The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Actor Kurt Russell decided to show he's still a macho man when he went on an anti-gun control rant in a recent interview with the blog Hollywood Elsewhere . The has-been, I mean, "star," said this: "If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists' point of view, I think you're, like, out of your mind. I think it's absolutely insane. The problem - the problem that we're having right now to turn it around ... you may think you've got me worried about what you're gonna do? Dude, you're about to find out what I'm gonna do, and that's gonna worry you a lot more. And that's what we need. If I'm a hockey team and I've got some guy bearing down on me as a goaltender, I'm not concerned about what he's gonna do. I'm gonna make him concerned about what I'm gonna do... They can make a bomb pretty easily. So what? They can also get knives and stab you. What are you gonna do about that? They can also get ...

For as much as I enjoy sports, there are times I'll be watching a game, hear a call made by a referee, and think to myself, "Well, that rule's stupid. Who came up with that in the first place and why's it still around?" On that note, here are the top five rule changes I'd like to see in the four major sports (in random order): 5) Hockey: Offsides - I still think approximately 50% of hockey players don't yet understand this rule. What's the point of it really? If a team is offsides, does it significantly improve their odds of scoring a goal? Does it place the defense at a great disadvantage? Or is it just one of those pointless rules that's been around for so many years, no one thinks to say, "WTF is this rule anyway? Let's do away with it!"? I'm guessing it's that third and final option. If one team is always offsides, then they'll be at a disadvantage defensively when their opponent has the puck, so again, what's th...

Here's a rule I've never fully understood. Why is it that players can foul out of basketball games, but not in other sports? I understand ejections, when a player's behavior goes way over the line and gets to the point of causing a major disruption to the flow of the game and intentionally risks serious injury to another through an over-the-top act of violence. However, an offensive lineman won't get kicked out of a game for committing five false starts. Hockey players will only see a couple minutes in the penalty box for such an occurrence. Why in basketball, when a player commits 5-6 fouls (depending on the level of play we're talking about), does he or she have to sit on the bench for the rest of the game? Why not force a player to be benched for 2 minutes after reaching a certain number of fouls, and sit another minute for each additional foul, or something along those lines? Fans go to these games to watch the stars play. They don't go to watch bench-warmer...