NFL Notes:

• Yeesh. Second-year Eagles WR Nelson Agholor is accused of raping / sexually assaulting a dancer at a strip club near the practice facility. Even worse for the Eagles is that there are reports of two other players with him at the club prior to the incident.
  • UPDATE (7:15 pm) – one story has the rape claim coming after a disagreement about how much the champagne room cost.
• Oh – I forgot to mention the “Aaron Rodgers” rule yesterday. It’s a clarification of the rule that says if the coin doesn’t flip, it must be reflipped and the team that had the call cannot change their pick. There’s a Rodgers-is-gay joke in there somewhere, but it seems too forced to try and find it.

  

• The Chargers have filed a petition with over 110,000 names on it in support of a ballot initiative for their proposed new stadium. The fine print probably hooks each of those people for $1000 to help subsidize the stadium, which still sounds better than a Verizon contract.
• A “Good news” story is Devon Still trying to catch on with the Texans, and his daughter Leah is running blocker on JJ Watt & Vince Wilfork.

Finally, Gawker filed for bankruptcy, so either we:

1. Buy Deadspin; or
2. Spam the comments and invite their readers over here.

That’s #UpForAnything thinking! You’ll notice the change when the scroll starts advertising for Hooters.

I “met” Gordie Howe twice in my lifetime.

Once was when he played for the Hartford Whalers, and I got his autograph before a Canucks game. I was 12, and raised on his legend. It was also just at the start of the Gretzky era, so it was at the time of the actual torch passing. In those days, the glass on the sides was only three feet high off the boards, so a little kid could stand on the edge and reach over to hand a player something to sign. Gordie was nice enough to come by the group of kids I was with and sign something for everyone. 

The second time was towards the end. He had been made a symbolic co-owner of the Vancouver Giants WHL team. But he took the role of mentor seriously. He came out 1-2 times a year and sat down with the players to offer counsel. I met him at a season-ticket holder handshake. He wasn’t the man he was, but he was still Gordie Howe. His handshake was still a crusher, and I still called him “sir”.

When it was announced that he’d died, those were the things that popped into my head. Not black & white memories of watching him win Cups, Cameron from “Ferris Bueller” wearing a Detroit Howe jersey despite the movie taking place in Chicago, or the stories from Ted Lindsay’s book “Net Worth” (a very good read) which talk about both his playing ferocity and his individualism, both which some players accuse of helping hold down salaries in the 1960s. It’s a 12 year-old kid meeting a living legend, and a 40 year-old man acting like a kid around that same person years later. There’s always going to be the legend, but I’ve got my own stories.

Because it’s a song with hockey connotations, here’s The Tragically Hip – Fireworks.

And because it’s about faded glory and I fucking love The Kinks, here’s “Celluloid Heroes”.

Tonight’s playoff action:

NBA: Golden State @ Cleveland – 9:00

Get to bed early, because Switzerland plays Albania at 9:00 EDT, which doesn’t sound bad until you remember that’s 6:00 AM Pacific time. I’m also meeting my neighbours at the Legion at 9:00 PDT for the Wales-then-England matches, because I talked a lot of shit during qualifying, and now I have to drink my words. SCOTLAND FOREVER!