OUT OF HIS LEAGUE- WEEKLY AWARDS INDEPENDENCE WEEKEND EDITION!

by Tello Reál, mraspatello@rivalfish.com

"Each Monday, Rivalfish's Rival Room awards two athletes from the previous week that have performed 'out of their league,' for better or worse. As the Jersey Chasers of the land open their mouths and aim for the midsections of anyone wearing a jersey, we at Rivalfish help them navigate the VIP room waters with precision and class" - Rival Room Editor

jer·sey cha·ser, n, A person who only pursues, or is receptive to, the advances of athletes. Most commonly women, and most commonly found on or around college campuses or professional sporting contests.

Nobody likes to read an essay on a holiday weekend and only unmarried high school professors and teenage girls with bad breath like writing them. Ever since the operation and the gift certificates to the dentist, I’ve been neither the type, so you can imagine what’s on my mind: I’m going to one of those Term Paper Archive sights and buying an Out of His League: Weekly Award Winners paper and saving myself the trouble. My armpits smell like bratwurst and my dad just killed his nephew with an intoxicatingly-aimed horseshoe. I told him we should have stuck to bean bags. Now it’s a riot over her at the Rivalfish Family Headquarters and the term paper site was no help at all.

But I’m a professional. I know how to handle adversity and the cold stare and contempt of an aging Jewish mother. So I re-skimmed the week’s sports stories and gave you cheese junkies your fix. It was easier than I thought. I realized that in every story on every sporting page, there’s a hero and a goat. It made awarding both offerings pretty damn easy. I had tons of options as to guys that deserve the warm suction of your Botoxed yapper, you beautiful beautiful Jersey Chaser.

But I chose Stevie Yzerman. Congrats Steve! While you’re no longer a professional athlete with a perfect excuse to avoid your cha-cha-filled house (wife and three dauthers) for roughly eight months a year, you are RIVALFISH’S JERSEY CHASER TARGET OF THE WEEK.

I even knew a guy who knew a guy and was able to swing letting him walk out to the car with the Stanley Cup one last time after the press conference Monday announcing his retirement. Now 41, “The Captain� has dealt with a laundry list of injuries over his 22 year career as an undersized forward. For the rest of his natural life, this man will hobble around with a hospital-issued cane due to his osteotomy knee surgery while listening to the incessant yapping of his country club wife, Lisa Brennan, and three daughters in their Midwest-Posh Bloomfield Hills, MI estate. All while paying for every last fucking thing their yapping about.

And he’s one of the ten greatest hockey players to ever live. Conservatively, he has 35 good years left among us. Seem fair to you that he’d have to deal with the aforementioned tale of shrill-inducing domestic misery. “Hey Steeeeeeeeveeeeee! Daaaaadddddddy! I know your knee is more swollen than Menopause Mommy’s ass, but can you build the loft in my dorm room from the splintering lumber that the Sigma Chi guys just sold us out front?� Holy Lord, just kill ‘ole #19!

Unless, of course, as I have alluded to in the past, you Jersey Chasers want to entertain the aging icer with a “blumpkin,� a “snowball� or maybe even a “rise ‘n shine?�


Nevertheless, on the other side of the pond, Germany continues to battle us in the heated rivalry for Most Hated Nation Over The Course of the Last 75 Years. We may have slaughtered 8-10 more civilians on the way to their market in search of a loaf of stale and moldy bread this week, but their star midfielder had to go Nazi it up in front of a tv audience consisting of more people than are actually on the planet. After winning their quarterfinal game, right about the same time they were supposed to be smiling and hugging and sweating and swapping jerseys, Arian assbag Torsten Frings stole-off an Argentinean player with minimal provocation and cold-blooded and loutish brutality.

Knowing that we are all rooting for the perpetuation of two stereotypes in one news story, Italian federation chief Antonello Valentini even had to come on tv and preemptively announce that the Italians were behind no conspiracy to bring upon Frings’ suspension from the impending Final Four match-up between the Italians and Germans.

When the German’s were unable to beat the slippery and shifty team from The Boot and advance to the finals, Fring had played his last World Cup game until four years from now when his entire World Cup experience is ruined by constant mention of the time back in ’06 when he acted like a complete asshole. As expected, as they lost to Italy on Tuesday is was immediately blamed on the hotheaded and selfish tantrum of their talented but misguided star setup-man. Without him, they were unable to effectively push the ball up field and put themselves in a position to tally the first legit goal anyone has scored against the Sopranos, I mean Italians.

Girls, if I can be so lucky to bestow my gentlemanly advice upon your gentle yet adorable beings. A poor sportsman like Torsten Frings is not the kind of guy you want to be welcoming with a Brazilian wax job in the warming moonlight or a pleasently wafting Intimate Whispers after-scent. Jersey Chasers of the international futbol scene, DO NOT LAY TORSTEN FRINGS!