Steelers Today - A Pittsburgh Steelers blog

The Steelers won a hard-fought battle last night on Monday Night Football.  Now it’s time for fans to capture the key elements of the game in a haiku.

The contest rules are simple. You must summarize the Steelers-Bengals game in a haiku. A haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that contains only 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the third line has 5 syllables. Typically, haiku do not rhyme.

Please note, the emphasis is on syllables, not words. Remember 5/7/5.

I start the competition by offering a haiku of my own. Then you readers write a haiku of your own to try to beat mine. On Thursday I will announce this week’s contest winner. But remember, your haiku has to be better than mine.  If none of your entries are better than mine, then I take home the prize.

Here is my entry:

Bengals fear Steelers
But T.O. didn’t know that
Guess he knows it now

The winner of this week’s contest is going to win a copy of the book “The Ones Who Hit the Hardest” by Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne.  It’s a great book that belongs on the bookshelf of any Steelers fan.

Okay readers, your turn.  Lets see who can come up with the best haiku about the Steelers-Bengals game.

Are you ready for some haiku?!!

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After each game of the 2008 season, Steelers Today ran a haiku contest.  The idea was to see who could best capture the events of the game in the form of a haiku.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with haiku, it is a form of Japanese poetry. A proper haiku is a 3 line poem with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the third line. Remember, that’s “syllables”, not “words”.

I hadn’t planned to bring back the weekly haiku contests this season.  The reason is that one of our readers named Patrick absolutely owned the competition.  He won every single week except for one.  And the only reason that he didn’t win that week was because I awarded a victory to someone else in order to keep Patrick from getting a clean sweep for the season.

Despite my desire to keep my readers from being bludgeoned by Patrick this season, the haiku black belt has other ideas.  Patrick has thrown down the gauntlet by submitting 4 very good haiku entries, and challenging anyone to do better.  Here are Patrick’s entries.

Haiku #1
Defense ruled the day
But when they need a clutch drive
Nobody beats Ben.

Haiku #2
Santonio Holmes
Exactly matching his stats
From the Super Bowl.

Haiku #3
Ward’s shocking fumble
Brought back the Bettis miscue
Both games victories.

Haiku #4
Run game down, Troy out
Who will come to the rescue?
Ben Roethlisberger.

Wow, that’s some mighty fine haiku.  All 4 are world class efforts.  But since I’m the judge, I think that #4 is the strongest of his 4 entries, so that is the one to beat.  (For the record, I love the reference to the Bettis fumble in #3.  Good work, Patrick).

Can anyone defeat this haiku samurai?  Give it a shot.  Capture the Steelers’ win against the Titans in a haiku and knock Patrick off of his throne.

The winner will be announced later in the week. Good luck.

Other Steelers news:

The Steelers announced today that tight end Dezmond Sherrod has been cut from the Steelers’ practice squad and replaced by tight end Kevin Brock.  Brock is  6’5″, 255 lbs.  He was originally signed by the Carolina Panthers as an undrafted free agent out of  Rutgers.  The Panthers released Brock in August, and he was signed by the New York Jets.  However, the Jets released Brock as they attempted reduce their roster to 53 players.

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The Tennessee Titans did a number on the Steelers last Sunday.  Most of the haiku contest entries reflected that fact.

Without further ado, it’s time to announce the winner of this week’s contest.  This week’s winner is Ken, and his winning entry was as follows:

Now we know the name
Of the AFC Champ game
Revenge of the Tow’l

Congratulations Ken.  Very good haiku.  However, I am actually hoping that the Steelers don’t face the Titans in the AFC Championship game.   If someone else can beat the Titans in an earlier round, that would give the Steelers home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs.  I think I’d rather have home field advantage now, and then get revenge on the Titans next season (or whenever we play them next).

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The game for AFC supremacy certainly didn’t turn out the way that I had hoped.  Our Steelers fell to the Tennessee Titans by a score of 31-14.  Ouch!

As I do each week, I will summarize the game in the form of a haiku.  A haiku is  a form of Japanese poetry that contains only 3 lines.  The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the third line has 5 syllables.  Typically, haiku do not rhyme.  Here is my offering for this week:

Turnovers galore
Sunk us like the Titanic
We will meet again

Okay readers, your turn.  Try to write a better haiku than mine to summarize the Steelers-Titans game.  The best entry gets posted on the front page of the blog.

Last week, our reigning champ Patrick got upset due to a technicality.  He’ll probably be looking to win back his crown this week, so I’d suggest being extra creative this week.  Good luck.

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We had lots of good entries for this week’s haiku contest.  Patrick came into this week as a two-time winner, looking for a three-peat.  Did he defend his championship?

While we had lots of good entries, there were two that stood out to me.  Both had excellent concepts, but both also had flaws.  The first entry was by our reigning champ.  Patrick’s entry was as follows:

Paper towels for Suggs
To wipe the tears from his eyes
I’d suggest Bounty

The second noteworthy entry was by Eric Wagner.  It went as follows:

Was it in or out?
Doesn’t really matter for
Ninety-one reasons

Patrick’s entry was very creative, and I loved the play on the word “bounty”, since the Ravens have been known to put out bounties on Steelers players.  Unfortunately, Patrick used the word “towel”.  “Towel” has two acceptable pronunciations.  The first, and most commonly accepted pronunciation has two syllables.  That would give Patrick’s first line 6 syllables rather than five.

Eric’s entry was also very creative, but it too had a flaw.  The final drive was 92 yards, not 91 yards.  Therefore, the last line should probably have been “Ninety-two reasons”.

In my judgment, an error in game statistics is less egregious than an error in syllables, since an extra syllable would disqualify the poem from being a haiku.  Patrick’s entry, though recognized for it’s creativity, is being disqualified.  Therefore, Eric Wagner is this week’s winner. 

Congratulations Eric.  It took some serious haiku jiu jitsu to defeat Patrick.  Patrick has already established that he has a black belt in haiku, so defeating him was no small task.  I expect Patrick to bring a full can of whoop @$$ next week to win his title back, so everyone had better start preparing for a serious rumble next week.

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