America's real team?

Has anyone noticed those GM commercials? Yeah, the one about resurrection or something. Oh, reinvention you say? Well, good for them I suppose. It would have been nice if it was 100% private but hey…it’s a sports blog.

Anyway, here’s a great article by Terry O’Reilly (I’m guessing not the former Boston Bruins player) of the Ottawa Citizen using boxing legend Joe Louis as a metaphor for GM’s rebirth. This being a sports blog, anytime you link anything to sports and you do a good job with it, you’ll get a link back.

“But the scene of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger throwing the pass that won the Super Bowl this year, with only 35 seconds to go, hints at the bigger story.

Roethlisberger symbolizes a great come-back-from-behind winner, and the Steelers have always been emblematic of the blue-collar working class”.

This reference got me thinking.

What other sports teams or athletes could have been used? Vince Lombardi’s dynasty Green Bay Packers of the 1960s comes to mind. Those Packers teams were the epitome of smash mouth, hard working, no-nonsense football. Much like the Steelers period of dominance in the 1970s.

In pursuit of excellence Wings style

What about hockey? The commercial shows a shot of two hockey players for a second. Hockey in its humble origins, much like baseball, was a blue collar sport. Rather than use a shot of two unknown players, they could have found a more symbolic example.

In the Detroit Red Wings (four Stanley Cups in 14 years and six trips to the finals), you can’t ask for a better team. The Red Wings are literally an organization that rose from the dead (remember the Dead Things?) and resurrected itself to become possibly the best franchise in pro North American sports (relax, New England Patriots fans).

Joe Louis was a more poetic and remarkable story but don’t discount the Wings/GM connection. GM and Detroit are synonymous.

Oh, and don’t forget to use some Motown. Edwin Starr’s ‘Twenty-Five Miles’ for example.

So. What other teams do you think would fit?