Last night saw the Winter Olympics come to an end. America won the overall medal count and host country  Canada won the most gold medals. One victory celebration in general caused an uproar. The Canadian women’s hockey celebrated  their gold medal victory by smoking  cigars and drinking beer.

The International Olympic Committee  was not pleased with the celebration and called in the international hockey committee and the Canadian Olympic International  to inform them they will be investigating the situation. The biggest problem with the celebration according to media outlets is that 18 year old Marie Philip Poulin was photographed drinking beer, 19 is the legal drinking age in British Columbia.

Stories like this just prove that American media has become too sensitive. Poulin scored the only two goals in the gold medal game. She spends most of her time training in Alberta where  the drinking age is 18. Yes, there are different “states” in Canada, they are called provinces or territories,  for all the geographically ignorant. The team won the biggest game of their careers and achieved the highest level of success in women’s hockey. Let them celebrate with some beer.  They did not drink or smoke while spectators were in the arena, give them a break.

If a 18 year old wants to drink a Molson after winning an Olympic gold medal I say let them drink up. It’s an amazing accomplishment that many strive for their whole lives. If that person score the only two goals in the gold medal game, there should be people lining up to buy her a drink. This was a goal oriented successful young woman (pun intended) celebrating with her teammates , not some high school drop out getting drunk by the train tracks.

What is it with Oregon athletics? We just got over the infamy of being the “Jail Blazers,” the pot smoking, player punching, reckless driving numbskulls of the early 2000’s…. then we have Blount sock a guy in the face and run after a fan… then we get an alleged theft charge against Masoli and Embry… and now…..

LaMichael James faces domestic violence charges.

After reaching the Rose Bowl, the offseason hasn’t gone so great for Oregon. Three weeks after starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli was accused of stealing laptops, top running back LaMichael James has been arrested on a domestic violence charge.

Police in Springfield, Ore., would not discuss the incident. James, who ran for 1,546 yards as a freshman last season, is facing misdemeanor charges of menacing, strangulation and assault.

This is not the first arrest for James. He was charged with disorderly conduct and third-degree battery in 2008. Those charges were dismissed last year.

Masoli and James were the two top offensive weapons for the Ducks in 2009 and both were mentioned as possible Heisman contenders.

There was no reaction from Oregon after the arrest.

“We don’t know any more than than what’s been reported,” athletic department official Dave Williford told KVAL News

Right after I get all happy about the Marcus Camby trade to the Blazers, I get all sad. PS: That trade was awesome, and, even if Camby doesn’t work out (he’s a bit old if you haven’t noticed), he’s a free agent next year and it opens up some cap space for us to make a push at signing a big, young guy, like Bosh or Horford or something. Cross your fingers.

It’s just not fair. This could have some serious ramifications toward next years team if menacing or assault gets upgraded to a felony.

Maybe Oregon should start an MMA team or a professional klepto-team or something and actually win a championship.

Officials in the NBA are again criticizing their players–or rather, their players’ sponsors–for their “perpetuation of gun culture”. In a recent Nike ad, Kobe Bryant is quoted as making a reference to gun violence. Even funnier? That the AP story covering it decided to explain to readers what the chamber of a gun is.

Bryant’s blurb says: “I’ll do whatever it takes to win games. I don’t leave anything in the chamber.”

The chamber in a gun is the compartment that holds the bullet before it is fired.

Apparently NBA Commissioner David Stern has already “criticized the ad”. The AP is trying to make some big story out of this as this comes just days after Gilbert Arenas’ suspension for bringing a gun to his locker room. For some reason, it looks like the NBA and its fans are starting to believe that guns are a major problem for NBA players.

What is most interesting to me, however, is the manner in which the situation is being handled. The city of Cleveland declined to have a massive 10-story mural of LeBron James put on a building with the words “Prepare for Combat” below him. The advertisement, most likely for Nike’s Pro Combat line, is based on the premise of the “athlete as a warrior”–a theme most commonly found in football. Indeed, you can’t even watch an episode of ESPN’s NFL Live without hearing “in the trenches” “this guy is a warrior” “he’s ready for battle” or any other myriad of football cliches related to war. But the cliches don’t just stop at football, they extend to other sports–like basketball–as well. The point being, why is there a difference between how football and basketball are treated with regards to meaningless metaphors? (I still find it shocking Cleveland turned down anything LeBron wanted to do)

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This past Tuesday the Ol’ Dirty ran a story reporting that Duck’s QB Jeremiah Masoli and WR Garrett Embry were linked to a theft at the SAE fraternity house. Reportedly stolen was two laptops and a “valuable” guitar. I only added the quotes over “valuable” because every news station reporting this is also doing it. The scoop that the ODE received was from a SAE member late Sunday night, the Tuesday paper edition read as such.

“Hello” one of the messages said. “Wake up. It’s the story of a lifetime. Jeremiah Masoli and Garrett Embry just stole all my friends possessions. We need a story run on this. Do you understand?”

This is where the story gets good. What many did not read is something that was omitted from the original story, and it’s racist.

That is right, “fucking hoodrats.” While we are no journalism students here at the Commentator I would just like to say if we ever received a message from a frat boy at midnight on a Sunday describing the suspects as “fucking hoodrats” we would be a little hesitant to run the story. The theft allegations are lacking definitive clarity, Max Wolfard the SAE member who reported the story claimed he ran down Garret Embry after chasing him a few blocks. Hello Chip Kelly, hand this man a scholarship! Our defensive back core is  getting weaker with TJ Ward leaving.

In an even more interesting twist, Oregonlive.com is reporting that Chuck Hare has video of Masoli at Taylor’s about the time that the theft was reported. How funny would it be if Taylor’s put to waste the frat’s allegations, unintentional comedy at it finest perhaps?

While we can not say what really happened for sure.  KMTR is reporting the two football players are not considered suspects in the theft.

For anyone who is bored, we suggest reading the comment sections  on the  ODE‘s website and on Deadspin.

Slightly hard to listen to..

New Fad?

I’m sure we’re all aware of the situation involving Tiger Woods by now. His car wreck, admission of “infidelity” and his mother-in-law’s trip to the hospital have been  front page news – and not just in the tabloids.

But the thing I’ve been wondering throughout all of this is the connection between athletes and those who enjoy watching their endeavors. Surely, we can all relate to the feeling of elation watching our own football team rise to the top of the Pac-10 this year. Similarly, I’ve noticed fans of Tiger have taken the golfer’s rough patch just as badly.

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Well the Ducks may get their chance at the Rose Bowl (or at least at Oregon State) after beating Arizona tonight in double overtime.

It looks like we also won our little challenge with the Arizona Desert Lamp, meaning they have to purchase 3 copies of our book, By the Barrel: 25 Years of the Oregon Commentator with “Oregon Owns the State of Arizona” written on the inside cover. I’ll be looking for a check shortly from Evan and the crew at the Desert Lamp.

Overall it was a good game, even if there was some ridiculous moments (the non-facemask) and the Arizona fans got a little antsy for a field-rush. An OC crew enjoyed the victory at Rennie’s Landing as one big family, which is what college football is all about. It was an exciting game, and I’m damn glad the Ducks came out on top.

Now it’s time for the Civil War, and this year’s game could not have higher stakes. I’m ready for the Beavers.

Go Ducks.

The student-produced “I Smell Roses” video has been getting a lot of publicity recently.  Its nationwide attention has garnered positive reviews, however Disney and the UO Athletic Department are not happy.

The Athletic Department has asked the University of Oregon rap group “Supwitchugirl” to take down the video from Youtube. The band has adhered to the demands, but anyone who has been on the internet knows once a video is put on the internet it is almost impossible to remove it.

The problem is that Disney lets the UO have our mascot be in the image of Donald Duck. They are saying that the unauthorized use of the Duck in the popular video may end up in Disney pulling the ability to use Donald’s looks, therefore getting rid of Puddles.

In all likelihood there is no way that Disney will pull the Duck’s mascot due to the excessive backlash that would come from the media. The video is not offensive. It does not portray the Duck in a bad light either – he dances in the background for goodness sakes. The video is what college fandom is all about. Now the corporate bigwigs at Disney and the Athletic Department are drowning the fun. The only thing that will come out of this is more exposure to the video.

Here’s hoping that the Athletic Department and Disney will recognize they are overreacting.

As a former DuckU executive producer I have to say that I am proud of the video’s popularity and exposure for DuckU.

Go Ducks.

In rebuttal to yesterday’s trash-talkin’ courtesy of Evan from the Desert Lamp, Drew’s post has been put up on the Desert Lamp site.

Obviously Drew has won the fight. Now let’s watch the Ducks win the battle on Saturday.

DREW’S POST

The following is an arranged cross-posting of trash talk between the Oregon Commentator and the Arizona Desert Lamp in preparation for Saturday’s football game vs. Arizona. Don’t like what’s being said? Feel free to trash talk back, and look for our rebuttal posting on the Desert Lamp website, www.desertlamp.com later today. Go Ducks!

At some point between reading the Wikipedia article on “Pete DeFazio” and the UODPS Security Report, I realized that Oregon is absolutely useless and boring and a waste of anyone’s time. The state is known for “mail-in voting” and Portland, which makes Idaho’s “We got dem potatoes!” marketing campaign sound almost appealing.

But the deal was already set. A submission was due! Cry “Havoc!,” and let slip the hounds of gin.

1.PIRG-loving schmucks

Oh, I can already hear the Commentariat whining in protest – “We’ve fought them for years! We exposed them for what they really were! We gave you all of the background material so that you could stop them in Arizona!” Whatever. Somebody had to give them a sense of legitimacy when they were still babes suckling on Nader’s sagging teat, and that somebody is the state of Oregon.

Speaking of taking shit from the worst entities on the face of the earth. . .

2.You gave the world Joey Harrington

As a Lions fan and Detroit-area native, there’s a lot to hate, generally. But Joey Harrington is definitely up on the list.

Look at this fucking love connection and its fucking love child

3.Sartorial “Shma-shmortion”

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

~University of Oregon Athletic Director Mike Bellotti Oscar Wilde

Stupid people on the internet say, “OMG rly originall making fun of Oregon’s jerseyz.” And of course, being the Internet, this comment is supposed to be sarcastic, and is made in Mom’s basement while wearing battery-acid-colored pajamas.

But look: this is not a matter of originality, or trying to be cute. This is a serious issue that needs addressing. If Congress is having a commission on the BCS , it sure as shit needs to have a commission on this Ralph Lauren fever dream. Where is the FCC when you need them? (Protip: Finding strangers in the Alps .)

4.Duck-Tape

“So, dude, for Halloween, I duct-taped fucking wings on my shirt sleeves!”
“Uh, why’d you do that?”
“My mom made me. She thought I might get hit by a car at night.”

This is the college football equivalent of this shirt:

Minus, of course, the whole “bad-ass” aspect. In other news, Nike is in the process of designing a duck-beak shaped mouth guard.

5.Back-Brain Stimulants

Something about these uniforms reminded me of this quote:

In the control room the Technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and belches into his hand: “God damned tenor’s a brown artist!” he mutters sourly. “Mike! rumph,” the shout ends in a belch. “Cut that swish fart off the air and give him his purple slip. He’s through as of right now . . . Put in that sex-changed Liz athlete . . . She’s a full-time tenor at least . . . Costume? How in the fuck should I know? I’m no dress designer swish department from the costume department! What’s that ? The entire costume department occluded as a security risk? What am I, an octopus?

OK, not really. I just got this from flipping to a random page in Naked Lunch . Works though, doesn’t it?

This is what happens to the Notre Dame helmets after Charlie Weis is done with them.

6.Make your own offense-to-all-that-is-decent-in-this-world!

This is a good idea, if potentially dangerous.

Seriously: what the fuck is wrong with your state? Washington has the purple-gold Huskies, and the scarlet-gray Cougars. Kinda butch-femme, but whatever. Meanwhile, fucking Oregon has to go out and have the Chernobyl-yellow-green Ducks play the construction-worker-orange Beavers. Shit like this is why health care is so expensive in this country.

The one thing that hasn’t been said, though, is the fact that UO has only adopted the all-white get-up (white unis, white helmets) on games before Labor Day. Which means that they actually care about shit like this.

Oh, you sad, sad shards of existence.

7.You bastards legitimized Boise State

Everything you needed to know about politics, you learned playing backyard football. And everybody knows that there’s that kinda obnoxious kid, who’s kinda big and probably pretty good. But the kid’s a real fuck – it doesn’t matter why, he’s probably Mormon or something – and nobody wants to hang out with him.

So one day you’re playing football and he says, “Hey, you mind if I play?” You don’t say, “Gosh, gee, sure thing Jimbo! Line up on the left side.” You say, “Fuck you, asshole, we’ve got even teams.” If he plays, and he’s good, you’ll never be able to get rid of him. Ever.

Boise State is that kid of the college football world. They wanted to play with the big kids, and the rest of the country said, “Fuck you, you’re from Idaho.” But not Oregon – nooooooo. So goddamn special. They just had to give the blue-fielded coxswains of the football universe a chance to prove themselves against a “real” team, and they did it – twice.

They were already yesterday’s news – after all the hooplah about beating Oklahoma, they lost to TCU in the fucking Poinsetta Bowl . But like that asshole Brendan Fraser, you just had to bring this national nightmare back from the crypt. (No, it’s not quite as shitty as the Mummy . But it’s close.)

And plus, Jesus Fucking Christ:

This is worse than what Keith Jackson sees in his ketamine binges. (You thought he just ‘retired’? Please.)

8.And you know keeping water fowl, for uh, domestic, you know, within the stadium. . .

Look at these two fucking love-birds

Arizona might have taken away our mascot’s guns , but at least they didn’t cut his balls off and turn him into a Chinese knockoff of a second-rate cartoon:

The nickname for Oregon’s first sports teams was “Webfoots,” coined by longtime Oregonian sports editor L. H. Gregory. The name originated from a group of fishermen from the coast of Massachusetts whose descendants settled in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. When the University of Oregon was founded in 1876, Webfoots was the natural choice for the school’s nickname, because of Oregon’s reputation for wet weather.

Sports reporters later changed the nickname to “Ducks,” and by the 1930s, a small white duck named “Puddles” began to appear to sports events. Beginning in 1940, cartoon drawings of Puddles in student publications began to resemble Donald Duck, and by 1947, Walt Disney was aware of the issue. Capitalizing on his friendship with a Disney cartoonist, Oregon athletic director Leo Harris met Disney and reached an informal handshake agreement that granted the University of Oregon permission to use Donald as its sports mascot.

When Disney lawyers later questioned the agreement in the 1970s, the University produced a photo showing Harris and Disney wearing matching jackets with an Oregon Donald logo. Relying on the photo as evidence of Disney’s wishes, in 1973, both parties signed a formal agreement granting the University the right to use Donald’s likeness as a symbol for (and restricted to) Oregon sports.

‘Webfoots’? ‘Puddles’? Fucking adorable. Too adorable, apparently, for the psilocybin-addled Nike “scientists,” who had to bring in “Mandrake”:

As the story goes, the idea behind the new mascot, which Bartko and other athletics officials call “Mandrake,” spawned from a spring basketball game. When Oregon was in Sacramento, Calif., playing Montana in the NCAA Tournament, athletic officials noticed advantages of having an agile mascot.

Creeps. Apparently, “Mandrake” looked like this.

Nightmare Duck will haunt your local Chinese restaurants

I was hoping that it’d look more like this.

9.They’re gonna kill that poor woman!

Look, I appreciate a good rivalry like any beer-blooded American. But I also understand that there is a certain line in those rivalries. Where that line is depends on what sort of hard liquor is on hand, but no matter what, “kidnapping of women” is on the other side of the line. Apparently, no such line exists in the state of Oregon:

Maybe the most ingenious stunt of all took place in 1957 when four Oregon student athletes, all members of Theta Xi fraternity, decided one night (when they were all bored out of their minds) that wouldn’t it be clever if they could show up at Oregon State’s Homecoming game with Washington State and actually kidnap their Homecoming court.

Which is exactly what they did. Posing as reporters from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, allegedly sent to Corvallis on assignment to do a story on OSC’s game with a Washington school, the three ladies of the court accompanied the “reporters” for a short car ride to Avery Park south of town to shoot photos. Almost right away, the car began heading north toward Salem.

For the next 12 hours the group stayed tucked away at the home of the parents of one of the kidnappers, enjoying a large meal and delighting at how much national publicity the whole story was beginning to generate, including reports that the entire Oregon State football team was out looking for the court. Because Homecoming Queen Pearl Friel was native Hawaiian, it was also rumored that football players from the University of Hawaii were threatening to travel to Oregon to deal with the situation.

This, mind you, is from the Oregon State write-up – topped only by this OSU Alumni summary:

However, the prank of all pranks took place just before OSU’s Homecoming game with Washington State in 1957. Posing as journalists from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, four UO athletes “kidnapped” Oregon State’s Homecoming court members and took them to Salem, where the home of one of the “nappers” was used to entertain the three coeds (the parents of the student had dinner waiting) for over 12 hours.

Because it happened in the ’50s, kidnapping is OK? Actual quote from one of the kidnappers: “We phoned our president’s office and were told that the prank was OK, provided we didn’t break any laws and if nothing ‘physical’ happened.”

You fucking people. Stay the hell away from our women.

10.Your bullshit trail killed Kenny

You bastards!

The ole’ polects over at the Arizona Desert Lamp have offered up a friendly wager on the upcoming Oregon vs. Arizona football game. If the Ducks win they will buy three of our book, By the Barrel: 25 Years of the Oregon Commentator at full price, with  a memo stating that “Oregon owns Arizona”. If the Wildcats win we will send them three books for free signed “UA rules Oregon.” It’s not the highest stakes, but we are just poor college kids.

This wager has higher meaning for us personally as the Desert Lamp beat us in the blog contest last year. We know that the Ducks haven’t had the best record in Tucson over the past year but we whole heartedly believe that this year’s Ducks are a vastly superior team.

In a weird turn of events the Arizona football team is promoting a “red out” for the upcoming football game. The red out is a response to the “black out” the Ducks pulled off on Halloween night.  It makes me wonder if the UO has higher standards of PC as the black out cause a controversy that led the Bias Response Team to investigate the motives behind the movement. If there was a movement for a red out at Autzen there would be a thorough investigation into the racial implications of  movement  and NASU would be reissuing tickets back to Europe. I can’t wait until the BRT gets word of the Yell-O movement starting on facebook for the Civil War.

Stay tuned for continuous smack talk this week in regards to the wager.

(Via Duck Sports News Blog)

Apparently LaGarrette Blount was reinstated today.
My opinion is, and always has been, that his suspension should have been a game, two at the most. Anthony Reddick, the player who used his helmet as a weapon and sparked a humongous brawl in 2006, was only suspended for four games.

If we are to take the FIU-Miami incident as precedent, LaGarrette punching one fat asshole and responding to racist Boise St. fans never warranted a full season suspension (at least not from a major football university like Oregon).

Then again, you could make the argument that no fighting should ever be tolerated and that both Reddick and Blount should have been tossed off their respective teams–meaning Reddick’s example and precedent is false.

It is my opinion, as a realist, that not only are emotions bound to run high in a setting like collegiate sports, but more importantly the universities make an insane amount of money off of our student-athletes. They don’t want to suspend these players.

Dare I ask you, the Duck fan, what your opinion is?

Don’t make me regret this now. Play nice with each other.

I’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this post, so I’m going to use the bulleted format that’s been so popular in the past. We had several rejections

• Our top story (Things people who read the blog might actually care about edition): After discussions with ASUO President Emma Kallaway and her staffers, the Athletic Department has scrapped its ticketing system, replacing it with a “tiered” one in which students will log on to get tickets at different times based on their class standing, like the one for the 2008-09. At least for the Nov. 14 Arizona State game. They are still open for suggestions about how to do the Civil War on Dec. 3. If you have any ideas, send them along, because I’m pretty sure they’re desperate. (READ MORE BELOW THE FOLD!)
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(From EDSBS and LSUfreek)