by James Duthie
Man, they have everything you need on there. Slices, Hooks, Shanks, Yips. . . there are products to cure all of 'em. I grabbed my Visa and ordered a whole bunch of gizmos, each guaranteed to “shave several strokes off my game!” I added up all the stroke-saving, and now expect to shoot a season-opening round of 23.
And so, in the fine tradition of Consumer Reports, we review some of the actual products for you.
The Swing Check Mirror ($29.95)
Description: A round convex mirror that a player places on the ground to get a full view of his or her swing.
Testimonials:
“A great way to check your form before every swing.” Julie Smith, California
“It helped me notice the embarrassing grass stains on my ass.” James Duthie
The On-Line Putting Trainer ($29.95)
Description: Triangular stakes you stick in the ground in front of your ball to putt through, guaranteeing your putt will stay on-line.
Testimonials:
“I one-putt all the time now!” Jerry Shaw, New Jersey
“It's great! I can now kick my Nana's butt at croquet!” James Duthie
Greg Norman's Secret ($49.95)
Description: A plastic black splint that fits over the right hand and attaches to the index finger with straps. Designed to maintain proper wrist angle on backswing.
Testimonials:
“If it didn't work, I'd never put my name on it.” Greg Norman
“It helped me play just like Norman! I blew a six-stroke lead on the back nine and lost 50 bucks!” James Duthie
The Swing Mate Speed Meter ($119.95)
Description: Small device that uses radar technology to measure speed of club as it passes by.
Testimonial:
“There's no way I was swinging that fast, officer. And no, I won't take a breathalizer.” James Duthie
The Medicus 2000 (4 easy payments of $37.49)
Description: Hinged club that breaks in half when you swing too fast or off-line.
Testimonial: “If I want my club to snap, I'll use a tree.” James Duthie
The Swing Jacket ($133.95)
Description: A flak-jacket type gizmo with arm cuffs that slide along “scientifically positioned rails” guiding you through the perfect golf motion.
Testimonials:
“It's the Ultimate Swing Teacher. I use it.” Peter Jacobsen
“The most unrealistic part of the movie Tin Cup was that Peter Jacobsen won the US Open.” James Duthie
The Power Swing Fan ($47.95)
Description: A stick with “fins” at the end, designed to help strengthen your swing and improve distance and accuracy.
Testimonials:
“Within 2–3 weeks, you'll be hitting longer, straighter shots.” Dr. Gary Wiren, Master Teaching Professional
“I raked my entire yard with it in less than an hour!” James Duthie
The Spot Liner ($8.25)
Description: Little plastic ball cover that helps you draw a perfect X on your ball.
Testimonials: “It's like having a caddie line you up for every putt!” Sheila Code, Tampa
“Here's another letter for you: Y?” James Duthie
The Wonder Stick ($54.00)
Description: A fibreglass shaft you stick under your left arm and attach to your right forearm to create a perfect swing plane.
Testimonial:
“When I told my wife I'd bought her a Wonder Stick, I'd never seen her so excited!” James Duthie
The Perfect Lie ($39.95)
Description: Little piece of fake turf to hit balls off of.
Testimonials:
“It gives me golf course lies in my basement.” Al Smith, Los Angeles
“You want a perfect lie? Ask me my score yesterday.” James Duthie
Order any of these products and receive my own 100% money-back guaranteed foolproof way to shave dozens of strokes off your game!
Quit after 12 holes when you run out of balls.
• • •
Postscript: Last year, a golfing buddy gave me one of the bracelets that is supposed to help with your balance. I still shoot 93, but I rarely fall down now.
Chapter 17
Chelios Still Playing? How? Howe!
January 2008
This is how we see Chris Chelios:
Chris Chelios is old!
His name is Greek for Julio Franco. He is the second oldest player in NHL history. Forty-five years, 352 days. He's so old, he makes dirt seem young.
He is older than Sidney Crosby, John Tavares and my eight-year-old son. Combined.
He is older than seven NHL coaches (Babcock, Laviolette, Maurice, Stevens, Sutter, Therrien, Trotz) and eight general managers (Chiarelli, Giguere, Hull, Shero, Snow, Feaster, Ferguson, Nonis).
Scott Niedermayer could retire and un-retire for 11 more seasons, and still be younger than Chelios is now.
He's so old, he has a pin-up of Betty White in his locker.
But wait. Maybe this is how we should see Chris Chelios:
Chris Chelios is young!
He is six years younger than Gordie Howe was when he retired. His body is 25 years younger. He's a pimple-faced teenage punk compared to Howe at 52. He could play 600 more games, win three more cups and get two more NHLPA directors fired before he catches Gordie.
And silly as it sounds, he might just try.
“It is possible,” Chelios says. “I'm not thinking about retiring, that's for sure.”
Chelios doesn't like talking about Howe's record much. You get a lot of “We'll see,” and “I'm taking it year by year.” But the person who knows his physical limits (or lack thereof) better than anyone, believes it isn't just possible, it's probable.
“I truly believe Chelly wants to pass Howe and he will,” says TR Goodman, Chelios's off-season trainer for the past 15 summers. “I believe he could play well into his fifties. In fact, I know he can.”
Goodman is a former college hockey player who has become a fitness guru for NHL players. And in all his years in the gym in Venice Beach, California, he has never seen a specimen like Chris Chelios.
“He's like a junkyard dog. I'll put the son of a bitch up against any 18-year-old. No one is smarter. No one is in better shape.”
And no one is more competitive.
“When I first started training him, the workout would start at 7 a.m., so I would always get there at 6:45 just to be ready,” says Goodman. “Then a couple of days into it, I would get there at 6:45 and he would already be there, so I started coming at 6:40. And the next day, he was already there. This kept going until we were getting there at 6 a.m., so I finally said, ‘Chelly, would you rather work out earlier?’ And he said, very seriously, ‘No, I just don't like you beating me to the gym.’”
That story is either cute or disturbing. I'm still trying to decide.
When word of Goodman's workouts started to spread, LA defenseman Rob Blake was one of the first to sign up. He would win the Norris Trophy the year after his first summer training with Goodman. TR's other client wasn't pleased.
“Chelly was so pissed that I'd worked with Rob, he didn't come the next summer and he wouldn't talk to me for a whole year,” Goodman says. “He thought I'd taken away his competitive edge by working with Blake.”
Chelly did come back. And he hasn't left. The workouts are legendary: six days a week, all summer long. They include one hour straight of doing as many as 16 different exercises over and over without any break. I mean none. No 30-second rests between sets. No chats with the hot girl at the water-cooler. Nada.
By comparison, I often nap between sets of push-ups.
And when Chelios leaves the gym, he usually relaxes with a three-hour mountain bike ride followed by a couple of hours of paddling a surfboard on the ocean. At some point, it's believed he sits down to eat. Slacker.
“I will tell you this,” Chelios says. “When I do retire, it won't be because of motivation. Something physical would have to happen to
stop me from playing.”
He means an injury. Not age.
Still, 52?!? Chelios would not pass Howe's record until Feb. 1, 2014.
Most of the players I spoke to placed his chances of making it at somewhere between none and. . . noner.
“Ten years ago, no one was working out like Chelly, but now a lot of guys train like that,” says one. “It doesn't give him the advantage it used to. It's amazing what he's doing. But six more years? No shot.”
Congrats. You've just provided this junkyard dog with more bulletin board material to try to prove you wrong.
“What people don't understand is that Chelly is actually in better shape now than he was a few years ago,” says Goodman. “He doesn't do all that running he used to so his knees are way better. People talk about Gordie Howe, but I think the man who inspires Chelly now is Don Wildman, the guy who founded Bally's Fitness. He rides with Chelly, and I think Don has shown him he has the potential to be an elite athlete for a very long time.”
Don Wildman, by the way, is 72.
• • •
Postscript: That season, Chelios went on to win his third Stanley Cup ring with Detroit. The following season he played just 28 games with the Red Wings, a healthy scratch most nights. He played most of the 2009-2010 season with the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League before being signed by the Atlanta Thrashers, where he played just seven games. It was the quiet end to a remarkable 28-year pro career.
Chapter 18
My Sports Sabbatical
August 2002
“I know you're in there!” she yells, pounding on the bathroom door. “And I know you've got the Sports section!”
Uh-Oh. Nabbed. It was eerily reminiscent of the scene in Traffic when Michael Douglas catches his daughter getting high in her bathroom, all panicky and loopy-eyed.
Yup, that was me. Doing my best Erika Christensen. . . getting my fix off a couple of boxscores. I could have tried to flush it. . . but it was The Sun. Too thick. So I was done. Beaten. Looking back now, I believe it was a cry for help.
• • •
Earlier that summer. . .
It was just one of those goofy nonsensical things we males say after a couple of beverages on a summer vacation night. Kind of like: “Let's drive to South Carolina right now!” Or: “I could do that Hawaii Triathlon if I trained a couple months.” And the always popular: “If J-Lo got to know me, I'd have a shot.”
After spending four perfect cottage days on the couch, watching roughly 22 and a half hours a day of the British Open, I made an off-the-cuff pledge to my wife.
“OK. No more following sports for the rest of my vacation.”
I meant it, too. No watching games. No SportsCenter. No All-Sports Radio. No browsing Kournikova websites (thus ignoring 47 of 49 bookmarks).
I was going cold turkey. A holiday from Halladay. A Sabbatical from Sabathia. An Olerud Interlude. My own personal All-Star break.
Now, I'm no chimp. You don't make that vow in the fall. Or winter or spring, for that matter. There's too much to miss. But this was summer. These were the dog days.
It's not like I'd break into a cold sweat over skipping that Braves-D-Rays series on TBS. Or the Comets-Monarchs showdown on the WNBA Game-of-the-Week. When the World Professional Chuckwagon Tour tops the Sunday afternoon schedule, I believe it's a safe time to escape.
Sure, I'd miss a few CFL games and a free-agent signing or two, but heck, I could catch up. Plus, it would be good for me. A self-cleansing. A rediscovery of the joy and wonder of life away from this pathetic existence of endless scores and highlights.
And it worked. I was like the bubble boy on his first day without the bubble.
It's amazing. Without games to watch, and SI issues to read, and Golf Academy Live to mess with your backswing, you suddenly have time to get reacquainted with the rest of your life.
Among my revelations:
- We still have a dog? (I swore he ran away right after the second kid arrived.)
- Holy crap, we have a second kid!
- Dawson's Creek is still on!?! What are they now, 40? I believe the episode I watched had Katie Holmes coping with the early stages of menopause.
Oh, the things I'd been missing. Suddenly, I had time for conversations with my wife that actually went beyond:
“Just two more minutes honey. . . they're only down three!”
We went for long walks in the woods. OK the mall, but same diff.
I actually read books by someone other than John Feinstein. The kids starting calling me “Daddy” instead of “Mommy's funny-looking friend who lives on the couch.”
I was reborn!
• • •
It lasted three days.
OK, two and change. I relapsed more often than Robert Downey Jr. I'd take anything. Faking work in the basement to watch a playoff in the LPGA's Big Apple Classic. Pretending to browse the Net for pre-school education information while actually prepping my fantasy football draft. Sick.
It ended with that whole Traffic bathroom scene. She just laughed at me. That horrifying “I know you better than you know yourself” laugh that only a spouse can do. Defeated and deflated, the hopeless addict sulked back downstairs.
Just in time.
For the Niners and Skins from Japan, baby!
• • •
Postscript: That was a really stupid idea. Don't ever try it.
Chapter 19
Please Release Me
February 2005. (NHL lockout year)
This is a Dear John letter.
As in Leclair, Madden, Grahame, etc.
It's also a Dear Jon letter (Klemm), a Dear John Michael letter (Liles) and a Dear Joni letter (Pitkanen). You get the idea.
The point is, I'm done with you guys. We're breaking up. Oh, and don't think this is just an anti-player rant. I'm done with Bettman and his boys, too. I'm neutrally bitter.
You see, I used to host hockey games. Now I host mind games.
Let's see. We started doing regular lockout panel chats in September. So. . . roughly five a week. . . two a day since January. . . sometimes three. . . carry the one. . . dang, I wish I'd paid attention in math. . . must use computer calculator instead. . . equals. . . somewhere around 150 lockout discussions. Or about 147 more than Gary and Bob have had over the same period.
I'm dizzy from the rhetoric. I feel like I've been on a four-day bender with Nick Nolte. And for what? I feel the same way I did after I saw Lost in Translation: You mean, that's it? What the hell did it mean? (Though I'll take Scarlett Johansson over Daly and Saskin.)
We've all been held hostage by these guys. And trust me, there is no chance of Stockholm Syndrome. So, as soon as the smoke clears on D-Day, I'm out.
You will not read another word about the NHL in this column.
(Of course, when you've written two columns in the last six months, one about football and one about baseball, this isn't exactly standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. But play along. Let me feel like a badass for once in my life.)
I will write a 10,000-word thesis entitled “Ribbon: The Misunderstood Element of Rhythmic Gymnastics” before I write another NHL column.
I will cover the 2005 Regional Seniors' Cribbage Qualifier in Tweed before I type another word about the No Hockey League.
I will wax poetic about my five-year-old boy's proficiency at magnetic darts before I devote any more space to the. . . Actually, I might write that column. The kid's got a gift. Triple 20s by the handful. I'm going to start taking him to pubs to play drunk guys for money.
We are over, the NHL and I. We are so Brad and Jen.
Oh, I'll come back someday. I love the game too much not to. Plus, there is that tiny detail about being paid to host games. But until then, this is it. I'm going back to essays about Elin Nordegren's navel.
Of course, you will get stuck with me for endless hours of pre- and post-apocalyptic coverage on TSN for the next few days. Thus, as my final contribution to this ridiculous
, infuriating process, I give you the following easy-reference guide to help you fully comprehend the lockout-lingo you will be hearing.
Significant Philosophical Differences: Gary hates Bob. Bob hates Gary.
Cost Certainty: A guarantee that the price you pay for Leafs tickets will continue to rise under a salary cap.
Impasse and Implementation: When you argue with your wife over the logic of buying $2,000 imported drapes, and then come home from work the next day to find she's already had them installed. Sorry. I have some scars.
24% Rollback: When you have dinner with TSN football analyst Chris Schultz and he asks for a tiny bite of your dinner roll, this is what you get.
Revenue Sharing: When a sizable portion of your pay cheque goes to the guy who installs the imported drapes. Deep scars.
Hard Cap: What Bettman and Goodenow better wear in any public place where there may be hockey fans carrying projectiles.
Triggers: The part of the gun you'll use to shoot yourself if you have to sit through any more of this crap.
• • •
Postscript: I kept my word. Sort of. I didn't write another column until a month into the post-lockout NHL. I would have held out longer, except for this minor detail about needing to be paid.
Chapter 20
No Doubting Thomas
January 2009
For my money, the most entertaining player in hockey isn't Ovechkin or Malkin. It's a guy who has never scored a goal, and often resembles a freshly caught fish on the bottom of a boat.
