Throwdowns > Closed

Arturs Irbe said 07/19, 02:17 PM
Alright so for mine I'll take a little bit of a different approach. It's probably relatively unknown to most so it should be a little bit refreshing to watch.

Mine is Brian Burke's sarcastic and hilarious rant after a playoff game against Detroit while he was the GM of Vancouver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmujnpAyhwA - Skip to 24 seconds

Burke was clearly outraged at the way the series was officiated so he decided to take matters into his own hands. As I pointed out it is funny for the fans and the media to listen to his funny remarks but what makes the clip so entertaining, is the stern look he has on his face.

"I want to point out to the officials that Todd Bertuzzi does not play for Detroit. It just looks like that because he's wearing two or three red sweaters all the time. I didn't know tackling was an acceptable tactic, I didn't see it in our rulebook"

"Sedin is not english for punch me or headlock me in a scrum"

"Our goalie has large pads and a cage, he's clearly distinguishable from the rest of our players"

My favorite:
"Detroit has 12 captains and assistants to speak to the officials. We find that unusual, most teams only have 2 or 3"

Arturs Irbe said 07/19, 03:51 PM
I think we have different opinions on what makes the best "tirade". I know you used the word "meltdown" in the title so I hope it's okay that I took a different approach.

You are correct when saying it looks like Burke prepared what he said before hand, but that's just the kind of guy he is.
Rather than looking like an imbecile, he merely gathered evidence and held a coherent and effective press conference that opened the fans and members of the medias eyes to the disgraceful officiating during the series.

The "deadpan" delivery is what makes Burke's rant unique compared to Gundy's rant. Gundy follows the lines of the more cliche tirade which to me is getting boring. We've seen the yelling and incompetent outbursts a million times as you pointed out over the years from Dennis Green, to Jim Mora and all the memorable ones. But in this case, Gundy didn't have to take this approach.

"Gundy does a great job conveying anger, and makes perfectly sure everyone understands that he's upset."
I'm pretty sure everybody understands that Burke was upset as well. He didn't have to make a fool of himself to prove it though, which again to me is a big difference.

Arturs Irbe said 07/19, 08:28 PM
I don't necessarily agree that "college athletes shouldn't be subject to the same judgment and ridicule as professional athletes", but that's not what we are here to discuss.

Making a fool of yourself, in my opinion at least, doesn't necessarily make a better tirade. You said it yourself that press conferences follow the same format and that they have the occasional idiotic blowup which makes Burke's tirade much more enjoyable to watch since it's different. We as sports fans are always looking for something new and refreshing. Burke's catches your eye, and yes it is still funny to me if I watch it 8 times over.

Gundy's may be one of the best, but his doesn't stand alone. There were many before his, and many after his that were equal to, if not better than his.

I've tried to address your specific arguments already, so I'll just finish with this. I think it all comes down to opinion really. From the comments you can see that many people have selected different press conference rants as their favourites, which just goes to show there is no consensus number one. So what makes Burke's or Gundy's so special to us? Like I've said, Burke's is unique, Gundy's isn't.