Penton: Looking back at the best from 2025
The best quips, quotes and anecdotes from January through June, 2025 (Part 1).
By Bruce Penton
Stewart Mandel of The Athletic, on UNC hiring Bill Belichick as head football coach: “Unless Belichick can magically restore eligibility for Tom Brady, I fail to see how this will end well.”
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: “Spoiled Alabama fans whining about their three-loss team not getting an invitation to the College Football Playoff is like listening to Warren Buffett complain about not getting a senior discount.”
Headline at the onion.com: “More Parents Say Allowing Child To Play Football Not Worth Risk Of Being Drafted By Jets”
Lizzie F. in a Chicago Bears’ mailbag: “What legal action can I take against my parents for raising me as a Bears fan? When does this become cruel and unusual punishment?”
RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com: “Joe Polo, fifth on the U.S. gold-medal curling team, named his daughter Ailsa after a Scottish island that produces the stone for curling rocks. The kid already feels taken for granite.”
Columnist Norman Chad, on Twitter: “ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky talks more in a three-man booth than the late Vin Scully talked in a one-man booth.”
Scott Lincicome, a business trade scholar at the Cato Institute, on Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs: “I can't imagine the president tariffing guacamole right before the Super Bowl.”
From The Athletic’s story quoting the beloved baseball announcer/actor Bob Uecker, who died Jan. 16, on getting into baseball: “I signed with the Braves in 1954 for $3,000. That bothered my dad at the time because he didn’t have that kind of dough to pay out. But eventually, he scraped it up.”
Headline at fark.com: “Unlike a good neighbour, State Farm won’t be there. The insurance company decides that maybe, just maybe, spending millions on a Super Bowl ad wasn’t a good look for them after cancelling all those homeowners’ policies in California.”
Comedy guy Torben Rolfsen of Vancouver: “I love watching Wild games on TV. They do the announcements in both English and Minnesotan.”
Rolfsen again: “Mark Davis of the Las Vegas Raiders fired his general manager. I thought if he was going to fire anyone, it would be his hairstylist.”
Hall-of-Famer Ichiro Suzuki on his least-favourite place to play baseball: “To tell the truth, I'm not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to. If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying.”
Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: “Max Scherzer, who turns 41 this summer, just signed a one-year contract valued at $15.5 million with the Toronto Blue Jays. Well, the way the U.S.A. is going maybe Max wanted to play in a country that has Medicare.”
RJ Currie again: “According to a recent study, getting extra sleep on Sundays can help prevent premature death. Finally, some good news for Cleveland Browns fans.”
ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, on the Super Bowl: “For me, the best part was listening to Tom Brady pretend he was not ecstatic about Patrick Mahomes not winning Super Bowl number four.”
Luke Fox of Sportsnet.ca., on the aggressive style Sam Bennett brought to Canada’s team in the Four Nations Faceoff: “Sam Bennett, an even looser Panthers cannon all decked out in Red, White and Bruise.”
Globe and Mail columnist Cathal Kelly, on the recent U.S. animosity toward Canada and its chumminess with Russia: “ If Hollywood made Rocky IV again, Ivan Drago would be from Winnipeg.”
Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: “Maybe Donald Trump wants to take over Canada just so his country can win a hockey tournament again.”
Another one from RJ Currie: “Canucks starting goaltender Thatcher Demko is out week-to-week, and he'll be replaced by backup Kevin Lankinen. Demko is hampered by a lower body injury and a lower save percentage.”
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on Aaron Rodgers’ future: “If the Dolphins sign Rodgers to replace Tua Tagovailoa I’ll hitchhike from here to Winnipeg.”
Headline at theonion.com: “Numerous teams express interest in Aaron Rodgers playing elsewhere”
Jeremy Baker on bluesky.app, after Canada didn’t make the medals at the 2025 World Junior hockey championship: “Some people are complaining about the refs and bad calls. The game was in Ottawa. If Canada can't find a corrupt ref in Ottawa of all places, we deserve to lose.”
Columnist Norman Chad, on things overheard from the four-legged competitors at the Westminster Dog Show in New York: “Donald Trump stopped by and asked to see the American foxhound's birth certificate.”
Ontario columnist Keith Schell, reminiscing about a CFL transaction in the early 2000s when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers released Tom Europe and signed Tom Canada: “Don Cherry would be proud.”
Jessica Hadwin, wife of PGA Tour player Adam Hadwin, as the two were driving away from Sawgrass Saturday morning after Adam missed the cut at the Players on Friday: “Look at these losers, having to work on the weekend.”
Another one from Rolfsen: “Giannis Antetokounmpo just joined the 20,000 career point club and can now access the VIP lounge at the Milwaukee international airport.”
Janice Hough again: “Arkansas blew a 16-point lead midway through the second half and a six-point leaded with one minute and 15 seconds left and the ball, to lose to Texas Tech in OT 85-83. This is the most embarrassing thing to happen to Arkansas since they elected Sarah Huckabee Sanders governor.”
A groaner from RJ Currie: “The Massachusetts golfer who bit off part of another player's finger got out on bail in the amount of $10,000. That doesn’t include the tip.”
Reecey Pierce, on X, after the Masters’ Tuesday night Champions dinner: “Everyone just wants to know if Cabrera and Scottie swapped prison stories.”
RJ Currie again “I recently drove in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on a highway named after local skip Brad Gushue. It was great: No matter how many mistakes I made, it was someone else's fault.”
Retiring CBS reporter Dennis Dodd, reminiscing in his retirement column: “Fun fact: The antacid still hasn't been invented to combat the effects of press box food.”
Vancouver’s Torben Rolfsen: “Tiger Woods’ design firm is going to build a nine-hole short course at Augusta National. Prediction: They’ll hold a tournament there called the Mistresses.”
Sportswriter Ray Ratto of San Francisco, in a pre-Kentucky Derby story: “Kids just don't go to the track anymore, which is a shame because it remains a great place for young people to learn to smoke cigarettes and leave the butts in someone else's beer.”
Headline at fark.com: “Bill Belichick’s girlfriend instructs him to deny that she’s too controlling.”
Another fark.com headline: “The Royal and Ancient Golf Society warns players not to cheat on their handicaps. Trump immediately designates them as a terrorist organization.”
Gary Van Sickle of golf website The First Call, on whether the PGA could create as much drama as this year’s Masters: “A White Sox fan is now the Pope so, yes, anything is possible.”
Retired sports columnist Rick Reilly, in a blast-from-the-past column after Tiger Woods obliterated the field with a 12-shot win in the 1997 Masters: “… Forty-seven-year-old Tom Kite … would finish second in the same sense that Germany finished second in World War II.”
Greg Cote again: “(The Panthers) become only the fourth team since 1980 to reach the Stanley Cup Final a third season in a row -- a Cat trick.”
The late Muhammad Ali, feeling confident about an upcoming fight: “I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won.”
U.S. college basketball coach Billy Tubbs: “This year we plan to run and shoot. Next year we plan to run and score.”
From the Canadian parody website The Beaverton on Florida’s Stanley Cup win over Edmonton: “The City of Calgary has announced a co-belligerents victory parade, where a photo of Connor McDavid looking sad will be paraded through the streets.”
Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca