In Search Of More Meaningful Meaningless Sports Cliches

Have you noticed that sports cliches are just too easy to mock these days? It's now boring to point out the physical impossibility of giving 110%, or the irrelevance of saying "there is no i in team"--although there is an i in win, and me in team if you jumble the letters.

It's time for some new cliches, or at least the recognition of some less-obvious cliches that require a little more creativity to ridicule.

Let's start with the category with more positive lexicographical associations. For a new cliche, I would suggest something along the lines of "it's not over until the last vuvuzela is banned from the stadium and trampled underneath a herd of rampaging elephants." This would be a good choice for a couple reasons: 1) we all found out about vuvuzelas during the 2010 World Cup and could all get behind a policy of trampling the damned things; and 2) it's culturally accurate, as vuvuzelas and elephants can both be found in South Africa.

As for some more subtle, newly discovered cliches, how about this? My friend, in discussing the Green Bay Packers, said that their defense "is designed to play with the lead." As opposed to all the defenses that only feel comfortable after giving up a touchdown or two, I noted. My friend replied with an obfuscatory, octopus-like cloud of analysis that was no doubt accurate, but my response was funnier, so I'm declaring myself the winner of that little debate.

Or then in today's paper, I read about a volleyball player who saved the day "with ice in her veins." Is it just me, or would that be very bad for the circulation? In which case, wouldn't ice in one's veins be detrimental to one's athletic performance?

Thoughts? Comments? Clever dissections of superficially-impressive-but-ultimately-vapid sports metaphors and chestnuts?