- First, budding near-celebrity Ryan Miller made an appearance on the Today Show. Now it seems that the goalie will his show his increasingly relevant face on VH1’s Top 20 Video Countdown this weekend. Two thoughts popped into my head with this one: “I hope they don’t mistake him for Jared Leto” and “VH1 still exists? And they actually play music videos?”
Still, it’s cool to see a hockey player get the kind of attention usually reserved for athletes from the “big” sports. Now if only they’d air that “Behind the 20 lbs. of goalie equipment” documentary series I pitched a while back. “Everything was going great for Tommy Salo, until he hit rock bottom - against Belarus.” (The Ed Belfour episode would be hockey’s answer to Motley Crue’s Behind the Music.)
- In other semi-odd news, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs wore a Team Canada jersey to honor a bet he made with Dimitri Soudas, secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Considering this is one of those moments when unfunny people (aka politicians) attempt to be funny, some of the quips weren’t half-bad. Here’s another interesting tidbit from the TSN story (sure it’s not technically hockey related, but Canadian beer is involved so clam up).
“Harper and Barack Obama also had a wager on the game, and as a result the U.S. president owes the prime minister a case of Molson Canadian beer.
Gibbs said the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa has been instructed to deliver to Harper one case of Canadian and also, as a bonus, a case of Yuengling, the Pennsylvania brew the prime minister was to buy for Obama in the event of a U.S. win.”