Basement Wall Collage

Our stairs are up against the foundation, giving us a big wall facing the rest of the basement. We figured we might as well turn it in to a collage and we have a pretty good start.

My favorites are:

  1. The display case with a lot of my Barry Sanders football card collection.
  2. Tiger Woods in his Sunday red (from IKONICK).
  3. Amon Ra’s headstand touchdown celebration (from Fathead).

Some other things:

  • The golf bag is an old Ram one we bought with clubs from an estate sale. Brandi cleaned it up and it makes a good display piece.
  • Coors Light was my beer of choice through college and my 20s.
  • Do I really need to say anything about Mountain Dew?
  • GO LIONS!

It’ll be cool to keep filling up the wall and then wrap it around the corner to the door and bathroom wall. We definitely need to pick up something Michigan and put up some personal photos.

Saginaw Spirit – 2024 Memorial Cup Champions

Saginaw hosted the 2024 Memorial Cup and we were lucky to have tickets for the Championship game on Sunday night.

The Memorial Cup is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), a consortium of three major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tournament played among the champions of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and Western Hockey League (WHL), and a host team, which alternates on an annual basis between the three member leagues.

[…]

The Memorial Cup is sometimes referred to as one of the hardest championships to win in hockey, factoring in the number of teams across the CHL’s member leagues nationwide, the Memorial Cup tournament being played between their top teams, and the limited eligibility period for players to compete at the major junior level.

Wikipedia

The Spirit held a 3-0 lead at one point and the London Knights tied it up in the third period. Then Saginaw scored the 4-3 game winner with 21 seconds left in the game. It was amazing!

The Spirit came to Saginaw in 2002 and this is the city’s first Memorial Cup. The CHL web site has a great game highlights video.

The Playbook

Netflix’s five episode season 1 of The Playbook is good. Each episode is 30-35 minutes with a coach talking about their “Rules for Life.” All of the coaches were very different, as were their rules. By the end, I realized they shared a common and very important skill, which is understanding and working with people. It’s not an easy skill to excel at and these coaches are doing it at the highest levels of sport, with some of the best to play their games.

Add it to your list and watch.

Titus on College Basketball

I was bummed when ESPN shut down Grandland. Mostly for one reason. Mark Titus’s coverage of college basketball. Luckily he moved over to Ringer.

It’s no secret Mark isn’t a fan of Duke, my favorite team, but that doesn’t actually put him in a minority in America. The thing that sets him apart is he’s able to appreciate and respect the talent and the program, while poking at the team in a fun way. I really enjoy his writing.

There’s a high-profile white guy whom everyone in America hates. There are freshmen bound to be future lottery picks, and seniors who are labeled as unheralded despite being former McDonald’s All Americans. There have been a ton of injuries about which Duke refuses to disclose the details, as though the status of Harry Giles’s knees is akin to the goddamn nuclear codes or something. There are charges being taken, managers holding up towels to block television cameras from peeking into the team huddle, and Coach K’s repeated refusals to do halftime interviews as he single-handedly keeps the hair dye industry afloat.
This Duke Season Has It All