Sports needs better nicknames, fewer all-star games

Sports needs Gump Worsley. Give us Mark (The Bird) Fidrych and Pinball Clemons, Mailman Malone and Dr. J.

Return to sweet nicknames instead of the lame game it is now. NHL defenceman Shea Weber is Webbs and CFL quarterback Henry Burris is Hank and the nickname of every major-leaguer is as bland as elevator music. Oh for the days of Oil Can Boyd and Ham Hands Harrison.

Something else sports needs is fewer touchdown celebrations. The dance is over. Players should act like they’ve been to the end zone before.

Canadian football should eliminate the single point rewarded for a missed field goal. The U.S. should ditch the fair catch. People want to see a punt return, not a player wave his arms as if directing a jet on the ground crew at the airport.

Shelve professional allstar games. Baseball’s midsummer classic is the only one that works. Seeing the two teams line up on the diamond and hearing the all-stars introduced is cool. Then it’s time to change channels.

The most over- hyped event in sports is the draft. It doesn’t matter where a team picks in the order or how many prospects it takes. The best organizations find and develop talent.

Beer prices at sports events have spiked like the spines on an iguana’s back. A cup costs 10 bucks at the Montreal Canadiens’ rink. Mon dieu.

Pro sports is big business, but keep the muddy corporate language out of the game. Fans are fans, not stakeholders. Coaches make a game plan. They don’t strike a task force to formulate a memorandum of understanding. A team pulls the starting quarterback. It does not implement a change in strategic direction.

Scratch tennis from the Olympics. The pros have four Grand Slam events. Enough. The Olympics are added fluff.

Make golf courses shorter. Whether it’s Augusta or the executive nine at Holiday Park, there is more to the game than being a heavy hitter. A 10-foot putt counts the same as a 300-yard drive.

Goodbye to indoor stadiums. Football is supposed to be played in wind and rain and when it’s cold enough to see a player’s breath, not in an air-conditioned dome. Weather is what makes a game memorable.

Gone are the days of a pitcher who pitches more than a dozen complete games in a season, a football team without a 300-pound offensive lineman, an NBA guard being called for travelling. We’ll adjust.

What we don’t need is the host team receiving an automatic berth in the Memorial Cup. Junior hockey is entertaining. They shouldn’t cheapen it. Giving the home club a chance to play a seven-month exhibition season, then become Canadian Hockey League champions because it wins three games in May is weak.

Bring on shinny. Say yes to pickup basketball. Cheers for neighbours playing soccer in the park. Sports is too structured, especially for youth. They specialize too soon. Put fun back in the game.

Keep chatter in baseball. A veteran lineman’s fingers should have more twists and bumps than a mogul run. Hockey players look right with a broken picket fence of teeth. Basketball has discovered a team’s basketball shorts can be loose and airy without being as big as a shower curtain, the way they were a few years ago.

What sports always needs is creative athletes. They adapt and invent. You can’t coach it. You can’t defend against it. Take Wayne Gretzky. His style is described as coming out of nowhere, passing to no one and a goal is scored.

Sports is not just about stars. Watch a receiver run a route when a pass play is designed to go to someone else. See how a guard moves without the ball. Look at their whole game. It says a lot about them.

Gauge certain stats. More important than a baseball player’s batting average is the on-base percentage. By getting on first base the player makes a down payment on scoring. A key number in football is punt return average. The higher a team’s average, the better its field position. In basketball offensive rebounds are nuggets.

The best play-by-play announcers bring colour to the black and white of radio broadcasts.

Two qualities of a good coach: Don’t blame officiating. A road game is not an excuse to lose.

Athletes, take pride in humility. And practice like you play.

A quote from Canadian alpine skier Kerrin Lee Gartner belongs on a dressing room wall. “Sometimes bad results don’t break a person, they make a person.”