History WebVideo / UrinatingTree

[=UrinatingTree=] (real name Steve Linkowski, who also goes by Schlasser or [=DSchlasser=]) is a video game reviewer and eventual sports critic who came around when WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd was taking off.

[=UrinatingTree=] (who also goes by Schlasser or [=DSchlasser=]) is a video game reviewer and eventual sports critic who came around when WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd was taking off.

[[AC:[[TheStinger Thanks for watching!]] [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Ruin your life with these articles, too]]!]]

* TokenGoodTeammate: By the final episode of the 2018 season of "Days of Our Steelers", Tree considered Steelers wide receiver [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuJu_Smith-Schuster JuJu Smith-Schuster]] as this for displaying maturity in publicly taking responsibility for the fumble that ended any hope of a Steelers comeback in Week 16 against the New Orleans Saints, something that Tree found sorely lacking from other Steelers personnel throughout the season. During his lengthy TheReasonYouSuckSpeech at the end of the 2018 season after the Steelers were eliminated from playoff contention, Smith-Schuster is the only person Tree mentions that doesn't get excoriated -- rather, Tree expresses dismay at the prospect of [=JuJu=] (who only reached age 22 during the season) turning into a self-centered diva because of the culture of the team. \\

As of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nv2Kv_RWQ Congrats Steelers (2021)]]," he no longer considers Smith-Schuster this, calling out his pregame habit of inappropriately dancing on the midfield logos of the opposing teams and posting them on [=TikTok=] as well as his mocking dismissal of the Cleveland Browns right before the Steelers were humiliated by them in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

--->'''Tree''': Nobody is questioning Ken Holland's legacy; regardless of his horrible stretch, he will still go down as one of the best GM's of the mid-2000s. In fact, I find Holland to be more of a tragic figure. To me, he is [[VideoGame/DarkSouls Gwyn, Lord of Cinder]], a former god who has sacrificed everything he has known and loved to try and maintain the fires of his past glory in the empire. He may have been egotistical in refusing to move aside, but that's because [[WereStillRelevantDammIt he felt he could still remain on top]]. He was grossly mistaken. This is the harshest lesson of all: we all have an expiration date. One day, the world will pass us by, and we shall become obsolete and irrelevant. [[SocietyMarchesOn Different ideas and theories will come along]], and unless you can adapt at rapid speed, you will die. No matter how good or important a person is, we are all replaceable cogs in the machine. What happens when you ''don't'' adapt? You become the Red Wings.

* LoopholeAbuse: In "The Haters Guide to the 2021 Stanley Cup", he makes mention of the large number of fans and even players who were mad at the Tampa Bay Lightning for making use of the NHL's salary cap rules surrounding injured players[[note]]who can be effectively removed from the team's cap figure while placed on the Long-Term Injury Reserve list[[/note]] and the playoffs[[note]]the league stops restricting a roster's daily salary once the regular season ends[[/note]] to assemble a playoff roster that was approximately 17.3 million dollars over the cap.[[note]]more than half the discrepancy was due to Nikita Kucherov ($9.5 million cap hit) missing the entire regular season due to offseason hip surgery but played the entire playoffs; speculation arose in some circles that he was held on LTIR after recovering enough to play so that they could retain other members of the team[[/note]] He also noted the hypocrisy in calling the Lightning out but not teams like the Maple Leafs, whom he refers to as habitual abusers of the cap rules.[[note]]to the point that some people refer to them placing players on LTIR as "shipping them to Robidas Island"[[/note]] He also mentions the irony of Tampa having been on the other end in 2015, when they lost to a Blackhawks squad that was $5 million over the regular-season cap.

* InMemoriam: {{Invoked|Trope}}. For the 2018 NFL Season, "This Week In Sportsball" added one of these for players injured during the relevant week's games. As "Taps" plays, it shows footage of a candle burning as headlines about the injured players flash by on screen, each one accompanied by a SickeningCrunch. Season-ending injuries also trigger the "Unit Lost" clip. [[AuthorExistenceFailure Actual deaths in the football world]] (e.g. [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen Paul Allen]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Spanos Alex Spanos]] in the Week Six video, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McNair Bob McNair]] in Week 12) swap out the other SFX for church bells.

* EvilVersusEvil: [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment His opinion regarding the]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins_name_controversy Washington Redskins name controversy]]. Tree calls it a fight between [[SoapboxSadie people who are picking battles that aren't theirs to fight]]; i.e. hijacking a First Nations/Native American cause for their own benefit, and a [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt billionaire who sues his critics, scams his consumer base, and regularly ignores the safety of his own players]].

** OOCIsSeriousBusiness:

* '''[[InWhichATropeIsDescribed In Which All Optimism Dies...]]''': “Highlights” of incidents where Tree or his livestream partner [=FivePoints=] Vids lose hope for their teams’ futures during Tree’s live streams.
** The 2021 NFL Draft adds fellow Youtubers ThatsGoodSports (Brandon Perna), Tom Grossi and Scooter Magruder to the "Prepare to Die" edition of IWAOD as all five bemoan their 1st Round picks.

Tree's Website/YouTube channel is found [[https://www.youtube.com/user/ESchlasser here]]; his {{Website/Twitter}} account [[https://twitter.com/UrinatingTree here]] contains additional short thoughts about the sports world. He also co-hosts two weekly livestreams: one on Tuesdays with fellow [=YouTuber=] [=FivePoints=] Vids called The Dumpster Fire, located [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwP8KbMOe4SfRSDs72A1cQA here]], and the other on Thursdays with [=FivePoints=], WebVideo/{{Tom Grossi|Comedy}}, [=ThatsGoodSports=] and Scooter Magruder called Clickbait Sports.

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:

-->'''Tree''': Warriors vs. Cavs...fucking hell, ''again?'' Shit like this gives ammo to the people that believe that the league is rigged! Despite all of the moves this past offseason, the NBA is once again fucked. But wait a second; I thought things were supposed to be different this year! You know, all of those comments about how I was wrong, and teams like Houston and Portland and Philadelphia and Toronto were going to take the reins? Do people seriously want to watch this shit for the fourth year in a row? This league is a fucking joke! The Cleveland Cavaliers are literally ''[[UsefulNotes/LeBronJames one fucking guy!]] ONE!'' [=LeBron=] singlehandedly carried a bunch of overpaid scrubs to the Finals because the Eastern Conference is as diluted as my piss! Seriously, what is the point of team building? What is the point of seeding? What is the point of a home-court advantage when [=LeBron=] will just pull off some bullshit or [[UsefulNotes/StephenCurry Steph Curry]] will enable cheat codes and rain 3's on a team? This league isn't even ''interesting.'' [[TallPoppySyndrome It's two teams head and shoulders over everyone else]] because one happens to have the greatest player of this generation, and the other became a superteam because [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Durant Kevin Durant]] is a fucking spineless snake![[note]]Durant joined the Warriors in free agency after the 2015-2016 season, a move that was widely criticized because his previous team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, had only made it to the NBA finals once in his career, and had in fact been beaten by the Warriors in the 2016 Western Conference Finals after being up 3 games to 1. Not only that, but the Warriors had also set the record for most wins in a season in NBA history that year by going 73-9, and with players like Curry, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala already on the squad, many viewed Durant's move as cowardly and taking the easy route to a championship. Two straight NBA titles and Finals MVP awards would later prove them right.[[/note]]\\
'''Super''': [[AC:[[SarcasmMode Thanks for ruining the parity of the West, KD. We appreciate it.]]]]\\
'''Tree''': [[SuckinessIsPainful A third of the league is deliberately tanking in the hopes of winning the draft lottery.]] That's not a healthy league; that's one where 90% of the teams are fucked from the get-go! I don't want to hear another word from people defending this shit until [=LeBron=] goes somewhere else! Maybe then we can get new teams in the final, at least. Go watch some hockey; you'll thank me later.[[note]]TheStinger afterward is a clip of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Vegas Golden Knights and Washington Capitals, two teams that had yet to win their first title, with the caption "Thanks for watching! I'm dead serious, go watch some hockey." playing on top of it.[[/note]]

* PissTakeRap: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjl9_dvecqk Congratulations, Padres (2021)]] video has him making a deliberately terrible diss track, including blatant AutoTune, poor rythym, and non-ryming lyrics.

* AnAesop:
** In his lolcow video on the San Diego Padres, UT says that sports owners need to learn that "big splashes usually drain the pool of all the water." In other words, signing a popular-but-untested player or signing a veteran well past their prime is always going to be a worse decision than the BoringButPractical approach of taking a few years to build a winning squad.
** His 'Congrats, NFL' video, produced in response to the 2018-19 NFL conference championships, discusses the issues with the inconsistent officiating of NFL referees, citing the vague rules and poor judgement as main topics. Not helping matters is the video shows referees often [[FelonyMisdemeanor penalizing defensive players for roughing the passer if they so much as tap their shoulder]]. Meanwhile, blatant helmet-to-helmet hits, false starts, facemasks, and pass interference calls are completely missed, often costing teams wins.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSqmcAFgHGQ Tree's video on the Kansas City Royals]] departs from the expected mockery of the team's struggles, and instead presents a look at Major League Baseball's competitive imbalances between teams that enjoy large budgets (e.g. Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs) and those who do not (e.g. A's, Twins, Rays). Tree notes that a lack of a hard salary cap, the rising costs of running a team, and the increasing salaries of players are factors that make it hard for small-market teams to remain consistently competitive. Tree also sees the Royals as lucky: they have won the World Series recently, something that the Rays, A's, Indians, Pirates, Orioles, Brewers, Reds, Padres, and Twins could not boast.
** "Revisiting: The Indianpolis Colts" examines Colts quarterback Andrew Luck's decision to retire from football, discussing the mental toll of professional sports that accompanies the physical toll and why Luck wanted to [[OptOut walk away from it all]], given the myriad of injuries he suffered and how badly he was treated by upper management.

** "Thrashed" examined the lifecycle of UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}} hockey in light of the move of the Arizona Cyotees out of Glendale in 2022.[[note]]News had broke in August 2021 that the long-lapsed Gila River arena lease will be broken that year.[[/note]]

** Naheed Nanshi, the mayor of Calgary. Tree concedes that he's got his share of issues, even briefly flashing a headline about his derogatory comments toward the CEO of Uber, but points out that in opposing public funding for either version of the Flames' proposed arena, he's actually acting in the interest of his constituents as well as trying to avoid the mistake that Edmonton made in drowning themselves financially to keep the Oilers in town.

* In 2021, Tree started dabbling in historic retrospectives that related to current sports topics. The "Oil Crisis" duology focused on the Houston->Tennessee Oilers first as an example of [[TeethClenchedTeamwork a team Soap Opera]] similar to the aforementioned 2018 Steelers, then as an example of a relocating franchise similar to the Los Angeles Chargers. "Heritage" looked at the Ottawa Senators' expansion draft (woes) as the Seattle Kraken expansion draft approached.

* ContentWarning: Parodied with the text summaries for the "Legacy of Failure" series:

--->'''Tree''': Nobody is questioning Ken Holland's legacy; regardless of his horrible stretch, he will still go down as one of the best GM's of the mid-2000s. In fact, I find Holland to be more of a tragic figure. To me, he is [[VideoGame/DarkSouls Gwyn, Lord of Cinder]], a former god who has sacrificed everything he has known and loved to try and maintain the fires of his past glory in the empire. He may have been egotistical in refusing to move aside, but that's because [[WereStillRelevantDammIt he felt he could still remain on top]]. He was grossly mistaken. This is the harshest lesson of all: [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped we all have an expiration date]]. One day, the world will pass us by, and we shall become obsolete and irrelevant. [[SocietyMarchesOn Different ideas and theories will come along]], and unless you can adapt at rapid speed, you will die. No matter how good or important a person is, we are all replaceable cogs in the machine. What happens when you ''don't'' adapt? You become the Red Wings.

** He doesn't even bother trying to conceal his rage at Stan Kroenke. Not only did Kroenke screw the city of St. Louis over, he also screwed people in Texas over when he bullied them into giving up their land so he could annex it onto his own property. Being able to steamroll homeowners in the area, Kroenke wielded so much power over them that one of them felt there was nothing left to do but ''[[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]''. Thus, Tree's rage isn't solely for Kroenke's gross incompetence as a figure in major league sports, and there's no question he was absolutely ''furious'' about this. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped And rightfully so.]] It's been noted as one of the few times his voice sounded genuinely angry in his sports coverage.