Scores, Fores, and Bores

What a day to be a Spartan. Capturing their third Frozen Four Championship in Michigan State University history, the Spartans served Boston College a healthy serving of misery, as the Eagles fell in the championship game for the second (not quite as bad as four) year in a row. After a period and-a-half of scoreless hockey, BC struck first, only to see MSU equalize things halfway through the third. Just as overtime seemed certain, MSU broke the tie with less than 20 seconds to play in the game. The Spartans would add an empty-net tally to seal their 3-1 victory, but North Dakota's Ryan Duncan would take home a piece of hardware all his own. Duncan became only the second Fighting Sioux to win college hockey's MVP, and only the third sophomore to ever claim the award. North Dakota fell to the Eagles 6-4 Thursday night, a match in which Duncan was held without a point.

In other news, a bunch of dudes walked around this piece of Georgia real estate all weekend looking for a jacket. It was said to be an ethnically diverse group of men, many of whom are suprisingly married to attractive women. HoG's own oNs (a.k.a. Onus) delivered to our lone reader a variety of excruciating stimuli in the form of a slew of posts covering the Masters Invitational, a fantasy golf tournament he drubbed up years ago. Let me tell you, following this annual bucket of orgasm is nothing shy of stellar. It remains impossible to match the levels of exuberance attained on the three -- and by three I mean six -- days the invitational spans. I, for the first year in tourney history, was not invited to play, an oversight I can only attribute to some horrid virtual glitch that the Hootster must alleviate prior to next year's outing. Perhaps the most exhilirating and newsworthy bit to surface from the invitational was that the Irish leapfrogged Blacks (Tiger Woods, y'all), Hispanics, and Asians (Tiger Tiger Woods, y'all) on Hoot's list of races he -- how shall I say this -- despises. I had my money on Polynesians making the top five, but there's always next year.

In still other news, soccer's slated to start soon. Yay. That should be about as exciting as attending the Easter Vigil mass. There's nothing I enjoy more than taking a chore of an hour, stretching it into more than double its length, and looking at your watch every 36 seconds in hopes that at least 15 minutes have gone by. And just when you think you're out of the hole, there's stoppage time. Stoppage time embodies euphoria. It's like that part of church where the service has ended (for the love of Pete, the priest has even said so), but you sing one more song and wait for his Holiness, the altar servers and all the pews in front of you to make their way for the door before you can leave. For real though, soccer's pretty brutal. There're two things I like about soccer a lot. The first, and clearly most important, is the fans. I have tremendous admiration for those across the globe that show support for their club with fantastic fervor and decor. The second thing I really like about soccer falls something along the lines of when it's not on, as in, the off-season. That kicks ass. Now World Cup soccer is pretty cool. The whole world gets into the sport for a month or so, and all 17 American soccer fans talk about how they're gonna get out of bed at crazy-ass hours to watch the games. That's downright devotion. You gotta love that. Just don't talk to me about it. And please, I beg you, don't do the now-overdone Hispanic "Gooooooooooooooolllllllllllllll" shout. I've had plenty already.