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Dodge

For those of you who are used to a new post from me everyday, I have some bad news for you - there will be no post tomorrow. I've dodged the burden of another post by taking a well-needed couple of days to go up to Ottawa to watch Sid the Kid lead his Penguins to the slaughter against the Senators. So it looks like it's gonna be a two-on-one posting today, a ménage à trois of pain. Usually you pay double for that kind of action, Cotton. Speaking of which, I've decided to try something new on my couple of days away. People have been complaining about ads on my page taking a little long to load, so I’ve temporarily moved my sponsors to a secondary page. If you want my page to load fast, and for me to keep on going with this, please take a quick gander at my sponsor page. If you see something you want to buy, great, or else just sign up for some free fantasy sports or magazines or anything. There are other “click through” links at the top of the page that I’m not allowed to encourage you to click on, but if you aren’t interested in any of my sponsors and find yourself clicking there instead, I can’t stop you. Anyway, I’m going to take my days off to see how outside listings compare to keeping them on my page, and if they are up to par then I’ll keep the number on my page itself to a minimum. It’s up to all of you, though, how successful my secondary page posting is. If it isn’t working, the over-abundance of ads will come back, much to the chagrin of both you and me. But the bills have to be paid somehow until TSN or the Toronto Sun pick me up, and we’re looking at an estimated 637 years before that happens.

Duck

The matchup of my dreams finally occurred, as my childhood crush took her comback to Japan against Maria Sharapova. The long-awaited match not only lived up to my expectations, but saw more evidence that Martina’s comeback is for real. In the matchup that Hingis herself was most looking forward to, she took it to Maria early and hard, taking the match 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the finals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open. Hingis’ opponant in the finals will be second-seeded Elena Dementieva from Russia, after she defeated Myskina 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the other semi-finals. As I mentioned previously, Hingis has already won a double’s title since her return, and will now be looking for her first single’s title.

Speaking of my previous posts, for the women that complained about the tennis coverage before (ie. my wife), I’ve included in this post a very unflattering picture of maria. Or at least as unflattering as it can get with her, she is still Maria Sharapova. It's like saying that you have an unflattering picture of Jessica Alba. These things just don't exist.

Dip

Lance - I think you better hurry up, you're going to be late.
Peter - Actually, I decided to quit, Lance.
Lance - Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family I got back on the bike, and won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying from that's keeping you from the finals?
Peter - Right now it feels a little bit like shame.
Lance - Well, I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they wouldn't have anything to regret for the rest of their life. Well good luck to you, Peter, I'm sure this decision won't haunt you forever.

Maybe it was a thorough watching of Dodgeball that finally swayed Antonio's mind, but apparently he has decided not to quit. The President of the Players Association will be joining his old teammates as he suits up for the Raptors again this week, and like I promised I will be his number one fan. It is admirable that he is willing to try and to show up in what could easily be a negative environment for him, so I urge all Raptors fans to do the right thing. Make this a positive experience for AD. Show him how great a city Toronto is, and that they have the best fans in the world. Let's (I say let’s as apparently I am a Raptor fan now due to my promise) welcome him with open arms, and hope that he is what the team needs to get into the playoffs this year. In the right atmosphere, he just might be, it is the Eastern Conference.

Dive

Did anyone see that game yesterday between some British team and some other British team? I flipped through the game for a split second, and I wish I hadn’t. What I saw was the worst dive I’d ever seen. Even as far as soccer goes, a display of this magnitude hasn't occurred since the Helsinki episode of 1919, and I think we all remember how that turned out. They showed a replay, and it was so disgusting that even the announcers commented on it. It takes a lot for a soccer person to admit something like that about soccer. There wasn’t any contact, but the player somehow flew through the air, did a flip and landed on the ground clutching his face like half of it had just been ripped off by shrapnel. This is not an uncommon event in soccer, and it is one of the big reasons why soccer will never catch on as big in North America as it has in the rest of the world. We just won’t put up with that kind of crap here. And why should we? It is an utter disgrace. This incident just reinforced my goal to go my entire life without sitting through an entire game of soccer. Get your act together, soccer players of the world. Disgraceful.

Dodge

Laziness wins out again. I've dodged the need to do an article on both the Elias Watch and the Groin watch today, by the timely coming together of Patrick Elias and Bryan McCabe for a matchup in Toronto last night. The Leafs, with just one win in their previous 11 games, took it to the streaking devils early on, building a 3-0 lead 11 miutes into the game. McCabe's groin looked strong, playing over 26 minutes and picking up an assist. Elias was held scoreless by some nice defensive work on McCabes part, but was still able to pick up the second star on ESPN's summary of the game.

Unfortunately, with this win the Leafs gave themselves a little space in the race for the last playoff spot, moving 3 points up on Montreal, Atlanta and Boston. This semi-secure hold on a playoff spot likely means that the option to disband and rebuild has passed. Giving up on a playoff year, no matter how mediocre, would never go over with die-hard Leaf fans, and it's sad. Sometimes the time comes for change, and the team the Leafs have right now will never win a cup. End of story. It's time to accept that fact and move on. It's just too bad that it isn't going to happen, the youth they have on that team are worthy of building around and should get that chance. If only Leaf faithful could see that. Just don't go crying to mama when the Sens spank you in the playoffs in front of all of these people, White and Blues.