The City of San Jose Congratulates You, Anaheim Ducks

Dearest City of Anaheim,

The city of San Jose would first like to congratulate you on your playoff victory over our beloved Sharks. Coming into the series, you were a tremendous underdog, and we respect that. A lot of people had us going far far far into the NHL playoffs, but your skill, determination, and moxie allowed you to push yourselves past us. As we sit on the sidelines and heal our bruised egos from this crushing loss, we must say we salute you Anaheim, job well done.

San Jose is not unfamiliar with playoff upsets either. In the early days of our beloved Sharks’ NHL existence, we have ousted the likes of Detroit and Calgary in first round upsets. We too know how its like to be the lowest rung in the NHL playoff ladder only to slowly topple the Goliaths, Mike Tysons, Houston Universities, and Michigans of our fair sport. Just like you, we have been David, we have been North Carolina State and Appalachian State, we have been Buster Douglass. It’s no easy feat to face overwhelming odds, but we know of the victory you feel tonight. Good for you.

And with those last words, the City of San Jose only has one thing left to say to you, Anaheim. Fuck you. Fuck you long and hard, tall and wide, thin and short. You think being the Cinderella is cute, that people love the underdog? Well guess what, the Silicon Valley loves that shit, but only when it happens to us, you So Cal pussbags.

And now, the City of San Jose presents to you, City of Anaheim, the destruction of everything you hold dear. Let’s begin.

Fuck the City of Anaheim and everything that comes with it. Fuck the Ducks. It’s real great to know that your team is based off a third rate sports movie starring Emilio Estevez, the lesser talented one of the dreaded Sheen brothers. The first one was okay, the second one was plausible, but the third one was just unnecessary. A team goes from winning the Olympics to being Junior Varsity at a prep school? WTF? And what the hell happened to Jesse Hall in the third one, that kid was bad ass.

Fuck any sports teams associated with Anaheim, mainly the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Choose a city for Christ’s sakes. Lose the Anaheim off the name, it makes the Angels sound like they’re some retarded offspring that was banished from Los Angeles and forced to represent a far more inferior So Cal city. Oh, and John Lackey is on my fantasy team right now, and that guy blows.

Fuck California Adventures. Who came up with that idea anyway? Replicating the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, and Yosemite sounds like a great idea for a theme park if they weren’t, you know, only a few hours away. I can’t wait for the next theme park to grace Anaheim: Anaheim Adventures.

And fuck you for the fact that you just call yourselves the Ducks. What happened to the word “Mighty”? (I have been informed the ‘mighty’ was dropped after it was sold to Henry Samueli. Well I have to inform him that he’s also an ass.)

Fuck the Honda Center. I liked it better when it was called the Arrowhead Pond, you sellouts. Oh, so you say we’re the sellouts for changing our sponsor every few years. Well you have a good point, Anaheim, but I have a better one: you’re assholes. San Jose 1, Anaheim 0.

Oh, and on that point, fuck Honda. I drive a Honda Accord 1996, and guess what, it’s a piece of shit. The doors won’t lock and the driver side window is stuck, and you know who I blame it on, you City of Anaheim.

And lastly, fuck Disneyland. There, I said it, what now.

And fuck Downtown Disney. Yeah, you guys have a ESPN Zone, Rainforest Café, and the Disney Monorail there, but do you have the……um………..hm…….. Tiki Lounge? Uh, yeah, that’s what I thought.

In short, once again the City of San Jose would like to say congratulations to the Ducks...... but also a hearty fuck you. In the words of the great Clint Eastwood: “I'll blow a hole in your face then go inside and sleep like a baby.” We know it has nothing to do with hockey, but it’s pretty bad ass.

Sincerely,

The Silicon Valley

Shark Fans Who Are Band Wagons and the Art of Being Truly Dedicated, Again

Today, an interesting happened today. No, it was not writing this post, even though it was good to write something down after a week and a half long absence. It occurred when I was on facebook. I’m not really on facebook that much, I just mainly use it to pimp out my articles and see what friends are up to once in a while. I decided to give up that whole status update a long time ago after I realized status updates show: a) people aren’t that insightful b) people aren’t that interesting and c) if you tell them point a) or b) they’ll probably think your some pretentious twit even though they are the ones who are pretentious because they think they’re so absorbed in their self importance that they find it offensive you don’t think they’re just not that interest. Ugh, facebook has created a generation of big headed ninnies.

Anyway, the interesting thing I noticed was…. where the hell did all these hockey fans come from?? Every single status update I saw was something complaining about how the Shark’s blew it yesterday. I’m from San Jose, so naturally, a lot of my friends are from the area. However, as I recall, most of them don’t really have a strong hockey acumen. I doubt if they’ve even seen a Shark’s game in its entirety. Hell, I even doubt any of them saw YESTERDAY’S game in its entirety. Yet, I’m sure they did quick check on ESPN.com, saw the Shark’s lost, and then bam, the flood of facebook statuses came out. Or even worse, maybe they didn’t even check the score, maybe they just saw on other people’s statuses that the Sharks lost and they hopped on the comment bandwagon just like they hopped on the Sharks playoff bandwagon.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against rooting for a team if you’re not a die hard fan. There’s nothing wrong with it. You do it, I do it, we all do it. I’m certainly rooting for the Shark’s to win it all, even though, admittedly I haven’t watched a single Sharks game all season. However, the difference between me and so called bandwagons is, sure I’ll root, but I’m not going to sit and complain about the Sharks or act like I’m the biggest fan ever when in fact, I know I’m not. I’ll be sad about the Sharks losing, but I won’t be angry. You know why? Because I’m a fair weather hockey fan, not a die hard one, and only die hard ones get mad about it. I’m not die hard, and neither are most of the people who are moping about it as we speak. Instead, I’ll just say “that’s too bad” then concentrate on teams that are really important to me like the Cal Golden Bears, and the Kansas City Chiefs. (Yeah, I get crap for that too, so don’t bother).

And I definitely won’t take the time to update my stinkin’ facebook status either.

I also would like to point out that even though I admit I’m not a die hard fan, I’m probably more die hard than the so called “die hard” fans I’ve been observing. I can remember the time when I was really into hockey (after the Mighty Duck movies came out) and I followed the Sharks’ miraculous first round upsets against powerhouses Detroit and Calgary. I remember when Irbe was our man, and Friesen was the young rookie. So suck on that.

Last year, I wrote an article about Laker fans and how there was a growing trend of bandwagonry in So Cal. I’m going to go on a limb now and say that this trend is also true for the bay. It is because of all this Shark hooplah that’s been surfacing? No, it’s because of the lack of hoopla for another team that was on the gaining momentum: the Warriors. Remember this?


Where are all the “We Believe” t-shirts now? Probably on the bottom of a pile of dirty rags after it was used to dry up someone’s car. It’s such a shame for real Warrior fans. You may think its rather snobby, but think about logistics. Imagine if you were so dedicated to a team that you watched every single game, knew every single player, and understood every single play, while they stunk. You stuck by them through all the hard times. Now your team finally makes the playoffs, and you’re so excited to get tickets, only to see that all the tickets are gone thanks to a bunch of 5 minute fan cronies sporting their “We Believe” t-shirt. Yeah, I would be pissed to.

In short, the point of this article is not to chastise people for rooting for a particular team, just to chastise people for all the over reaction for something they don’t really care about. In the end, if the Sharks lost, it’s not the end of the world for most of you, but for some people it is, and you will never understand why that is until you earn your fan stripes just like they did.

We're Jumping the Shark! (Format Changes)

It’s been quite a while since anything has been posted here on The Play in California. For those readers who have been wondering what the hell has been going on and why we haven’t posted in probably 3 weeks, the reason is simple: lack of passion. Lately, I’ve felt that I’ve been some what tied down to the format that this blog presents. It’s tough to only write about all sports in California when the only two sports you care about is college basketball and football. It’s even harder to make anything worth reading when all your posts are half assed.

Thus, there’s going to be a bit of a shake up in the future of this website. I plan writing some new posts starting this week, but there will be several changes.

1) We'll still have our California focus (since it's kind of hard not too, coming from the Bay Area and all), but the scope will sometimes go outside the Golden State. We'll also cover random topics in the world of gaming and entertainment, since I like that stuff.
2) It’s going to focus mainly on football and college basketball
3) Since Ace of Spades is a baseball fan, you might get some baseball stuff snuck in there once in a while
4) Nostalgia Fridays will still be in tact
5) As will Youtube Sundays
6) For laziness sake though, it’s still going to be called The Play in California
7) There’s going to be a mix of short posts and long posts
8) There’s also going to be much more off topic stuff if it’s worth the trouble to post it
9) Posts won’t be up every day. Expect more like once every few days.

So that’s that. And now, a gratuitous photo of Kate Beckinsale. Enjoy.

And for the ladies (and newly acquired Raiders QB Jeff Garcia, this guy):

Yeah, We're Still Alive

But football and college basketball season are over, so I'm officially running out of shit to write about until next September. So....... drop us a line at mail@theplayinca.com. Send us tips, feedback, nasty emails that will only lower our self esteem, anything! You'll hear from us soon!