Clichéd Out

The 10 Best Sports Clichés

Special IssueSven Fenderbender & Marty Fuchs — Published March 31, 2015

It’s a game of inches.

Yes, it is a game of inches. Run for a few more and you score a touchdown, or maybe you drop the ball and now the other team runs it all the way back while you celebrate in the end zone…alone. Or perhaps some pesky snow stopped a puck just inches, inches away from scoring and almost sweeping a 4 game series in the Stanley Cup Final.

Jock jams

Clubs go through playlists of music dating back from the last 15 years, so imagine stadiums and arenas; they’ve got 40 years of music that your parents loved in their vaults, and maybe music that was destroyed on Disco Demolition Night!

It’s all about familiarity at arenas. From goal horn songs to penalty box music, stadium music is a perfect alternative to listening to the game on mute, or listening to the awful commentary team.

We’re a family

The family that wins/loses together, stays together. Sports teams become a band of brothers, or sisters, during a season. High fives, slaps on the butt, even sharing water bottles (and saliva), are all the norm for these families. The Concordia Stingers football team knows all about that.

We gave [insert percentage number here]

110%, 110%, 110… wait is that even mathematically possible? We always hear about players giving 110 per cent, but where does that extra 10 per cent come from, and why aren’t players always playing up to that level?

Then we hear about players not playing up to par. If a player only plays 50 per cent, why would an athlete mention that? Is saying they didn’t give 100 per cent better than admitting they had a bad game? How about players just start playing to the best of their abilities?

Mental mistakes hurt, whether you’re an athlete or a normal civilian, but they happen to the best of us. But seriously, nothing should ever make you want to shoot yourself in the foot. It’s painful as hell and you may have to amputate your toes.

Our fans were the 12th/13th man today.

Fans will do everything to be a part of the action, so much so that teams have devised a great (marketing scheme) idea, the 12th man! As you drum up your spirits as a 12th (or 13th in Canadian football) man, you’re practically one step closer to selling your soul to your favourite team (I mean you’ve already spent a fortune on tickets and hot dogs to get into the stadium)!

P.S. How’s that “13th man” thing working out for you, Saskatchewan?

Marshawn Lynch (yeah)

You know why it’s here.

We gotta simplify our game

Sometimes teams try to do too much, work too hard, and their games become too complicated. Simplifying the game means getting back to the basics, or as the former Penguins and current Canadiens head coach would say, “we gotta get back to the old recipe.”

However, simplifying the game is such an abstract concept that it can mean bag skating hockey players, or, you know, making plays unnecessarily more complex by passing the ball instead of running it.

This game was like a [insert sport other than one being played]

When the going gets tough, just say your team ended up playing a different game. Stingers women’s basketball coach Keith Pruden has done that. A lot.

We just shot ourselves in the foot

Mental mistakes hurt, whether you’re an athlete or a normal civilian, but they happen to the best of us. But seriously, nothing should ever make you want to shoot yourself in the foot. It’s painful as hell and you may have to amputate your toes.

We worked hard/We left it all on the field

As an athlete, it’s a prerequisite to play hard and leave everything on the line. It is also a prerequisite to let the media and everybody else know the same thing, even if it’s the only thing you want to say.