issue is that he used green, my favorite color. Come on, dude — if you want to fuck with my head, you know which color to use! Seriously, hello!! Stupid.

The tweets: Normally, I’d embed a few of the tweets here for you to see. But again, it’s possible that the troll account may have been taken down by the time you read this, so I’ve taken screen shots of the first five tweets and gathered them into a Flickr set (if you can’t see the slideshow below, click here):


.
As you can see, the best tweet was the first one. After that, he just came up with weak put-downs (“Don’t care” and “So what?!”) and tacked them onto my tweets — pretty uninspired. Also, most of my tweets include photos, but those photos are missing from his retweets of those tweets, which kinda ruins the effect. Like, if you’re gonna critique what I’m doing, at least show the full thing I’m doing and then critique it. I feel like this account has some decent troll potential, but he’s gonna have to try harder. Hey, it’s still early days, but for now it’s pretty Stupid.

All in all, I’d say Big Cock Johnson’s place in the Uni Watch pantheon remains secure. But a fella can dream, can’t he? If the Uni Watch Watch account hasn’t been taken down yet, I urge everyone to follow it, if only to give the troll some incentive to work on his craft. Meanwhile, you can track the account here:


A final thought: I’m sure some of you are thinking, “This is exactly why I don’t bother with Twitter.” And you’re right! That’s actually one of my favorite things about Uni Watch Watch — I feel like it’s trolling Twitter as much as it’s trolling me, and that’s a good thing.

•  •  •  •  •

Uni-centric movie review: Frequent Uni Watch commenter BvK1126 checked in with the following in yesterday’s comments:

Last night I went to a screening of the documentary Red Army, which is about the Soviet Union’s domination of the sport of ice hockey for the better part of four decades. It’s an engrossing film, especially for anyone who remembers those seemingly unstoppable Soviet Red Army and national teams from the ’70s and ’80s.

It’s also a feast for a Uni Watcher’s eyes, with lots of footage and photos of various versions of what may be the most feared uniform in sports history. One of the most intriguing to me was this jersey, which features two very distinct shades of red. (The brighter shade looks almost highlighter pink in the film footage.)

A guy in the front row of the screening came decked out for the occasion in a jersey that looked like this, except that the lettering on the back was in Cyrillic and the letters and numbers were screened on in white instead of black. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite close enough to get a decent shot of him in the dim lighting.

Sounds good, right? If you live in New York, Red Army is currently playing at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square; it’s due to open in other cities in late January. Here’s the trailer:

•  •  •  •  •

Roll your own: Reader Scott Novosel spent a good chunk of yesterday obsessing over (and peppering me with emails about) an admirably esoteric uniform detail: college hoops players who roll up their shorts’ waistbands in order to make the shorts a bit shorter. He spotted players from three different teams doing this yesterday — South Carolina, Manhattan, and Utah (click to enlarge):

The interesting thing about this, as Scott noted several times during the course of the day, is that those are all Under Armour schools, which led Scott to speculate, “I wonder if UA is making the shorts too lengthy.”

Speaking of college hoops: I have a new ESPN column today — a follow-up to last week’s season preview.

• • • • •

Baseball News: The Angels have been wearing black belts and black shoes with their road grays, but Matt Shoemaker, pitching in Japan as part of the MLB tour, wore a red belt and red shoes with his road grays the other day. A team insider tells me that’s a change that’s being made for 2015. … “It seems the Giants and A’s donate their old uniforms to the San Quentin prison team, which are worn when San Quentin plays other prison teams, as well as minor league and semi-pro teams,” says Don Gray. “Of particular interest is this nifty sleeve patch.” … The Mets have once again moved in their rightfield fence. There’s a photo gallery here. … Oooh, look at this awesome piece of championship jewelry that the 1912 Red Sox got (from BSmile and Jonathan Daniel. ”¦ The Giants have a new championship logo, which is stylistically similar to the logos they used to mark their championships in 2010 and 2012. In case you’re wondering, they didn’t wear those logos as sleeve patches in the years following their titles; instead they wore this much more generic patch design in 2011 and then this very similar generic patch design in 2013. Remains to be seen what they’ll do next season, but the pattern appears to have been set.

NFL News: Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Titans CEO Tommy Smith said on a radio show that we’ve probably seen the last of the light-blue jerseys. I asked a team spokesman if this means they’re redesignating the navys as their primary jersey or if they’ve getting an overhaul — no response. I’ll keep poking around to see what I can find out. … Stan Capp was watching Monday Night Football at a hotel in Mexico, which had several of these handmade-looking NFL logo banners on display. … “The Giants still get their duffles from Gerry Cosby in New York, which has been supplying the team for well over 50 years,” says Mark Gonillo. “They no longer have NFL logo rights, hence the generic ‘Football Giants’ stencil. It’s refreshing a team staying loyal to a longtime supplier.”

College Football News: Here’s a gallery of Lafayette football unis through the years (thanks, Phil). … When UNC and Duke play each other tomorrow night, they’ll both be wearing black helmets — even though black isn’t actually a school color for either team. … Nicholls State has been granted permission to wear white at home for tomorrow’s game against Southeastern Louisiana (from Chris Mycoskie). … UGA coach Mark Richt says the team might wear black at some point this season (thanks, Phil). … USC and UCLA will once again go color-vs.-color when they face off at the Rose Bowl (thanks, Phil). … “I was downloading the Mountain West Network app on my phone and noticed they have Derek Carr on their cover with a WAC patch instead of a MW patch,” says Ramon M. … Here’s Maryland’s latest costume.

Hockey News: The Hockey News has been sold from one media conglomerate to another. … “While looking through the Google newspaper archives, I found this 1945 article about some of the innovations made by the original Maple Leaf Gardens superintendent, Doug Morris,” says Will Scheibler. “One innovation was the penalty clocks, so I looked and found this 1940s photo tat shows the clocks, and this 1965 close-up. In that last photo, Eddie Shack of the Leafs — No. 23 — is serving a penalty.” ”¦ The anthem singer at last night’s Ducks/Flames game wore a jersey with a musical note instead of a TV number on the sleeve — not bad! Is this a standard thing for the Flames’ anthem singers? (Thanks, Phil.) ”¦ Previously unnoted change for this season: The Bruins’ helmet numbers have changed from black to gold (thanks, Phil).

Basketball News: Ogie Menor, who plays for a team in the Philippines called the Blackwater Elite, has arguably the greatest haircut of any athlete ever. But what animal is that supposed to be — a lizard? Something else? In any case, my compliments to the chef. ”¦ Here’s an absolutely spectacular interactive site that chronicles more than a century’s worth of Iowa basketball history. Don’t miss (big thanks to Brad Eenhuis). ”¦ Love this old photo of Senate and House pages dressed up in basketball togs (thanks, Phil).

Grab Bag: This interview with Under Armour founder Kevin Plank includes an explanation for why he spelled “Armour” with a “u”: “I was skeptical at the time about whether this whole Internet thing would stick. So I thought the phone number 888-4ARMOUR was much more compelling than 888-44ARMOR. I wish there was a little more science or an entire marketing study behind it, but it was that simple” (from Yusuke Toyoda). … Here’s a look at the evolution of the Virgin logo (thanks, Brinke). … Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had a long list of innovations and technologies that either failed or fell out of favor. Of interest to us here is the entry on decorative German military helmets. … Fox Footy is asking fans to vote on which AFL team has the best clash jumper. “Only problem I see on the list is that Collingwood’s main jumper is featured, rather than their clash.” … A “bobblehead hall of fame” is hoping to open in Milwaukee in 2016, and look, there’s Brinke ordering his plane ticket already! … If you’re going to go color-vs.-color, you may as well use the greatest colors available! Those are members of the Australian and South African cricket teams, which are currently playing a one-day international series in Australia (from Graham Clayton).

 
  
 
Comments (132)

    Looks like Uni Watch Watch is still up and running. Decided to give him (or her) a follow just because what I read is hilarious! I wish I had thought of this first!

    I beg to differ, Paul – “Luke Paulass” is pretty clever. It’s a plausible name but an obvious reference to you, and it’s an insult. Three boxes ticked without overthinking. It’s good, and generally harmless, performance art overall.

    Anyway, somebody here said Twitter is as good as you want it to be because you choose your follows, If Twitter sucks to you, then it’s because you (or at least your interests) suck, just like Facebook sucks only if your friends suck.

    Twitter is as good as you want it to be because you choose your follows

    But you don’t choose your followERS, which is often where the idiocy comes in.

    Sure, but if it helps, you can always mute or block followers you don’t want to hear from (I can imagine the endless retweets get annoying).

    I’ve often said that mute, coupled with “turn of retweets” is a GREAT way to clean up your timeline. Lists are a third. For instance, I don’t wish to actually follow athletes, but I can set up lists of verified accounts of specific teams and take a glance whenever I wish without it gumming up my regular feed.

    I also found recently that the “Discover” button actually does a good job of finding things I like, and I would’ve missed most of the stuff.

    Paul, my Twitter account is private because I want to pick who can follow me. Obviously, doing what you do requires you to have a public account, but it would be nice if Twitter had a feature where you could have a public account, but require you to personally approve anyone who follows you like a private account.

    “because you choose your follows”

    “Follows” is a verb.

    Except the way I just used it.

    See, you don’t need to go to Twitter for annoyance. You can get your dose of pointless pedantry right here!

    /I kid because I love my fellow commenters.

    USUALLY on these fake account things, one of the early followers is the actual person who created said fake account. And because you can see who’s following a certain account (and throw out the obvious fake spam ones), and since this particular account has only a handful of followers at the moment, it’s possible link fits the bill. Apparently 21 years old, references link, possible link, apparent link.

    That was actually pretty easy.

    While I am flattered that you guys think that I’m dumb enough to create a twitter account for the specific purpose of trolling, you, I’m gonna have to pull a Toad here and say “Your princess is in another castle”

    Reasons why:

    1. I am a Western CT State student, The tweet you read was in reference to me covering a football game and the opposing coaching staff was being complete A–holes by cheering and swearing, breaking the WCSU support staff’s concentration. Also, that’s UMass-Dartmouth, not UMass Amherst.
    2. I am not a homophobe in any way. I tweeted a joke that I had heard earlier in the day when Sam was signed. If you want proof, I lived in a dorm where half of my wing was gay, and I have gotten a lot of input from them on my own articles which dealt with Jason Collins and Michael Sam.
    3. Also a joke tweet written in jest. My written defenses of the Redskin name are much more comprehensive (and more mature) than what this supposed troll has written.

    So again, PL and KT, I’m flattered you think that I am Uni Watch Watching, but it isn’t me.

    Fair enough.

    That said, tweets come without context and calling LGBT people “ignorant” is not REALLY a decent joke, and if you DO defend the Redskins name, well, then you’re a jagov anyway.

    My opinion is mine and yours is yours. Just don’t call me a jagov for not being on your side of the spectrum. Thank you.

    based on the tweets you referenced, I have concluded that this dude is not funny at all. The Redskins joke is a blatant rip off of the South Park episode devoted to the issue. Michael Sam jokes just aren’t funny, especially with his approach of “commence X jokes”. That is a lazy approach to an issue. I don’t know if he would be clever enough to come up with the Uni Watch Watch handle.

    Wait… how exactly is that one tweet homophobic? The movie was about gay cowboys, wasn’t it? (That’s what I’ve heard, I’ve never actually seen it) So… a gay player signs with the Cowboys… and the joke writes itself. It’s not really attacking homosexuals or anything.

    There was a series of them, counselor. If you’re too stoned or lazy to look through the rest of the timeline to see the other tweets bashing LGBTs, then I can’t help you.

    He actually tweeted at Umass Dartmouth, which is a different school than Umass Amherst (which is the flagship school referred to as “Umass”).

    Though it’s possible that the entire state university system works off the same servers.

    Or more likely, Paul saw “umassd.edu” and thought it was “umass.edu”, an easy error to make.

    Uni-Watch is one of the last places I’d ever expect to see an Angry Samoans reference.

    Then you haven’t been paying much attention to my music-related mentions over the years! In fact, when I saw the first troll’s “Heil Hitler” reference, I thought to myself, “He should’ve linked to ‘They Saved Hitler’s Cock.'”

    “…’It seems the Giants and A’s donate their old uniforms to the San Quentin prison team, which are worn when San Quentin plays other prison teams, as well as minor league and semi-pro teams,’ says Don Gray. ‘Of particular interest is this nifty sleeve patch.’ …”

    Nifty it is. Wonderful.

    There’s a great Lexicon Valley episode about link:
    …parts of New England and New York and the South were at that time either largely or completely R-less in the ways that we’re talking about, right. People would never produce those R’s at the ends of words. And that has to do with the way that those regions were settled during Colonial times and after by people from southern England, who were themselves largely R-droppers. Not only was R-dropping the norm in those regions of the U.S. at the time, but it had a kind of national prestige because England had a prestige.

    Which makes sense, since the more aristocratic Southern accent also drops the ‘r’ after a vowel.

    I was commenting on America’s inability to spell correctly ;)

    Accents are a whole other kettle of fish. There is no more a ‘British’ accent than there is an ‘American’ one. People from Brooklyn sound unlike people from Arkansas, similarly not every Brit sounds like “Downton Abbey”. British accents include Cockney, Brummie, Scouse, Geordie and, since we’re talking British not just English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. I was born, raised and live in Hampshire on the South coast of England which has a fairly neutral accent, perhaps a little “country bumpkin” but not as much as Devon and Cornwall.

    I don’t know, I always thought it was dumb to write “lieutenant” and pronounce it “leftenant”.

    “… Here’s a gallery of Lafayette football unis through the years (thanks, Phil). …”

    A great week at Uni Watch for Eastern Pennsylvania girders. Bucknell, Lehigh, and now the Leopards. Thanks, Phil. Is there a big demographic for a Uni Watch regional spinoff for Northeastern Colleges with Glorious Football Histories and No Chance of National Prominence?

    Speaking of which, undefeated Cambridge-Alston A&T, now ranked #14 in whatever they call the category of Div I that’s below the BCS aggregation, meets 8-1 New Haven Community College this Saturday. Both teams will look pretty good.

    “… Here’s a gallery of Lafayette football unis through the years (thanks, Phil). …”

    Love the “Beat Lehigh” printed on the chest of the 60’s-era Lafayette jerseys. What a great (and unheralded) rivalry. Have we seen other instances of one-off jerseys demoting a specific opponent?

    Paul D.,

    I saw that too, man. Just came on to comment but thought I’d be better rummage first, only to find yours. I have the same question – disparaging an opponent on a jersey is fascinating and wondering if any other rivalries have done so – Cal / Standford, etc.

    Yeah, those pics of Lafayette’s uniforms are great, having grown up in Easton I love noticing the familiar landscapes in the background in some of the photos.

    The Flames have been using the musical note jersey for their singers for a while. I seem to remember comments on UW last year re: the retro jersey with the musical note.

    Thank god an entertaining uni resource, not a dork who talks about himself all the time!….. Great advertising for new troll, following -done.

    Wait, did you just call “Uni Watch Watch” a “uni resource”? How can that be, when its entire raison d’être is to assert that uni-related subject matter is NOT worth anyone’s attention?

    While this guy deserves all the slings and arrows you can throw at him, and it’s somewhat humorous to see how crazy some people are/can be…I really don’t come to Uni Watch to read an entire entry about this fool.

    Granted this is your site, and you could write about anything you want, but I like to think that the readers have at least some voice here, so with that being said, I’d prefer not to have an entire entry devoted to some lame and crazy troll.

    Other than that…no complaints.

    I’d prefer not to have an entire entry devoted to some lame and crazy troll.

    Yeah, if I were you I’d demand my money back.

    And then I’d read the bit about the Russian hockey team, the bit about the college basketball shorts, and the Ticker.

    And then I’d look forward to the ESPN column that will be forthcoming later today.

    Jesus fucking Christ — the sense of entitlement some of you people have. And you wonder why I have more respect for a good troll….

    Paul, maybe you could put a giant banner, or arrow, or flashing GIF, or *something* saying “THE UNIFORM CONTENT STARTS HERE!!” so we will all know EXACTLY how far we can page down to get to what we came here for.

    ;^) <– winky face

    Not entitlement, not at all…couldn’t be more more wrong. I respect your work, respect that it’s free to read and did see the other content, which I love.

    I just figured it was a little much to dedicate as much ‘ink’ to this guy as you did.

    So, I guess in the future, I just won’t comment.

    I guess in the future, I just won’t comment.

    Sure, you can take your ball and go home — it’s your ball, after all.

    But instead of not commenting, how about *better* commenting? For example:

    - You wrote “I’d prefer not to have an entire entry devoted to some lame and crazy troll.” But as I pointed out, it’s NOT a whole entry about the troll — there’s tons of non-troll content today (enough to add up to a regular entry, in fact, even if I hadn’t included the troll lede). What exactly is so hard about scrolling past the parts you don’t like?

    - I welcome people who disagree with my opinions. You think purple is awesome and stirrups suck? Go for it! But only one person here gets to decide what is or is not germane to discuss on this site, and that person is not you. Saying, “I didn’t come here to read about…” is, and has always been, a non-starter. Maybe you didn’t come here to read about trolls today, but I came here to write about them, and my reasons for coming here will always trump yours. Sorry.

    - There are times in the course of any creative enterprise when that enterprise will be about itself. Today is one of those times for Uni Watch. Personally, I love being able to see behind-the-scenes details of enterprises that interest me, and I suspect many Uni Watch readers feel similarly about today’s entry. But even if nobody but me likes today’s entry, I still found it satisfying and fun to work on, and that’s ultimately what drives Uni Watch — my sense of what I find satisfying and fun to work on.

    I think this is a bit harsh. People can’t disagree with you decision to make the lead on this entry about a twitter troll?

    “Granted this is your site, and you could write about anything you want…”

    ~~~

    You should have stopped right there, re-read what you wrote and then just hit “submit”.

    See you and Paul hide behind this WAAAAAY too much. Maybe if you don’t want people’s opinions about content, turn off the comments.

    Actually, I never say this (and wish Phil hadn’t said it). And even if I did, “Then maybe you should just turn off the comments” is a much more simplistic and lazy statement than “It’s my site so tough shit.”

    What I often say — and just repeated upthread — is that I welcome disagreements on my opinions but not on what is or isn’t fit for inclusion on the site. Only one person gets to decide that, and that person is me. I produce Uni Watch primarily for my own satisfaction; everyone else can either get on board or not, as they see fit.

    That’s not “hiding” behind anything; that’s just reality.

    Fair enough, Douggie, but for the record, I didn’t think Paul should have devoted one ounce of energy to this … even told him so in an e-mail last night. I basically said “this troll is just looking for attention” and now he’s getting it (which is why I immediately did a block/report as “annoying” on Twitter). I wasn’t expecting a full entry on it today (and I sure wouldn’t have done it) but you know what?

    It’s Paul’s site and he can write about whatever he wants. I didn’t scroll past it, since I was curious how he’d “cover” this(even though I wouldn’t have given it even sub-lede status). What interests him (or you or me) are obviously different things, and there are days when the lede (or sub-lede or whatever) doesn’t particularly interest me. That’s what Uni Watch is. And as many have pointed out, there is plenty of uni-content today, as always.

    I’m pretty sure Paul wants to hear comments from the readers, just not inane ones.

    A. Paul, you didn’t say it today, but you’ve said it before.

    B. Phil, I agree, Paul should not give one character worth of coverage to a troll… you know the saying about NOT feeding them? This only feeds them, it validates them.

    C. There is a clear and distinct difference between not agreeing with a piece of content versus saying something like “I don’t come to Uni Watch for…” I don’t necessarily think many people that might think this lead entry is unrelated are blind to the fact that there are tons of uni-related content. We’re just questioning the fact of giving so much coverage to this.

    It’s true, Phil didn’t see the point in my writing about this. But he also didn’t see the point in my interviewing Big Cock Johnson, which I think of as one of this site’s high points. Different strokes and all that.

    There is a clear and distinct difference between not agreeing with a piece of content versus saying something like “I don’t come to Uni Watch for…”

    Direct quote from this thread’s original comment: “I really don’t come to Uni Watch to read an entire entry about this fool.”

    I don’t necessarily think many people that might think this lead entry is unrelated are blind to the fact that there are tons of uni-related content.

    From that same quote: “entire entry.”

    Just taking the dude at his word. If you’re going to defend him, defend what he actually said, not what you’re trying to project onto the situation.

    “Phil didn’t see the point in my writing about this. But he also didn’t see the point in my interviewing Big Cock Johnson, which I think of as one of this site’s high points.”

    ~~~

    And, just like the “Big Cock” entry, I enjoyed it — my judgment on what makes good/bad entries before they’re actually posts is clearly not 100% — and that’s what makes reading an entry by Paul so enjoyable! I figured (both in today’s case and in BC’s case, it wasn’t worth the time).

    I still wouldn’t have given today’s troll the time of day, but I’m (now) glad Paul did. It was a fun read, and on a day where there wasn’t much uni “news,” a break from the usual.

    I still marvel at how Paul pulled the BC piece off. Never would have thought it was possible.

    Re. Roll Your Own: My wife is a high school basketball coach, and if she catches one of her players with the waistband rolled down…they are pulled from the game. It appears to be a fad that Under Armour has capitalized on. My wife’s unis are Nike.

    Someone needs to do that to Mike Miller too – I’ve noticed him doing that the last few games.

    Some other sites I like (which have vastly different audiences, since I’ve got no desire to start an argument here about topics not germane to this site, I don’t care to ID them) have inspired similar responses, but most of them don’t tend to last very long as the joke gets stale.

    Follow-up on an item we’ve discussed here before: The U. of Delaware’s student newspaper has announced that it will stop referring to the school’s women’s sports team as “Lady Hens.”
    link

    “We want our shorts to be longer. Longer. Longer than that. No still a bit longer. I said longer. THAT’S TOO LONG!!!”

    “Now, about our socks……”

    Never understood the black belt and shoes for Angels. It never looked right to me.

    All red is a much better look.

    I don’t mind it for the Angels, who are mostly red, and whose second color seems also to be red. Where I mind black belts is teams that make prominent use of blue, especially navy. Black belts actively clash with blue jersey elements.

    RE: San Francisco Giants Championship patches.
    The stylized patches (which are much nicer) are their World Champions logo and the more generic one is the World Series Champion logo. Not sure why they felt the need for the different ones although my guess is the World Series Champion logo is from MLB where they can put any team logo in there.

    That picture of the pages playing basketball is apparently where the Beastie Boys got the idea for this Rolling Stone cover:

    link

    Well that explains why the Titans have been mostly wearing white at home this year. I kinda like the light blue jerseys better than the navy blue–a throwback to their Oilers days. It will be ashamed if they go through a redesign, their current units are somewhat of a modern classic.

    Agreed. I’ve even told people I hate modern uniforms except for the Titans, and it’s largely because of the light blue.

    Modern: Sure.
    Classic: Not to me.
    For last week’s QoTW, I nominated the Tennessee NFL team for a throwback makeover.
    Ever since they transitioned away from their Houston identity I’ve had contempt for them for using too much navy (especially the dark pants)and almost no red in their rebranding.
    It’s been 15 years…isn’t that enough time to at least finish off those helmet stripes?

    The conglomerate that bought The Hockey News is based in Québec and will be in charged of the new arena being built in Québec City. Quebecor is set to purchase an NHL expansion team and bring it in Québec City.

    Or, they could have an existing team move up north – one that would avoid the need to shuffle divisional alignments again.

    I know the current owners and the league will continue to insist there is no threat of relocation, but the Panthers aren’t looking very good right now, especially if they can’t average 10,000 fans a game.

    Florida would be the obvious choice as they play in the same division as the other northeastern teams and are losing buckets of money per hour.

    I think its more likely that one of the Sun Belt teams (my money here is on the Florida Panthers) or the Devils (despite winning THREE Stanley Cups still can’t draw fans) make the move to Québec City and become the new Nordiques, mainly because I think when the NHL expands (it’s a link to say when, not if), the focus will be out west.

    Québec and Seattle definitely deserve teams. I’m split on Kansas City because while its a great sports town, exhibition NHL games there haven’t really drawn very well. As for Las Vegas, I would think it would be more likely that they would get an NBA team (gambling jokes aside) or an MLB team (Las Vegas A’s?) before an NHL team, but apparently the NHL still hasn’t learned its Sun Belt lesson and has no problem putting a second team in the Southwest despite essentially subsidizing the Coyotes.

    I’m with you an all points, except one: I kind of hope a future NHL team in Quebec is not the Nordiques. I’d like to see something new, especially since the team would be all but guaranteed to completely revamp the Nordiques identity a la the Jets anyway. The new unis won’t be an improvement, so I’d prefer they not even try. New team, new look, new name.

    Unless it were somehow the Flyers, since they already gave the Nordiques half their franchise back in 1992 for Eric Lindros.

    ;)

    I noticed a Flames anthem singer with a musical note instead of a number a couple games ago, so it must be a regular thing (or at least it is becoming one).

    Follow-up question: Do the Flames give each singer a jersey, or is there just one jersey, or a set of in a couple of sizes, that’s loaned for the duration of the performance?

    I found the troll lede hilarious. I liked how you used your good/stupid scale to critique his trolling. Now I see above me the other troll is back. I personally find amusement when people that don’t grasp the concept of a troll reply to them.

    “Jesus fucking Christ – the sense of entitlement some of you people have. And you wonder why I have more respect for a good troll….”

    Ha! Perfect. I read your review and was thinking you should start “Troll Watch” as a side project. Although I must say I was surprised you didn’t take off points for using Heil Hitler as a screen name.

    As for rolling the waistbands, it might just be “a thing.” (Yeah, I know, I know, a thing is never just “a thing.”) My 12-year-old and his teammates do this, and it has nothing to do with the length of the shorts for them. It’s just a thing.

    Just an FYI: The Calgary Flames “musical note” jersey sighting and picture was submitted by me via my @Chuck_Eldridge twitter. I sent my pic to both your and Phil’s twitter accounts while I watched the anthem. I was excited to see if it made the “Hockey News” section this morning only to find bold credit given erroneously to Phil.

    I credit the person who told me. In this case, Phil sent me the link, so I credited him.

    I don’t check my twitter feed or notifications. Like, ever. If you want to submit something, email it. You’ll be duly credited.

    Well, you re-tweeted my post to Phil pretty immediately last night, so I know you saw it.

    No worries. I’m a big fan of the site.

    And it’s so rare that I spot something worthy of the ticker, so I was excited to see it credited this morning.

    One more time: I don’t check my twitter feed or notiications. Phil brought the link to my attention by emailing it to me — if not for him I never would have seen (or retweeted) it. So I credited him.

    If you want to bring something to my attention, email me, don’t tweet at me. Thanks.

    But of course we’d all think that you wouldn’t, which is why that’s exactly what you would do to throw us off your tracks.

    Not sure if the “previously unnoted” bit on the Bruins helmet numbers was thrown out there to see if anybody was paying attention, but just in case you’re giving out cookies I will point out that that was noted on this site 10/9/2014.
    Cookie?

    Thanks for the nod on the front page today, Paul! It would be fun to revisit the topic of the uni-centric elements of Red Army sometime down the road, once more people have had a chance to see it.

    When I was in high school, Vladimir Tretiak was one of my heroes. A place on Younge Street in Toronto was selling what they claimed were authentic Soviet National Team jerseys, the red ones with white diamond pattern on the hem and “CCCP” across the chest. I mentioned in a social studies class that I was planning on going up to T.O. to get a Tretiak jersey. Our teacher said, “That shirt is an endorsement of mass murder. Wear it to my class, and I’ll fail you for the marking period.”

    I never got the shirt. I think I may have failed the class, anyway.

    The Cold War was an emotionally charged time.

    Dang, Cort! It sounds like you had a rough go of it in Toronto, what with your run-in with the social studies teacher and that time some kid bit your brother to steal a foul ball from him at Exhibition Stadium. No wonder you were pulling for Tretiak and the Russians over Team Canada in those Summit Series! ;^)

    Think it might have been in my Grade 10 (around 1984) History class when they were teaching Canadian politics my teacher lumped in views/policies of the NDP with the Communist Party of Canada – tells you how far right his views were.

    With the Soviet hockey items I’ve worn on ice I don’t usually get much comment on them – though I acquired them a fair time after the fall of the Soviet Union. I think those that have worn a USA jersey likely get more (usually gentle) teasing comments in the groups I’ve played with.

    Wear this jersey in goal sometimes – while the Soviets didn’t wear the Cyrillic names on back with this era I decided get my last name transliterated into Russian Cyrillic and put it on the back.
    (3rd and 4th last photos here)
    link

    Red Army is very good idea for movie, but is impossible story, because is making claim of American “Miracle on Ice” victory in 1980 Olympics. This is obvious capitalist propaganda.

    That is one complicated penalty time clock in Toronto. Now I know why they needed someone in the penalty box with a clip board to be a doorman and monitor.

    You think those are something, look at the rows of switches and clocks they used to use in Maple Leaf Gardens to keep track of player’s ice times

    link

    I’m really enjoying @uniwatchwatch right now, but the real trick is keeping the joke going. I’ve had sockpuppet and joke accounts in the past, but it’s hard to maintain the joke after the initial burst. And it’s genuinely tiring to be in character.

    I have a lot of respect for what link does.

    I’m actually pretty entertained by this dude. I put him above that Cock guy in my book. Well done, sir.

    Here’s a old photo of Bill Veeck swearing in long time Cubs fan Mike Royko on his wooden leg in 1980. Royko is wearing the full 1980 Sox jersey and cap but no conclusive evidence of pants or socks.

    link

    I have to thank my wife for the cricket colour-on-colour. The highlights of the match were on the news last night, and my wife asked me “Who was playing?”

    “South Africa versus Australia”, I replied.

    “Who is who?” she said.

    I glanced up at the screen, and when I saw the uniforms, I knew I had to post it to Uni Watch. I am a traditionalist, so I prefer 4 and 5 day cricket, where the standard “whites” are worn.

    I liked reading about the Twitter troll. Something different. Personally I am over all the Redskins opinions so just scroll past that section. I don’t even look at the camouflage uniform links but if you like redskin articles or camo pics, I wouldn’t want my preferences to deny you the option of clicking on them. The site is free so I’m thankful we have it whether 100% of it is my cup of tea or not.

    Jesus Fucking Christ, enjoy it or build a better site.

    I love that for a team that played as the greatest fine-tuned, industrialist, socialist, machine on ice ever, they had five different sock styles in that photo.

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