The Best of the Web (and other stuff)………….2014

Best Sports Movie:

The best sports movie of 2014 was undoubtedly “Draft Day”, the story of a down-on-his-luck General Manager of the Cleveland Browns NFL team surprisingly well played by Kevin Costner who successfully manipulates the NFL draft to secure players who will help revive the ailing franchise. Those who follow the NFL will note the script imitates real life in so many ways throughout the film. Jennifer Garner and Denis Leary also feature.

Runner Up – “The Kick” starring someone not from Shortland Street as 2011 RWC hero Stephen Donald.

Best Sports Website

Grantland – for those of you that like American sport with a dash of popular culture, this is the site for you. Run by oft-controversial ESPN Basketball pundit slash guru Bill Simmons, the site provides a depth of analysis not seen so much now in the days of Twitter and micro-blogging. Well worth a look.

Honorable mention: Sportreview is still going after all these years, and seems to be undergoing a bit of a revival.  It is still quality over quantity though.

Best Twitter Account

2014 was a quieter year for Twitter especially in New Zealand where our stars (in particular the All Blacks) became more wary of the perils of Social Media in general. This was exacerbated by the two AB Aaron’s (Smith and Cruden) mishaps which resulted in pics going where they probably weren’t intended to. A shame really.

However, our best ones were:

VOS Commenters – I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invent Facebook for this purpose but this account makes us sure glad he did. It’s grand on every scale imaginable.

Cory Jane Tweeting from his bath in Upper Hutt. Jane is the grand old master of Twitter and still does it really well. Gone are the days of his followers finding out the test team for Saturday before the general media does but he continues to be engaging and funny with his self-professed “Tweeps”.

Meta World Peace – the former NBA star/rapper continued to deliver the weird and wonderful from the thug life.

Pele Out Of Context – I just didn’t know what to make of this one and still don’t.

Russell Jackson – A complete treasure trove for 1970s Australian kitch and other good stuff

Dan Carter was active on Twitter this year (for obvious reasons really). He interacted with his fans brilliantly and was generous in his giveaways and Q&A sessions #DCPC. He doesn’t always get credit from us but this was really cool.

Best Journo

It just has to be Mark Reason camped up underneath his bridge in South Wairarapa trolling, trolling, trolling. Every time Reason produced something for the DomPost the comments section spontaneously self-combusted with self-indignant vitriol as Reason defied convention and dared to call out the National Team for our National Game on a regular basis. His recent piece on the Australian Cricket team went where few others dared and really hit the mark. His Dad would be real proud I think.

Best Forum

PlanetRugby.com – Forums are hard work but this is good if a little dodgy at times (usually along Northern/Southern Hemisphere lines.

Best Sports Commentary Team

TV:  It has to be the New Zealand Breakers pairing of Andrew Mulligan and Casey Frank which were well supported by the vastly improved Anchor Dennis Katsanos. Basketball is a notoriously difficult sport to call but Mulligan and Frank get past this by simply treating it as “the best job they ever had” and clearly enjoy each other’s company at the same time. Kudos lads.

Radio:  Jason Pine and David Chote (and Daniel McHardy) for the Wellington Phoenix.  Easily the best live sport team across all sports; made more noticeable by the dross being dished up on TV at the same time.