Hand Puppets and Sweaty Canadians: Photo Lowlights from Super Bowl Media Day

[
        {
          "name": "GPT - Billboard - Slot Inline - Content - Labeled - No Desktop",
          "component": "16971022",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "15769925",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "16575154",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "GPT - Rectangle 2x - Slot Auto-select - Labeled",
          "component": "15782206",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "16575154",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "GPT - Leaderboard to Tower - Slot Auto-select - Labeled",
          "component": "15782207",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

Photo by Tim Elfrink

The world's sweatiest Canadian TV reporter gets funky with the Saints.

To the unitiated, Super Bowl Media Day must sound like some outrageous backstage fantasy. Media and players partying together! Celebrities around every corner! Free buffet lunch!

Well not to worry, ignorant and uninvited masses. Riptide is here to shatter those dreams.

Imagine, instead, an airless room packed way beyond fire code with grotesquely sweaty  camera men and TV reporters pancaked with makeup screaming hysterically for attention, while dead-eyed football players recite dull cliches they memorized on the bus.

There are mustachioed hand puppets, airports-at-Thanksgiving-level security lines and insanely dressed Telemundo stars. Chris Berman is in attendance.

Be thankful, then, that we braved the ninth circle of NFL hell known as Media Day at Sun Life Stadium and came away -- barely -- with these photo lowlights. Click through if you dare.

Photo by Tim Elfrink

This line stretched out to the parking lot around 10 a.m. At least one dude was screaming in German and gesturing at his camera equipment while a team of dogs sniffed at it for 45 minutes. Great way to get everyone in a good mood for Q & A time.

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

Britto teepeed the stadium! Call the cops! I think he hit the mailbox out front with a bat on the way out.

Photo by Tim Elfrink

There is apparently something called the "Hawaii 5-0 News Network." This man works for said network. Yes, the ponytail is in the job description.

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

Is this the equivalent of Spring Training hazing, but for camera guys? Or do we just have a Hello Kitty fan in the house?

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

OK, there were some legitimately cool moments at Media Day. One of them was Pierre Garcon, a Haitian-American WR for the Colts, walking out with a Haitian flag bandana to show some solidarity to the quake victims.

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

It's a Chris Berman sighting! God love Berman, everytime we ran into him he had a vaguely lost look on his face like he was trying to think up a pop culture reference to rhyme with "Garcon".

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

And reporting for High Times ... (Hey, they gave us a press pass.)

Photo by Tim Elfrink

Signs you are not attending the height of journalistic achievement, non-Ochocinco Division: This mustachioed puppet got ten times more interviews than we did.

​  

Photo by Tim Elfrink

Should Saints fans be worried that their kicker looks exactly like that stumpy lead singer from Sum 41? Let's go with "YES"

​ ​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

When your moustache-growing puppet can't land the interview, it's time to send in the sexy cowgirl reporter. We love you, Telemundo.

​

Photo by Tim Elfrink

And finally, there's this fine fellow. We're reasonably sure he was a joke of some sort. He was absurdly sweaty and wearing glasses from 1983. When we asked him who he worked for, he sputtered, "I'm the number one sports journalist in Canada!"

​