The State of Sports in 2008

Sports in 2008 have taken a leaf out of the WWE handbook of "shock and awe" plot twists. From Giants upsetting undefeated teams, to championships pulled out from the skin of your teeth, these are the most shocking events in sports this past year. Try to beat that, WWE booking team.

• The Upset; or the Rise of the Giants: An undefeated New England Patriots team comes into Arizona to pick up the one win that will make them the most dominating team in the NFL ever. Except for some divine reason their offensive line couldn't stand up straight, their linebackers couldn't pull down a quarterback, and balls were caught with helmets. The Giants won, and became the most powerful team in the league for the rest of the year.
  
• Women of Gold: at least for the Netherlands, the Olympics would have been a bust, had it not been saved by the fine ladies in hockey, swimming, and very surprisingly water polo. Makes you wonder where all the Dutch men went. However, all of these successes were achieved in team sports. Individually the Netherlands had mediocre results, and it showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the low countries do not have a superstar to rally behind. Thankfully the Dutch Female Athletes, tall, proud and full of team spirit, made it happen.
  
• The Superstar; or the Franchise: Usain Bolt destroyed athletics competitions for the forseeable future, for holding back on a sub-9.50 100 m dash, and boasting about it loudly in cameras and television screens world wide. The IOC, in its best Vince McMahon-impression, gave the Jamaican an official warning, which Bolt seemingly underwent with a definite indifference. Of course, he made sure that future Olympic 100 m dashes still have drawing power, because if he would have done his utmost and ran 9.48 or thereabouts, no one would ever be able to beat the record, killing the event forever.
  
• The Great Hope, and the Disappointment: For about two weeks the Netherlands thought it had a chance to win it all, and emulate what a previous generation did before: win the UEFA European Championship. Oranje made short work of the World Cup holders from Italy, beat the French soundly and were looking to walk over the dark horse Russians in the quarter final... except things didn't turn out that way, leaving Holland with another promise unfulfilled, and millions of Oranje fans dejected, after having been fooled yet again.
• The Soap Opera: Formula One always markets itself as the glamourous, jetset, top flight of automobile motorsport. But this year the circus had more twists, turns, Dusty-finishes than the WWE, which is saying a lot. They had a boss who was caught in a sex-scandal, systematically erased results to manipulate the standings, and ended up with the most dramatic finish of recent history, when Lewis Hamilton just pipped Massa for the championship in the final 500 m of the Brazilian GP. If someone was still entertaining the notion that F1 held the highest form of integrity, I seriously doubt their sanity. I mean, this very same plot line was held to the letter in WWE circa 1998-2001.
• The Kids You Hated At School: For a U.S. Ryder Cup team, which was so extremely keen on making themselves the underdog for this year's competition ("sob, sob, we're never going to win this, we don't have Tiger, boohoo, yadda yadda"), they looked much too smug after actually beating the Europeans.
• The End of An Era: Roger Federer is no longer invincible. That's a good thing. I don't care what people say about watching tennis brilliance when he is on TV. HE IS FREAKIN' BORING.
  
• Extracurricular Activities: On the other side of the net, the WTA is finally using its sex appeal to win viewers. Too bad that the women crack apart (Sharapova, Ivanovic, Jankovic etc.) once they won once. Thankfully just about every player in the top 50 has a magazine shoot ramped up to give them some income when they're nursing their injuries.
• The Curse: The Cubs still haven't won a World Series. The Red Sox now have two.
  
• The More Things Change...: NBA Finals 1987: Lakers vs. Celtics. NBA Finals 2008: Lakers vs. Celtics. So much for expansion.
• A Sign Of Armageddon: It is bad for your sport if the one individual in that sport the general media is talking about, is not a champion (More Detroit Redwings hoisting Stanley Cups. C'mon guys... share the wealth!), and not its most talented player, but is the class clown. Sean Avery, from his stick waving antics in the NHL Playoffs, to his public burns of Jack Bauer's daughter and Stacy's Mom, was generating more publicity than the league he is playing in. Yes. All 30 teams in it, including all the other players on each of the 30 team rosters.
  
  I give the NHL four more years.