Darren DuPont’s 10 Holiday Things
Back already? Little pre-Christmas column in the middle of the week so grab a coffee and let’s get to it!
1. Best Christmas ever? – Well, no. We’ve made the decision to stick around the GTA this holiday and it will be the first holiday that I won’t be home for Christmas. Ever. So, without seeing all the family, it can’t be the best Christmas ever. But… It’s going to be pretty good for different reasons. You see, every year I have all the games I wanna watch mapped out over the holiday season. But then, there always has to be a problem. Somebody’s planning family activities and I’m trying to watch a game and then people are mad that my attention is on the game and not on what we’re doing as a family. So, for one Christmas and one Christmas only Darren‘s going to get to watch every single game he wants when he wants and he’s not gonna have to hear about it from anyone! Ha ha ha.
2. Starting early – The fun gets started this week as I’ll be off to Ottawa Thursday through Sunday to watch three World Junior pre-tournament games with my good friend Peter Loubardias. When it comes to the world juniors for me this feels like the best set up possible. I want to see Team Canada play in person and I’m going to do that this week but then on Boxing Day when the tournament opens for real, I want to be planted in front of my television watching it in front of the Christmas tree. Now I’m on record as saying I don’t like when the world juniors are played in North America because I don’t like watching these games at 7 o’clock at night. The best and what I remember fondly are the early mornings getting up at five or 6 AM to watch the world juniors from some country overseas. Either way, it’s always great and I can’t wait.
3. Opening Round – I’ll be at the rink Friday night, which will make it difficult to watch the opening game of the college football playoff, but I’ll find a way to follow as close as I can. It kind of sucks because it’s the game in the opening round I’m most looking forward to. Number seven Notre Dame is home to the 10th ranked in Indiana Hoosiers and Canadian quarterback Kurtis Rourke. I filled out a bracket at ESPN and have Indiana upseting the Irish on Friday night, but have Oregon winning the whole thing.
4. Too Much? – Saturday may go down as one of the best college football days ever. It will feature a college football playoff triple header starting with SMU/Penn State, followed by Clemson/Texas in the afternoon and Tennessee/Ohio State in primetime. I’ll still be in Ottawa, but I should be able to catch the majority of the day before heading to the rink. But, despite how great Saturday is going to be, is it possible that there is too much sports over the holidays? I think the NHL has it right. The league plays its last game before Christmas on the 23rd and isn’t back until the 27th. It gives everybody a chance to enjoy the holidays and gives the league a slight breather.
Meanwhile, college football bowl season is in full swing, the NBA will play their annual Christmas Day games, and now the NFL is getting into the Christmas Day spirit with Netflix, and we have even more content over the holidays than ever. Christmas day games in the NFL is nothing new and with Netflix getting on board it’s bound to get even bigger. I don’t mind sports over the holidays. In fact, I love it. But, there needs to remain some tradition to it and unfortunately everybody can’t be in the pool at the same time. I’ll go on record as saying the NBA the NFL and college football is enough along with the world juniors. I don’t think we need to add more. I think it’s just right.
5. NFL top-5 – I’ve been thinking about this one ever since the conclusion of Sunday night. Buffalo beat Detroit and I mean BEAT Detroit, so clearly they’re better, right? I’m not sure. The bills have scored 90 points over the last two weeks but are 1-1. They’ve allowed 86 points. But clearly Josh Allen is the best player in the NFL right now, no? I feel like this is going to get some heat, no matter what, so here we go.
1. BUF 2. KC 3. DET 4. PHI 5. MIN
Close: GB, PIT, BAL
The Lions injuries that continue to pile played a large role in me dropping them down to 3.
6. Change in ATL – Kirk Cousins is gonna be benched this week in Atlanta. I bring this up because Cousins has a lot of fanfare thanks to his time with the Minnesota Vikings and appearance on the Netflix series quarterback, but the Falcons are making a change. They play the Giants this week and first round draft pick Michael Penn Junior will get the start. I don’t mind this. The Falcons need to win, are in some trouble when it comes to the division if they even have a shot anymore, and since it’s the Giants and you’re likely gonna win anyway, why not play the young pivot. I think they could quite easily go back to Kirk Cousins but I’m excited to see the young kid get the shot this weekend.
7. Movies – We watched Dwayne The Rock Johnson’s new Christmas movie Red One and it was pretty good. I don’t think it’ll go down as an instant holiday classic and it was a little slow at times but overall a good movie worth watching. While we’re on the topic here’s my top 10 favourite Christmas movies:
1. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation 2. Home Was pretty good Alone series 3. Santa Claus series 4. Jingle All The Way 5. The Grinch 6. Elf 7. White Christmas 8. Deck The Halls 9. Christmas Chronicles 10. Christmas with the Kranks
I’ve always wanted to go to the theatre on Christmas Day for a new movie and this year. I believe we’re going to make it happen.. just don’t know what we’re going to watch yet.
8. The Showdown – Did you know on Tuesday night an epic showdown between the PGA Tour and LIV took place live? Well, it did. Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka of LIV golf took on Scotty Scheffler and Rory McIlroy the PGA tour in what was to be an epic showdown between the two tours live from shadow Creek in Las Vegas. Now the golf ended up being pretty good and the PGA tour duo one and largely dominated the 18 hole match. The problem I have is where was the hype?
9. The Letdown – I said long ago that LIV and the PGA could capitalize on the heated rivalry between the two tours by having a Ryder Cup style showdown live on television with epic bragging rights on the line. Lo and behold, they schedule one between the two tours showcasing two of the top players on each going head to head. The problem was I didn’t even know it was going on Tuesday night and I believe largely no one else did either. This should’ve been hyped up bigger than Jake Paul and Mike Tyson and the numbers, well maybe not at that scale, should have been numbers as good as the masters. I didn’t see a single piece of advertising, social media, promotions, or even anybody talking about it Tuesday night on my social media feeds. Now, the broadcast between TBS and TNT was well done. Charles Barkley was one of the analysts and did a fantastic job as always along with the usual suspects, including Bubba Watson as an on course reporter. Ultimately, though the whole thing fell flat and was lacking any intensity or as Rod says.. chutzpah.
10. Randoms – Every year I save a little last-minute Christmas shopping to do right close to Christmas on either the 22nd, 23rd or even the 24th. I love the chaos and the rush and it feels like Christmas when I grab a coffee and head to the mall. I think I’ll pass on it this year as I feel with a population over 6.7 million in the GTA hitting the mall on December 24 might be a little more than I can handle… my favourite holiday treats include homemade jam jams (iykyk), Nuts and bolts, Scuffles, sugar cookies, Hot cocoa, And Terry’s chocolate orange…. December is a great month to connect with those you miss, or haven’t talked to in a while. Pick up the phone. Oh, and my DM’s are open if it’s been a while… it’s also a good month to plan.
The countdown is on. Talk to you again here on Christmas morning!
Great stuff To those who are “new” to college football. I’m hoping College Game Day gives a nice shout out to CFL’ers June Jones and Jeff Rheinbold for laying the pavement to get SMU (Southern Methodist University) out of oblivion and into respectability. With NIL – the Dallas Billionaires bought themselves a nice legal pro football team. SMU is the template for every 1980s/1990s college football movie about dirty programs. Dallas/Texas millionair/billionaire alumni were paying players long before it became fashionable. In 1987 they were given the NCAA Death Penalty – a great 1993 movie called Necessary Roughness with Sinbad/Scott… Read more »