Sports Guy North

This Lloyds for Yyou

Ignoring my normal line that I draw as to what is and isn’t a sport, I will start off today with somewhat of a figure skating talk. In particular, my new hero Lloyd Eisler. I mean honestly, who among us wouldn’t leave our wives for the original Buffy? Even if the old wife is 6 months pregnant at the time, given the option we’d all jump at it. And I commend Lloyd for trading up so publicly as he did, despite how it might look in the press. Keep up the good work, Lloyd, and bring the illustrious Skating with Celebrities championship back home to Canada! You must be very proud of what you’ve accomplished lately, we are all very proud of you.





Hamstring – the New Groin

Like I mentioned yesterday, Haseks injury really knocks a favourite out of contention. Today even the Swiss team even beat the Czechs. The Swiss team. Honestly. This is probably a bigger upset than the American’s tie against Latvia. Sweden also lost 5 to 0 to the Russians. As I said back on January 4th,

“The selection committee has made their choices. There's no going back on that now… The problem is, the other teams in this years Olympics seem even more questionable, so I'm pretty sure that whoever the Canucks go with, they are pretty much guaranteed a medal. And guarantee Gretzky's involvement in Team Canada for eons to come. But to me at least it's clear that they did not do the best job in assembling this team.”

This is possibly the worst international competition that has been assembled in years. And everyone will again say how great Gretzky’s team was, but really Canada is just going to win by default. I’m not sure what exactly went wrong in every other country, but if you have the results that the USA, Czechs and Sweden have put up happening, then some people’s heads need to roll. Team USA – I am available for consulting in the future. I could have easily put together a medalling team with the members you left at home. Enjoy your two wins you’ll get with the team you picked without me.

Best Olympic Name

Dick Pound. Discuss among yourselves.



The New Babcock

With the Rob’s early exit from his General Managing career, I decided it was time to take it upon myself to find the new Babcock in the NBA. What I found, however, was a little surprising. As it turns out, one of the most successful teams in the East may have out-Babcocked Babcock himself in recent history. Check out these moves on behalf of the Cleveland Cavaliers:

On February 24, 2005 Cleveland acquired Jiri Welsch from Boston for a No. 1 pick in 2007 and the removal of lottery protection on its 2005 pick.

On June 28, 2005 Cleveland sent Jiri Welsch to the Bucks in exchange for a 2006 second-round pick.

On Oct. 4, 2005 Cleveland reacquired its own 2007 second round pick from Orlando in exchange for Milwaukee’s 2007 second round pick.

Details : Removing the protection allowed the Bucks to pick up Sean May with the 13th pick. Jiri played only 16 mostly useless games for the Cavs. The Cavs are still paying part of Jiri’s salary. The draft pick exchange does nothing but bet that the Bucks will do better next year than the Cavs will. Even if there was a chance of this happening, why would a team do this? There are a million levels on which this makes no sense. I don’t even think Babcock himself would have been dumb enough to make this move.

End result. The Cavs downgraded a second round pick, along with trading:

First Round Pick
Removal of Protection on a first round pick
Paying a guy to play elsewhere

for

Second round pick

And with that, a new king is crowned. As the Wobby said, "when you have a no-brainer selection in lebron, it hides the fact that all their moves definitely aren't great."


Elias Watch

Patrick bruised his ribs from a check in the Czechs game against Switzerland on Thursday, and had to leave the game. How horrible is this news for Devils fans? Is it worse news than Hasek for the Sens? Maybe not, but these are probably the two worst injuries that could have happened. As I said before the Olympics, staging a, for all intents and purposes, meaningless tournament in the middle of playoff runs is just asking for trouble. If this is an extended injury for Elias that would pretty much ruin their chances at going any further up the standings. It was his return that sparked the team, and his loss would likely have the opposite effect. Lets all hope the injury isn’t all that serious… but serious enough to keep him from playing any more meaningless games for a team that can’t even beat the Swiss. And lets just get through the rest of these two weeks without any more injury notes. At least the Groin Watch is still retired. For now.

Olympic Update

USA (9)– Seth Wescott, Men’s Snowboard Cross, Gold

Canada (8)– Men’s Team Pursuit, Speed Skating, Silver
Ladies’ Team Pursuit, Speed Skating, Silver
Jeffrey Buttle, Men’s Figure Skating, Bronze
Melissa Hollingsworth-Richards, Women’s Skeleton, Bronze

What’s that, Canada’s only one medal behind the USA? Yeah, that’ll last.