Q: Why Off Wing Opinion?
A: I've played ice hockey, with a few breaks, since a little after my seventh birthday. In that sport, a player with a left-handed shot generally plays on the left wing side of the ice; while right-handed shots usually play on the right wing side of the ice. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule, and there are a number of situations where there's a real advantage to switching things up. When this happens, and a right-handed shot plays on the left wing, and vice versa, the player is said to be in the "off wing" position.

Ever since the salesman at the skate shop at Skateland in New Hyde Park, New York asked me to close my eyes and grasp my first stick the way that came naturally, I've been a left-handed shot. And, for some reason, despite being left-handed, I've usually wound up playing on the right wing side of the ice -- which is essentially where I stand politically as well. That's how I came up with Off Wing's original catchphrase, "A right wing blogger with a left-handed shot." Playing off the traditional political import of right wing and left wing doesn't hurt either.

Q: What's a "free-market sports fan"
A: Read the manifesto. All I was really going for was trying to find a happy medium between the appalling aspects of fandom (rioting, burning down your campus when your team loses, etc.), and outright cynicism (players are overpaid, why root for a bunch of rich guys who don't live here anyway). I just came to the conclusion that if you realize sports are a business like any other, you get a whole lot less upset about much of what goes on.

Q: Ok Mr. Dispassionate, who do you root for?
A: I grew up on Long Island right over the border between New York City and Nassau County on Long Island. Back when I was growing up, most kids on Long Island rooted for the Mets, Jets and Islanders. Of course this also means I'm burderend with a seething hatred for the Yankees, Giants and Rangers -- though I admit that over time my ire has cooled. But only a little.

Basketball was big when I was very young owing to Long Island-native Julius Erving playing for the New York Nets. But when they moved off the Island to New Jersey in the mid-70s, the air seemed to go out of the balloon for me as a pro basketball fan. I've always liked college ball, and try my best to follow St. John's and the Big East. But as the graduate of a small Division III university, I just can't work up the same sort of passion for college sports.

When I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1985 I took my rooting interests with me. There was a time when I though I wouldn't be able to shake the loyalties of childhood, but living in Washington for almost 22 years has changed that, especially when it comes to ice hockey, where I've signed on with the locals who are loyal to the Capitals.

Despite my other loyalties, I am a season ticket holder with the Baltimore Ravens.*

Q: What's your top sports moment?
A: Close call between the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team beating the Soviets (am I the only one who remembers tape delay?) and Game Six of the 1986 World Series. I was actually at Game Six, sitting with my Dad in the upper deck of Shea Stadium on the third base line. I remember "Congratulations Red Sox" on the Diamond Vision. I remember thinking it was all over. I remember thinking about next year. Then I remember the ball squirting through Bill Buckner's legs, Ray Knight rounding third base, and then being consumed by the most incredible wave of sound I'd ever heard in my life.

I'm sure they heard us all the way back in New England.

Sometimes I wonder if historians will really give that Olympic Hockey Team its proper due. The winter of 1980 was just another in a series of low points for the U.S. in the Cold War stretching back to the late 60s. The hostages had been taken in Iran in November 1979, and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan with seemingly nary a peep from the U.S. Everywhere you turned, there were warnings that America had lost the future, and that it now belonged, or at least was going to be made, in Japan. Unemployment, inflation, stagflation, and rising gas prices all conspired to sap our economic strength, as well as our national confidence.

It wasn't exactly a time of full throated patriotism. But over the course of a little less than 2 weeks, that changed, and it was all because of a bunch of college kids from the Midwest and New England showed the World's most powerful hockey team that it would not pass go, but instead would go directly back to the Soviet Union without the gold medal.

Almost overnight, it was OK to be a patriot again, and without apologies. America was confident again, and I don't think the nation has lost that feeling ever since.

Q: Since you're so into the free market, what ticket gives the best entertainment value in sports today?
A: Stanley Cup Playoff Hockey, followed by the NFL and the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. If you can get your hands on any of those, by all means get yourself there. Don't get me wrong, I'll always love Baseball, but it's the one sport where at times the enjoyment can be completely divorced from what's happening on the field.

Q: Your blog used to be much more eponymous. What happened?
A: Sports was always my first love. My fingers just race over the keyboard when I'm writing about any topic related to athletic competition, and I just can't say the same thing when I'm dealing with other topics, much as I might enjoy them. In the Summer of 2002, I wrote a review of an Elvis Costello concert, and I actually remember feeling mentally exhausted when I was finished -- getting in touch with my artsy side was hard. And as much of a political junkie as I've always been, I found myself double and triple checking my posts in that area -- something I never felt the need to do when I wrote about sports.

Sports are just more fun, and if your blog isn't any fun, then what's the point?

Q: How and why did you start blogging?
A: There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a journalist, and I guess I've never really lost the bug. While I was in college, I was editor of my school newspaper, and had a chance to work very closely with a senior editor at the Washington Post who served as our paper's advisor. In many ways, I know that I owe much of my professional success to him and his influence.

Despite moving into public relations and corporate communications after college, at times I've worked as a freelance sportswriter (profits from which funded my return to ice hockey after a 14 year absence from the game) for America Online, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, and Pro Football Weekly. From September 1993 to August 1994, I wrote a fantasy sports column for the Washington Times, something that was a pretty big kick (I never got over watching someone read my column from across a crowded subway car).

Once the Internet boom took off in 1996, so did my career in the private sector. Working as a full-time speechwriter took care of my writing bug, and my freelance work went fallow for a number of years. But every boom has its bust, and the Internet bust of 2001 helped lead me to blogging. With the company I was working for spiralling into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, my speech writing work was drying up quickly. Part of me was afraid my writing skills were atrophying, and after stumbling across Virginia Postrel's The Dynamist, I thought I'd give blogging a try on my own.

My first effort, The Route 7 Dispatch, came to life in June 2001, and lasted about 8 months. It was cobbled together with the help of a friend of mine, and while you'll always remember your first girlfriend, it had plenty of limitations. In February 2002 I switched over to Blogger, where the easy-to-use interface took all of the drudgery out of writing for the Web. After one too many outages, I worked with Stacy Tabb to leave Blogspot for good and strike out on my own. I've been here ever since.

Q: How do you choose the stories you write about?
A: Like Matt Drudge, I ride the wires, in my case, the sports wire. AP and Reuters. I used to read UPI, that was, until they stopped making it available. The wire is journalism's early warning system, the first indication that something really big might be coming down the pike.

But the wire is also the place where really interesting stories begin to bubble to the surface. That's especially true on the AP wire, where some of the longer pieces seem to inspire columnists and reporters at the bigger papers to pay attention to obscure topics and interesting story angles. I also rip through a bunch of sports sections every morning from around the country, and check in on a number of columnists I like. Check out my Blogroll, I link to all of them.

Once I do come across a story I like, I try to pass it along with at least some sort of commentary or new angle. I've seen plenty of sites that just pass along the latest from the wire without adding any value, but what use is that? If I don't pass along something extra, even if it's just a wise ass aside, I really haven't done my job.

The only time that really isn't the case if when I do roundup posts. With those, I try to give my readers a taste of what they can expect to see on Sportscenter that night, or in the next morning's newspaper -- and maybe help them change the channel or skip a few pages and save some time when they do.

Q: Who are you?
A: Read my bio.

Q: Forget the professional stuff, what else is there?
A: I'm single, and the rest of my family lives back on Long Island all within about a half mile of each other. My father was born in Scotland, and my mother is Brooklyn Italian. Needless to say, that made childhood interesting. In college I was a DJ, played Rugby and studied Politics (my thesis was about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). I'm a voracious reader (occupational hazard). I've got a screenplay I need to write, and a Summer home on San Juan Island I need to buy.

There's plenty more, but I'll get to that later. . . *Updated March 4, 2007.



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