DRAFT Magazine

Sidney Crosby is the king of Canada.

Though he couldn’t convert a breakaway during regulation that would have iced the game for Canada, his point-blank shot in overtime is all Canadians care about now as the Molson and Labatt’s beers flow freely across the country.

No doubt the pressure was on the Canadian team from the beginning. Having already lost to the U.S. and playing at home, the players had everything to lose. Yet they rebounded from the U.S. goal that tied the game with 24 seconds left and prevailed.

It was sad to see the grim U.S. faces as they were draped with silver medals. But to watch the smiles on every gold-medal winner from Joe Thornton to Martin Brodeur — and the special applause for Crosby — made true hockey fans rejoice. Listening to Canadian fans cheer the devastated U.S. goalie Ryan Miller was also moving.

When I went to the Olympics in both Lake Placid and Calgary, nothing was better than watching hockey. Curling? Boring. The bobsleds fly by attendees in a split second. Few things in sports can match the excitement and frenzy of Olympic hockey.   

For the first time in 30 years, when  the U.S. topped Finland in Lake Placid, a host country won the hockey gold. It also happened a half-century ago, in Squaw Valley, Calif., when goalies didn’t even wear masks and U.S. president Barack Obama — who lost a case of beer to his Canadian counterpart after the 3-2 defeat Sunday — wasn’t even born.

Here’s a toast to our brethren in Canada — enjoy your golden moment.

It was 30 years ago today — Feb. 22 — when, at a mere 16 years of age, I watched a great hockey game in a tiny New York town with about 10,000 others.

My Dad had picked me up at Deerfield Academy a few days earlier, and we drove the five hours or so along mountainous roads to Lake Placid. Once there, I got a glimpse of Eric Heiden on his way to a speed-skating gold medal and watched ski jumping. Then one afternoon, we walked to the hockey arena.

At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what all the commotion was about. I had a vague understanding of the U.S.S.R.-U.S. rivalry and the anger prompted by the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan. And though there was plenty of excitement and flag-waving in the arena that evening, it was nowhere nearly as loud as Chicago Stadium, the hockey venue I was used to.

No need recounting the game, as anyone reading this either watched it at the time or has heard enough about it to feel like they did (in a bizarre twist, I’ve never watched a replay of the contest). My main memory inside the arena involved a strong desire to grab one of the sticks the U.S. players threw into the crowd at the end of the 4-3 triumph. Though I failed, despite our sixth-row seats, I filmed that part and some of the action with a silent Super 8 camera. Outside, I remember the loud yelling in the streets and, if memory serves, fireworks going off.

I still have my ticket stub, which features a drawing of a clock to identify the starting time of the game (5 p.m.). Also kept the hat I wore during those Games with a number of Olympics pins attached, along with the official program with the cover designed by Leroy Neiman. I’ll pass them along to my kids one day, and hopefully they will be family keepsakes for generations.

It is exciting to watch the U.S. play with such passion again, as the team showed against Canada Sunday night. If they win their next three, it seems appropriate to toast them with a lager that’s colored gold.

It’s February. Cities like the nation’s capital have spent days this month snowed in. Shoveling driveways is the Midwest’s lone activity. Don’t even know if the groundhog saw his shadow — spring seems far, far away whether he did or didn’t.

As always, it’s the perfect time of year for the sunshine that arrives with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. And Miller Lite, the official beer sponsor of the Sports Illustrated’s top-selling issue of the year, has partnered with SI to keep things lively indoors.

The “Greatest Bracket Ever” lets Swimsuit Issue connoisseurs choose who they believe is the greatest model ever. Will it be Cheryl Tiegs, whose jaw-dropping fish-net photo from the 1970s still causes grown men (who were boys then) to smile? Or how about this year’s cover girl, Brooklyn Decker, a stunner married to tennis star Andy Roddick?

A two-page ad in the SI Swimsuit Issue featuring 2005 and 2006 SI Swimsuit model Mallory Snyder kicks off the Miller Lite promotion (more information available at www.SI.com/swimsuit). MillerCoors hopes this marketing move will seamlessly lead into its annual Miller Lite Bracket Challenge for March Madness, which was filled out about by more than 750,000 people last year.

Thoughts of beer, swimsuit models and brackets is the only thing that can speed up these endless winter days.

It almost sounds absurd. It defies logic. More than 108,000 to watch a basketball game? One that doesn’t even count? On Valentine’s Day?

Yet it happened in Dallas on Sunday in the new Cowboys Stadium. Western Conference point guard Steve Nash summed up the atmosphere created by the record basketball crowd.

“What an experience. I felt like I was on Battlestar Galactica or something. It just felt like a huge spaceship in there. … Some of those fans who were so far away from the floor, it was like they were in the greatest sports bar of all time. They had the best big screen, the beer was cold, you could hear the crowd and the action. I’m sure they had a blast, too.”

Maybe Jerry Jones was on to something when he decided to build his $1.3 billion sports palace. Instead of selling thousands of standing-room-only seats — as they have been called since time immemorial — Jones marketed them as Party Passes. And on Sunday, the party for those who couldn’t see an athlete except on the big screens was vibrant indeed. Beer flowed with the frequency of dunks.

Whether the NBA tries to replicate the experience in another football stadium remains to be seen. But for one day, the NBA All-Star Game reigned supreme.

It’s almost like the New Coke fiasco from the 1980s — a major company makes a blunder, switches course to appease public opinion and in the process earns priceless publicity.

That’s one way to look at the Anheuser-Busch InBev switcheroo the past week. After it was announced (and discussed in Sports on Tap) that the beloved Clydesdales had not made the cut for a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday — despite their many appearances in the past and the fact that A-B had secured five minutes of ad time — Clydesdale fans roared their disapproval. A-B quickly put a recut Clydesdale commercial on its Facebook page along with two other choices and asked the public to vote on whether it should appear on TV during the game in Miami. More than 3,000 people responded and heavily favored the Clydesdales.

So the Clydesdales will appear after all. As industry analyst David “Bump” Williams told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “A Super Bowl is not a Super Bowl without the Clydesdales.”Of course, another ad was knocked off to appease the horse lovers.  To make room for the new commercial, a Bud Light spot was dropped. No word on whether that ad will now appear on Facebook for voting.

Let’s face it: Beyond the hype, the debate over whether the NFL owns the “Who Dat?” phrase, the anticipation of an air war between two top-of-the-line quarterbacks and all the other hullabaloo, the Super Bowl can be a pretty dull game.

Ninety-three million Americans watch it each year, and maybe three million of those are fans of either team. The other 90 million? Like little kids, they don’t want to be left out of what seems like the entire country is doing. But if the game’s a blowout, as occasionally happens, how can they occupy themselves, besides wondering if Roger Daltrey may need oxygen?

The Bleacher Report has designed a creative, funny drinking game for all of those who need to be entertained during an event which will likely last for four hours. Among the highlights:

– Drink if Sean Payton is dressed as the pirate Jean LaFitte.
– Drink at the appearance of any talking animal, alien, or Kardashian.
– Drink every time Captain Kirk materializes on your screen selling something.

Sports on Tap must offer a warning: Follow this drinking game to the letter, and you’ll likely wake up Monday afternoon begging to become a soccer fan.

Before the Super Bowl — and sometimes during the game, if it’s a yawner — the biggest news often involves advertising. And why not? At roughly $2.8 million for a 30-second spot this year, Super Bowl commercials are easily the priciest on television.

For decades Anheuser-Busch — which claims category exclusivity for alcoholic beverages during the telecast until 2012, regardless of which network broadcasts the game — has spent more than $100 million promoting its brands during the Super Bowl. Many times, the famous Budweiser Clydesdales have entertained viewers in spots.

But maybe not this year. For Super Bowl XVIV,  reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, A-B will run nine ads and none will feature the horses. Though the firm ”remains a big spender on Super Bowl ads, buying up five precious, pricey ad minutes” during the game, the Clydesdales “for the first time in at least eight Super Bowls” will be absent. It’s reported the ads will focus on humor, and none of the horses can tell a joke like, say, departed Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien.

Believe it or not, the initial decision not to use the horses came down to focus-group testing. A Clydesdale spot was produced, according to A-B InBev VP/Marketing Keith Levy, but it sounds like consumers weren’t impressed.

But then A-B seemed to change heart after the news was announced. The company is releasing a Clydesdale ad today on its Facebook page to gauge reaction and perhaps it might be used in the big game . Stay tuned.

There are some amusing Super Bowl drinking stories — Green Bay’s Max McGee scoring two touchdowns in Super Bowl I while nursing a horrendous hangover is one — and some sobering ones.

In the latter category is the story of Larry Grantham, as told by long-time Newark Star-Ledger Columnist Emeritus Jerry Izenberg. Grantham, a linebacker for the New York Jets, played in Super Bowl III, when the Jets stunned the Baltimore Colts, 16-7. Not only did the game establish the American Football League as an equal to its older counterpart, the NFL, it solidified the fame of quarterback Joe Willie Namath, who guaranteed the upset.

As a Super Bowl winner, every Jet was the toast of New York, including Grantham. Mississippi born and bred, the country boy in Manhattan could barely buy a beer on his own; his Super Bowl ring served as a passport to free drinks for years. On the plane after games, each player would be handed three beers; Grantham would also drink Don Maynard’s and anyone else willing to share some of theirs.

In 1986, he woke up in a drunk tank in Tennessee after a car accident. He hasn’t had a drink since. Sometimes it takes that type of humiliation to stop, as Namath undoubtedly knows. He was interviewed by a sideline reporter during a game a few years back, barely made sense and told her he wanted to kiss her. He was sloshed. Supposedly the man who used to like his women blonde and Johnnie Walker Black hasn’t had a drink since.

The Jets may not have made the Super Bowl, but at least some of their former stars have won a bigger game.

Former Cardinals’ slugger Mark McGwire has been blessed recently by those in St. Louis. He was hired as a batting coach by longtime friend and manager Tony LaRussa. He was interviewed by St. Louis’ own Bob Costas as part of an effort to admit his steroid use and to rehabilitate his image.

But now, the verbal bats are swinging at him. Adolphus Busch IV, scion of the beer dynasty whose family’s name was on the stadium McGwire called home, blasted the man who once swatted 70 home runs in a record-breaking season.

“McGwire is not apologizing for his deceit, only for the embarrassment that came from his admission of having previously lied,” Busch wrote in a statement. “The timing of his announcement at the start of a new baseball season has allowed him to hide behind the frenzy of a new Cardinal season and the blinding faith of Cardinal loyalists.”

It is anger filled with intriguing sidelines. Those as gently reared as Busch rarely show such public wrath. And he doesn’t even own the Cardinals, which his family sold in the 1990s (nor does he own the A-B brewery anymore). The man whose record McGwire broke, Roger Maris, ran Budweiser beer distributorships after he retired, thanks to the Busch family.

Bottom line: McGwire was a hero to millions who used performance-enhancing substances to help break a sacred record. Ah, for the days when the worst that could be said of great home-run hitters like Babe Ruth is that they had one too many beers the night before.

As reported in Sports on Tap previously, Land Shark Stadium — named after a Jimmy Buffett-licensed beer brand — had a brief fling in South Florida. Yet another new name has emerged for the 23-year-old facility.

On Wednesday, the multipurpose stadium will start to be called Sun Life Stadium, according to the South Florida Business Journal. Could it be another Buffett outfit, considering his songs about sunny days and the good life? Not quite. The Toronto-based company, known in full as Sun Life Financial, is a little more bottom-line in its orientation.

That also means it won’t make the announcement of the name switch backed by a band surrounded by Parrotheads, as Buffett did in 2009.

The deal is said to be worth $7.5 million a year over five years for the Miami Dolphins, which is pretty impressive in a tough environment for naming-rights deals. Even the king of revenue streams, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, hasn’t been able to land naming rights for his stunning new stadium.

Sun Life will start out with a bang, hosting the Pro Bowl this weekend and the Super Bowl on Feb. 7. No word on whether LandShark Lager, which is brewed by Anheuser-Busch, will be available at either game (or why the stadium was spelled Land Shark, despite the combination of the two words in the logo above).