The Ladies

No Gold Record for Shelly Looney, but a Gold Medal

justwide — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 05:45:08 GMT

Our friend Jason pointed us toward this weird bit of trivia from WFMU's excellent Beware of the Blog. In an article about bla bla Hyperpatriotic songs this past November, they featured a track called "Thank You Canada," performed by a little American schoolgirl named Shelly, who expresses a grateful nation's thanks to our northern neighbor for helping some of the hostages escape Iran in 1979. (Scroll down the WFMU page for the nauseating mp3.)

"In recounting the many glories of Canada," Jason says, "at one point she says 'I do love hockey.' And I'm like, well, that's nice, but come on — what are the chances that an eight-year-old American girl in 1979 was a big hockey fan?"

Well, in the case of this particular little girl, pretty good. Because that little girl was Trenton, Michigan's own Shelly Looney, the same Shelly Looney who'd go on to score the gold medal-winning goal for the US Women's National Team at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, the first time women's hockey was part of the games. Against Canada, naturally. Also a silver medalist in the '02 games, you can read all about Trenton's Pride at the bottom of this Detroit News page about Olympic Michiganders.

So it looks like she wasn't just blowing sunshine up Canada's ass with that hockey line after all. (Plus, her parents named her after Canada's dollar coin!)

Speaking of cringe-inducing performances of patriotic songs, here's a montage of various public executions of "The Star Spangled Banner." In fairness, it's a difficult number to perform. There's an argument to be made in favor of the challenging anthem, one that rises up to confront those who might hazard to sing it. But it's not an argument we'd make sincerely.

New York Rangers Bully Teenage Girls

justwide — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:45:16 GMT

When one of New York's NHL squads crosses the East River to face the other, it can be an intense night. A New-York-on-New-York matchup gets the fans riled up. This end of this season saw the Islanders fighting for the last playoff spot — but even when, as in recent years, neither team has anything else to play for, cross-town bragging rights are a valuable prize. After all, these guys have to look each other in the eye at Scores.

Well, maybe their eyes are otherwise engaged at Scores. But you take the point.

Anyway, last Tuesday (April 3), the intrametropolitan menace reached an unprecedented apogee when, according to this report on TSN, Ranger netminder Henrik Lundqvist slashed the squeegee of New York Islanders Ice Girl Kelli Higgins.

Lundqvist later explained to reporters that he doesn't like to leave the crease during stoppages. It mucks with his concentration. And reportedly, when Higgins came around during one such stoppage to clean the ice (in the inimitably charming Islanders Ice Girls manner), her squeegee bumped the surly goalie's stick.

In a conversation with New York's NEWSDAY, Higgins described what happened next like this: "I don't know if he thought I did that on purpose or whatever, but he took a big windup and slashed the squeegee pretty good. It startled me a little bit. It didn't feel great, but I wouldn't say I was injured or in a ton of pain. I was shocked."

Both Lundqvist and Rangers forward Sean Avery are accused of directing impolite language at the Ice Girls, and during a later break, Higgins's colleague Chanel Benson claims a player on the Rangers' bench spat on her, hitting her in the back. Gross.

We're on record: we love the New York Islanders Ice Girls. (See this post from 2004, though all its accompanying pictures were lost in our server switch.) They've got that special Long Island brand of sassy-trashy glamour that's one of the area's very few agreeable exports. Any team that harbors the kind of insensitive goon who'd mess with these comely lasses — why, we'd have half a mind to root against them in the playoffs, if they weren't facing Atlanta. Maybe we'll root against them in the second round, if they advance.

The Isles won in a shootout, 3-2.

Paris Hilton / Jose Theodore Update

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:43:00 GMT

We recently "reported" on Jose Theodore's late-night flirtation with Paris Hilton, and so did everybody else. Here's the problem with being famous: if you get flirty at a party, it ends up in the news. MSNBC gossipmonger and French-to-English interpreter Jeannette Walls translates a TQS report that says Stephanie Cloutier, Theodore's girlfriend and babymomma, "has kicked Theo out of her life and her house."

Paris Hilton: Fastest Dame on Ice?

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:40:00 GMT

Various celebrity gossip outlets reported on Monday that Jose Theodore was spotted with leggy socialite Paris Hilton at a MuchMusic Video Awards after-party.

Canada.com quotes an unnamed eyewitness saying "they were clearly into each other."

Hilton is on the record saying she's "single and I love it," but the Globe & Mail speculates "she may have had a speedy change of heart." Like a disapproving mother, unwilling to believe her all-Canadian boy would canoodle without commitment, the Toronto paper wonders whether one night of north-of-the-border sin signifies a "Canadian boyfriend for Paris Hilton."

You hear that, Jose? The media want to know: is this thing serious?

Before Theodore has a chance to say they were just messing around, the paper reminds its readers that "Theodore's girlfriend, Stephanie Cloutier, gave birth to their first child" three months ago. Tsk! For shame!

The Bosh has the photographic evidence. We have no idea what happened between these two, but our money says that before the night was over, somebody got deked.

MySpace Ladies

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 05:22:00 GMT

MySpace girly-oglers will enjoy this page belonging to Great Lakes Stater Susan Hill. Oh, sure, the page itself is a minor atrocity, autoplaying no fewer than four songs and videos when you open it. And yeah, one of them is Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" — a song whose very presence in anyone's music collection marks her with 100% accuracy as someone you simply can not talk to about anything, ever. And yeah, she's unclear on the difference between "to" and "too" and lists her astrological sign (Leo) among her personal data.

But for this single photograph, all is forgiven.

Hockey Mom Wrassles Bear

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:31:00 GMT

Lydia Angyiou, a diminutive hockey mom in northern Quebec got between her son's street hockey game and a 700-pound polar bear earlier this month. The kids are fine, and Lydia suffered "only a couple of scratches and a black eye." Lydia's husband shot the bear dead. (The Nunatsiaq News has a picture of the ex-ursine.)

Erstwhile "City Skater" Talks to the DAILY NEWS

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:19:00 GMT

Former "City Skater" captain Courtney Prince is back in the news. Prince filed a sexual harrassment suit against MSG management in October of 2004, and today's Daily News reports that she's "hardly surprised" at former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders's similar lawsuit last week.

Two characters who come off as particularly smarmy in Prince's version of events — but are not named in the suit (or identified by name in her public account of the harrassment) — are:

1. A New York Times reporter — He tried to get Prince to join him and Rangers PR schmuck Jason Vogel for a threesome in the men's room of a West Village bar called Daddy-O's.

2. "A professional golfer who is a big Rangers fan" — He ground against Prince with his turgid member at a celebration at a bar. When she told Vogel this golfer was... uh... swinging the wood, so to speak, he is said to have replied: "If I was dancing with you, I'd do the same."

Anthem Antics

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 23:57:00 GMT

It's a notoriously hard song to sing, but "The Star-Spangled Banner" doesn't often chew its assayers up and spit 'em out like it did Caroline Marcil. As Sports Illustrated reports:

Despite two tries, she forgot the words to the U.S. anthem and then left to get the lyrics. When she returned to the rink, she slipped on the carpet covering the ice and plopped on her back before a Quebec Coliseum crowd of 7,166.

After lying motionless for a few seconds, the 24-year-old Canadian left on her own and the game began without either anthem sung.

The game she-Nuck appeared on ABC's Good Morning America the following week to, you know, give proof that she was still there.

This is an amazing, real-life, feel-good story of one woman's courage in the face of the treacherous American national anthem. I daresay it's even more dramatic than the time Xena's tit popped out at the end of the anthem in Anaheim.

(For a trip down mammary lane, click "read more." We've got pictures of that infamous Lucy Lawless "nip slip." They aren't work-safe, of course.)

Daniella Sarahyba in Phoenix Colors

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 17:50:00 GMT

Sports Illustrated's body painting pictorial has been around a while now, but it's still worth a mention. It's a feast for the eyes that'll trompe 'em too!

Of all the models pictured, only Daniella Sarahyba sports NHL colors. Jeremy Roenick never filled out his 'Yotes sweater like this.

The girl next door (to Christo Redentor)

Tara Reid at the Beach with Sergei

Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:27:00 GMT

Ever since I mentioned Jersey girl Tara Reid and... uh, Minsk Man Sergei Fedorov in the same article here, we've been getting more than a few hits from people looking for the creepy stalker pictures some paparazzo took of the couple sunbathing. I don't really want to put them all up on Just Wide, but as a service to those who're looking, I recommend the forums at BAMF.com.

Sorry, but BAMF is not a Nightcrawler fansite; it stands for "Bad-Ass Mofo." Seriously.

I think their girlie forum requires paid admission now, and you'll have to brave plenty of poorly-spelled bombast from feeble-minded doofi once you get in, but I'm sure that won't deter you. I mean, really: if you're on a determined quest for stalker pics, how are the rants of a few fratboy cretins going to offend your sense of propriety?

While you're there, ask somebody what in the world their motto ("we bring the ass in asshole to an art form") is supposed to mean.
UPDATE: No wonder we've been getting hits! Just Wide was one of the relatively few sites to misspell Ms. Reid's surname. I have corrected (and I regret) the error.