Speculative Rip of the Week (Will Hereafter be Renamed)

Hi all. Long time between posts. Busy college students are busy, plus its our blog and we get to deprive you of content for weeks at a time. ha-HA, as the Berba would say.

Anyway, this post is groundbreaking for the 3 amigos here at 3MW. Because from here on out, our most frequent and popular segment, the Speculative Rip of the Week, will be known as....(drumroll)...

the INIGO MARTINEZ HONORARY SPECULATIVE RIP OF THE WEEK

That's right, the 20-year old wizard has done it again. The kid has exactly two La Liga goals for Real Sociedad, and he's got his own blog segment named after him. Spectacularge.

Martinez came to you live back in October with this rifle shot, and he's just gone and outdone himself. With the score tied at 2, IN STOPPAGE TIME, against Real Betis, Martinez unleashed Heaven's fury again with his left foot and vaulted himself into legend status at Sociedad.

View the magic:



Oh by the way, he went bar down. Ridiculous. As Brooks at Dirty Tackle said, "It's becoming clear that Martinez is some kind of wizard."

WHAT THE $&"%

This isn't about soccer. This is about a gross and egregious lapse in judgment by someone high up in an NCAA Division I office somewhere.

No, not at Penn State.

This is hockey news. As we all know, hockey is a cold-weather sport. Much like ice-fishing and snowmobile jousting, this is a sport that is enjoyed by millions upon millions of residents of the northern climes of this wonderful planet we call Earth.

Southerners, well, they enjoy football, drivin' real fast, and turnin' left.

So I found it strange when last year I heard about a little-known D1 hockey team called the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers. That's right, the Chargers are the only D1 NCAA hockey team south of the Mason-Dixon line. They play as an independent, but their time in D1 is short-lived, as they will be downgraded to a club sport after this season.

This might be nothing more than an interesting trivia piece, soon forgotten after the club distinction is enacted, except for one major item:

THEY'RE HOSTING THE FREAKING FROZEN FOUR!!!

Yes, the only NCAA hockey team south of Delaware is the host school for this year's Frozen Four. Stranger still, the tournament is to be played in the Tampa Bay Lightning's arena in Tampa, Florida. Obviously, Huntsville, Alabama is a less desirable location to play than Tampa, but why even insult the intelligence of a college hockey fan by veiling this strange venue with the designation that a school two states away is hosting the event?

It's all very curious. Very curious indeed.

B.Y.E. Intramural Update

Howdy All

Been a while since a post here at 3MW, but just wanted to update our loyal reader(s?) on the situation vis a vis our intramural team.

Currently, valiant former champions B.Y.E. sit at the top of the heap in the BC intramural soccer standings with an unblemished 5-0 record. We'll certainly receive the 2nd overall seed, barring an unforeseen and unheard of situation in which the other undefeated team (Goodwill Stunting, which has 3 or 4 club players) loses and goes to 4-1.

Rubenstein D11 has done its part, with 2 goals on the season from one participant (me) and 2 games played from the other participant (Retired Ginger Prince), who may have his priorities mixed up.

Further updates as events warrant.

HOLD EVERYTHING!!! The most SPECULATIVE of Speculative Rips

While Kyle Walker's goal in our previous post was more akin to what one would expect when talking about a rip from distance, this may end up winning the first inaugural Speculative Rip of the Year Award. Inigo Martinez (Not Montoya, like "I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die"), a Spanish U21 defender playing for Real Sociedad, apparently has been watching too many Xabi Alonso highlights.

WATCH THIS CANNON












What a screamer!!! Usually when a goal is scored from your own half it's looped up and over a keeper who is picking daisies at the edge of his 18 yard box. This ball was hit on a string and tucked hard up under the crossbar, past/over a diving keeper, from 65 YARDS OUT.

Truly impressive from the young Spaniard. A banner day here at 3MW, where we make all your speculative rip dreams come true

Speculative Rip of the Week

Arsenal continued their tailspin today with a loss to Spurs at White Hart Lane. Their Polish keeper Wojeshook SheSheznee (that's how I pronounce it) bailed them out on a few occasions throughout the contest, but looked a bit like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man on a late effort from the 21 year old Kyle Walker.


footyroom.com TOT-ARS by footyroom

Skip to 3:27 to see the boomer. Walker puts some extra spicy mustard on this thing, and it swerves its way past Shesheznee's arm flailingness. Great stuff from the youngster, and great self confidence to take a rip from there.

FIFA Legend: Peter Crouch(osaurus)

There are some players in this world that just should not be good at soccer. Rino Gattuso is one. Paul Scholes certainly looks like he could be stocking the lower shelves of your local supermarket. But the number one player who NO ONE would pick out of a lineup to be a professional soccer player is the Crouchosaur. At 6 feet 7 inches tall, his only evident ability might be heading the ball. In fact, however, Crouch has a very poor record of scoring headed goals. However, this fact is apparently not translatable to EA Sports' FIFA video game franchise.

Simply put, the great galloping dinosaur is unstoppable in FIFA. Whip in a cross anywhere near his toothy head, and he'll get his noggin around it and shape it home. I've been victimized by him on fadeaway headers from the penalty spot looping over my keeper more times than I care to remember.

Crouch's slender head is not his only FIFA weapon, however. His "telescopic legs", as the inimitable Ray Hudson describes them, are deadly at tapping home back post balls that no normal human could reach. And his better than average footskills have translated well into FIFA, to the dismay of his opponents.

In short, beware the ever-present danger of the Crouchosaurus.

"LOL umm idk why i'm better than u in FIFA! Probably 'cuz I'm not married to a horse?"

Frank Lampard Peaces Out at Swansea City

Frank Lampard, one of the stalwarts of the Chelsea midfield for the past ten years, is apparently not in new manager Andre Villas-Boas's long term plans. He has not started in three of the last four games, and was taken off at halftime in the 3-1 loss at Manchester United.

In the Blues' latest match at Swansea City, Lampard was on the bench until the 83rd minute, when Chelsea used their last substitution to bring in the 18 year old youngster Josh McEachran. At which point Lampard promptly clomped his way down the tunnel without talking to his manager.

Lampard is 33, and a veteran and leader in a Chelsea side that is in the early stages of a push for Champions League and Premier League glory. Putting himself before the team in this way shows Lampard's childish sense of resentment about not being chosen, along with jealousy towards his teammates.

I can only imagine what kind of mood the dressing room was in after the game, but I'm sure Lampard heard some choice words from the likes of John Terry and Petr Cech about leadership and a team-first mentality. This kind of mental weakness is what separates good teams from great teams, and right now it is obvious that Chelsea is in the former category.

"But I want an oompa-loompa NOW!!!"