by Sean McIndoe
The Best of
DOWN GOES BROWN
Greatest Hits and Brand New Classics-to-Be From Hockey’s Most Hilarious Blog
Sean McIndoe
Table of Contents
Dedication
Introduction by Bob McKenzie
Forword by James Duthie
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: A Complete Transcript of Every NHL Game Ever Broadcast
Chapter 2: The Ten Greatest Coaches in NHL History
Chapter 3: The Other Former NHL Stars who Interviewed for Colin Campbell's Job
Chapter 4: Know Your Sports
Chapter 5: A Look Back at Game Seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final: (Which, Due to a Scheduling Error, had to be Published Twelve Hours Early)
Chapter 6: Take the Quiz
Chapter 7: The Code: Hockey's Unwritten Rules Revealed
Chapter 8: A Moment with the Guy who has to go Out and Fix the Glass when it Breaks
Chapter 9: What an Official NHL Trade Call Really Sounds Like
Chapter 10: The Signs of the Hockey Zodiac
Chapter 11: The Not-So-Original Six: A Look Back at the NHL's First Expansion Teams
Chapter 12: The NHL's top-secret flow chart for handing out suspensions
Chapter 13: A Brief History of Mats Sundin
Chapter 14: Signs your City May Not be a Viable Hockey Market
Chapter 15: Behind the Scenes at the Rehearsal for the Presentation of the Stanley Cup
Chapter 16: You Wanna Go?: A History of Hockey Brawls
Chapter 17: From The Archives: The 1993 Leafs/Kings Game Six Live Blog
Chapter 18: An In-depth Comparison: Mario Lemieux vs. Patrick Roy
Chapter 19: The NHL's Plan for Appealing to Video Game Fans
Chapter 20: A Period-by-Period Recap of The 2011 Stanley Cup Final
Chapter 21: Know Your Sports: The NHL vs. Soccer
Chapter 22: Behind the Scenes at an NHL/NHLPA Collective Bargaining Session
Chapter 23: Other Complaints about Brendan Shanahan
Chapter 24: Leafs vs. Habs: Hockey's Greatest Rivalry
Chapter 25: The Details of Don Cherry's Contract
Chapter 26: An In-depth Comparison: Daniel Alfredsson vs. Zdeno Chara
Chapter 27: Take the Quiz: How Will Your Team Do This Year?
Chapter 28: Behind the Scenes at NHL Referee Tryouts
Chapter 29: Come On Down: A History of NHL Game Show Appearances
Chapter 30: The Official Map of An NHL Rink
Chapter 31: A Brief History of Wayne Gretzky
Chapter 32: How to Spend your day with the Stanley Cup
Chapter 33: Determining Whether a Goal Should Count: The NHL War Room's Top-Secret Flow Chart
Chapter 34: Know Your Sports: The NHL vs. MLB
Chapter 35: The Pros and Cons of Fighting in The NHL
Chapter 36: An NHLer's Guide to Never saying Anything Interesting
Chapter 37: Democracy Doesn't Work: A History of All-Star Voting
Chapter 38: Take the Quiz: Should you Rebuild?
Chapter 39: A Tale of Two Homecomings
Chapter 40: The NHL's Hall of Fame Application Form
Chapter 41: Rating the NHL's Relocation Candidates
Chapter 42: What an Official NHL Suspension Call Really Sounds Like
Chapter 43: Other Mario Lemieux Grievances
Chapter 44: Understanding the New Wave of Advanced Statistics
Chapter 45: A Brief History of Teemu Selanne
Chapter 46: Other Ways NHL Teams Use Home Ice Advantage for an Unfair Edge
Chapter 47: Seventh Heaven: When One Game Decides the Stanley Cup
Chapter 48: How to Dominate your Fantasy Hockey League
Chapter 49: A Period-by-Period Recap of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final
Chapter 50: NHL Hockey, Then vs. Now
Chapter 51: An In-depth Comparison: Eric Lindros vs. Peter Forsberg
Chapter 52: Take the Quiz: Was that a Dive?
Chapter 53: No Ties Allowed: A History of the Shoot-out
Chapter 54: So you Want to be the Commissioner: The NHL's 1993 Job Application Form
Chapter 55: The NHL's Top-Secret Flow Chart for Dealing with Scandals
Chapter 56: Nobody Remembers Number Two: A History of First Overall Draft Picks
Chapter 57: How to Become an Ironman
Chapter 58: Behind the Scenes at NHL Fan Training Camp
Chapter 59: Signs you May be Injury Prone
Chapter 60: Inside the NHL's Legal Brief on the 2011 NFL Work Stoppage
Chapter 61: An In-depth Comparison: Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin
Chapter 62: Make his Head Bleed: A History of the NHL in Pop Culture
Chapter 63: When a Day with the Stanley Cup Goes Wrong
Chapter 64: Breaking Down the Battles: Inside Canada's Provincial Rivalries
Chapter 65: Welcome to the Doghouse: A History of Coach vs. Player Feuds
Chapter 66: Know your Sports: The NHL vs. UFC
Chapter 67: A Hockey Fan's Guide to Modern TV Technology
Chapter 68: Behind the Scenes at the Matt Cooke Suspension Hearing
Chapter 69: A Complete Transcript of Every Post-Game Call-In Show Ever Broadcast
Chapter 70: Dear Son, Welcome to Life as a Toronto Maple Leafs Fan
Praise for The Best of Down Goes Brown
Copyright
About the Publisher
Dedication
For Erica and Dougie
Introduction
by Bob McKenzie
The Internet is a wonderful thing, and it looks like it's here to stay. This is mostly a good thing, but I must admit—with the advent of the information super highway, where virtually anyone can start their own website and “blog” to their heart's content, and the meteoric rise of social media outlets such as Twitter, where anyone, and I mean anyone, can have a “voice”—there have been occasions when I've seen or read certain things on ye olde Internet that suggest not every voice needs to be heard. But one of the voices from the wilds of cyberspace that does need to be heard, and has been heard, is that of Sean McIndoe.
Sean who?
Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. At first I thought the old Buffalo Brave NBA player had come back in the form of a wisecracking wordsmith with a passion for all things hockey … and the Toronto Maple Leafs. But that was Bob (Two for) McAdoo, who I used to go watch when the Braves played some of their NBA games at Maple Leaf Gardens once upon a time.
You might know Sean McIndoe better as “Down Goes Brown.” Or maybe not. Quick funny story for you in that regard.
I was in Ottawa for the 2012 NHL All-Star Game. One of my superiors at TSN—and I have many—mentioned that Sean McIndoe was dropping by for a visit. I probably should have asked, “Who the heck is Sean McIndoe?” but I'm like a lot of know-it-alls … when I don't know something, I'm not too quick to admit it. So I nodded knowingly and said, “Great.”
Not long after that, a rather genial young man was introduced to me as Sean. We shook hands and made small talk—the kind where you say only enough so as not to reveal your total ignorance of who you're actually talking to. Afterwards I went on my merry way, though it was bothering me a little that I didn't really know who I had just met. So I went back to my superior—the Evil Quizmaster of NHL on TSN fame—and quizzed him as follows:
“Who was that Sean guy I just talked to?” I asked.
“Sean McIndoe,” said the Evil Quizmaster.
“I know that,” I replied. “But who is he?”
“Down Goes Brown,” the Quizmaster said.
“Well, why didn't you say so?” I said. “Down Goes Brown, I know Down Goes Brown.”
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br /> Fortunately, Sean McIndoe was still in the vicinity and I made some lame pretext to start up another conversation with him. This time I praised at great length some of his wonderful work as Down Goes Brown—a fairly lame and transparent effort by me to reconcile my previous lapse into oblivion.
Down Goes Brown is a very funny sonofagun. Sean McIndoe probably is as well.
I couldn't tell you exactly when I first heard of the blogger and diehard Maple Leaf fan living in Ottawa, which in and of itself is a ridiculously hilarious premise to begin with. Someone had been talking about Down Goes Brown, and I had the occasion to read something he wrote. I remember saying, “Hey, this is pretty good. This is funny.”
Soon after that I was exposed to DGB's witticisms on Twitter, and I can attest there are few who make me smile or laugh more with a 140-character assault on the funny bone.
One of the good things about the Internet is that it subscribes to Darwinism, the old survival-of-the-fittest concept. Which is to say, it's one thing to have a “voice,” but it's quite another to have something to say that enough people want to read on a consistent basis, making it worthwhile to keep writing. And it's that much more difficult if you're trying to be funny. Because funny ain't easy. Being funny is hard.
Down Goes Brown has passed that test, over and over and over again. He's funny, witty, sharp, self-deprecating, and he can write. This book you have in your hands is proof of all of that. So is his Twitter feed or his work on his website or in the National Post or on Grantland. It brings a tear to the eye—little Down Goes Brown is all growed up; he's moved out of his parents' basement (I don't actually know if his parents even have a basement, never mind whether he lived in it) and gone all “mainstream media” on us. Which doesn't really matter a bit, because if you do good work, where it appears is far less important than the quality. Do good work and people will find you. It's really that simple.
The piece Down Goes Brown wrote for his website on June 15, 2011—a game story recap published before the Boston–Vancouver Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final—is one of the most creative examples of writing I've seen. Turns out Down Goes Brown is not only funny, he's smart, too.
As for Sean McIndoe, well, I guess it's fair to say I wouldn't know him if I backed over him with my truck … I think I just opened the door for a Down Goes Brown piece on Bill Berg.
Enjoy.
Foreword
by James Duthie
“The Best of Down Goes Brown is a wild and whimsical ride through the world of sports through the eyes of one of the funniest and most creative writers of our generation."
—James Duthie,
multiple Gemini Award-winning host of The NHL on TSN/best-selling author/ surprisingly chiseled physique
Editor: Uh, James? We asked you to write a foreword for this book, not a one-line quote. Oh, and by the way, if it were just a quote we wanted, we'd probably just use “The NHL on TSN Host” as your description.
Oh.
Well that bites. I always wanted to be one of those important-sounding guys on the back cover of books who use phrases like “whimsical ride.” Now what the heck am I supposed to do? A full foreword? I mean, Down Goes Brown is freakin' hilarious and by far my favorite follow on Twitter, but c'mon, who tries to pass off a collection of funny columns as an actual book?
Editor: Ahh … you did. Two years ago.
Crap. Damn you editors and your smartypants memories. Okay, I did write a book of sports columns. And some were kind of funny.*
But here's the thing. Back then, I didn't have much competition in the “Light-hearted-Sports-Columns-Mostly-about-Hockey-by-an-Ottawa-Guy-on-the-Internet” category.
Then Sean and his alter ego Down Goes Brown came along. I found him on Twitter, and he made me laugh out loud back when laughing out loud was something you really did, instead of an acronym you text someone after they text you something that isn't nearly funny enough to actually make you laugh out loud. DGB really will make you LOL until your BCOYN (Beer Comes Out Your Nose… . Yeah, I made that one up, but I think it might really catch on with the kids).
I'll admit I'm jealous of Sean now. I hardly have time to write anymore (TV boy trying to sound busy and important), and when I do, it's impossible to compete with his sick, demented (ultimate compliment words in my world) view of the sports world. Plus, now he's going to steal all my Funny Canadian Sports Column Book Groupies.**
The Best of Down Goes Brown is warped, whimsical (snuck it in … oh sweet victory), giddy fun from start to finish. This will be the funniest book you read this year. Hands down. (Unless you read the Swedish versions of the Stieg Larsson books … on Demerol after surgery.)
* If you read them really drunk. Or on Demerol after surgery.
** Okay, there was only one. Tanya in Montreal. Showed up for my signing looking for…heh…heh…heh…more than a book. (She had the date wrong. Thought it was a Jamie Oliver signing.)
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my wife, Marcie, for her love and support, and for allowing me to watch hockey every single night for the last four years “because it's for work” without ever once pointing out that I watched hockey every single night for the twelve years before that too.
Thanks to my parents, Bob and Judi McIndoe, for believing I could be a writer someday even when I'd given up on the idea for the better part of a decade.
Thanks to my daughter Erica and my son Douglas, for being the two funniest people I've ever met.
Additional thanks to Bruce Arthur, Jim Bray, and Guy Spurrier at the National Post; to Bob McKenzie for being nice to people he does not recognize; and to the many others who have supported me in various ways over the course of this project, including James Duthie, Greg Wyshynski, Allan Walsh, Katie Baker, Sean Pronger, Dan Murphy, Dave Naylor, Tim Micallef, Jim Lang, Jeff Marek, and Ian Mendes.
Thanks to Karen Milner, Lindsay Humphreys, Kim Rossetti, and Heather Ball at Wiley, and especially to my agent Brian Wood, whose heroic and tireless work on this project included inserting this line when I wasn't looking.
And finally, a special thank you to the readers who've been with me over the past five years as a completely unknown blog grew and grew until it became a mostly unknown blog. If you've ever posted a comment, clicked a Like button, retweeted a joke, or forwarded a link to a friend, you've helped me more than you know. My sincere thanks. I owe you a beer.
Chapter 1
A Complete Transcript of Every NHL Game Ever Broadcast
Voice-over: Welcome to tonight's coverage of every NHL game ever broadcast. Here's a montage of slow motion highlights set to non-threatening rock music. Now over to our in-studio host for tonight's game.
Host: Hello, everyone. I'm a little too excited to be here. With me is our panel of experts.
Management: I'm the former coach and/or front-office executive. Everything I say will be driven by grudges I still hold from my failed career.
Player: I'm the recently retired player. I'm still friends with most of these guys, so I'll never say anything interesting.
Media: And I'm the media guy. I will take every moment of the game and force it into a larger narrative for storytelling purposes.
Host: Who are you picking to win tonight?
Management: I'm picking the home team, because the visiting team fired me in 1983.
Player: I'm taking both teams, because I don't see why everyone can't be a winner.
Media: I'm taking the visitors, because I'm working on a story about concussions.
Host: Makes sense. Let's send it up to the play-by-play announcer and the analyst.
Play-by-play: Good evening. I'm a shameless homer, but will make a half-hearted attempt to disguise that if this is a national broadcast.
Analyst: And I will say things you already know, five seconds after you yell them at your television.
Play-by-play: We will now show you shots of both goaltenders, followed by a slow zoom on the referee with his hand in the air.
Analyst:
Don't forget the shot of a coach staring into space.
Play-by-play: Something interesting has happened right off the bat, although you didn't see it because you were trying to read the line combinations that we flash on the screen in three-point font. Let's go down to the guy we've stuck between the benches. What did you think of that play?
Bench: I have no idea. You can't see anything down here and I'm terrified of being hit with a slap shot.
Play-by-play: Well, thanks anyway.
Bench: I will now go silent just in time for the players around me to teach your children some new swearwords.
Play-by-play: Very educational. Let's send it back to the panel for the first intermission show.
Host: Welcome to the first intermission show, where we ignore everything that's happened in the game so far and instead have the discussion we'd already prepared in advance. The home team has recently lost two games in a row. What fatal flaw would you randomly attribute those losses to?
Management: I'm going to say a complete lack of intelligence on the part of everyone who has ever been employed by the franchise.
Media: I'm going to attribute it to a lack of character, brought on by the disintegration of the traditional nuclear family.
Player: I'm going to chalk it up to small sample size.
Horrified silence.
Player: Just kidding. Let's go with character.
Host: Now over to the highlights guy, who is in the same studio but has to stand ten feet away from us for some reason.
Highlights: I resent you all terribly.
Host: Back to you guys in the booth!