Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sport
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Three Stars of Comedy
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The first star: The Pittsburgh Penguins. It's been a good week in Pittsburgh. First, Evgeni Malkin gave us this:
Next came Marc-Andre Fleury's return, which brought us this cute fake:
But the real highlight came after the Pens' win over Vegas. The Golden Knights' Twitter has been, it's fair to say, a divisive addition to the hockey world. Some fans love it, some hate it, many think it's hit or miss. One of their early-season hits was a tongue-in-cheek tweet comparing Vadim Shipachyov to Sidney Crosby. It didn't age well, since Shipachyov was a bust. And apparently the Penguins did not forget.
Damn. I've seen Canadian team rebuilds that weren't as patient as Pens Twitter when they're nursing a grudge.
Outrage of the Week
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Obscure Former Player of the Week
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Be It Resolved
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Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown
- So yeah. This is a three-minute video of nothing but Jeff Norton highlights from the 1988 Olympics. I don't mind telling you that I'm vaguely fascinated by it.
- The clip itself is a little more than four years old, and as I'm writing this it has well under 1,000 views. It has two ratings—both positive—and one three-year-old comment, in which some pedant wants to argue about the music credit. The account that posted it has only two videos; the other is about the 1949 NCAA hockey championship.
- I have no idea if this person made the clip themselves or ripped it from some other source. More important, I have no idea why this would exist. Jeff Norton didn't win a medal or score a goal at the 1988 Games, so I'm not sure why he would need his own sizzle reel. But somebody made one anyway. Who? Norton himself? His parents? Somebody trying to win a bet by making the least interesting Olympic highlight clip imaginable? I don't know, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know. I'm just happy it's here.
- So our first shot is a dramatic pan of a crowd that ends with a zoom-in on a "GO USA" sign. Who's pumped? I'm pumped. Let's get to the action on the ice.
- And we do, as our very first shot of Norton is him, uh, hooking a guy, I guess? That's followed by him checking a guy, kind of. Look, when you commit to making a three-minute video of Jeff Norton highlights, you work with what you have.
- Our next clip is Norton arguing with a referee, which is highlighted by the ref waving his arms around so much that he almost KO's a random American player skating by.
- And yes, the "Granato" in the ref clip is Tony Granato, future NHL 30-goal scorer and head coach. He's one of several players from that year's Team USA who went on to NHL stardom, including Brian Leetch, Kevin Stevens, Mike Richter, and Craig Janney. The team also included current Predators coach Peter Laviolette, as well as Obscure Player alumni Dave Snuggerud and Todd "Son of Mean Gene" Okerlund. I think we can agree that all of them probably deserve their own personal highlight videos more than Jeff Norton does, but here we are.
- We get several more shots of Norton hooking, holding, and hitting guys, including one at about the 40-second mark where he seems to be setting up for an epic hip check but then leads with his face instead. There's also a clip of what appears to be Norton leaving the puck for a linesman during a stoppage in play. I think whoever made this video literally took every single Jeff Norton clip from the entire Olympics and just played them in order. And I think this is becoming one of my ten favorite YouTube clips ever.
- About a minute in, we get out first actual highlight, as Norton gets the second assist on a Team USA goal. It's a nice play. So nice, in fact, that they just slip it back into the mix a few plays later like we won't notice. Is that allowed? What do you think, world's scariest referee?
- That would appear to be a no.
- We get a shot of No. 6 making a nice toe drag move to get a shot on net, which seems like a nice Norton highlight until you realize that's not Team USA. Instead, the real Norton shows up seconds later to punch a dude in the head. That leads into a sequence of Norton slashing Soviets, interspersed with a confused-looking Viktor Tikhonov. We're with you, Vik—we're all making the same face right about now.
- We get the longest single clip in the whole video, which is just the San Diego Chicken dancing. That's immediately followed by Norton going back to touch the puck on an icing call against France. I feel like this is the exact point where the guy making this video realized that three minutes was a massive over-commitment and just went into survival mode.
- By the way, inspired pick on the video's music choice, " The Theme from Earl Weaver Baseball."
- We get a rapid-fire sequence of Norton passing, slashing, existing in the background, and eventually taking a penalty. I know what you're thinking: How does this end? We're obviously building to a big dramatic crescendo. But what?
- If you answered "Fifteen seconds of Jeff Norton skating over to the bench during a line change," you win.
- And that's it. I honestly have no idea what I just watched, or why I felt the need to make you watch it, too. Good luck to all the players getting ready to compete at the 2018 tournament. Here's hoping you play the best hockey of your life and make many memorable plays. But if not, don't worry—maybe 25 years from now, somebody will stitch together a highlight reel of you not doing anything, just because.