We have a bunch of them here in Denver, that date back to before the city was cool. Nothing like a stack of pancakes with a side of gyros at midnight.

Plus, you know, Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston with the high beams on.

(Translation: I got nothing more than, yes, that happened, and I hope it will be different.)

The second half of that Madrid tie is going to be the last Derby ever played at the Calderon. All I have to say is, if Atleti keep it close in the first game, that’s going to be the most insane crowd you will ever see at a soccer match, and it bodes well for a team that feeds off of that kind of energy.

The scarf analogy achieved its goal, because it forced you to actually explain why promotion and relegation might be beneficial to MLS, which you hadn’t done previously.

Just . . . because? You need to explain why Pro/Rel is the missing thing that would make American soccer great. We’ve coopted quite a few other things from Europe, like names, scarves, shirt design, and fan culture, and apparently that hasn’t done the trick. Why is Pro/Rel different? And does it matter that a Pro/Rel…

In Mexico (and I’m sure in other countries), owners of relegated teams have been known to just wind up their old team and buy a non-relegated or newly-promoted team to put in the same stadium and uniforms. So rather than languishing in the second division, the Steinbrenners just buy the Tampa Rays, move them north,…

My bet is that we will see a promotion / relegation exempt European super league long before any US league seriously considers promotion / relegation. It’s a charming system, but there is so much money to be had that at some point owners of the big squads won’t put up with the risk.

Joe Sakic and Patty Roy? I’d wager both of them kind of wish that they had just stuck to being the heroes who cemented together the Avs teams of the 90s rather than the goats who brought the team to absolute rock-bottom-are-they-even-an-NHL-team level where they reside today.

As a soccer fan without a cable subscription and Pimsleur level three knowledge of Spanish, I have attempted to follow Liga MX. I was kind of hoping that the Univision takeover of the former Gawker properties might lead to some Deadspin Liga MX Coverage, but I’m not particularly surprised that it hasn’t. Any…

Replace “Chelsea” with “United” or “Liverpool” and it’s scary enough. Replace “Chelsea” with “Newcastle,” “Blackburn,” or “Leeds,” and it gets downright terrifying. I’d wager against Arsenal languishing in the Championship in a few years, but I’d also say they are a bit different from Chelsea, who were mostly…

A few extra points.

This, all day. If the concern is protecting innocent people, help those innocent people get out of the way of this untangleable clusterfuck of a civil war.

Sports Jeopardy questions are a different beast. I’m one of these guys who would sweep most sports categories on regular Jeopardy, but every time I try to play along with Sports Jeopardy, I get my ass handed to me. You really need only a glib understanding of sports to get most regular Jeopardy questions right.

I use the same excuse to never run. Between High School Cross Country and the half-marathon I ran ten years ago, my knees have gotten to the point where they get sore any time I run more than a mile. I basically came to the determination that any more running will directly take away from the years I have left to ski,…

So far, Chile has picked up two points and three goals on the differential off of Bolivia playing an inelligiable player, and has managed to get Messi knocked out of the competition for four of the last five qualifiers.

A friend who used to go to the UK about once a year invented the “Walker Crisp Challenge,” where he would come back with 10-15 bags of oddly flavored Walker’s crisps, divvy them up into unmarked bowls, and offer a duty-free chocolate bar to whoever correctly identified the most flavors. If you are looking for a fun…

Along the same lines of the COCKS hat, there was a line of women’s jogging shorts sold in bookstores across the South in the early 2000s that had the name of the school mascot written across the ass. A friend who transferred in from USC confirmed that it never got old walking around Columbia and seeing hot women…

If you followed Billy during the Copa America last year, you would find that he will normally take the position that any soccer not played in Europe isn’t worth watching. And in that sentence, he is not saying that South America out-competes Europe in the World Cup. He is saying that, top to bottom, South American…

Looking at the schedule for the next four games, they go to Bolivia and Uruguay, and have Peru and Venezuela at home. So that’s three totally winnable games even without Messi, and one trip to Montevideo where they really could use him. They’re likely fine.