Sports Guy North

Another weeks over, and I am exhausted. That can only mean one thing – it’s time again for the great nation of Hungary’s favourite new feature, Notes of Note.

Mets News – Kaz’s Home Run Derby

Kaz Matsui was reactivated off the 15 day DL to make his first start of the season the other day, and had what has become his typical start to the season – a home run in his first at bat. He has done this in his first three seasons in the league to set the record to start a career, and is the first person to lead off 3 straight seasons this way since Ken Griffey Jr. from 1997-1999. There are a couple of points that make this a little bit more spectacular. Firstly, this year’s lead off home run was an inside the park job off of Padres ace Jake Peavy, the first inside the park home run of his career. On top of that, in his career Matsui only has 11 home runs, despite being on pace for 162 each season after the first game. A 5 home run a season guy getting one in his first at bat 3 straight seasons is about as improbably as you can get in baseball.

More Mets News – God’s Chosen Julio

Speaking of which, this game also brought another improbability to note: Julio Franco is still playing baseball. Honestly, he is. He broke into the league a few decades back, long before my fiancé was born, and now at the age of 47 he has become the oldest player to ever hit a home run. He was already the oldest player to hit a grand slam, a pinch-hit homerun, and to have a multi-homerun game. Adding this new accolade gives him the all-time gerontological grand slam. And he’s not finished yet. Franco was signed to a two-year contract, despite the fact that he turns 48 in August, and is hoping to be the first player to ever hit a home run in his 50’s.

"God gave me the great gift to play the game of baseball, and I want to play until I'm 50. If He gives me two more years, don't you think He's going to give me another one?"

God works in mysterious ways, and apparently he’s a huge Julio fan. If he’s available still in your fantasy league, jump on this future star now. How can you argue with his biggest fan?

Hockey Playoffs Day One

As the playoffs get underway, a trivia question was brought to my attention (somewhat painfully). Who was the last player to score a hat trick on the opening night of the playoffs? That’s right, it was Alex Mogilny. I can’t wait to see how he does tomorrow when the Devils series gets underway. Because he is playing, right? Right?

Calgary 2 Anaheim 1 (OT) – Groin Watch Edition

There’s a picture on the right of a jock, and that can only mean one thing this season – another groin bites the dust. J-S Giguere is the newest victim of this year’s injury fad. I called Anaheim to take this series, but then due to this injury, an inexperienced Ilya Bryzgalov found himself in net today. Clearly Julio’s number one fan, as he shall now be known, is conspiring against me, and my desire to not have to watch many Flames games.

Anyway, the Ducks but up a great fight, but eventually let it slip away in overtime as Darren McCarty scored 9:45 into the first extra period. You have to wonder just how much money he had on that result. I’m sure it would have paid off at least 500 to 1 for him.

Ottawa 4 Tampa Bay 1

What? Ottawa blew away the Lightning? How could anyone have seen that coming? Certainly not Scott Burnside (it’s still not fair). Alas, the Lightning were out-classed, and out-matched. For most of the game it almost felt like the Sens were just toying with them. I’m pretty certain, actually, that they were.

Nashville 4 San Jose 3

I’m sure everyone will be quick to point out that my Stanley Cup pick dropped their first match of the post season. Well, the thing is that sometimes Paul Kariya has games like that. Sometimes he can still conjure up memories from his days on Steve Rucchin and that other guy’s line, and he can have a 4-point night. Sometimes, however, isn’t 4 times out of 7. Toskala and the boys will still finish this one off in 6.

Detroit 3 Edmonton 2 (Double OT)

Watching this game I was reminded of a couple of points that have been plaguing me for years. First off, I was reminded of why I have been calling for Dwayne Rolloson to be a number one goalie for years now. Dwayner stopped 54 of 57 shots, and stood on his head as the only reason that Edmonton was even in this game. Through 4 and a little bit periods Edmonton only managed 25 shots on net, and couldn’t keep up with the speed of the Red Wings game. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun fast game all around, but the ice certainly was tipped to one end.

Secondly, I was reminded of the Chris Pronger effect. Pronger, not surprisingly, was out for all three Detroit goals. The Wings come out of the corner and into the zone with speed. There is nothing that Chris can do to counteract that. Of note out of many samples, early in overtime, Lang was coming out of the corner. For some reason, Pronger threw his whole body onto the ice, which might not be a bad idea since if he were standing there would be no way he’d stop Lang and not take a penalty. Lang, however, still found his way through the sprawling mass, and had the best scoring chance of the first overtime. In that instance, Chris was bailed out by Rollosson, as he was most of the night until the second overtime. Pronger followed a puck around the boards that he couldn’t reach, instead of going to his guy, a play that you would bench an 11-year-old over. The puck, then, found its way to his man, and long before he could get there in a very slow attempt, the puck was thrown on net, found a bad bounce and went in. The other 2 goals involved Pronger standing there as his guy put the puck in the net.

This is Chris Pronger’s game. Come out of the corner on him, and do whatever you want. And this guy won an MVP award at one point. Have I mentioned before how wrong something like that is?

Shout Outs for Shout Outs

This past week me and/or my blog found it’s way to be mentioned all over the interweb. I thought I’d finish off this week’s edition of Note of Note by returning the favour, and linking up some links to the places that linked me for linking purposes. Link.

There were the normal call outs from my friends at Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, whose normally classy blog has recently turned into Anti-Oilers central. Since Mister Pronger finds himself playing for the Oil these days, this means that they are quickly becoming even better friends of mine. Really, though, if their blog hasn’t been on your normal read list, you are missing out. They give sports bloggers everywhere a great name. On the other hand, the boys over at Forward Progress took yet another shot at Red Heads, so of course my name was rolled through the mud over there again. It was also the Rucchin time of year again (remember to get your votes in soon, try to slow Cheechoo’s domination if you can) so that was mentioned and debated in different message boards, and drew attention elsewhere like on the Toronto Stars page. If you aren’t familiar with Chris Young’s Jabs, then you are really missing out. He is one of the very very few people in the mainstream media who actually takes the time to read other blogs and actually be involved in the Blogging community, whatever that might be. His ideas are creative, and his posts happen with extreme regularity. What he is doing for the Star is the mould that all other media outlets should be striving for in their blogs. A top-notch job from a top-notch guy.

But the strangest one of all was on what appears to be a cities blog. It’s apparently a sight dedicated to the city where that racist soccer player I mentioned plays. They seem to just throw links on to any mention of their city that exists on the interweb. What I wrote about wasn’t exactly positive, so it would seem to me that they don’t really screen what they print. Knowing me, I can’t resist the urge to test that theory. For that reason, I’m going to Caxias do sul as soon as I can. I hear that it stinks so much in Caxias do sul, everyone has to wear nose plugs and capes all the time. I want to go make sure it’s true, and take pictures of the favourite pass time of Caxias do sul – midget tossing. Most importantly, Caxias do sul is the birthplace of both Spam and Chubb, so how can I resist? I’ll be sure to let you all know how my experiment goes.