Niagara Falls, NY – Happy Monday. Happy World Indigenous Peoples’ Day. And happy Columbus Day, depending on whichever side of the fence you fall on. I’ll tackle the Columbus Day discussion, another Jets loss, and the first week of Rangers hockey.
Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Regarding this debate: both are, in a sense, made-up holidays. They’re very uniquely and specifically American, although I think Indigenous Peoples’ Day has now become a global thing.
For those that don’t know, Columbus Day really came about as an international idea to solve a domestic problem. For a long time, Italian and Irish immigrants weren’t considered “white people”—that word was reserved for Americans of English descent. I recommend you watch Gangs of New York; it shows how these European immigrant groups were treated.
There was an incident in the South where Italians were lynched. This, of course, created an international situation between the US and Italy. As one of the solutions, the US created Columbus Day to recognize Italy’s most famous citizen.
Fast forward to the last 30 or 40 years, there’s been a movement to recognize how Columbus was… not so great, and all the bad things that he started or came after him. So we started having Indigenous Peoples’ Day to celebrate the tribes that were unfortunately introduced to Columbus and his brutal treatment.
Now we’ve got a thing that celebrates it. So, have fun, jump off the fence and pick a side, and enjoy the day off if you have it. I don’t. I’ve got to work on a Monday morning.
NY Jets
It must be some kind of violation of international treaty to keep sending the Jets over to London. It can’t help international relations.
The Jets defense finally stood up to be counted, but the offense apparently was still garbage and never boarded the plane. The defense held the Denver Broncos’ dangerous attack to 13 points and even scored two of their own on a safety. But unfortunately, all the offense could do was score three field goals.
What’s worse is on the Jets’ final offensive play of the game: it was 4th and 8 from the Denver 44-yard line. All the Jets really needed was five yards to try a 57-yard field goal, and they couldn’t manage that—they took a sack.
I am starting to be one of those people who wonders why the Jets consistently hire first-time defensive coaches as head coaches. We might need to really push and give a first-time offensive coach a team, because the offense just always struggles and never gets right.
NY Rangers
First week of hockey! I love the new hockey season. I am going to have to watch one of those season recap shows because it looks like the team made quite a few changes, and I didn’t really pay as much attention over the summer. The hockey season, unlike the long basketball season, can sneak up on you.
That said, in the first week the Rangers suffered a tough 1-0 loss at home to the Penguins. They bounced back to rough up the Sabres for a win, and win big against Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh.
The offense seems to be coming along, and it looks like the goalie is having a good start to the season. But it’s going to be a long season, so we’ll see how it goes. If they can avoid a massive slump like they did last season, they should be able to make the playoffs no problem.
Come back tomorrow for another episode of the Whitney Years, starring Kev, I mean Ben Whitney.
