Insult: FAIL Chicagoan Attempts to Trash Philly Architecture, also Biden Gets a Flyers Jersey

Let the battle of the cities begin in anticipating for Saturday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Chicago threw the first blow, sort of.  Architecture writer (they have those?) Blair Kamin, who writes a feature called "Cityscapes" (how quaint), attempts to knock Philadelphia by taking shots at our skyline. What we are left with is a 500 word bloviation that winds up complimenting and boring the bejesus out of us. Apparently Chicagoans designed most of Philly's buildings (who knew!  also, who cares?!), so his entire attempt at criticizing Philly turned into a disturbing circle jerk for Chicago's architects.  Here's the link if you want to read it, but we're warning you, it's boring as all hell.

Since Chicago is so hung up on things aesthetic, they decided to show their support for the Blackhawks by placing hockey helmets on their Art Institute Lions.  Creepy.

This could backfire, remember the time we put a Flyers jersey on Billy Penn?  Or the giant Phillies hat he wore in '93?  Didn't work out so well.  Of course, that could be because of the curse that he placed on the city for not being the highest point any more.  That curse was lifted in 2008 when workers on the Comcast Center placed a small statue of him on the roof, and the Phillies then went on to win the World Series...

In other Stanley Cup related nonsense, Joe Biden received a Flyers jersey at the Water Works last night. Joe is a fan of all things Philly sports... or a shrewd politician, we're not sure.

Source: Philly.com

It would be nice to see Obama get in on the action, since he's from Chicago.  I'm going to avoid the obvious black guy and hockey joke (oops), but putting the POTUS seat on the line would really give credence to those NHL "History Will Be Made" commercials... just sayin.

And this is odd.  Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon is have a hockey themed travel day.  Yes, the first place Rays are now having theme parties.  Since they are flying to Toronto during the Stanley Cup Finals, Maddon thought it would be good idea for his team to show support for Canada's national pastime (which by the way they were eliminated from) by wearing hockey jerseys on the flight.  Umm, ok.  Could you ever imagine a coach like Andy Reid doing something like this?  

"Ok guys, on the flight to San Fran let's all wear manpris and pastel cut-offs"

Probably not.

Comments

[Iron Balls McGinty]

I bet you even some of the Montreal reporters would think that Blair's article is "Très Gay."

[Chris]

at least their writers are just dorks and not douchebags like montreal writers. it seems like the philly-chicago back and forth has so far been pretty tame. hopefully it stays that way.

[Kyle Scott]

Agreed, it's always more fun that way. This was the best that we could find, and it wasn't very good.

[Muscles]

ooooo he doesn't like you

"BK: If I had really wanted to talk some trash, I would have mentioned what Philly fans called the Wachovia Center when it was known as the First Union Center. The "F.U. Center." Sweet.

Or I would have mentioned the anti-gay lunacy on crossingbroad.com, which says (wrongly) that I tried to trash Philly architecture. The writer of that blog should get a clue--and go back into his cave."

[Iron Balls McGinty]

Agreed, Montreal was worse... Arrogant bastards who think they are entitled...

What's more insulting? Go to versus.com, and the first thing that shows, it's all Blackhawks in the graphics. How about photo-chopping some Flyers in? Or better yet, use photos from the 3/13 game.

Versus annoys me anyway. The put up graphics on the bottom of the screen that are way over-sized, obstruct crucial live play, and does it much too often. It sucks that NBC will only be showing the first 2 games (away). At least the Versus sound quality is much better through my provider. But they need to step-up and introduce a Versus2 next year. Us out-of-market fans got snubbed because Versus didn't broadcast the first round vs. the Devils, and much of the Boston round as well.

[Iron Balls McGinty]

Oops! Versus will only be covering games 3 & 4. NBC will show the rest:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=530012#&intcmpid=plyf-redbutton

[Kyle Scott]

hahaha that's brilliant. you never want to piss off an architect type, they are touchy.

he shouldn't position his article as a "face off" and then say "chicago ices philly" or he should probably get sarcasm and the fact that we weren't taking his critique seriously, merely making fun at the subject matter. which then again, probably hit a little too close to home.

i'm going back into my cave now...

[Kyle Scott]

Thanks for the tip Iron Balls, we'll post about it.

[Kyle Scott is a rube]

How was the article an attempt to trash the architecture of Philadelphia? Why would we trash something that we designed? Taking shots at your skyline? GROW UP. You should be happy that anyone even wrote an article about your ho hum skyline. How's that for a slap shot KYLE. Apparently the bloggers of Philadelphia have some kind of short man complex. PS, YOUR blog is boring.

[Kyle Scott]

Says someone who writes about buildings...

[Jason Moyer]

If there's one thing that I learned during the 2008 World Series, it's that Joe Maddon is awesome. He needs to come to Philly when Charlie retires.

[Chris]

...i think someone from chicago just tried to layeth the architecture smacketh down on your roody poo candy ass...

and failed miserably. what a noodle.

[tre]

Wow. Looks like someone hit a nerve. I thought Philly was tough but you guys can't even take a little ribbing. FYI, no one in Chicago thinks our buildings are better or worse than that of Philly's. It was a puff piece by a very accomplished writer. Considering Chicago had the first "skyscraper" and has influence the design of thousands of structures across the world, architecture is taken probably more seriously here than most places. In fact, our two great cities have more in common with each other than most people think.