It’s time once again for the weekend links, which as always appeared first at RandBall, your home for rampant positivity in the face of all facts.

This year’s Stanley Cup Finals are reminding me once again that maybe I need to back off the hate a little. I think it’s pretty common for passionate sports fans to develop a dislike of other teams; in rare cases, this can eventually lead to a hatred of the entire rest of the league. And that leads to internal arguments like, “Well, Boston’s fans are entitled whiny jerks, but Vancouver is the city that brought us Mattias Ohlund and Alex Burrows and Todd Bertuzzi and Brad May, making it possibly the worst city in the Western Hemisphere.” Frankly, this doesn’t make me want to sit down and watch the Finals, even though it’s the apex of the hockey season. It makes me want to halfheartedly pull for Boston to win while Vancouver drops off into the Pacific Ocean and eventually becomes a protectorate of Vladivostok. I think I’d enjoy things more if I didn’t hate either team.

On with the links:

*In keeping with the hockey theme, Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch wrote a nice profile of Doc Emrick, currently America’s top hockey announcer. I still miss Gary Thorne an awful lot, but Emrick’s darn good too, mostly because he seems like he’s the biggest fan of hockey in the world and just happens to have a microphone. I’ve noticed my favorites (Thorne, Emrick, Gus Johnson, Kevin Harlan) are the people who seem best able to carry a tone of genuine real live excitement into the broadcast – not manufactured, not yelling for the sake of yelling, but honestly able to translate the thrills of live sports through the microphone.

*In the wake of the media’s discovery that West Virginia head football coach-in-waiting Dana Holgorsen likes a drink, Spencer Hall writes about his own family’s experience in these matters. I have mentioned this before, but I really enjoy Spencer Hall’s writing. You should too.

*I suppose only The Economist could, or would, connect the current FIFA scandals with the Cuban secret police and, in a larger sense, Britain’s place in the world. On the other hand, this is a newspaper that once referred to football as “a sport that vaguely resembles rugby in wimpish armour-plating,” so perhaps they’re not the sages they claim to be.

*I suppose even the most optimistic Twins fans have given up on 2011, but Steve Adams at Twinkie Town knows that at least we can look forward to the draft. The problem with the baseball draft is that anyone the Twins pick will probably not crack the lineup before about 2015, but still, it’s fun to imagine.

*And finally: we’ve all tried our hands at sports-related literary parody. (Well, I have.) Seldom, however, is it as well done as this. Key quote: “While the offense nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping / As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the clubhouse door. / `’Tis Nick Punto’, I muttered, ‘missing juiceboxes galore – / Only this, and nothing more.’”

That’ll do it for me this week. Enjoy tonight’s Stanley Cup game… if you can.