Some things will just spoil your day. Whether it’s a late post on The Lowdown Blog or your favourite sports team being taken down by the evil empire, there are some things you’d rather not have to put up with. Of course, spoilers are also those folks that tell you the ending of a movie or TV show before you see it. For example, in 1980, you were likely to be bludgeoned to death with a plastic lightsaber if you mentioned that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. We try to avoid doing the latter in this post while we talk a lot about the former in this post. I’ll spoil this post for you by saying that, as with most of my diatribes, it makes as much sense as the last sentence.

Duke
Those goddamn Blue Devils. First, they’re gifted the easy road to the Final Four. Then, they have a chance to redeem themselves by losing at the hands of the Cinderella team that’s not much of a Cinderella team. Still, even if Butler had won its last 25 some games, they’d still be the mid-major school that upset the perennial power that is Duke. Even for all of his Olympic magic, people don’t want to see Coach K take home another title. You see, Duke ruined the great American comeback story where the underdogs defeat the dominant forces of impending doom (AKA Duke) (but also, as one of my old radio buddies put it, OVERDOGS! Yeah, it still doesn’t make sense to me). The only that is slightly worse than CBS putting Jim Nantz on the call for the championship game over Gus Johnson. Gus Johnson gets buckets. That final minute would have been about five minutes of Gus screaming like the drama loving nut that he is. Rise and fire!

Chuck
Now, depending on your perspective, here come the real spoilers of the post. I’ll try to keep it vague just in case you haven’t seen it. However, you’ve got your warning and it’s been four days since the latest episode has aired so here goes. I’m going to start with my Twin Peaks example. The show was great before and after they killed the goose that laid the golden egg, so to speak. The show had this sort of central premise (who killed Laura Palmer) but it was wrapped up during the second season. That caused Twin Peaks to go from one of the highest rated shows on TV to cancelled in about 10 episodes. Chuck was all about how he handled his double life. Increasingly during the third season, the writers have broken down the walls so that it seems that only a couple of characters aren’t in on the act. Well, after this week’s episode, I have to say that the show is about to jump the shark. This week’s episode was written as a series finale, it seems. Everything gets wrapped up nicely and everyone lives happily ever after. Then NBC tacked on 6 episodes to the season and I can’t see a 4th season upcoming. Actually, I’d like to correct something I wrote just a second ago. It wasn’t the writers that are killing Chuck (nor was it the writers of Twin Peaks that lead to its downfall). The network wanted the show its way or not at all. So was the downfall of Twin Peaks, so is the downfall of Chuck.

Tiger Woods
Tiger’s back to golfing. However, the real news of the week was that Tiger did the horizontal tango with his neighbour. I mean, it takes balls (bigger than golf ones, at that) to fuck some near two dozen women while on the road but to do one right under everyone’s noses takes balls bigger than bowling balls. Now, his big comeback has overshadowed what he’s actually coming back to. After the first round, Tiger’s just a couple strokes off the lead. If he isn’t the best player in the world right now, after not playing an actual round of golf for near five months, he’s got to be one of the top five at this moment. Of course, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a neighbour he fornicated with (Spoiler for the next show) and the “Tiger: Did you mean Bootyism” sign (though the latter was extremely awesome). Hell, old man Tom Watson is just off the lead. What kind of storyline would that be if Tiger comes back and beats up an old man. If you thought I gave Stewart Cink shit for beating up old man T-Dub, what do you think about Nike’s T-Dub doing it. Actually, now that I think about it, there’d be some good text message-related jokes in it.

Denny Hamlin
It’ll be something like 12 days since he had surgery to repair a torn ACL that he’s had since the start of the season when the Sprint Cup tour hits Phoenix. Funnily enough, it was some 12 days before today that Denny won the most recent Sprint Cup race. While seeing a driver overcome adversity isn’t a bad thing, the fact that a driver with a torn ACL can win a race in a very competitive series doesn’t say much for the argument that NASCAR drivers are athletes. Hell, the most famous driver in the Nationwide Series is more of a swimsuit model than a driver. (Yes, I’m talking about her.) Anyway, the fact that a guy without the ligament that pretty much holds your knee together can win a race either says a lot about him or a lot less about the difficulty of driving a stock car. Hell, I partially tore my ACL some 10 years ago and it was nearly two months before I was off crutches. Now Denny is coming back for this weekend’s race. If a guy fresh off ACL surgery and on pain meds can win a race…

Public Fornication
Spoiler for the next show: One of those two words will pop up more than a few times on the next show. Anyway, the way to christen a stadium is no longer holding a big event to open it up. It seems as though someone has to get the horizontal tango on in a bathroom stall. The new Dallas Cowboys stadium was opened with a Sunday night game against the arch-rival New York Giants. That sort of set the standard for the rest of America in both grandeur of the facility and grandeur of the “opening ceremonies.” Fast forward eight months to Chicago, the ballpark known as US Cellular Park has been open since 1991. So to kick off season number 20 at the New Comiskey Park, what must happen? That’s right, two folks banging the gong slowly in the men’s washroom. Normally, this wouldn’t be any big issue. It would be on Deadspin and all would be right with the world. Instead, a kid was witness to the presumably X-rated performance that was behind closed doors so it was probably PG-13 at best. But remember, we live in a nanny state. There’s nothing wrong with getting sideways. Movies, especially horror/slasher flicks, used to glorify the semi-public hookup in the back of a car. Now, that’s frowned upon. Like the guys at Cowboys Stadium and US Cellular Field, our public exhibitionists should be lauded as heroes of simpler days rather than vile violators of public decency.

Toronto Maple Leafs
How are they spoilers, you may ask? Well, it’s been 43 years now. Can we officially call it a 44-year Cup drought because it’s not looking any better for the Make Believes? I’ll give Burkie credit, I like where the Leafs are going compared to at the end of last season. There’s a star forward, quality goaltenders and a solid defensive core. That doesn’t make Monday’s NHL Draft Lottery any easier for fans of the Buds. Boston will have a top three pick in the draft thanks to getting that first rounder from the Kessel trade. Fortunately for Leafs fans, the draft gets pretty anonymous after the second pick. (Can any of you name the #3 guy on the NHL’s Central Scouting List? Neither can I.) If the Leafs finished out of the bottom five in the league, nobody would bat an eyelash over the Kessel trade right now. He’s a 30 goal scorer on a team without any offensive firepower, so I can’t see how a true Leafs fan could hate the trade. Naturally, because this is Leafs Nation, they will bitch and moan about how horrible a GM Burke is. They’d be forgetting one thing, though. Who was the last permanent GM at the ACC? Right. Don’t want him back in charge, now do ya.

Major League Baseball
Wait, is baseball back? How quietly can the American national pass time restart for another summer? Well, we found out this weekend. When the Yankees and Red Sox showed up as I was flipping through the channels, I assumed that it was a final Spring Training game. Turns out that it was the first game of the season. Maybe it’s just because I’m in Canada, but you’d think that with some 250+ games readily available on national broadcasters that there would be some promotion. Hell, the only thing I heard about Jays games on their official broadcaster (which is also owned by Rogers) was that Buck Martinez was going to do play-by-play. (No, I don’t get why an analyst would be put on the call. Maybe Jamie Campbell’s national miracle quotient was used up at the Olympics.) What baseball needs more than anything right now is a scandal. Last year, the buzz was around A-Rod. This year, Big Mac is back… And that’s all I know about it. Yup, baseball coverage is lacking up here. And as of going to print, the Jays are leading the AL East. Anyone else hear about that elsewhere. Neither did I. And one last spoiler alert: On the next show, we’ll be talking some baseball.