Deal of the Year
The one offered back in January by Dr Steve Broman of Colorado who wanted extra tickets for the meeting of Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots. The deal? A free vasectomy, worth $1,000, in exchange for tickets for the AFC championship game.
It wasn’t the first time he’d made such a fetching offer, back in 2006 when the Broncos were due to play the Pittsburgh Steelers he came mightily close to sealing a deal. “I had a guy who was ready to pull the trigger, but he said he had only one ticket, so I offered to only do one side,” he said. “He didn’t think that was very funny.”
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Well . . .
Toughest self-assessment of the year
Cross-country skier Andrew Musgrave became the first British man to reach the quarter-finals in the Winter Olympics, but after finishing a lowly 27th in the semi-finals, he was in no mood to celebrate.
His verdict on his display?
“I skied terribly. I had a crap day. You have bad days no matter what and it just sucks that it was today. Sometimes you ski fast, sometimes you ski like a tranquilised badger.”
Boast of the Year
Our winner is the rather unique Australian rugby union international Nick “Honey Badger” Cummins. After scoring a hat-trick of tries for the Western Force in their Super Rugby win over Waratahs, he was presented with the man of the match award. How modest was in his remarks? Eh: “I crossed the line more than Osama bin Laden!”
Firing of the Year
There were plenty of high-profile casualties in the managerial and coaching stakes through the year, but a lesser known individual provided his bosses with one of the more unique reasons for his employment to be terminated: the North Delta Minor [ice] Hockey Association in Canada’s British Columbia sacked coach Christopher Maximilian Sandau after discovering his Facebook page was a shrine to Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Really.
Sandau was outraged by his sacking, arguing that he was simply trying to educate people and let them know “the other side of the story” – hence, perhaps, the photo of Der Führer on his page with the caption: “The Greatest Story Never Told.” The Nazis, he told his local paper, “were not that evil as we’re told”, and actually did “their best” to save people in the concentration camps who, he insisted, simply died from typhus. The Holocaust? “There was no such plan.”
The association, though, weren’t convinced by Sandau’s efforts to re-educate, so parted company with him, one parent, not unreasonably, pointing out that “you can’t be a Nazi and coach kids hockey”.
Credit to Sandau, in the end he seemed to understand how he’d created a problem for his employers. “I get it, it’s a really touchy subject,” he conceded. Indeed.
Most fed up twitter user of the year
Lots to choose from, but we’re opting for the account that, over the last year or three, has had to field an endless flow of questions and comments along the lines of “Is Lampard a top bloke?”, “Do you like David Luiz’s hair?” and “Do you think Ivanovic should’ve been on the pitch when he scored his goal against Villa?”
Not even when the freelance photographer and resident of Baltimore, Maryland tweeted “I AM NOT A FOOTBALL CLUB” did it ease off. And when she tweets about her own interests, her followers are perplexed: eg:
“Pokemon Snap is the reason I’m a photographer.”
Response: “Why you tweet about Pokemon instead of Diego Costa, Drogba, Fabregas or Jose Mourinho?”
Yes, her Twitter username is @Chelsea.
Hurling on new frontiers
It was the year Sky Sports treated its viewers to live coverage of Gaelic football and hurling, and the reaction was, on the whole, a positive one – although some were a little confused. Like Mike from Manchester when he was watching Kilkenny v Offaly:
“Just watched 5 mins of Hurling, WTF is going on there’s a GK but they keep smashing it over the bar how the **** does he save that.”
And when Omair Ahmed from London tuned in to the hurling final, he was befuddled:
“What the hell is this? It’s like Quidditch/hockey/lacrosse/rugby,” he said, the general British Twitter consensus that hurling is like “a cross between hockey and murder”.
The best definition of all? From ‘Instant Karma’ in Scotland: “Mad mix of the best bits of hockey, rugby, golf and keepie-ups. Played with huge versions of the things you shape butter with.”
Suspension of the year
That four-month ban from any “football-related activity” for Luis Suarez was a hefty enough one after his World Cup nibble, but the award goes to Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. What suspension did he pick up for his use of performance-enhancing drugs? Just the 211 games. On appeal, though, in January it was reduced to a mere 162. The cost to Rodriguez? His 2014 salary of $25 million, plus missed bonuses and lost endorsements.
Lots of free time, though.
Least appreciated photo by American golf fans
Possibly the one of Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler wearing nothing but kilts and wigs after losing the Ryder Cup. How did it go down?
SB Nation: "Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler won 1.5 points in last week's Ryder Cup rout by the Europeans so naturally they kept low profiles afterward by playfully donning kilts and wigs. Hunter Mahan (1-2-1 at Gleneagles) snapped the amusing photo of Bubba (0-3-0) and his fun-loving mate after the 16.5-11.5 dismantling of the Tom Watson Twelve by Paul McGinley's squad."
And over at GolfDigest.com:
“And we wonder why Yanks lost. These two clowns care SO MUCH!! Combined
0-5-3 and IT’S A PAR-TAY!!!!!”
And: “Played like little girls so might as well look the part.”
Not well, then.
Twitter Ooops
Delta airlines tweeted their congratulations to the United States after their World Cup win over Ghana by using an image of a giraffe to represent Ghana.
Problem? There are no giraffes in Ghana.
A flavour of some of the replies:
“What the **** do Giraffes have to do with Ghana? U actually fly thousands of people every year dummasses?”
“Who ever is behind this @Delta tweet is dumber than giraffe dung.”
And: “@Delta so will you show the Colosseum for Germany, Portugal or both?”
And with that: tweet deleted.
Politically incorrect
Maurizio Gasparri, the vice-president of the Italian Senate, tweeting his joy after Italy’s triumph over England: “It’s always a pleasure to say go xxxx to the English … pretentious and pricks.”
After he was asked to apologise?
“Detestable English, is that okay?”
Well . . .
F-bomb-gate
Eamon Dunphy: "The pitch was a ****ing bog . . . When Neymar was shaping up to take that penalty I thought he was ****ing dreading it."
Bill: "Oooooh!"
Eamon: "Sorry."
Bill: "We're on air!"
Eamon: "We're not, are we?"
Bill: "We are!"
Eamon: "Oh."
A Spanish sunset
“The sun has set in Flanders. This felt like the end. This glorious generation has nothing more to give. This was the first black night for an incomparable team to which we will always be grateful.”
Spanish paper AS had us in shreds after that 1-5 World Cup mauling by the Dutch.
Tweet of the year
From a chap by the name of Brian O’Driscoll after he played his final game for Ireland in Paris – and he signed off as a Six Nations champion too.
“Phew! Worked out ok! Thanks for all the messages of support. Unreal feeling. Not easy taking this off for last time.”
Costliest promotion
The one made by Galway pub Roisín Dubh before Germany’s World Cup semi-final against Brazil.
“Come watch the World Cup Semi Final tonight in the back. Bottles of Brahma will be €4, pints of Erdinger will be €4. And for any goal scored, the price will drop by 50 cents for that country’s beer.”
Seven German goals later and those pints were …… 50c.
Farewell of the year
“We’ll leave it there so – okey-doke, goodnight and God bless.”
Bill O’Herlihy signing off after the World Cup final, after a 49-year broadcasting career.
Faulty forecasts
Ahead of Ireland’s game against South Africa in November:
Tom McGurk: "How will we win this game?"
George Hook: "I don't think we can, so I don't know how."
Tom: "How could (italics) we win it?"
George: "I suppose St Jude."
Result: Ireland 29-10 South Africa.
Not such a hopeless cause, after all.
Knockout
Katie Taylor’s Twitter exchange with Paddy Barnes after she won her fifth world title . . .
Barnes: "Here @KatieTaylor ya may have 5 World titles but have ya got 2 Commonwealth Games titles??? #fightme"
Taylor: "@paddyb_ireland haha! The commonwealths?! Sure my Ma would win a gold medal in that!!"
Paddy? Decked.
