We’ve been rocked by scandal. Everybody’s favourite former Miss Wales, Imogen Thomas, wants the world to know that she isn’t guilty of blackmailing anyone, especially a certain celebrity British soccer player. Ms. Thomas almost gave it all away on television, but a court injunction is keeping details (for instance the names of those involved) from reaching the public. Instead, Ms. Thomas has trusted her secrets only to her closest of confidants, the internet. The internet, however, has filled me in on many of the lurid details of this story, everything from racy pictures of the bombshell model to how she had a (televised) near breakdown wanting so badly to reveal the name of the (married) soccer star she’s been having an affair with, and to clear her own name of the hurtful charges that she’s been blackmailing the athlete-in-question.
A celebrated sports writer (name redacted), over at our city’s venerable newspaper (name of publication removed), has given the story a very, very funny going-over for the absurdity incurred in this latest cocktail of sports, celebrity, and the love that dare not speak its name. But while we’ve all been screaming “Nixon!” what else has been been happening on our vaunted sportscape? Much indeed, so here is the weekly rundown.
1. It has been a score-fest. Yes, indeed. Vancouver went ballistic on San Jose in game two of the NHL Western Conference finals, of particular note being the four goals they scored in the last period. Which prompted the Sharks to admit they, perhaps, “didn’t handle it well.” This after Boston had a five goal period against Tampa Bay en route to a 6-5 win in game two of their Eastern Conference final. And over in the NBA, we saw Kevin Durant score 40 in game one of the Oklahoma City Thunder series against the Dallas Mavericks — only to have it all eclipsed by Dirk Nowitzki’s 48. As part of his performance, Dirk shot a record-breaking 24 for 24 from the free-throw line, not even touching rim on 22 of those makes. That’s an exhibition of such repetition it rivals Infinite Jest, an extended Andre Agassi baseline rally, or even the opening sequence of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Big numbers all around here.
2. It’s been here all along. Get over it, Charles Barkley says, because most of us already have. Rick Welts, president of the NBA franchise the Phoenix Suns publicly came out as gay this week. Sir Charles played the best basketball of his career for the Suns, and since everyone, myself included, seems to want to know his opinion on all things going on in the league, he just said: forget this as a sports story. He’s played with guys he’s known are gay. It hasn’t mattered. It shouldn’t matter to anyone. The real tragedy was how often he had to carry the weight of straight teammates who could barely play anyway.
3. A May-December romance. Teen sensation Tyler Seguin of the Boston Bruins (he is only 19) was the game two’s first star, accounting for two goals and two assists. It was only in game one of the Bruins-Lightning series that Seguin scored his first ever career playoff goal. Tim Thomas, who plays goalie for Seguin’s Bruins and helped to preserve Boston’s win on the kid’s big night, is almost exactly twice his age. Over in the NBA, the OKC Thunder players have an average age of 25.4, while their opponents the Dallas Mavericks have only two players on their roster even under the age of 23. It’s like a fathers and sons game.
4. Jordan on Ope. What are they up to these days, all of our favorite sports celebrities? I mean when they’re not playing their sport of choice or seeking injunctions to keep their names out of the media during the sorting out of their extramarital activities. Retired star Michael Jordan has plenty of time to appear on Oprah’s final show, since it was filmed in what he’s fond of calling “the house that he built” (although I’m pretty sure Oprah is quite popular herself in Chicago). But the real story is what all of today’s tennis stars are up to. Five of them: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams and Venus Williams, have been named to Forbes’ Most Powerful Celebrities list (they really do sound like superheroes). Novak Djokovic has been rocking the red carpet at Cannes so hard that he’s too tired for tennis, but he’s still running an astounding 37-match win streak. He looks good, man.
5. The world will end on Saturday May 21, 2011. And apparently the NFL lockout will end on June 2. Encouraging news considering that if you read the headlines, trying to keep up with the legal rulings, decertifications, and everything else that is going on with the NFL labour dispute, on a daily basis they tend to flip from “lockout to end immediately,” to “lockout to last forever.” We need to inject this story with some of the action-packed football-related legal drama we’re used to. And don’t worry, OJ’s latest appeal, that his current sentence is unfair, has been shot down. He’ll be spending his doomsday Saturday still in jail. Keep killin’ it, Juice. Sorry. Bad choice of words.
