Sports Guy North

An LA of a Night

I don't know about you, but my TV was filled with Los Angelas sports tonight. The first game involved the Phoenix Suns guaranteeing themselves 14 games against Los Angelas teams in this years playoffs by failing to get anything going all night. That may sound like an unfair thing to say about a team that scored 106 points, but if you watched the game you know what i mean. 80% of the Suns points came at times where they weren't in striking distance of the Clippers. If they got within 9 points, Elton Brand just threw down 6 straight points and so on. That's pretty much how the entire game felt. The Suns were never in this one, and they only got 106 points because the Clippers decided they were allowed to. Not the kind of performance that they'll need to bring in game 7 if we're going to get the Nash Dirk semi-final battle that we're all hoping for. I've already lost all hope of any NHL series that I was hoping for, don't take this one away from me now for the sake of Sam Cassel. Dude looks like a frikkin alien, I know that I'm not the only one tired of looking at him by this point.

In the second game, the Blue Jays were taking on the Los Angelas Angels of Anaheim to end the night. The Jays looked down and out in this one, tied 4-4 in the bottom of the 9th, and the Angels with a runner on first and third with no one out. Instead Scott Downs came in and got Kennedy to fly out to left, followed by Frasor getting Cabrera to pop out to first. After then intentionally walking Vlad, Frasor struck out Tim Salmon looking to end the inning. The Blue Jays then went on to score 4 runs in the top of the tenth to take the matchup 8-4.

With that win the Blue Jays have won 6 of their last 8 games to move to 23-17 on the season. This is the kind of improvement those of us tired of the Red Sox/Yankees dominance were hoping to see this season. Just 40 games in, and the Jays are already 6 games over .500, a mark they never reached through all 162 games last year. Their success lately also puts them just a half game back of the Yankees, and only 1 game off of first place Boston. To be in that position despite early season pitching struggles with both injuries and Towers (who is 1-7 with an ERA of about a billion) bodes well for the rest of the season. In the short run, however, they've called up Ty Taubenheim to make his major league debut on Saturday at Coors Field. Not the best park to make your debut in, but the ball hasn't been flying out of there as much as in the past, so here's hoping for the best. Chacin's absence is a hole they'll need a lot of help to fill. If all goes well, when Chacin comes back maybe a replacement for Towers will finally be found. Hopefully the team will also finally realize they need one.

Dan Cloutier: An Alanah History

Sports Guy North prides itself on being accurate in it's reporting. It was pointed out to us that there may have been a few errors in our in depth report on the life and times of Dan Cloutier. For the sake of accuracy, those errors are listed as follows:

LeMar was not Daniel Cloutiers middle name.
Daniel was not 6 years old at birth.
Some people know that Mont-Laurier exists. I assume Daniel is one of them.
Cloutiers comparisons had nothing to do with his relative height compared to me. In fact in his early years his style of play did earn him the comparisons. It also helped earn him a Memorial Cup, something that even the best of teams would require a high calibre CHL goaltender for.
Cloutiers selection at the end of the first round, while surprising, was not in the same realm of unbelievability as Araujo's early first round selection. Cloutier was a highly touted goaltender, and was ranked higher than Theodore in most scouting reports at the time. His career has seen him as the number one goalie in Vancouver for a few years now. Halfa-man, on the other hand, wasn't even supposed to be taken in the first round, and will never make a significant contribution to any NBA team.
While it may be said that he lacks focus, Daniel has the size, speed and competitive nature to be successful in the NHL.
Cloutier did not purposely let Potvin and the Kings catch up in the standings, they accomplished that feat on their own. Trading Felix was the real issue, and that had nothing to do with Cloots.
I'm fairly certain Daniel did not purposely get in the way of Niedermayer. His injury hurt the Canucks chances this year, as over the previous 4 regular seasons Dan's numbers consistently improved, likely more so than anyone else in the league.
Finally, the chosen career highlights may not have portrayed Clootier as accurately as could have been. A different list of career highlites are as follows:

-Named to Ontario Hockey League All-Star Second Team, 1995-96.
-Winner, Dave Pinkney Trophy, 1995-96.
-Named to American Hockey League All-Rookie Team, 1996-97.
-Rated New York Rangers' top prospect, The Sports Forecaster 1997-98.
-Rated New York Rangers' top prospect, The Hockey News 1998-99 Yearbook.
-Named National Hockey League Player of the Week, March 18, 2002.
-Named National Hockey League Player of the Week, February 17, 2003.

Hopefully these errors and omissions won't alter your view on our quality media outlet in the future. We will continue to do our best going forward to prevent such errors, and correct them as they occur. Thank you for your understanding.

Rawk the Bawl Finals

It's been about ten days since I remembered this existed, so I guess that means that it's time to move our Rawk the Bawl competition onto the much anticipated finals. The semi-finals were not as close as the previous round, as Run DMC destroyed Ron Artest, and Redman easily took down D12 (finally).This means that the NBA finals, hip hop style, go down as follows:

(3) New Jersey Redman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redman - How high indeed. Redman faced down the odds and took out powerhouses Kanye West and D12 to squeak New Jersey in the the finals. Red will be in tough in the finals, though, going up against the grand-daddies of Rap. It'll take a lot of magic brownies to get high enough to get over this hurdle.

(7) LA Lakers Run DMC - http://pages.sbcglobal.net/tmoren/rundmc/ - For the last time, AGAIN, yes I know that Run DMC isn't from LA. As I said THRICE already, since the Lakers were unable to buy up aging talent to help Kobe this year, I thought I would do it for them in this medium. Lakers fans need some sort of consolation this year, and they seem to be easily taking steps towards it behind the power of old skool. Redman should be the toughest competition so far, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Run walk away with this competition. Agree or disagree as you will, either way get your votes in for Rawk the Bawl's champion today.