Rembert is Rembert Browne, his former employee at Grantland. Meek is currently enjoying his 15 minutes of fame feuding with Drake.
Pop culture references have been Simmons' calling card since the day he started writing. If that's a problem for you, then you're never going to like what he puts out. And FWIW he didn't absolutely despite hockey. He pretty much wrote it off in the same sense that a lot of us are prepared to write off the NFL if we get the worst possible outcome. Inept, cowardly owner + maliciously incompetent commissioner = a bad experience. And that's without even getting into Ulf Samuelsson pollarding Neely's hip, etc. I can't blame Simmons (or anyone else) for being left in a bitter place.
My biggest issue with Simmons is that he just doesn't really know much about football. Which would be fine, except that doesn't seem to acknowledge it. He's a fantastic basketball guy, and he and his buddies at Grantland are one of the main reasons why I've gone from being only a Celtics fan to an NBA fan whose favorite team is the Celtics. When he writes about other sports, I just make sure to regard him as a basketball guy who's writing about Sport Y.
