Every sports reference in Thor

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.

Now: let’s hear it for my favorite himbo.

Thor (2011)

Director: Kenneth Branagh, Written by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz & Don Payne

You know, I had planned to make a joke about Thor doing a hammer throw at some point during this, but I just looked it up and apparently I’m the only idiot in the world who didn’t know that they don’t throw a hammer in the hammer throw. I’m furious about this revelation. I’m going to stew in it for this entire film. Why would you call it that?

I refuse to read about the history of the hammer throw. I can’t believe this has been ruined for me.

00:43:43: A sign in town says “WELCOME HOME VIKINGS.”

Of course, the whole thing about the town of Puente Antiguo (meaning “ancient bridge” — yes, they went that obvious with it) is that it’s a connection between Midgard and Asgard. Is this simply the name of the local sports team, a reference to the town’s apparent Nordic roots? Or could it be there to welcome literal Vikings to the area?

Who can tell, really?

00:56:52: Our first clear shot of Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, aiming a bow and arrow. Archery is a shooting sport, which as a category I’ve largely ignored because firearms are just set dressing for superheroes. But archery was one of my favorite sections in gym class and I still have my own Hawkeye ambitions (the Kate Bishop kind, obviously), so it sets off the sports part of my brain, nonetheless.

00:57:29: Welcome to Earth, Thor. May we interest you in some mud wrestling?

00:57:44: Once again, I try to not make mention of every single fight because that’s basically background noise in this genre, but Thor just did a standing high jump and kicked another dude in the chest and I’m speechless about this technique.

After that, Hawkeye says to Coulson that he’s “starting to root for this guy.” This is the most I will ever agree with Hawkeye.

01:06:45: An establishing shot inside of a bar shows patrons playing pool. You can hear it in the background for the rest of the scene.

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