Sportsmanship is not dead.

A little while ago, I posted a book review on Made to Stick. In this review I mention a part of the book where words are overused. People get desensitized to their meaning and voila, they become meaningless. So this guy in the book says that "sportsmanship" becomes one of those overused and under appreciated words. He instead used the term, "Honoring the game" and got a much clearer message across.

Generally, I don't read people's comments on websites and blogs, but lately I've been doing my best to see how people react to various online material. I was reminded of sportsmanship and honoring the game when I browsed an excerpt from, of all papers, an L.A. Times article on Yahoo! called Pens-Wings will be remembered as the rebirth of hockey. Under this blurb was a WHOLE BUNCH of really positive, fun comments by people about the Stanley Cup Finals, a series with an exquisite helping of hockey. I imagine the positivity was due to some trimming of the jerks, but it made me happy that sportsmanship is not yet dead (except in Philadelphia).

You can read the entire L.A. Times column at Red Wings enjoy title down to the core. It's not bad hockey column for being out of L.A. - you know, where hockey goes to die at the hand of expansion.