The Weekly Dis
It's bird week at Disrespected Media
The No. 7 seed Crew are taking a pile of house money into their Round One, best-of-three playoff series against the No. 2 seed FC Cincinnatis. Game 1 is Monday night at TQL Stadium; Game 2 is in Columbus on Sunday, Nov. 2; and Game 3 (if needed) is Saturday, Nov. 8. I'll be covering and firing off bonus material. Thanks to those who left tips to help with my travel costs. Hello, Nora!
Note: Round One format has it that, if a game is tied at the end of regulation, it goes straight to penalty kicks.
The Blue Jackets have a couple of back-to-backs upcoming. They played the Washington Capitals in Nationwide Arena Friday night and they're at Pittsburgh, where they never win, on Saturday. Next week, they've got a Tuesday-Wednesday, at Buffalo and home against Toronto.
Olivier's 5-minute major. Minor?
For 40-plus minutes, the Blue Jackets-Capitals game crackled with energy. Both teams were flying and hitting. Through two periods, the Jackets launched a fusillade at Caps goalie Logan Thompson – and Thompson was unbeatable. He stopped 34 of the 35 shots he faced on the night, including more than a handful of Grade-A opportunities.
"The game was great," Jackets coach Dean Evason said. "Some of those saves ... We were like, 'What the heck?' We hit three posts. .. That was not a 5-1 hockey game. That was a great, great game. It really was."
Alas, 5-1 was the final score. The Jackets were right in it. They were within 3-1 after a goal by Dmitri Voronkov was waved off (distinct kicking motion) midway through the third period. Then, Jackets forward Mathieu Olivier was called for a 5-minute elbowing penalty for brushing the chin of Caps defenseman Declan Chisholm. If anything, it should have been a 2-minute minor. If that.
"Stay out of the bloody thing," Evason said, referencing the officials "(Chisholm) jumps out of the way of a guy going to finish his check. His (Olivier's) arms are in. There was no chicken wing. ... (Chisholm) plays the very next shift. For a 5-minute major. I just don't understand it."
The Capitals scored twice on the ensuing power play to put the game out of reach. Evason was hot when he met the media. He stepped to the podium with the full knowledge that he was about to commit a fine-able offense for criticizing the officiating. He went off anyway.
"Ollie knows he's finishing a check on a guy that's jumping the heck out of the way," Evason said. "He's finishing a check. He knows what he's doing. I hope he hits as hard as he can at every single opportunity."
"A grinding, boring guy"
The modern American fitness fixation can be traced back to the 1977 bestseller, The Complete Book of Running by Jim Fixx. Jogging is good for you! Fixx died in 1984, at the age of 52, while jogging.
I had a hemorrhagic stroke seven or eight years ago while working out in a gym. That was way too ironical for me to handle. It's be more appropriate to keel over at Local Cantina. I walk now – and I ride my e-bike – and so far I've had no more exploding blood vessels in my brain. (Everyone should have an e-bike. The photo at the top of this newsletter was taken beside the Alum Creek trail, one of many terrific greenways in Central Ohio.)
Obviously, not everyone should die at a bar because that would make it tougher to get a beer. All those bodies. So, exercise should be encouraged, I suppose. To that end, we offer up Dave King, 77, the coach of the Original Jackets. Kinger was in town with some other Originals last week. He made sure to get his morning "run" in. He hasn't missed a day in nearly 39 years, and, he says, his knees remain operational.
"I've been lucky," King said. "I've been healthy. It tells you a little about me – I'm kind of a grinding, boring guy. I enjoy it. I get a lot of satisfaction from getting out of my bed every day (at 7 a.m., or earlier) and going for a run. I used to go a lot further. I used to go a lot faster. Now I go about 35 minutes and my pace is slightly above a turtle, maybe. But I go.
"The important thing is getting out there and doing it. If you want to stay on this planet, you've got to look out for yourself."
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Monday: I walked, didn't run, between Nationwide Arena and the new Crew Stadium on a Saturday night. The Blue Jackets got off the skids and posted a quality, 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning with three Originals – Kevin Dineen, Ron Tugnutt, Rostislav Klesla and Kinger looking on. More remarkable was the Crew's victory, 3-1 over the New York Red Bulls in the regular-season finale. On a wild Decision Day, a string of events lifted the Crew out of the wild-card game into seventh place and set up another Hell is Real playoff derby-darby.
Michael Arace
Tuesday: A trip down memory lane, to the inaugural season of 2000-01, with a few Original Jackets. "We played hard and I think we were embraced by the city, but I think that was a two-way street," Dineen said.
Michael Arace
Friday: Hell is Real is getting real again. News and notes ahead of the Crew-Cincinnati first-round playoff series. Crew coach Wilfried Nancy: "Do you know jazz music? This is the same song, but there's a lot of improvisation."
Michael Arace
Our men's national teams
- Crew goalkeeper Patrick Schulte, who was injured when the USMNT convened for the Gold Cup in June, was back with the national team during the October international window. He was joined Crew teammate Max Arfsten, who is carving out quite a place for himself. The USMNT played two friendlies and mounted comebacks in both games – a 1-1 draw with Ecuador and an impressive, 2-1 victory over Australia.
"It went well," said Arfsten, who played the full 90 against Ecuador and came off the bench against Australia. "I was super excited. It was my first 90."
Of coach Mauricio Pochettino, Arfsten said, "Nothing but good vibes."
- Crew midfielder Taha Habroune, a Columbus native, played a big role for the U.S. team at the recent FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile. The Americans posted 3-0 victories against France and Italy en route to the quarterfinal round, when they were ousted by Morocco.
"It was a good experience," Habroune said. "Tough ending, obviously. We thought we deserved more. But that's how football is."
If you're from Columbus, you should say, "soccer." Not a hot take.
Shades of 2003?
The radio voice of the Crew, Chris Doran, posits that the 2025 U-20 MNT is stocked like the 2003 team, which also reached the World Cup quarters. The 2003 team included the likes of Chad Marshall, Clint Dempsey, Mike Magee, Ricardo Clark and Eddie Johnson. "And then they went back to college," Doran said.
The 2025 team featured players on the MLS "22 under 22" list: D Luca Bombino, (San Diego); D Frankie Westfield (Philadelphia); MF Brooklyn Raines (Houston), forward Zavier Gozo (RSL) and Habroune.
What's more, it had on it five players who are working in Europe: GK Gavin Beavers (Brondby/Denmark); D Ethan Kohler (SC Verl/Germany); D Joshua Winder (Benfica/Portugal) and F Cole Campbell (Dortmund/Germany).
"And then they went back to their club teams," Doran said.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Peregrine falcon!
Axios Columbus recently trotted out this headline: Why Columbus doesn't have a pigeon problem: They're dinner.
Big cities teem with pigeons. Columbus, the largest city in Ohio and the 15th-most populous city in the country, is not suffused with these urban bombardiers.
Why?
Peregrine falcons.
Once on the verge of extinction due to pesticide (DDT) use, Peregrine falcons began a comeback in the 1990s with help from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Now, they're thriving.
"Our team routinely cleans up pigeon parts," Ben Barker, Capital Crossroads and Discovery Special Improvement Districts operations manager, said in an email to Axios. "They hunt/dive at extreme speeds and completely decimate the pigeons."
Thanks for reading. If you're enjoying what you see, click on the link below and leave a tip if you are of a mind. It'll help defray costs for travel to Cincinnati for the MLS playoffs. If you've yet to subscribe, consider making a small hop over a paywall. It'll help keep local, independent media disrespected. Have a nice day.
Michael Arace
