City of Champions

Los Angeles must have been a good time last night after the Dodgers buried the Yankees in 4 games. I lived in Culver City for a year when I worked for Disney but no local team was winning like the Dodgers did last night.

Have you ever been in a city when the local team won the championship? I was in Torino when the Juventus won Coppa Italia in 2001, but that’s it. Well, not true, I grew up in Bay Area when the Niners and the A’s were winning championships, but I wasn’t able to party then so it doesn’t count.

I was at our local Utah Hockey Club game last night in a booth and the World Series was on a TV, allowing me to catch the last inning. Sports are booming in Utah, thanks a ton to SEG, which is the new venture of Ryan Smith who sold Qualtrics and is all in on sports entertainment. Entertainment is a worthy cause to get behind, and will make Utah a competitive state for prospective residents.

Here is a quick little rant about hockey. It’s got lots of good things going for it, speed, fighting, and obvious rules and objectives that make understanding gameplay easy for spectators. But here is something that the Canadians who were playing on the pond a hundred years ago didn’t think of…the size of the puck. Spectators in seats 250 feet away can hardly see this donut shaped disc being passed around.

I think the puck should be at least 3x bigger and maybe has a flame or sparks that are visible each time it makes contact or as it slides across the ice. Think how JK Rowling would do hockey in the Harry Potter series and let’s make that sport. The cameras can hardly see this puck as it is, so imagine the stress of our eyes that don’t’ have zoom lenses watching high above the rink.

Scott X

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