The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, November 15

Hello, Hoddlers!

I’m keeping it simple today.

Ramble of the Day

I end up talking a lot about myself, which I suppose is fine because there are a lot of things in my brain. I do like to turn it to you all, but it tends to be more informal an invitation at times. Today, though, I will be explicit in that I’m basically attempting to perform an unscientific poll.

I’m well aware that everyone here likes sports, and specifically football/soccer. (Note: If you don’t like football/soccer, please chime in because I would love to know why you’re reading this.) That said, I’m pretty curious about what other sports we all like. Feel free to rank them if you’d like by whatever metric. I’ll use the combined metric of not-football/soccer sports I like most/watch most. Since I’m asking about other sports, (I’ll call the one Tottenham play football/soccer because a bunch of you might like the type of football the New York Giants play.)

1. Tennis
2. Hockey
3. everything else

I am a very big tennis fan, and have been for probably as long as I have been a football/soccer fan. I’ve gotten into the habit of going to the US Open every year, which is obviously pretty convenient for me, but I mostly do it because I love tennis. Liking the sport has nothing to do with playing it for me; I played it briefly in high school, and would love to just casually get back out on a tennis court when the weather allows for it. It probably has to do with the fact that my older sister played it and enjoyed playing and watching it quite a bit, but I remember really getting into it during spring break when I was in ninth grade after watching Andy Murray break his racket during the Monte Carlo Masters.

As for hockey, my younger sister is a very big New York Rangers fan, and so I’ve been to a few matches and watch the team on television as a result. I ended up rambling about the last time I went to a hockey game if you care enough to read about it, but it’s a pretty fun and entertaining sport that involves a lot of seemingly unnecessary fighting. I end up wondering from time to time what led the players to be so passionate in these fights, but I mostly just enjoy the show. (It might be worth doing research on a different day.)

I watch a ton of other sports, but incredibly infrequently. I have turned on American football when there’s nothing else on television on a Sunday night, and the Tour de France when there’s nothing else to watch on a Saturday morning. Watching basketball is a more active choice, but only barely, while baseball is something I’ve watched for a few minutes during the World Series. The Olympic Games mean I end up watching a lot more random sports than usual, but obviously infrequently. This is not to insult any of these sports necessarily — I might save that for a different Hoddle — but I’m just not that into them.

Anyway, feel free to name drop the sports you like to watch, no explanations necessary. I just do it because I’ve gotten into the rambling habit!

tl;dr: An unscientific study of SPORTS!

Links of the Day

FIFA is investigating five Premier League clubs possible violations of rules regarding youth transfers, including Chelsea.

Fulham have fired Slaviša Jokanović and hired Claudio Ranieri as his replacement.

A referee was suspended three weeks by the FA for having players play rock-paper-scissors instead of doing a coin toss during a Women’s Super League match between Manchester City and Reading.

David Squires’s latest cartoon is about the Manchester Derby, won 3-1 by Manchester City over the weekend.

Today’s longer read: Andrew Helms profiles Sacha Van der Most, the Mexico scout assigned to find the best Mexican-American players for the men’s national team for The Ringer