Every sports reference in Captain America: Civil War

It’s Marvel Cinematic Universe Week at SB Nation and across our team brands! We’re using the superior superhero franchise to guide our coverage for this week, as we pass the two-month mark without sports.

Here at Fear the Fin, I’m going to take on a very stupid mission: to watch every film in the MCU and document every reference made to sports throughout. I’m playing a little fast and loose with my definition of “sports reference,” but I’m going to try to avoid making the same jokes more than once in this series. You’ll see what I mean.

That’s 23 films, totaling 50 hours, by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, May 10.

(I’m aware the week starts on Sunday, but the next theme week doesn’t start until Monday and I got a late start on this, okay? I’m cutting myself some slack to make this ridiculous thing a complete project.)

I’ll be watching in a chronological order (some films take place around the same time, so it doesn’t matter too much) that is dubbed the “spoiler” version, as post-credit scenes will contain spoilers for movies further along in the timeline, as opposed to release order.

I’ve set up a storystream to help you keep track of each post as they go up — which won’t be on any kind of set schedule, since I’m gonna be putting some weird hours into this thing in order to pull it off. No worries, though — that’s the whole point of having a centralized location. I’d suggest reading them in order, but hey, I’m not your mom.

Reminder that time stamps are approximate, not exact, and may vary based on streaming services.

If you aren’t Team Cap, you’re wrong.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Director: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

00:21:07: The Secretary of State is telling the story of his heart attack to the Avengers and mimics his swinging a golf club as he tells how he dropped in the middle of his backswing.

00:31:44: A scene of the Avengers debating signing the Sokovia Accords ends. Throughout the scene, a chessboard can be seen on the table in the middle of their gathering. None of the pieces have been moved. Now! That’s What I Call Symbolism!

(I’m pretty sure I’ve decided before to not include a chess reference, but I really like this one.)

01:20:59: We meet my sweet baby boy Peter Parker in all his awkward teenage glory and he says to Tony Stark: “Yeah, I would love to play football. But I couldn’t then, so I shouldn’t now.” That just gave me major flashbacks to the early seasons of Smallville.

01:21:44: Peter has an electronic dart board in his very small bedroom.

01:22:56: Hawkeye shows up at the Avengers compound. When Wanda asks what he’s doing there, he says “Disappointing my kids,” which is always a good answer. Apparently he was going to take them water-skiing, until the Avengers ruined his plans.

01:32:15: Tony says to Clint, “Clearly retirement didn’t suit you. You got tired of shooting golf?” Clint responds, “Well, I played 18, shot 18. Just can’t seem to miss.” Get this guy on the PGA Tour.

Or better yet — Hawkeye has a YouTube channel that’s just him doing various golf trick shots. Put Disney on the phone, I have a concept we need to discuss.

01:35:52: Wanda says to Clint, “You were pulling your punches.” This phrase comes from boxing — if you are pulling on a forward-moving punch, you won’t be putting your full force into it, resulting in a softer hit. For obvious reasons, this is a dumb idea if you are interested in winning.

01:40:16: Black Panther, Ant-Man and Spider-Man have all been here for like, five seconds, and have already done parkour. Pretty much everyone except for Tony, Thor and Vision have done parkour.

02:13:16: Vision sits at the Avengers compound, spinning a rook with his fingers.

Previous: Ant-Man | Up Next: Spider-Man: Homecoming