Sports Guy North

Closing Ceremony’s

Ladies and Gentlemen: you have your televisions back. Skeleton and biathlon will be replaced in your prime time lineups again with “classics” like Survivor and Desperate Housewives and whatever the other crap is these days that people are told to like. In fact, no matter how hard you try you won’t find any sports from the Olympics, apart from Alpine and Hockey, even outside of prime time hours on your TV for 4 years (unless you live in Canada where the Scott and Brier have the next month under wraps as well. And for curling fans, with Kelly Law absent from the Scott, my curling attention will be on hold until the Brier starts up in a couple weeks). Since most Olympic events aren’t really worth watching (until barrel jumping is introduced in 2018 that is), this really isn’t a big deal. The games are over, and USA was just barely able to hold Canada off in the medal race, finishing with 25 medals to Canada’s 24. American has 10 times more people than Canada, and shares a good deal of similar climate, which makes this result incredible. But it also got me thinking. Canada itself is quite populous compared to the other Winter Olympic countries – the 12th largest of the 26 medalling nations to be exact. Here, now, are the medal standings if all nations’ results were scaled to the same population (around 13.3 million people):

55 Norway
37 Austria
30 Estonia
25 Switzerland
23 Finland
21 Sweden
9.7 Canada
8.9 Croatia
7.3 Netherlands
5.8 Latvia
5.2 Czech Republic
4.7 Germany
3.0 South Korea
2.5 Italy
2.5 Slovakia
2.1 Russia
2.0 France
1.8 Bulgaria
1.3 Australia
1.3 Belarus
1.1 United States
0.7 Poland
0.6 Ukraine
0.2 Great Britain
0.1 China
0.1 Japan

Canada still fares fairly well in this measure, with their record setting medal-haul coming in 7th in the standings. The Americans, on the other hard, would win a disgraceful single medal, finishing in 21st out of 26 countries on a medals per population basis.

Here are a couple of further notes about Canada’s record-setting haul:

Canada was the only Nation who medalled in 10 of the 15 Olympic disciplines.
Canada finished with 45 top 5 finishers, which tied them for first overall.



Minnesota T’Whiners

Wow. Did anyone see this thing? I hope for your sake that you didn’t. Look it up if you must, but I am not going to give that guy any more coverage here. It was the ultimate soccer play, if you know what I mean, and it came from a fan in the audience. Pathetic. Z was clobbered on the head by Wallace yesterday for a decent number of stitches, and I didn’t see him taken off on a stretcher. Just pathetic, guy. I can’t wait to see your lawsuit thrown out, which it damn-well better be.

Who NASCARes?

My fortunately named team pulled it out again, as “Jimmie Johnson’s Bush Sacks” leader, Jimmie, came in second place to some other guy, and just ahead of some hicks whose names escape me. I am clearly the NASCAR pool master now! Speaking of NASCAR, there were some highlights of the race on TSN, and Hillary Duff was there to drop the flag. What’s that all about? I would wager anything that she hadn’t seen a NASCAR race before, unless her daddy made her suffer through some as a kid. What an odd choice.

Groin Watch

One last day of games at the Olympics, and one more addition to the Groin Watch. This one is horrible news for the Rangers, as Jaromir Jagr has been added (for the second time) to the list of Olympic casualties, choosing this year’s popular injury to do so. Before the games started I said that the players whose teams could least afford to lose them to injury during the Olympics were Hasek, Elias and Jagr. I guess it was the kiss of death since all three of them are among the injured from the games. All three.

I said it many times before, and I’ll say it again one last time before 2010: they should not hold these tournaments with NHLers if they occur during the playoff run. How do Canucks fans feel right now, having lost 2 more blueliners to injury on a squad that was short to begin with? How do Sens fans feel about relying on Emery in net as their playoff spot is determined? And it’s not just injuries. 4 years ago Tommy Salo was one of the hottest goalies in the NHL going into the Olympics. During the games he had that long goal go in on him over his shoulder to knock Sweden out of the games. He took more heat for that goal than he should of, and to the degree that it happened it’s no wonder it shook his confidence. He was never the same since, and that pretty much finished off Edmonton’s season. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of NHLers representing their countries in a kind of all-star game where everyone plays like they care. It makes for a great watch… in June or September. But for people who really care about hockey, they care about the NHL and their teams. Having NHLers in the Olympics does nothing but hurt NHL teams, and their fans once the league starts up again. Can the Rangers actually win games without Jagr? It’s hard to picture too many.

Sure, USA and Canada had trouble medalling with only amateurs in the games (probably at least partially why the rules were changed), but it was still fun to watch. It was the one chance for amateur players to actually make a name for themselves. Something for them to strive for in their game. The professionals had the Stanley Cup, and the Canada Cup (ie. World Cup), and this was the only showcase for anyone else. Sure, that meant someone like me would be playing, and inevitably losing badly to Russia, but so be it. At least Ohlund would still be around for the playoff run under that scenario, and once the games are over, does anyone really care anymore about individual results? Not nearly as much as hockey fans care about a playoff spot.

Apologies

It's Saturday night, and it's about the time I'd normally get around to a post for today. The wife, however, seems sad and has a sore back, so I'll be using this time to give her a nice long back rub instead. I guess that's what have I ever don’t to desrve a hot girl (and for those of you new to Sports Guy North, no I'm not illiterate, and please don't ask if hooked on Phoenix worked for me). Goodnight everybody, and remember to email me about the baseball pool (i wouldnt even know how to abuse your email address and information if I wanted to, so don't worry about it).

NA Medals

Canada (24) - Clara Hughes, Ladies 5000m Speed Skating, Gold
Francois-Louis Tremblay, Men's 500m Short Track Speed Skating, Silver
BEDARD Eric, GUILMETTE Jonathan, HAMELIN Charles, TREMBLAY Francois-Louis, TURCOTTE Mathieu, Men's 5000m Relay, Short Track Speed Skating, Silver
Cindy Klassen, Ladies' 5000m Speed Skating, Bronze

USA (25) - Apolo Anton Ohno, Men's 500m Short Track Speed Skating, Gold

Sports Guy North's Fantasy Baseball

It's the middle of winter, the snow's falling and the thermometer has finally dropped below freezing, so that can mean only one thing - it's a beautiful day for a ball game; let's play two! That's right, Pitchers and Catchers have reported to "spring" training already, and questions have begun coming in to me about who I would advise taking in fantasy drafts. Here's the easy answer - I'm not telling yet. The reason being that I've decided to reward my loyal readers with a FREE Fantasy Baseball league. This league will be roto, with prizes for the ultimate winner, and for the person with the most dominant week. The prizes will be determined by my Sports Guy North related advertising revenue between now and the end of the baseball season, so if you are lucky enough to get a team don't forget to start padding the prizes. You all know how that works. Also, every week the weekly leader will get a small feature article where they can speak their mind and/or advertise their blog or anything else. Since a lot of my readers are bloggers, this might be the biggest draw, not to mention the pride that goes along with finally proving that you know sports better than, say, the guys over at Forward Progress.

How can I enter, you ask? Well, since I am limiting the pool to 50 people, you have to prove to me that you have been reading, and you aren't just looking to win. Send and email to

SportsGuyNorth@gmail.com

with your answers to the following questions:

1. Who is the worst defenseman in the NHL?
2. Which Basketball Player Can Name Sports Guy North As His Number One Fan?
3. Who Is Your Rucchin Of The Year and Why?

Simple as that. Remember also to mention what city you are from. I have a list of 25 servers that access my sight the most often, and if you're from one of those places, you'll likely be at the top of the list if a tie breaker has to be implemented.

Olympic Hockey

I was ready to write a big article about the Olympic hockey semi-finals, but the Kasparitis sucked the entire desire out of my by being Kasparitis. I don't even want to give credibility to him by mentioning anything he did that pissed me off. Anyone else who saw the game has to feel the same. This guy has been ruining hockey for way too long now, and needs to be stopped. Violently. There is no way that I'm the only one who is cheering for this. Anyway, the results of these two games were exactly as I expected (although one was a little higher scoring than I thought it would be), bringing my record to 6-0 predicting the playoff round. That's nothing to brag about, though, because there's no reason to have gotten any of these games wrong. None of them were in doubt on any level. Russia should take the bronze in much the same way, no, but the Gold medal game might actually be decent. I'm still sticking with my pre-Olympic pick in Finland, but it should be a good game anyway. Sweden is more than capable of throwing in a surprise or two, along with some entertaining hockey. Even Freddy Modin scored a pretty one in this tournament. I know I've mentioned that already, but I'm still trying to come to terms with it. I'm not sure I ever will.

Barrel Jumping

This picture from Russia's win over Canada brought one thing to mind for me - Barrel Jumping. What happened to this sport? I used to love random sightings of it on Wide World of Sports back in the day. I could watch it for hours. Unfortunately, in this overly safety-conscious world, it seems to have disappeared. I could watch this stuff all day, and I really think that if it was added to the Olympics it would easily be one of the most popular events.

Even without the barrels, they need to come up with some other Winter Olympic events that amount to the equivalent of the Field half of track and field. Speeds skating already has the track part covered. Barrel Jumping can cover the long jump. Shot put might not be a good idea on ice, but how cool would pole vault be with a skate up to the jump? At the speed that skaters could get up, the jump heights could get out of control. If anyone else has some other field events they'd like to see in the winter, please suggest them. Also, if you know somewhere me and the JF can go to watch some barrel jumping this winter, speak up as well. I just can't get enough of that mostly defunct sport!

NA Medal Counts

Americans put a little distance on Canada in the battle for second place today, picking up 3 medals to only one for Canada. This should ensure their finish ahead of the Canadians, but it was a good run while it lasted. 2010 in Vancouver should be a great battle. Remember to join me there for the 2-man luge. It'll be the event of the century!

Canada (20) - Russ Howard et Al, Men's Curling, Gold

USA (23) - Julia Mancuso, Ladies' Giant Slalom, Gold
Chad Hedrick, Men's 10,000m Speed Skating, Silver
Pete Fensen et Al, Men's Curling, Bronze

Today I’m going to handle a couple of the questions that people have been sending my way. Typically Internet people call this the mailbag. That’d dumb. I didn’t receive anything physically in the mail, and even if I had it probably wouldn’t have been delivered in a bag. Have you ever gotten a bag in the mail? Not likely. So I’ve decided to call this what it is:

Dealing With Your Crap

1 – How Can I Find Highlight Footage of the NBA Dunk Contest?

You can find it the same damn way that I did – google it. If you’re too lazy for that, just click below. It is worth another look. Nate doesn’t appear to be completely out-matched when you aren’t forced to watch the 30 misses. AI is still the clear winner, though. The dunk off the backboard may have been the best dunk ever, but I really love his behind the back dunk. It just looks so smooth, like as if it was the best take out of 30 attempts…

NBA Slam Dunk Contest Video Footage

2 – Who Would You Have Picked for Team USA?

The American choices weren’t as glaringly bad as Team Canada’s, but they weren’t good either. Ryan Miller was of course the big over-sight, but a few other young kids were left off too that shouldn’t have been. Here is what my lineup would have looked like:

Defensemen

Schneider Leetch
Berard Rafalski
Preissing Liles
Hatcher

Others to Consider - Gil, Hill, Martin, Corvo

Forwards

Tkachuk Rolston Gionta
Cole Conroy Modano
Blake York Smlinski
connoly cullen drury
Gomez

Others to consider - Weight, Arnasson, Langenbruner

Goalies

Ryan Miller
Rick DiPietro
Tim Thomas

Others to consider - Grahame

3 – Do You Think the Raptors Should Pick Up Half-a Man’s Option After Next Year?

Seriously? Of course they should! Who wouldn’t want to pay $3 million dollars to the worst player on their NBDL affiliate team? There is no way that Half-a Man is destined to play in Spain or Italy, and then coach some random elementary school team over there. Nothing in his “game” gives that indication.

4 – Do You Really Think Pronger Is The Worst Defenseman Ever

This is a tough question. It’s a very bold statement in a world that includes Wade Belak and Sergei Gonchar, but I don’t care. I would take Aki Berg on my team any day over Pronger. Maybe that’s a problem in me, and it likely is, but I really can’t stand the way Chris Pronger plays. On top of that you can tell that he thinks he is really good, and that just makes it so much worse. The biggest factor of all, however, was his picking up the MVP one year. That was the biggest travesty in the history of sporting awards, and it will forever taint his game. It’s too bad that Canada didn’t win a medal, but I love the way it happened. I hope it will put a rest to the Pronger-idling that seems to go on inexplicably in the hockey world. It has to, right?

5 – what have you ever don’t to desrve a hot girl?

Priceless stuff. Keep that hard-hitting, well-thought and expressed talk coming!

6 – Did You Really Think the Raptors Could Have Made the Playoffs After Starting 1-15?

Yes. I did. That’s why I said it over and over back then. To be honest, they would still be hot in the race if not for a few mental lapses. There are about 7 or 8 specific games I can think of where they fell apart as a team and didn’t bother to just win a game that was theirs to lose. Just look at recent happenings. They are 6-4 in their last ten games, and that could have easily been 10-0. Two overtime losses against the Clippers and the Spurs that could have been over before OT, and then the two recent devastating shutdowns against New York and Memphis. If they had won just those 4 games that obviously could have gone their way, the Raptors would be only 2.5 games out of the playoffs right now. No one would be questioning me if that were the case. I do think now that those 4 losses are enough to finish their chances this year. If they keep this core, however, next year will be a different story. This team is young, and just learning to play together. With another year under their belt, the recent stretch would almost certainly have been a 10-0 run. I’ll predict right now that the Raptors will win 45 games next year. I reserve the right, however, to change that estimate if significant changes happen in the off-season.

7 – What Do You Think About the Raptors Hiring Colangelo As Their New GM

I think that Mr. Colangelo is incredibly smart, and knows the best way to keep his reputation as being a great basketball mind in tact. Toronto is a team whos most recent GM has taken more flack than anyone who isn’t named Isiah. Quietly, however, the Raptors have built a solid team that will certainly moves its way to the top of the East over the next couple of years. All someone would have to do is step in there and convince people to stay, use the huge amount of cap space Babcock and Emery got the team for the offseason and bring in a big man and a 3 point bench player. If anyone can convince people to play for him, it’s a GM with the reputation of Colangelo. There has never been a more perfect fit in the NBA – the Raptors will finaly have a means to convince players to play in Toronto, while Colangelo will have an easy ride to another executive of the year award. In my mind there is no way this teaming doesn’t happen. Something this easy is just destiny.

8 – The Cletics are not ****ing racist. You’re the ****ing racist, you racist ****ing white-hating p***s-lick dumb. You don’t know anything about sports, you should be ****ing ashamed of ripping off boston sports guy and ****ing making **** up you **** *** *** ****ing *** face. Get a life.

I concur?

9 – Do You Miss Ross Rebagliatti?

I’m not sure what you’re imnplying there, or why you ask, or anything about what’s going on. Truly puzzling question. But yes. Yes I do miss him. Dearly.

10 – Did You Really Pick Finalnd To Win The Olympics and the USA to Blow?

Yes, I did. I picked Finland over Canada in the gold medal game, and Russia over the Czechs for the bronze. It was very easy to see that the states were going to do horribly. I still find it hard to believe that anyone didn’t think that.

11 – Why Do You Hate Canada?

This question seemed right out of left field. I can only imagine it came up because I keep expressing surprise at the Canadians sticking right with the Americans in the medal standings. Historically, however, this has not been the case. I may be wrong, but didn’t Canada set their record in the 1992 games by winning 7 medals? With a couple of days, and a guaranteed medal already left in curling, Team Canada stands at 19 medals, and 20 for sure by the end of the games. That is a ridiculous turn-around in a decade. Going into these games, in the all-time medal standings, the USA had 193 medals, and the Canadians had 96. Norway led the way with 263.

Put it this way – Canada has already increased their all-time medal total in the Winter Olympics by 20% (compared to the USA by 9.8% and Norway by 6.8%). So to say I’m surprised by Canada’s relative medal count would, and should be an understatement. Canada is actually ahead of Norway in the medal standings at this point. There is no way that anyone anticipated that. Canada smashed their record in medals in 2002, and were still doubled by the Americans count. I do not hate Canada, but that doesn’t mean these Olympics haven’t been a surprise. Anyway, I’ll finish off Dealing With Your Crap as I‘ve finished off every article lately - with today’s North American medal hauls:

Canada (19) – KLEIBRINK Shannon et Al, Women’s Curling, Bronze

USA (20) – Sasha Cohen, Women’s Figure Skating, Silver
Rosey Fletcher, Ladies’ Parallel Giant Slalom Snowboarding, Bronze


If you have any questions for Sports Guy North, email him at SportsGuyNorth@gmail.com

Pronger 2, Canada 0

This is a little earlier than normal for my tomorrow post, especially since I'm calling it my tomorrow post, but I have to say this now. The game between Canada and Russia just came to an end, and like I predicted Russia came out on top. Brodeur did his best to keep Canada in the game, standing on his head from start to finish. Canada couldn't get any offense going, but at the same time they weren't playing any defense.

Most notably, Chris Pronger took his normal disastrous stab at defensive play. It was to the point of being ridiculous in this game. I have been saying this over and over since his MVP season - he is nothing but a liability in the defensive end, more so than anyone I've ever seen. He has no business being involved in international competitions especially, and I hope all the glaring evidence from this game will be enough to keep him from being selected ever again. It is painful to watch him go into the corners. The winning goal was set up from Pronger having lone control of the puck behind the net, losing it, then panicking and swatting it straight out front of the net to a player on the other team. So much was wrong with that play, but somehow it wasn't the worst effort he put up in the game. Not but the next shift out on the ice, he let a guy walk circles around him in the corner and hold the puck for 5 seconds, long enough to get a line change. Not only that, but Chris just gave up in the end and backed away, allowing him to make a pass. After the pass was made, Pronger then followed the other defenseman into the same corner he was in - a mistake that a 10 year old wouldn't be allowed to make. The culmination of all this was in the final minute of the game. With the net empty, Pronger was skating out of the zone, and Russia had only one guy forechecking. Pronger had an open pass to both sides of the ice, so what did he do? He tried to throw it forward right at the forechecker. Puck bounced off of him, and Pronger took a penalty in an attempt to get the puck back.

A classic Chris Pronger game all around, and hopefully enough to finally get him out of international play. It honestly would have been better to have me out there on the point instead of Pronger. That's just not right.



The Interview

They interviewed Pronger after the game, and there was nothing mentioned about his play. All he said was that as a team they blew it. No responsibility for himself, just that the young guys didn't play hard enough. When asked why they were taking undisciplined penalties at bad times, he answered with it was hard to interpret what the refs would call and so on. Nothing about himself closing off the game with a dumb penalty at the end, then any ref at any point in history would have called. Pronger also said today was the best his foot ever felt, so you can't even look to that as an excuse. Pronger is just bad, and for a leader to point the blame at his young teammates instead of taking any himself is extra disgusting. He mentioned that they would be in the gold medal game in 2010, and said it as though he would be a part of the team. Lets all hope that just isn't true.

Other Hockey Notes

Anyway, all the games today went down as expected, and the 4 winners were as easy to pick as they appeared. Nonetheless, I'll try to say a little something about the other three games now, even if it is mostly things I could have written before the games were actually played.

One surprise, though, was that Freddy Modin scored a really pretty goal for Sweden today as they took advantage of their favourable 3rd place finish. Freddy Modin. Really. That's tough information to figure out what to do with. But no matter, this game was like watching a midget team taking on some NHLers. Seriously. Sweden was just toying with them, building a 5-1 lead after the second period, and just toying with them in the third. The Swiss out-shot them 14-2 in the third, but they were all long shots and the ones Sweden wanted them to take. It'll really didn’t make for a good game to watch, but it was very smart for the Swedes to put themselves in that position. If only Canada was as smart, but like Cherry said, they just aren’t. Czechs are easily handling the Slovaks today. Shots were 17-5 after the first. That could have been Canada.

Ohlund went down in a heap today with what looked like a shoulder injury, but is now being called broken ribs. Gagne also took the plunge today, which really makes me question again having these generally meaningless tournaments mid-season. How happy are all the Canucks fans out there that this tournament took place? They lost a couple of key players now, and it will hurt their run to the playoffs. A couple more injuries, and 2010 may be the last time we see NHLers in the Olympics for a long while. If you ask me, that's just the way it should be. These tournaments are a great idea, but not in the playoff races. Honestly, how many of these games were fun to watch? The Canada-Russia game today is probably the only one I can think of.

The Americans took on Finland today in another of the quarterfinal games, and as I predicted, they were no match. The American team in these games just was not very good, and it showed yet again. The day that Chris Chelios stands out as being the least inadequate, you're beyond the point of something having gone wrong. That's just embarrassing at that point. Hopefully for the next tournament they will follow the youth movement they should have this time, and more than anything hopefully Ryan Miller will be in net. He has secured himself as a top-3 goalie in the NHL and really deserved to be there.



So, in watching some of the Czech vs. Slovak game it dawned on me that these two super powers were once one country. Could you imagine if Czechoslovakia was still together? I don’t think there is a single tournament in the last 10 years they would have lost if that were the case. Upon quick inspection, here is a team that they could have sent to the Olympics this year, if they were still together (and baring injuries):

D Slk CHARA Zdeno
D Cze KABERLE Tomas
D Cze MALIK Marek
D Slk MESZAROS Andrej
D Cze SPACEK Jaroslav
D Slk VISNOVSKY Lubomir

F Slk BONDRA Peter
F Slk DEMITRA Pavol
F Cze ELIAS Patrik
F Slk GABORIK Marian
F Cze HEJDUK Milan
F Slk HOSSA Marian
F Cze JAGR Jaromir
F Cze LANG Robert
F Cze RUCINSKY Martin
F Slk SATAN Miroslav
F Cze STRAKA Martin
F Slk SVATOS Marek

G Cze HASEK Dominik
G Cze VOKOUN Tomas
G Slk BUDAJ Peter

That's ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that players like Hemsky, Kotalik, Prospal, Stumpel and Zednik are sitting at home in this situation. But so is Ryan Miller, so maybe it's not so strange. Either way, I really don’t see how anyone else could compete with what the Czechs and Slovaks would put together under one team these days.

Dem Bones

Duff, the Canadian gold medallist in skeleton, was very candid in an interview yesterday. He stated that every time he switched sports it wasn’t because he enjoyed the sport, but because he was going after his goal of representing Canada. And that's the only reason. He went from speed skating to bobsled, and finally to skeleton, a sport which he admittedly used to make fun of. He felt he had the best chance of representing Canada in that event, so he took it up anyway. It's nice to see the real spirit of the Olympics is still alive.

And with that, here are today’s medallists from North America. Surprisingly the Canadians yet again caught up to the Americans in the standings. This is baffling. Unfortunately, there will be no hockey medal to add to that total for either team. it's too bad, too, because they both could have medalled if I was in charge of things. Pity.

Canada (18) - Cindy Klassen, Ladies' 1500m Speed Skating, Gold
Chandre Crawford, Ladies' Sprint Cross-Country Skiing, Gold
Kristina Groves, ladies' 1500m Speed Skating, Silver
Alanna Kraus, Anouk Leblanc-Boucher, Amanda Overland, Kalyna Roberge, Tania Vicent, Short Track Speed Skating Ass-Pushing Relay, Silver

USA (18) - None

Olympic Meltdown

I must admit, my motivation to write something every day is being sucked away by the Olympics at this point. It’s just too much mostly un-interesting stuff shoved in my face in a short period of time, and I don’t want to feel like I’m contributing to it. There is just no escaping sport during these weeks. I almost want to switch it up and write a political post, or something about “saving the males”, but I realize that this likely would turn the few loyal readers I have away. When you’ve only got a core fan base of 20 people, you really can’t offend them.



Speaking of saving the males, and offending people. When I typed out save the males up there, I thought it was pretty funny. That is, until I did a quick google search for Save the Males. What I found might be one of the most offensive sights I’ve ever come across. Everything is on there, from Relearning the Heterosexual love, to stating that George Bush is Jewish (and that it’s a negative thing, as you may have guessed). How an anti-feminism website turned into an anti-Semitic website is beyond me. But the strangest thing of all is that the site originated from the University of Winnipeg. The funniest thing of all is that it displays a flash that bashes the school for having a population that is 80% women, and says that socializing there stinks because there isn’t enough guys, shown here - http://www.savethemales.ca/uw/index.html (remember, if you watch this part, do not view any of the rest of the site. I do NOT condone it, and find it very offensive. I just think it’s funny that some people out there can still be this way. It’s beyond me.)

Anyway, to my straight readers out there, what is your first thought when you hear those statistics about UW? Probably the same as mine – why on earth didn’t I go there, and maybe what Graduate studies do they offer! Nothing in what they are complaining about sounds like a problem at all. But I guess if you’re someone who is going to take the time to research ways in which George Bush might be Jewish, you’re probably the type to find a way to hate anything. More importantly, if you’re so insecure in your own sexuality that you need to lash out at anything bordering on homosexuality, or being different in any way, then there’s probably a reason that you aren’t happy being surrounded by a 4 to 1 ratio of college girls.

Back To the Olympics

OK, that was enough of a side track for now, back to the Olympics (there really is no escaping it). I was watching a bit of the hockey coverage, and Don Cherry himself called Europeans smart, and said they use Canadians as dummies. Then he said that Canadians are kind of dummies, the way they act.

Oh sure, when put in context it was a little different than it sounds there, but who cares about context? It's media prerogative to take something way out of context in order to prove a more interesting point, especially if it then becomes something inflammatory. Hence, Don Cherry agrees with all those out there who think the education system is failing our kids and needs to be revamped. Maybe the best way to do that would be to get more boys into higher education, and fields like maths and sciences. I hear that they are at a disadvantage in those ways these days.



But in reality, maybe he has a point. Maybe Canadians are stupid. The Swedes were smart enough to throw their game in order to face the Swiss in the quarter-finals, why weren't the Canadians smart enough to throw their game against the Czechs. Obviously it was a huge brain fart for the Swedish coach to suggest out loud that they would throw the game, but it was a great move to throw it. No one expected them not to anyway. The same should have been true for the Canadians, except that the expectation with Canada is that they would never do something like that, so it wasn’t anticipated. In a sense, though, that is a pretty stupid charateristic of Canadians, if your definition of success lies purely in results.

Round Robin withstanding, the Russians are the one team in the tournament who would likely be the biggest challenge for the Canadians. And at this moment, I don't think they can beat them. It will be a Russia - Finland final, and since the Canadians didn't throw their game, that means no medal for Canada. Simple as that. The Swedes might not be in the gold medal game in the end, but I would much rather play the Swiss, followed by the Slovaks like they are primed to do, as opposed to the Russians and then the Fins. Winning today was just pure stupidity on the Canadians part, and it will cost one of the top 2 teams a medal. Brodeur’s really going to have to steal one for it to not be the Canadians who are going home. Depending on how you look at it, stupidity does play a big role in that outcome.

Non-Olympic Basketball

On the Raptor front, sandwiching 2 horribly blown chances to win around both sides of the all-star break is no way to weaken their effect. These lackadaisical efforts, especially in the 4th quarters, have probably but a stop to the raptors playoff hopes this year. 22-32 looks a lot better down the stretch than 20-34 does. I'm almost now at a point where I have to declare the season officialy lost. The next week and a half will say for sure. But if they even one more game get away like they did against both the lowly Knicks and he Griz, then it’ll be over for sure. At that point they will have a tough quandary to deal with. On one hand, Mike James’ contract is up at the end of the year, so if they don’t trade him and he signs elsewhere the Raptor’s office will take a lot of heat for losing him for nothing as they did with Donyell last season. On the other hand, if they do trade him it will upset franchise player CB4, who has been vocal about wanting Mike around long-term. I really don’t have a suggestion of which way to go. With their track record thus far, any move they Raptors office makes will be met with scrutiny, and will likely be looked upon as the wrong move. They need to have Embry make the decision, then bring in the new GM so that he isn’t tainted by the inevitable fall-out. No matter how the season closes from here on in, it’s going to be a tough one for the Raptor’s front office staff. If only a magical mind like Babcock’s was still around to find a way around this problem. I would love to see his approach.



North American Medal Update

Here now is the daily recap of how Canadians and Americans fared today as far as medals go. The Americans are finaly pulling away from the Canadians, which really is no surprise. Canada has Skeleton to thank for keeping it close for as long as they did.

Canada (14) – None

USA (18) – Shani Davis, Men’s 15m Speed Skating, Silver
Shauna Rohbock, Valerie Fleming, Women’s Bobsleigh, Silver
Chad Hedrick, Men’s 15m Speed Skating, Bronze

His exuberance is perplexing

Yes, I may have tackled a little too much today. I was watching one of my favourite episodes of The Simpson’s, and I decided to write down all of the best quotes from the show, and then tackle incorporating them into headlines for today’s post. I think my temporary enthusiasm may have gotten way ahead of me, and like Michael Johnson racing Donovan Bailey, I just may have to pull up limp in the end. Unlike MJ, though, I will honestly try to give it my best shot.

Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians

I was going to write about women’s hockey under this title, but I wasn’t prepared to face that kind of backlash today. Instead I’ll talk about figure skating again. No, not in the way you are thinking. A story that was somewhat lost in Jeff Buttle’s surprising climb back up to the bronze medal position was that Weir’s fall from second to fifth had something to do with transportation problems. Apparently when asked about his poor performance he had this to say:
“I felt rushed. They changed the bus schedule; I missed the bus, and had to jump in a car. I never caught up to myself and my body didn't catch up."
How do you train for four years with one goal in mind, and then miss the bus? I don’t care what they do to the bus schedule, you don’t miss it. You just don’t. And if you do, and are still able to get there on time, shake it off. 4 years versus 5 minutes of inconvenience. Yikes. There isn’t a single athlete in the world that would have acted that way. Not a single athlete.


I said bishop to queen 4!

2 more fourth place finishes for Canada today, including the gorgeous Kelly Vanderbeek, to take them to a total of 7 4th place finishes thus far. That’s an alarming number of people in the first loser position. If any of these athletes put up slightly more effort to bring home the hardware, Canada would be leading all countries in the medal race.

Martha I want a divorce

Well, apparently the wife isn’t too happy with all of the pictures of girls that have been popping up on my site lately, culminating in the possibly misplaced photo of Maria yesterday that was accompanied by no mention of tennis (please not, today's headline is the title of the Simpson's episode, and not a comment on my wife in particular!). To make this up to her, in today’s post everywhere I wanted to include a picture of a girl, instead a picture of Valerie will be in it’s place. I hope this doesn’t cause you too much confusion, and reassures my lady that she is still the prettiest girl in the world to me. For now.

Oh George you made me so happy

And by George, I mean Teddy. The Teddy Roger’s Sportsnet channel is by far the best source of escape from the Olympic onslaught forced upon us these days. As they aren’t involved in Olympic coverage, they aren’t allowed to show any footage from the games. This limits the amount of Olympic coverage to 24 minutes per half hour instead of the 29 you find on TSN. It might not be much, but at least it’s something.

Please accept this free ticket to the 1939 worlds fair

That’s probably what winning the bronze medal felt like today to the American Women’s hockey team, although they’d never let on. As expected, neither the Gold nor Bronze medal games were particularly close today, as the worlds two dominant nations found themselves separated into two separate games. Gold to Canada, surprising silver to Sweden and Bronze to the states. I can’t figure out who was more devastated by Sweden’s surprise win over the USA – the Americans themselves, or the Fins, who saw any chance they had at a medal in a match-up with Sweden fly out the window. Either way, the medals went to the three countries that really play the sport, and the most dominant team won the gold. Sounds about right.

We touched hands and then we had to wash the cooties off

2 man luge. Shudder.

I want to amble... I want to saunter...

http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/IH/C74_IHM400B10.html
Above is a link to the box score from one of the games more unbalanced hockey match-ups between Russia and Latvia. Unlike the pitiful American team, who could hardly manage a tie against lowly Latvia, the Russians handled them with ease, winning 9-2. Well, most of the Russians handled them with ease. The Pittsburgh Penguins struggling defenseman, Sergei Gonchar, however, has continued his woeful play in Italy. In a 9 to 2 win he actually managed to be a minus two. Seriously. Check out the link above there, it really happened. While his teammates were playing hokey, Gonchar was happy as always lately to just saunter back and forth along the ice. If anyone in Pittsburgh should have retired before ruining his legacy forever, it’s Gonchar. I think after his Olympic performance it may be officially too late.

You shake me from my bootie to my fro

This here is just a shout out to all of the fine ladies of women’s tennis. We haven’t forgotten about you all in these Olympic daze. You’re always on our minds in some form or another.

You can’t walk to Turkmenistan

Then I guess it’s a good thing that the other Turks aren’t in on the bidding for the 2014 Olympics. Surprisingly, neighbouring nations Georgia and even Kazakhstan are in on the running, and since most people in those countries can’t afford to do anything but walk, it’s a good thing no one said that you couldn’t walk there. The entire list of 2014 hopefuls is:

Almaty, Kazakhstan
Borjomi, Georgia
Jaca, Spain
Pyeongchang, South Korea
Salzburg, Austria
Sochi, Russia
Sofia, Bulgaria

I guess they’ve run out of elite countries to hold the competition in. You have to think that this one will come down to Jaca vs. Salzburg, and I know I for one am rooting for South Korea. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to go to any events no matter which of those cities win, so since I’m up all hours of the night, and can’t watch anything during the day, something in the far east time zones suits my schedule the best. I can’t miss my 2-man luge fix. I just can’t.

My feet are inside me

Someone did a search for “ruutu, jagr, tackle” that ended up at my sight today, and got my hopes up that something cool happened before the check in Saturdays game. You know, something involving Jagr tackling Ruutu, and maybe giving him some precedent like retaliation for the dirty hit he laid on Jagr. As it turns out, it was just some soccer fan that doesn’t know what a check in hockey is called. Ruutu is just the same old ass as he has always been, and for no reason but his assiness went around Jagr’s body on the check to make sure he got his head into the boards. Classy move from a classy guy. I’m sure glad that he gets to play professional hockey, he really makes it great!

Who’s we? Got a mouse in your purse?

Oh yeah, 2 man luge again. Can’t wait to see it in person in Vancouver 2010! I’ll start recruiting places in the big cheering section sometime in 2008. Book your spot today and avoid the rush!

Commander Cool (aka me)

This one’s for you, Captain Fudge. Welcome back from Ottawa, wasn’t the same around here without you. I actually had to talk to Aaron to pass the time. No one wants that.

What should I do, Dr. Hotdog?

I received this quote from someone today, that I can’t quite tell what to do with. “aki berg looked like the real adam foote out there. he was awesome.”
If anyone out there can decipher this for me, please help. Aki Berg is horrible, but it seems like it might be a complement. On the other hand, though, Adam Foote has no business being on an international team either. E is mediocre at best, but definitely better than Aki. My hope is that the first part was a reference to Foote also sucking, despite his hype, and that the second half was sarcasm. I’m not certain about that, though, so whoever gets me the right decipher will become the new Dr. Hotdog. Good luck with this one guys.

Tonight his beloved mock apple pie will have real apples

A friend of mine made the following observation the other day regarding Chris Pronger. It likely stemmed from the incident where Pronger couldn’t handle 5 foot nothing Koivu behind the net, who then set up a goal in the process. He compared him to Sheldon Souray, by saying that he actually thought he was watching Souray in the game. This comes as no surprise to me. Even in Pronger’s MVP season I couldn’t understand why people didn’t care that Pronger is incredibly weak on defense, especially in the corners. As I’ve said before in this blog, anyone at all that wants to walk out front from the corner if he’s on the ice just gets to. Simple as that. It’s nice to see that people are finally coming to this realization I made years ago. Pronger and Souray, a carbon copy on D.

Dude - Meet me in Montana. xoxo Jesus (H. Christ)

That’s right, Jerome Bettis has signed on to join Joe Montana in NBC’s NFL studio come this fall. Hopefully this means that we will finally find out in one of the broadcasts just where Bettis is from. That unsolved question has been plaguing me for months now!

How bout a make up snuggle? It would be so rad.

As I send this to a close with today’s North American medal winners, I just hope that the pictures today were enough to get a little bit more than a make up snuggle. Goodnight everybody.

Canada:Various, Women’s Ice hockey, Gold

USA: Tanith Belbin, Ben Agosto, Ice Dancing, Silver
Various, Women’s Ice hockey, bronze

It’s early bedtime again for the Sports Guy North today, and you all know what that means. It’s time for the great nation of Hungary’s favourite new feature: Notes of Note.



Ice Dancing

Did anyone see the Canadian ice dancing team today? That was quite the spectacular drop to end their skate. If you could guarantee 3 or 4 of those per skate, that might make it something to see. Oh, or what if multiple pairs had to go at a time, and they were allotted one body check each per session. Get like 8 pairs on the ice, and then if you’d done too well in the past everyone would be out to take you down. That could be something. But that’s not how it is, so highlights from ice dancing on my sportsnet news are limited to the one big drop of the evening. And that’s more than enough for me.

All Star Sunday

So they had a follow-up to the wonderful Saturday night events, and actually in the end it ended up being pretty good. LeBron and TMac each put on a show, and the second-half ended up being really good all around. When I saw Vince going in for the ally-oop dunk at the end, all I could think was I hope that bounces off the back of the rim, and finds it’s way down to T-Mac in time for him to hit the winning three. Sure enough, Vince blew a tire on the dunk, but unfortunately there wasn’t quite enough time to finish it like I pictured. Deserving MVP accolades to LeBron, becoming the youngest winning in history, and all in all a very nice show put on. It is the most impressed I have been by an al-star function since I was a kid.

Daytona 500

NASCAR! If that got your attention, then I no long wish to have you as a reader of mine. No offense or anything, but NASCAR is not something worth any of your attention. Odds are no one who likes NASCAR can either read, nor do they have internet, so I think I’m safe. Anyway, I only mention this because we have a NASCAR pool that we set up as a laugh, since no one knows anything about NASCAR. When I made my team I called it Jimmie Johnson’s Bush Sacks, because I was actually able to put Jimmie Johnson, some guy named Sacks, and a couple of Bush’s on the team. So that’s what I did. Low and behold Jimmie Johnson apparently won the 500, and I am the king of NASCAR at this point. It’s sure to last. Yay NASCAR!


Ricky Williams

Oh Ricky.



Olympic Hockey

Wow. But not really. Two losses this weekend for Team Canada to Switzerland and Finland, and the Nucks have slid down the standings. The Americans also picked up a couple of loses this weekend to fall to 1-2-1 and fourth place. Both teams will still be in the playoffs, as 8 of 12 teams make it, and Germany, Italy, Latvia and the Kazaks are still in the tournament. Really, I’m not surprised by the results. I said before the tournament that the Americans would win only 2 of their 5 games, and also that the Fins were better than the Canadians. The loss to Switzerland by the Canadians and the tie against Latvia by the Americans were the only surprises to me. The Canadians should still pick up a medal, but only because the other nations did a horrible job putting rosters together. Finland gold, Canada silver and Russia bronze was my original prediction, and it could still hold. The Slovaks are playing some interesting hockey, though. And the Americans are just as bad as I thought they would be. Seriously, Team USA, I am available to help you put together a team any time you want. With the talent available that wasn’t on the team I could have guaranteed a medal, but instead the worst American team in a long time was sent to make a short appearance in this years games. Luckily for the Canadians, that is.



Medal Tracking

With a couple of medals today, the Canadians have caught back up to the Americans in the medal race again. This really is unheard of at this point. The standings are as follows:

………………G_S_B_T
1.Germany_7_7_4_18
2.Norway__2_7_7_16
3.USA____.7_4_2_13
3.Russia___6_2_5_13
3.Canada__.2_6_5_13

Anyway, here is a recap of today’s results that brought Canada back up to a tie with America. Surprisingly they were in semi-real events this time that have been in the Olympics for years, bringing the real medal total for Canada up to 5 at this point by my count.

Canada: Pierre Lueders and Lascelles Brown, Two-Man Bobsleigh, Silver
Cindy Klassen, Ladies’ 1000m Speed Skating, Silver
USA: Nothing

In The Begining, There Was Nothing

The NBA skills night starts out with 50 minutes of.... nothing. Nothing at all. Some kids playing drums, 10 year olds dancing, and all culminating in Walter McCarty inexplicably taking a stab at the national anthem. How did they let this happen? Seriously. How. This is not a good sign for how the rest of the night will go. I fear the worst.

Followed By Nothing

So, then the next ten minutes are also filled with effectively nothing as they have another go at the team competition. That’s the thing where an NBA player, an old guy and some girl take shots from assigned areas, with the best time winning. The Spurs were up first, with Parker, Kerr and some lady. They go through with no error, and then Parker makes the half courter on the first shot. Game over, no one is beating this. The Lakers were up next, and I’m reminded beforehand of Magic’s humourous struggles last year, and I anticipate the same again. Instead, this time there is Lisa Leslie right under the basket needing 6 shots, and Magic making his first. He did need 5 shots for his second, but then Kobe, like Parker, also makes his first half court shot.

Swoops Clyde and TMac then have little problems, but they cant meet the first time set by San Antonio and they know it. This contest is done, even with Phoenix left to go. Thunder Dan just doesn’t have enough tricks in his pockets, and this meaningless, retarded event is over. Parker, Kerr and whatever girl that was take it.

Download Punk'd on iTunes

Skilled Completision

Next up is the skills competition. This has somehow become the marquee event of the night with all the biggest stars taking place. LeBron, Nash, Chris Paul and Wade are this years competitors, while Iguodala, Nate Robinson, Smith and Warrick are in the dunk contest. This isn't right. Imagine a dunk contest with LeBron, Wade, Iguodala and Kobe. It's just really weird to me that the skills competition has the marquee names now. But whatever, nothing can change that at this point.

Paul went first and went slow, finishing at 42 seconds. Wade followed it up with a dunk, pretty passes, but a horrible time at the 3 point line, managing to just edge out Paul’s time at 39 seconds. LeBron, showing yet again that his passng game is a thing of the past, came in between their times at 40.5 very unspectacular seconds. Nash then went in there and was a disgraceful hack. But really, who cares? This event is dumb, and the star players should be back n the dunk contest. No one cares about this one. Play station must be paying a lot of money to get guys like LeBron and Wade into this debacle.

Second time through LeBron does a little better and throws down a 33 second run. Wade whips through at 26 seconds with a perfect run for the championship and all the glory that comes along with it. At this point in the night I'm really questioning why I’m sitting at home watching this instead of doing absolutely anything else. An hour and 20 minutes have gone by without a single second of entertainment as far as I'm concerned. At this point I also know that my least favourite part of the night is going to be the repetitive showing of Eva Longoria in the audience. Who decided that anyone cares about her? She's not all that attractive, she instantly gives off an air of “I’m better than you” anytime you see her, and she's in the worst show on tv since sex in the city. I just don’t get it. Someone has to give me a job deciding what goes on tv, i know i could do a much better job than anyone who actually holds one of those jobs. And don't even get me started on advertisers.

Three Point Contest

But moving on, 15 minutes inexplicably pass again, and they finally get around to the three-point contest. I would love to see Donyell Marshall take one of these before his career comes to an end, but for some reason he's never invited. The contestants this year are Ray Allen, Dirk Nowitski, Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Q Rich and Jason Terry. Again, unlike the dunk contest, this is a pretty decent lineup of all-stars (plus Jason Terry). But I guess no one cares about dunks anymore.

Arenas starts off with no buckets on the first rack, but finishes off with 14 points. Not bad for 0 to start. Jason Terry went second, started off with a big air-ball, took too much time and ended up with 13 points. Disco Dirk, the tallest competitor in three-point contest history as far as I can remember, came in strong with 14 points as well (although it should only be 12 as far as big Charles is concerned). Next up - more ads. Sigh. How long can they drag this night out? And it's all going to climax with Nate Robinsons appearance in the dunk contest. Maybe I should call someone up and see if anything else is going on tonight. Before I get around to it, though, the contest is back on and Ray Allen takes to the court. Likely the best shooter in the game today, he gets off to a slow start, but comes on strong finishing with 19 points.

Barkley just compared Allen’s shot to his Golf Swing, saying there is no wasted motion. Has anyone else seen Chuck golfing? It's something. Not a flattering comparison if you ask me.

Back to the contest, Chauncey comes out of the gate strong, but then misses 11 of 12 in the middle, finishing with only 12 points. Last up is Q – air ball to start yet again, and six misses to finishes off and become eliminated. So the finalists are Arenas with 14, Disco with 14 and Allen with 19. Not so great.

Second round, Arenas' up first and misses his first few shots again, but again comes up strong finishing with 16 points. He also made a new symbol with his fingers that i hadn't seen before, and it kind of made me miss the days of the triangle over the head. What does that say about this new sign? Anyway, Dirk’s up next and looks a little better this round, putting up a quick 13 points by half-time, finishing with 18. Ray Allen ran a little cold in the middle, finishing with only 15 points, making Big Disco the 3-points champion, and guaranteeing that the 3-point champion this year would be taller than the dunk champion. I don't have much definite history to back this up, but I can't imagine there were many years where the 3-point champ was taller than anyone in the dunk contest. Says me.

he conclusion of the 3-point contest sees another huge break, including an inexplicable appearance from Elton Brand introducing yet ANOTHER look at the NBA cares program. Man, are they over-hyping this thing. We get it already - not all NBA players are thugs and gangstas. To drive the point home even further, next comes a performance by Andrea Bottecelli. Did I spell his name right? Probably not. And why is that? Because I am a basketball fan, so there is a 99.99999% chance that I DON'T CARE AT ALL ABOUT THIS GUY. What is going on here? I haven’t seen this much over-compensating since Third Eye Blind came out with their follow-up “We Are Not Gay” album. It's one thing to want to bring up the image of the league, but once it's at the expense of putting your fans through a constant barrage of crap they don't care about, it's gone way too far. Just way too far. They had an opera singer performing at a basketball all-star event. Seriously, that's what happened. Sigh.

The Big Show?

We are now 128 minutes into this thing, and finally onto the dunk contest. I can't wait to see what Vince and LeBron are going to do to top Kobe's performance. Oh wait, I mean what Nate Robinson and Hakim Warrick will do to top Smith. Sniff.

So anyway, benchwarmer Hakim Warrick (although a favourite of mine) is up first, and he throws down a simple fake statue of liberty, come back underneath dunk to score a 44. 6'6" AI is up second, throwing the ball up to himself off a bounce and doing some stuff with his arms like you always see people do on dunks these days, but still coming up with 45 points. The 5'9" Nate Robinson gimmick takes the floor, with a throw bounce ally-oop, followed by a pretty nice 360 dunk. It wasn’t much better than the first two dunks BUT he gets the gimmick votes and takes 49 points, setting up for a gimmick to win yet again.

Then, since Smith realizes the only way to beat a gimmick is with a gimmick, he goes out and puts tape on the floor at an impossible distance... only to ignore it completely and attempt one of those take a full step over the free-throw line dunks for 41 points. What was the tape for? Yikes. The contest so far is ever worse than I was anticipating. It can only go up from this point, right? Smith's going to use that tape on his second attempt, right!?!??!

Speaking of second attempts, here we go again. Warrick takes 2 attempts to catch a pass from a dude in a chair and jump over him. Haven't seen that before. Sigh. 42 points, for 86 total. AI up next, and to the great amusement of the announcing staff, he sets up to take a pass from the other AI. What was so funny about this? I have no idea, the best I can tell is that they were passing up lots of cocktails in the media room in the last commercial break. But finally... FINALLY something to see! Iverson passes it to him off the back of the backboard, he grabs it, pulls the ball and his head under the backboard, and then extends it back upwards and dunks it for 50 points and 95 total points. This is one of the best dunks i've ever seen, and my heart is finally beating a bit for the first time tonight. Only to be taken back down by a simple toss up to the gimmick, who still somehow gets the gimmick votes for 44 and 93 total, taking Smith out of contention even before his second dunk. Have I mentioned how much I hate gimmicks? They are so bad. Nate didn’t make good dunks and he's in the finals even before JS's second dunk. I really hope AI saved something for the finals to take him down. Anyway Smith did something and got some points and is out.

The final is set to go, after another huge break, and it's the real guy against the gimmick. Mind you, he isn’t that much of a gimmick. He's only 2 inches shorter than Iverson. But nonetheless he is getting the full gimmick treatment. And as he starts off here, he's trying to get the Birdman treatment as well! 7 misses so far. Now 8. Moving through different styles of dunks as well. 9 now, and the gimmick is getting tired. He clearly has his sights set on Birdmans records. 10 misses and I notice that this is SO much better than having Smith in the finals with AI. 11th try through the legs, opposite hand, and throws it down. Decent dunk, but if he wins after missing 10 attempts, it will be the lowest point of the night. 44 points and onto AI, who gets a little love from Dr.J and steps up to the free throw line, tosses the ball up in the air, grabs it in the air with his left, behind his back to the right and in. Wow. AI is the real deal. Those are 2 real 50-point dunks for AI.

Now, as if the gimmick wasn’t gimmick enough, he pulls the original gimmick himself out of the audience in Spud Webb, takes a bounce pass from him and jumps over another short guy for the dunk. Sigh. The new ultimate gimmick to end all gimmicks has finally taken place. Jumping the shark shall from now on be known as jumping the spud. I hope and wish that this won’t pay off, but AI put up a pretty lame dunk, through the legs, and was saved for my sake into a dunk-off. I hate gimmicks so much, and tonight has been hard enough to sit through, if a gimmick wins I will officially be with drawing from watching slam dunk saturday in the future. So with that, we move onto the dunk-off. Apparently not happy to have come up short of Birdman’s record earlier, Nate is quickly into the double digits in misses on his dunk-off attempt. Once you get to 15 misses you give up, right? RIGHT?!!?? Apparently not. This is out of control. 20 attempts (the announcers generously said 14) and he finally gets one down. It's pretty good, under both legs at the three point line, off the backboard and dunked. 47 points. That’s a tough score for AI to take down. And he didn’t do it. This isn't right. Not right at all. The gimmick won, and did it by not having the best dunks, even if he took 50 attempts to get them. And I'm done with this. Don't expect an All Star Saturday post from me next year unless something drastic changes. This was brutal all around. I have nothing more to say about it. It's a mess.

It's My Game

After watching the mess that was this evening’s event, I think to myself who should have been in these contests to make it better? I first decided that the only way to fix the first hour and a half would have been to miss it, as the Team thing and the skills comp just don't belong and serve only to fill up time and bring in more advertising money. The other two contests, however, were just horribly cast. For one thing, these contests should only involve people who are actually playing in the all-star game. On top of they, the participants should be voted in by the fans out of the cast of people who are in the game, and if they are voted in they should be told that if they don’t compete in the event they are voted into, then they can't play in the all-star game either. Maybe then there would be a little more excitement in the Dunk Contest that hasn't been there for 6 years.

End of season clearance! Save up to 65% off at CCS.com!

Without the fan vote, however, it should default to me picking who is in the contest, and thus be independent of the games participants. If I were setting up the evening, the three point contest and dunk contest should have involved the following:

3 Point Contest

Ray Allen
Mike James
Raja Bell
Chauncy Billups
Steve Nash
Kyle Korver

Dunk Contest

Vince Carter
LeBron James
Kobe Bryant
Andre Iguodala
Jermaine O’Neal

Now that would be an evening to watch. Until that day, I have now officially retired from watching All Star Saturday. I just can’t take another night like tonight, and I really don’t think that we, as fans, should have to.

The World Is Upside-down

Halfway through the Olympic Games and the medal standings are as follows:

................... G S B Tot
1. Norway.... 1 6 6 13
2. Germany. 5 4 2 11
2. Russia..... 5 2 4 11
2. Canada.... 2 4 5 11
5. USA......... 6 3 1 10

This is unheard of at this point, the Canadians are actually ahead of the Americans for now. Has the world gone topsy turvy? Well not so fast. Take a look at 8 of the 11 medals that the Canadians have won.

Gold – Moguls, Skeleton
Silver – Team Cross Country Skiing, Skeleton, and 2 in Team Pursuit
Bronze – Skeleton, Snowboard Cross

That’s right, make up enough fake sports, and any country can come out on top. As it turns out that Canadians have the most free time to spend on freak winter sports. I mean, how many Canadians haven’t gone hurdling down a hill face first on a Krazy Karpet? Skeleton was made with crazy canuck kids in mind. The Gold medal winner also set the record as the oldest Olympic gold medallist in history, with just 6 months until his big 4-0 to smash the old record of 35. That itself says something about the skelton competition.

Without these medals it would be 3 bonze medals and a spot down the medal list at this point for Canada, but so goes the world where trampoline and ballroom dancing are more representative of world sports than baseball. I still have faith, though, that the American will shoot well past the Canadians by the end of the games. Canada should certainly enjoy their lead for now, though, it’s not something that happens every 4 years.

Women’s Hockey

To those of you who said I shouldn’t condone the Canadian women’s outright destruction of their opponents, take note today. I said the reason they had to do it was to be able to put off playing the Swedes, as they have made big strides in their program. Sure enough, Canada gets the tie break, and the Americans are forced to play Sweden in the semi-finals. What’s the end result? The Americans lost today in a shoot out against the Swedes, setting up the first final in the history of women’s hockey history (15 plus years) that does involve Canada and the states. As a reward for blowing away their round robin competition, the Canadians were rewarded with a blowout win over Finland. And all those Canadians, Don Cherry included, who were all over the Canadian women for running up their scores better be choking on their words today.

By the way, with their loss today the Americans overall record against Canada stands at 9-26-1, while against the rest of the world they fall to 60-1-2. Sweden is giving note that the money and attention they have spent on their women’s hockey team is paying off, just in time for women’s hockey to be removed from the Olympics for the 2014 games. Too little, too late, but at least there’s a little something special to look forward to no in women’s hockey. The days of guaranteed same old same old are behind us, and with Sweden leaping ahead in third, Russia is sure to follow and pay more attention to their teams. Good news for women’s hockey, but like I said it’s probably a little too late at this point. If the next games weren’t in Canada this sport would be gone already. And it’s too bad too, because there is nothing hotter than women playing hockey. Hands down the sexiest look for a woman is wearing nothing but shin guards, hockey socks and hockey pants. You really just don’t see enough of that.

Groin Watch

According to Thomas Vokoun, I retired the groin watch prematurely. In an interview yesterday, Vokoun claimed that the injury Hasek originally called a hamstring pull was in reality a groin injury. Even I’m getting tired of all the groin injuries at this point. Something must be done, and soon. It’s out of control at this point.

Medal Watch

USA – Lindsey Jacobellis, Ladies’ Snowboard Cross, Silver

Canada – Duff Gibson, Men’s Skelton, Gold
Jeff Pain, Men’s Skelton, Silver
Dominique Maltais, Ladies’ Snowboard Cross, Bronze

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.

2 Man Tragedy

Well, this isn't the type of thing you want to see. Literally. Today's 2-man luge went off full of hitches, notably among them was a crash involving favourites Brian Martin and Mark Grimmette from the USA. As if it's not bad enough for the men to have to jiggle and bounce up and down on each other as they race, these men, among others, had to scrape along the ice at the same time as a few sleds flipped as the day went on. Luckily Martin was there to break Grimmettes fall, while at the same time Grimmette was able to break Martin’s fall, as you can see in the following pictures. The pair lucked out as such naturally occurring padding can't be found in any other sport.


So, did anyone else attempt to watch this event, or was it just my 2-minute shot at it? What brought my watching to such a quick, abrupt close you ask? The replays. And no, I don't mean the replays of the crashes that sent one man to the hospital with a head injury (I guess only Americans provide the ample cushioning that goes along with the Fast Food way of life). Rather, it was the close up, slow motion replays of the normal runs down the course. This event is even worse than I imagined. If you've managed to avoid these slow motion jiggle fests then try to keep up that trend. I can't even put it into words. Nor do I want to. Nor should anyone want to. But it is over now, and 4 more years will pass before I sit through another run. I wonder how long it'll be before they have female luge pairs. Judging by the female luge medallists on the right, this is a luge event that may warrant some viewership. And these are even the German women. Congrats to them!


The JR and the AD

2 minutes into the game, Jalen found himself with 3 fouls, sadly taking his impact out of the rest of the game. I was looking forward to seeing a real battle between Jalen and Mope as the Raps extended their winning streak to 4, as well as 7 of their last ten. The Raptors did their best to let the Knicks run away with this game, but, as it turns out, they’re the Knicks, and they barely hung on for the win. Loren Woods even got non-garbage minutes against them, it what now looks like a majo under-estimation by coach Sammy. The only thing I can really say about this Knicks team right now is that it’s nice to see Larry Brown struggling. I really don’t respect his move to New York, and I love watching it blow up in his face.

On the other hand, you have to feel for Jalen this season. He had to suffer through the Raptors 1-15 start to the season, and just as the team was turning it around as one of the hottest teams going into the all star break, he is traded to a team that is now in a 1-16 run. He is a great player, and model athlete off the court, and he deserves to be in a positive situation for the first time in years. Hopefully good times will find him again, he is very deserving.

Darko and Carlos and Kato

In a big O deal, Darko and Carlos Arroyo went to the Magic tonight for Kelvin Cato’s expiring contract and a draft pick. That is the value that the second overall pick in a draft that included LeBron, Carmello, Wade and Bosh. This is officially the worst draft pick in the history of the league, knocking the Half-a Man pick out of the top spot. Ignoring the fact that the pick never made sense for Detroit, as a big man is the last thing the Pistons needed, he still very obviously had less talent than a few people taken after him who would have fit in positionaly. Could you imagine how dominant the Pistons would be right now if they had Wade in the mix? But now the Darko experiment moves in alongside the Francis experiment, which followed the TMac zone defense experiment, etc. The days of Shaq are long gone in Orlando, and bringing in Darko is not going to do much to change that. Those of you who hurried into your leagues and picked up Darko on news of the trade must have never seen any of the garbage minutes that Darko put in over the last few years. He is not good. Could he be good if he played consistently? I don’t know the definite answer to that, but I have a guess. Nonetheless, he hasn’t played consistently, and he isn’t about to jump in and play 20 minutes a game now. He still has no fantasy value, and in case I had to point it out for some reason, neither does Kato. This trade does nothing but close out the only sore spot on the Pistons front office in the midst of the wonderful work they’ve done over the last half-decade building the strongest team in the East. The Darko minutes, though, were the best moments of Pistons games for me, and I am going to miss them. It was always fun just to see what new and wonderful ways Darko would put up zeros on the board. He was special.

Minor Hockey Notes
Canada easily handled the Italians today after toying with them for a while. No surprise there. Cherry complained about running up the scores. No surprise there. Cherry did, however, side with me and rip on the Olympic brass for removing baseball and softball from the games because they aren't played in Europe. It really is just too stupid, but no matter. Hasek went down with an injury, taking yet another country out of real contention. This isn't a good Canadian team, but the others are all so bad. Like I said before the tournament, the American team is just horrible this time, and they showed it with a tie against Latvia today. Where is Ryan Miller? It's such a joke. But at least Steve Moore is doing his best to help bring the Canadians down by picking the wrong time to yet again be the ass that he is. He really needs to give it a break at this point. No one cares anymore. You were never good, and there is a 0% chance that you would survive in the new NHL. So take your 5 minutes of fame and move on before everyone turns on you. At this point you're still relatively the good guy, I suppose. Now please just leave us all alone, it's getting ridiculous.

A Luge Tribute

In tribute to my luging friends, and courtesy of www.nbcolympics.com, following the North America medal recap will be a photo-tribute to the gold, silver and bronze medal winning German lugistas. They deserve all the accolades I can give them!

Canada – Anouk LeBlanc-Boucher, Ladies’ 500m Short Track Speed Skating, Bronze

USA – Toby Dawson, Men’s Moguls, Bronze

In honour of Valentine's day, I've decided to just be nice in my post today.

Ummm...

Errr...



Woozle wazzle?



Wow, as it turns out, that means I have nothing to say. Maybe this is a sign that I should take some time to reflect on who I have become as a person. That sounds like an awful lot of work, though, with minimal return. But so also goes the life of an Olympic athlete. Can anyone name even 5 athletes, not from their own country, who didn't win an award in the last Olympics (and don't play for a professional sports team)? How about 5 from your own country would didn't win 3 Olympics ago? It can't easily be done. I'd go back to the reason why that is, but I already promised I only be nice for Valentines day.

Olympic Love

So, if to only further the fading into oblivion of Games losers, I'll list as always here yesterday's medal winners from Canada and the United States.

Canada: nothing
United States: Joey Cheek, Speed Skating Men's 500m, Gold
Hannah Teter, Snowboarding, Ladies Halfpipe, Gold
Gretchen Bleiler, Snowboarding, Ladies Halfpipe, Silver



Raptor Love

The Raptor's faced off with the T-Wolves last night, and again put on a show. Antonio Davis put in 29 strong minutes against Garnett, but did looked a little mismatched in the tandem. Nearly not as much as Loren Woods did in his ugly 8 minutes of play. Man, that was mean again. This is hard. Not as hard as times have gotten in Minnesota, though, as the Wolves have now dropped 7 of their last 8 matchups, with an inexplicable win against the strong Suns in the middle. On the other side of the spectrum, that is now three in a row for the Raptor's, and 6 of their last 8 to move to only 5 games out of a playoff spot. I know you all still don't believe me, but this is an exciting team to watch, even on a night where CB4 failed to show up. James and MoPe put on a show that was worth your admission. They are just a big man and another years experience away from making the second round of the playoffs. It's just a shame that Babcock isn't around to see what he built from scratch, it really is turning out surprisingly well. And man will I miss his draft day!

Groin Love

I'm not touching that one with a 20 foot pole. And that's the last straw. I clearly don't function properly on some mental level. I can't be nice, and I promised I would, so I'm just going to have to bail. I'll see you all again after love-day has passed. Hey Sax Man, play us something sweet on our way out, I promised my wife a nice dance tonight.

Elias Watch

18 games, 21 points, +7 and 13 wins. A tough loss to the Islanders to close out the pre-Olympic season, the Devils are still looking like a top-three contender in the East heading down the home stretch. If only they’d call Al-Mo back up to make it a real run. Mogilny doesn’t get much credit for it, but if anyone has watched Alex play in the playoffs he is one of the strongest defensive forwards in the league when it counts. If you don’t believe me, I hope the Devils do get to bringing him back so that you can see for yourselves. He’s good for a point a game, and strong defense in the playoffs, so how he can be rotting in the minors is beyond me.

Mogilny Watch

After missing some time, Alex came back and got 4 points in 3 games with Albany in the AHL. He then followed it up by again not playing in the Rats last game, and I’ve yet to hear a real explanation for his erratic play schedule. If anyone can get me a reasonable story about what is going on with Alex I would really appreciate it. Speaking of which, I’m still waiting for a Zarley Zalapski update. You guys really just aren’t following up on things properly for me anymore. I’m expecting something on one of these issues ASAP!

Antonio Watch

The Raptor’s were up 85-59 after the third quarter, out-rebounding the Blazers 35-24 at the time, and won in the end by a 114-81 count. I don’t remember the last year where they had such an advantage in a game on the boards. The Raptors are looking very good since Antonio’s return, and although AD’s numbers haven’t been huge, his presence has been. Not just his physical presence under the net that swung the game early tonight in the Raptors favour, but also his effect on the rest of the Raptors. The team is clearly trying harder, and is taking a much more serious approach to the game. Since his return the team is 2-1, and even in the one loss they put up 118 points against the Spurs. That is the most points they’ve given up all year, and only the fifth time they’ve given up more than 100. The Raptors are still an exciting team to watch, and AD’s return has helped bring in the focus they need to take it up another level. Although only 5 ½ games out with 31 games left, they’d have to leap over 4 teams and probably go about 20-11 from here on to have a chance at the playoffs. It looks like a case of too little too late this season, but sheds a lot of hope, for the first time since Vince graduated, on next season’s chances.


White Guy Watch

The Celtics won a close one tonight to temporarily stay 1 game ahead of the Raptors in the standings. This will surely fall as the trade has just destroyed what used to semi-resemble a team in Boston. That said, I’ve gotten plenty of suggestions now for whom you’d all like to see in an all-white guy dunk contest now that the Birdman is unavailable.

I’ve narrowed it down to ten candidates who are as follows: Dunleavy, Z, Half-a Man, Darko, Dauber, Zaza, Mehmet, Nenad, The Scalab and none other than Scott Padgett himself. A pretty formidable group, as you can see. Now, we’ll decide the final 5 and the overall winner by the poll that follows in the right column. Also, if you have a favourite from the group, feel free to submit a comment or email with a description of the dunk your big man would throw down to win the competition (or his big miss a la birdman, if you’d prefer). You never know, there may just be a prize in it for the submitter of the best dunk, so get those votes and suggestions in.

Olympic Watch

In the thrilling world of the Olympics yesterday, some events were held, some teams in women’s hockey were blown out and some medals were given out in some events. And so goes the next couple of weeks. For now here is a recap of how the North American teams medalled for the day:

Canada: Cindy Klassen, Bronze medal in 3,000m Speed Skating
USA: Daniel Kass, Silver Medal in Men’s Halfpipe Snowboarding
Shaun White, Gold Medal in Men’s Halfpipe Snowboarding

Groin Watch

Hopefully the groin watch is on hiatus for the Olympic break. The last thing an NHL team needs is one of their multi-million dollar commodities going down in a virtually insignificant tournament. So I’m going to put the GW to rest, for now, and hopefully for a few weeks, knock on wood. But stay tuned…

With my wife's birthday, Valentine's day and our anniversary all lying within a week, I have been a little distracted lately. But I'm back now for another installment, albeit a little shorter than normal. I hear that something's going on over in Europe right now, so I thought I'd preview a couple of the sports in competition. This isn't going to be very easy for me, because most of the events in the Olympics just aren't in my scope of interest. I mean, if speed skating was really that good, then you'd probably watch it more often than once every four years. At least it's the winter Olympics and not the summer games, there's only so much you can say about 50 different lengths of running events.

Women's Hockey

A day of competition is behind us, and 4 games were played. Finland beat Germany 3-0 and Sweden beat Russia 3-1. Two games that seem pretty even, although I didn't catch any of the action. A couple games I did see pieces of were the Americans defeating the Swiss 6-0, and Canada over my mom and some of her friends 16-0 without really putting much effort into it after the first 5 minutes. It was one of those games where you could see the girls doing the normal Canadian struggle between not wanting to light up the board and never even reacting when they scored, and having to worry about what score the Americans would put up against their competition since tie breaks in the tournament are done based on goals scored. The reason they have to worry about this now is that, while Canada and the Americans are still leagues ahead of everyone else, Sweden seems to be pulling away into it's own middle calibre ahead of the rest. Although unlikely, both the Canadians and the Americans would rather put off facing the Swedes so they have a 99.9% chance of making the finals rather than a 99.5% chance. And in there lies the problem with women's international hockey competitions. There are only 2 teams. Granted it is better than when Canada won 100% of the tournaments, but it's still not really good. Until the playing field levels out a bit there just isn't going to be that much interest in women's hockey. An eighth of hockey fans in North America may watch a round robin game, but that might be a very high estimate. Maybe double that will bother with the gold medal game if its Canada USA. But that's pretty much it.

On another note, I have to wonder how female athletes, especially in hockey, who have had to fight their entire lives to show that women should be respected in their sport as much as men, feel about the audience in the arena being filled with female cheerleaders. I'm guessing at least a few of them are less than comfortable with it.

Prediction: Gold-USA, Silver-Canada, Bronze-Sweden

Luge

Obviously the men's doubles are the huge draw in this sport. There is nothing like seeing a mans ass lying on another mans crotch as they speed along a track of ice. Look at that picture - there are actually 2 guys in it. How does a partnership in this "sport" even get set up? Even ignoring the fact that getting into luge in the first place is a confusing happening, once you're into it does some guy just come up to you and ask you if you prefer the top or the bottom? If us so far outside of the luging world find the need to question the doubles every four years, imagine what it's like actually being in the competitions. The guys who just do the singles must have a million jokes about back doors and intruders alone. But nonetheless I'll try to predict what will happen in these events.

Men's Singles - Gold-Italy, Silver-Russia, Bronze-USA, Top Canadian-15th
Women's Singles - Gold-Germany, Silver-Italy, Bronze-Germany Top American-4th, Top Canadian-11th
The Big Boys - Gold-Germany, Silver-USA, Bronze-Canada

Duathlon

What? Is this not in the Olympics anymore? Am I just missing it in the schedule? What happened? Nothing says international sporting competition like combining skiing and guns. This is a travesty. Speaking of which, I heard that the next summer Olympics will be the last games with both Baseball and Softball. This is the largest summer sport by far in North America and the Caribbean, it's huge in Asia, and probably the only really interesting team sport in the summer games (my apologies to the enourmous Water Polo community that exists out there). I guess that there is just more interest in the world in Trampoline than in Baseball, that's the only way to explain yet another questionable choice in a very questionable tournament. And yet National Pride just makes everyone eat up these games, and watch some of the most boring television out there. They actually televise most of a marathon. Seriously.

1 Dallas This team is hot right now, 19-3 since Christmas and unbeaten in 13. Even Eric Dampier had 14 rebounds in one of the games during this streak. That's a lot better than the game against Utah where Diop led them in rebound with only 6, yet they still went on to slaughter the streaking Jazz by 14 anyway. This force just can't be stopped right now. These guys haven't been the underdog in the line since a December 9th game in Memphis, which they won. That alone says they are the team to beat right now.

2 San Antonio Call this team "Mr. Consistent", they've been second all year, sometimes to Detroit, others to Dallas. Day in an day out you can expect the same from these guys. Even sidelining Duncan won't result in a loss anymore (although the Raptors were close). I really can't stand Ginobli, though, in any way. So I'm done talking about the Spurs. Enjoy your number two spot boys, you're not getting any higher in my books.

3 Detroit In a mini "slump" of late, having lost 3 of 5 to weaker teams in New Jersey (10th rank), Indiana (17th rank) and Atlanta (27th rank), the Pistons came back strong against the Clippers with a big win. Tayshaun is hot lately, and the Pistons never slump for long, so no doubt they'll move up from the number 3 spot shortly.

4 Phoenix 32-17 at this point, and they've done it without Amare in the lineup. Now he's practicing with increased activity and will be coming back in a month or two. First place without the best big man in league, who is almost ready to get back. Scary. Hopefully they'll draw Ginobli in the second round so they can save my playoff viewing for me.

5 LA Clippers The Clippers are the fifth best team in the league, and it's pretty hard to find any arguments against it. This still doesn't register in my brain, so I'm still not prepared to comment on it. It's the Clippers, man. The Clippers.

6 Miami Wade and Shaq playing in a division with Washington, Atlanta, Charlotte and Orlando. I'm kind of surprised they've managed to lost one divisional game at this point. 13-14 on the road, yet in basketball that means they have the 6th best road record. There are some things i'll just never understand about basketball.

7 Cleveland 6 straight losses, then 7 straight wins. This team is good, but I'm not really sure how confident I'd be in them in any playoff series. LeBron even averaged 30 points over that 6 game skid. Having personally witnessed Z phone in an entire season and cost the team a trip to the playoffs, I know that this team is capable of anything and there is nothing LeBron can do about it. I really can't picture them putting up enough effort to win 4 straight playoff series. As good as this team is, they really need to build something different around LeBron, on a whole this mix just isn't working.

8 The New Orleans Hornets of Oklahoma City In the last 6 games, Claxton, Mason, Paul, West and Butler have each lead the team in scoring. This team is unbelievably balanced, and everyone is buying into the team ideal. I'll admit, never in my wildest dreams did I see the Hornets putting together a season like they have. Chris Paul may have been the best draft pick since LeBron, and is certainly the hands down rookie of the year this year.

9 Washington Coming on strong since Christmas through the leadership of Arenas, who is just on fire of late. 4th in points per game, 16th in assists, 9th in steals and 3rd in three-pointers, Arenas has developed into arguably one of the top 3 all around players in the league, and his team is benefiting from his generous play. Reliable players who are fun to watch and put up solid numbers all around are hard to find, and definitely key in fantasy leagues. Arenas is the real deal, and now so are the Bullets (yes, I said the Bullets. Deal with it).

10 New Jersey Can 3 players make an entire team? Vince, Kidd, RJ and some guys. When is the last time one of them didn't lead the team in scoring? When's the last time one of them didn't lead in assists. Heck, one of them even leads the team in rebounds more than half the time. Is anyone else on this roster? It may be the best 1-2-3 punch in the league, which is good enough to make the playoffs in the East, but they'll will never be one of the elite with 3 guys. It just can't happen.



11 Milwaukee Magloire was a great fit with this team. He is averaging a double double, and has put up 74 rebounds in his last 6 games. With Ford dishing and Simmons and Redd putting it home these guys are hard to beat, especially against teams outside of their division.

12 Utah After a slow start, the Jazz are coming on strong with 13 wins since Christmas. They are also very strong on the road... at 11-13. Really, someone explain this to me. Are the balloons really that effective? Can someone find me a statistic on teams free throw percentages at home versus on the road? I really want to understand this.

13 Denver This is a mediocre team without Melo, and barely over mediocre with him. Taking advantage of the weakest division in basketball, the Nuggets would have the #3 rank right now with a record that if the Jazz catch them (which them appear to be setting up to do) they will miss the playoffs instead.

14 Memphis 3-11 in their last 14. How long will the slide last? How long can their 23-11 start keep them in the running? I really don't like this team, and haven't ever actually thought they belonged in the playoffs. This could the the year that they miss again, and I for one am hoping it is.

15 LA Lakers Kobe got 81 points in a single game. That kind of selfishness should drop this team out of the top 20. Just ask Vince.

16 Houston Faded due to injuries with 7 straight losses, recovering with a solid 4-1 in their last 5. Hard to tell exactly where this team will be in a couple months. It's tough having to rely on injury prone guys to lead your team.

17 Indiana Peja is starting to fit in, and has helped the Pacers to three straight wins, including 2 against Detroit and the Lakers. Not too shabby.

18 Philadelphia A big win in Cleveland, followed by a couple disappointing losses to Houston and Charlotte. I love watching Iverson play, but something tells me that Webber needs to see a few more shots than he is, The other AI too. Shame.

19 Chicago Lost 5 of 6 lately, with a very tough schedule. The rest of February will tell whether the playoffs can still be a goal for the Bulls, or if they should concentrate on staying ahead of the Raptors by seasons end. At least they don't have to worry about Boston any longer.

20 Golden State Of all the teams in the 4 to 13 seeds right now in the West, this team is by far the most exciting and the one I most want to see in the playoffs (except maybe Sacramento if they pull it together). J Rich and Baron are great together, and despite being 3-7 in the last ten, they are only a couple games out of the playoffs. Hopefully a Memphis fall will open a spot for the W's.




21 Sacramento Love these guys with Artest in the lineup. Expect this ranking to shoot up to the 10 spot before too long. This should be a team to contend with again, if Ron can stay happy. Big if? I guess time will tell.

22 Toronto These guys, believe it or not, may be one of the three most entertaining teams in the league to watch. They are leading the East in scoring with 100.5 points per game, and are third to only Seattle and Phoenix overall. I bet most people don't know that about the Raptors. Most people also likely don't know that. After their 1-15 start they had a good enough for the playoffs record before the Jalen trade. Antonio is going to be a big help inside, and acquiring a real Center over the summer could make these guys a surprising contender again next year. Things aren't really as desperate in Raptor land as the media might make out... yet.

23 Orlando

24 Minnesota Nice pickups in the Boston trade, but this team was too much of a mess to be able to fix it with Ricky and Blount. I'm also scared by a trade where you pick up 3 guys and everyone is talking about 2 of them like they were bad team players.... and they weren't refering to Ricky. Damn.

25 Portland Portland's in the league. I guess. Man, whatever.

26 Seattle Fall from grace, but really you could see this coming a mile away. I remember last year even, the JF would constantly say they are just a 3-point shooting team, and the percentages can't keep up all year. Took until the playoffs last year before it finally, and inevitably happened. And I really don't think anyone should be surprised by the outcome this year. Just really not a good team. Teams like that find success in Seattle randomly, sometimes. Remember the Mariners team that set the record for wins? Now go back and look at that roster. That is not even a 90 win team. It made no sense. Brett Boone hit like .330. Nothing made sense that year. The Sonics last year were the same thing, but the magic has run out like we all knew it would.

27 Atlanta

28 Boston I think I'm as surprised as you are that I haven't sunk these guys down to the number 30 spot as a result of the Uber Trade. But the thing is, Charlotte and New York are still in the league, and there is nothing a trade can do to counter that.

29 Charlotte Worst record, worst road record, worst outside their division, and even worst in the league since Christmas. How can they not be in last in the rankings? It would almost take a team losing 14 of 15 games to make that happen.

30 New York Lucky for Charlotte, 13 of 14 games IS almost 14 of 15. Jalen Rose was a great addition, but the words "Too Little, Too Late" can't help but come to mind. I was a Pacers fan in the 90's to a certain degree, so all I have to say to Knicks fans is "hahahahahahahaha". Enjoy yourselves, Knicks fans. Reggie must be loving this.

We’re almost through another week, so the laziness and fatigue has no doubt kicked in again. This could only mean one thing! It’s time again for the Nation of Hungary’s favourite feature: Notes of note. Of note today we’ll tackle Antonio’s return, tocchets dirty laundry, teppo’s new marks and a final summary of my Football picks this year. It’ll be a bumpy ride, but if you as much asleep as me you won’t feel a thing. Enjoy this weeks Notes of Note:

Football 2006 This was a big year for the underdog. Everyone counted out the underdog early on, giving no credit to what he could accomplish. A bit of down time in the middle of the season cost him some ground, but he finished off strong. Yes the Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off their big SuperBowl win, and brought this underdogs 160 win season into fruition. That is to say, against the spread this year my picks ended up with a record of 160-107. I’m fairly certain that makes me the top expert prognosticator for the year, but if you see someone else out there making a similar claim, please send me a link to their site. Until them I am declaring myself the champion of the expert spread pickers for 2006. After my big season, I just want to know one thing: who is going to pay me to shave my beard? I clearly just don’t get the respect I deserve. Clearly.

Antonio Davis 90210 Another candidate for understatement of the year has emerged. When asked about the trade, Antonio himself said that “It’s not that bad. I’m still doing something I love”. And for the $6 million he’s still owed for playing another 34 games, no doubt. But nonetheless, Antonio suited up tonight for the Raptors, and as promised I had my eyes peeled to the game as his number one fan. Antonio gave the Raps a lift tonight in many areas. Statistically he was slightly weak, and he missed some key free throws and an easy basket late in the game, but his presence over 33 minutes of work was notable. It was nice to see a big man running some traffic for the first time in years. I can also see him being a very positive influence on papadou’s (pape sow’s, that is) growth, who looked very good in the limited minutes he was allowed to play. Lets hope his minutes increase to some degree, he is a good looking player who deserves more minutes.

Other Raptors 411 Another thing I noticed during the game was that Mike James was playing like a man on a mission. He really looks like his goal is to take this team from CB4 some nights, and this certainly was one of those nights. Bosh and Mope did have something to say about that, though, and the three of them combined for 91 of the teams 118 points. Those numbers may make it seem like the rest of the team failed to show up, but only one player was very noticeably abscent - and was it ever nice. What is the best feature of Antonio’s addition to the team? Halfa-man Araujo was not on the active roster for the night. How sweet it is to say that. It’s almost orgasmic. That enough on this point for now, but I’m sure I’ll revisit it later. Thank you, Antonio. With that you have now secured my place as your number one fan.

Rick Tocchet’s $1,000,000 Really now, who cares?

Teppo’s Big 30 In what has been a very confusing season for the Buffalo Sabres this year, Teppo Numminen added 2 assists against Montreal the other night, bringing his numbers on the year this far to 30 assists and 30 points. That’s right, Teppo is sixth on the team in scoring, without having put a single puck in the net thus far. This is the opposite of what my game has become. In my 6 games ball hockey league that just started, I now have 9 goals and no assists through the first 2 games. I don’t know if I can keep it up the whole way, but for now I’m doing Rick Nash proud. Anyway, the record right now for most assists in a season without a goal goes all the way back to the 1920’s and stands at 29 assists. If Teppo fails to light the lamp the rest of the way, he will break one of the league’s oldest, and most obscure records. What better way to cap off the season that has been so far for the Buffalo Sabres?

Manu Ginobli a 0 Does anyone else here hate manu ginobli as much as me? He is such a soccer player. I am so tired of seeing him on the floor whining to the refs. I don’t think I can sit through another playoffs like that again. There is no one in sports worse than Manu. Not Joey Porter, not Steve Avery, not even Andre Roy. Manu is the bottom of the list as far as I can tell. I really wish he would just smarten up, he has a lot of good game in him. I really just can’t stand even looking at him at this point, though. Disgusting.

Heat Relief 7-4 I took a lot of flack over my high placement of the Blue Jackets, and low placement of the Kings in my NHL Power Rankings (among other Leaf fan complaints, of course). But those two teams I mentioned faced off tonight, and a 7-4 final speaks for itself, I think. Columbus has something special right now, and it’s just too bad for their fans that it didn’t come together sooner. I just hope Nash’s career isn’t as injury riddled as it seems right now it might be. He could make going all the way to Columbus just for a playoff game less ridiculous than it might seem.

Spezza 911 Spezza left the game tonight with a head injury and did not return. I speak for all of us who hold him in our fantasy leagues when I say “ahhhhh”. Luckily the Senators themselves have enough weapons outside of Spezza to make his absence less noticeable than it is for most of us.

Final Note of Note All of my French fans out there, take note. There is actually a band out there called “Les Dales Hawerchuk”. For real. Now that, my friends, is about as cool as it gets. And I checked them out, surprisingly they aren’t horrible. Like the Sex Pistols took a tour of Quebec and had a kid with Mitsou. Lucky pistols.

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1 Carolina
It hurts to put Carolina number one, but there are a few facts that make it impossible not to. Not only do they hold both the best record in the league, and the best record since Christmas, but they also hold the best record of any team playing outside of their own division. So much for the argument that they only have the most points because they are in a weak division. This team is for real now.
2 Dallas
Dallas is tied with Carolina for the best record since Christmas, and are showing few signs of letting up. Turco hasn't put up stellar numbers this year, with a 2.49 GAA and a .898 save percentage, but has found his old form lately (15 goals against in 8 games) and should be his old self come playoff time.
3 Detroit
Detroit is by far the best Road team in the league, with a 18-5-3 record thus far. 18-8-2 at home isn't too shabby either. Although ranked behind Dallas right now, they are still my pick to come out of the West this year.
4 Buffalo
Although in a little tough in the Northeast, Buffalo holds the leagues second best record in playing outside of their division. A tough team to play on the road, and 7-2-1 in their last ten, the surprise Sabres should no longer be a surprise. Somehow they seem for real, although I still can't explain it. If Lindy isn't coach of the year then something will have gone horrible wrong in the voting.
5 Tampa Bay
The Bolts hold the best record in the league over the last 10 games, dropping only 1 over that stretch. They look to be catching their old form of late, and could be a scary opponent going into the playoffs, which even though only in the number 6 spot in the East right now, they are a lock to make at this point.
6 Ottawa
Although tied with Detroit and Dallas for the second best record in the league, the Sens have picked up most of their points at home and within their own division, not a great sign going into the playoffs. In fact, outside of the Northeast division, the Sens only have the 11th best record in the league. Sens fans, normally weary heading into playoff time, have a little more to worry about than they were bargaining for this year.
7 NY Rangers
55 games in and Jagr is still trying hard every game. I'm stunned. He has always been tough in the playoffs, so this number 3 seed might have a few rounds in them. I must admit, I never saw this coming.
8 Edmonton
Although only 13-10-3 at home, the Oilers have quietly developed into road warriors, second only to Detroit with a 17-8-4 road record. That kind of record is hard to argue with in a playoff team.
9 Vancouver
Still just waiting for Cloutier to make a comeback in time to lose in the first round.
10 Philadelphia
3-5-2 in their last ten, the Flyers are slumping of late, but it's hard to call a 31-15-9 team a disappointment. Still, there is no reason a team as talent-rich as the Flyers should be as low as tenth ranked. They should be able to pick up the pace again a little bit after the Olympic break.
11 New Jersey
Since Elias' return, the Devil's have been on fire. I have explained this enough over the past 6 weeks, I don't think I need to explain their 11-rank any further. Brodeur is hot, and the Devil's are looking decent heading into the playoffs.
12 Calgary
They may be in first in their division right now, but I really don't like this team. They have had more success against their own division than they have with others, and look mediocre at best on the road. They have a boring style of play, and I hope we don't have to suffer with them too long in the playoffs. If Kipper's on his game, though, it may be inevitable.
13 Minnesota
Although 7 points out of the playoffs right now, the Wild are 7-2-1 in last ten, and have the 6th best record outside of divisional play. Trading Dwayner for a top line player might be enough to squeak them into the playoffs, although it's a tough battle in the west, which may have gotten a little too far out of reach early on this season.
14 Columbus
Believe it or not, Columbus actually holds the second best record in the league since Christmas. Seriously. This is a much different team with Nash in the lineup and healthy. If only they could have had that luxury all year, they may be looking at a playoff spot. Nash played only 7 laboured games before Christmas, netting only 3 points. Since then he has 22 points in 20 games, and the Jackets are 13-6-1.
15 Nashville
This second place team isn't as good as it seems. They may have the 5th best record at the moment, but they, unlike the Hurricanes, are benefiting from playing in an easy division. They are 12th in non-divisional play, 12th on the road, 15th since Christmas and 17th in their last 10. They live and die by their goalie, who may not be as consistent as some people pretend. Expect a slight slide down the standings as the Northwest division comes on strong, but they will still be around to lose in the first round.
16 Boston
As the Leafs, Habs and Thrashers fall, the Bruins have no where to go but up. It's a wonder where they'd be now if they hadn't pulled the gun on the Thornton trade a little prematurely. The third straight Jim Carey has now appeared in Boston, but as always that's good enough for one year. The Bruins will slide into the playoffs as the others wilt away.
17 Anaheim
Anaheim's 7-3 run in their last ten has given them some space over the coyotes, wild and sharks as they try to hunt down a playoff spot. Minnesota should prove to be the toughest team to keep a leg up on in the end.
18 Colorado
This would be the second best team in 4 of the other divisions in the league. Unfortunately, the Av's are in the Northwest and will likely miss the playoffs for the first time in a while because of it. Makes up a little for all the easy years they had while the division struggled. The balance of power had to shift eventually. Svatos, however, gives the team some glimmer of hope for the future.
19 Los Angeles
Some might be surprised by such a low placing of a second place team. But the Kings have been slumping lately, and look less than mediocre on the road. They will have trouble fighting off Anaheim for a playoff spot, and probably won't in the end. But at least JR is still super-cool!
20 Phoenix
The Great One's coaching has somehow gotten this team a .500 record heading into the Olympics, but to expect the same by the end of the season is a little too much. It's still more than should have been expected from this bunch to begin with, and a lot of that has to do with Cujo's play early on.
21 NY Islanders
The Islanders might end off the year as a surprise number 8 seed in the East. Toronto, Montreal and Atlanta look to have given up on life, so it looks like at this point they'll try to battle it out with Boston in the end.
22 San Jose
disappointing on the road. disappointing outside their division. disappointing since Christmas. disappointing in the last 10. I wonder what word can be used to sum up the Sharks season so far?
23 Toronto
The Leaves have looked just awful lately, tied with Atlanta for the worst record over the last 10 games at 2-6-2. They have managed to hold onto the last playoff spot so far, but with Montreal, Boston, Atlanta, NYI and Florida all within 7 points, it won't last for long. Boston would be the heavy favourite right now to grab the last spot, if not just because the other 5 teams really aren't playing like they want it.
24 Florida
Florida. Luongo plays there. They are kind of in the league. M'eh.
25 Montreal
Ranked lower than a team described as kind of in the league. There was nothing keeping these guys from the playoffs this year but themselves. The same is actually true at this point. They just have to out-play Boston from here on in, you know? I mean really, just give it a little effort and bother to make it guys.
26 Atlanta
Fun team to watch. It's too bad games aren't scored based on fun. 10 points behind Tampa already in a division guaranteed to send only 2 teams. Maybe in a few years Carolina will fall apart, right? But I guess by then the Caps will have built something around Ovechkin. I really can't see any scenario where the Thrashers make the playoffs in the next 8 years.

AHL Power Rankings

As a side note, who wouldn't love to see a playoffs set up with these 4 teams? There would be a lot of fun to be had in that, not to mention free money for the league to earn. They may have to add two expansion teams and do a full consolation playoffs, but either way it's just money looking to be made. I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened in North American professional sports yet. I'd go to a round robin Capitals Penguins game any day, not to mention the finals. It might be worth some consideration in the league offices. Anyway, here are the bottom 4 rankings:

1 Washington
The Caps are 6-17-1 on the road, but their over .500 record at home, along with Ovechkins rookie of the year landslide, give them the lead in the battle of the 4 AHL teams in the league.
2 Chicago
Khabibust. Their only good defenseman to Edmonton for my mom. Bunch of guys playing you've never heard of. Good stuff.
3 St. Louis
If Tkachuk can get 3 points a game again like he did in November, these guys may give Chicago a run for their money. Recalling Lalime is a bad way to go about that, though.
4 Pittsburgh
Who else can retire? This is now a team of guys the guys you've never heard of have never heard of. Plus Crosby, Fleury and some hasbeens. Cory Cross is there now, even, in exchange for their second best defenseman.

Cory Cross. Wow.

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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.

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AD vs The Metric System (Hate League)

Apparently someone doesn’t remember all the boo’s Antonio Davis had to endure in Toronto, leading up to his trade that brought Jalen Rose to Toronto. Now, apparently, Antonio Davis is coming back to Toronto in the trade that is giving Jalen his long-awaited exit from the organization. As is Raptor tradition, however, you have to wonder whether or not AD is going to report to the Raptors. The metric system does still exist in Canada, and we all know how intimidating that is for Mr. Davis. There is also the rough ride that Raptor fans gave Davis, in response to his saying that he didn’t want his kids to learn the metric system and Canadian history. His returns weren’t quite to the same degree of antagonism as Vince and T-Mac received, but the audience clearly showed their disdain for the former Raptor. So to ask Antonio to come back to Toronto might be a bit of a stretch, thus it may appear that for the second year in a row that the Raptors made a deal with the intention of buying a player out. Antonio himself did nothing to detract from this appearance, saying last night that he was going to take the night to take in everything that happened, and that he will have a statement for us today. That is a very ominous thing to say. Clearly AD isn’t going to come back to Toronto, right?

Well, not so fast. Another thing people seem to forget is that before he left Toronto, he wanted Sam Mitchel as a coach. The two of them have a very good relationship. The front office staff is also very different looking than in his day. Also, are the Raps really willing to walk away from the 7 million owed to him, taking a big hit a year after taking a lot of flak for making a similar move? And all this ignores AD’s time as President of the Player’s Association. Is holding out really a move that the Player’s Association condones, and would they want that appearance from one of their President’s? I think that last point alone is definitely the fact that is making Antonio have to think about this situation. And I think he is also definitely worried about how Raptor fans are going to treat him upon his return. To that I will say this: Antonio, I live in Toronto but am not a Raptor fan. If you do swallow your pride, and decide to be a big man and give Toronto a second chance, then I personally will be your biggest fan in Toronto. It would be great to see someone in the position you are currently in do the right thing for once, and I have to do what I can to support that. Please show up. Please play your hardest. It’s the East, we don’t expect much from a guy we can slide into the C-spot. If you are able to bring the effort that I remember you playing with 5 years ago, the fans will welcome you back. Not only that, but you could actually be what the Raptor’s need to sneak into the playoffs. How would that look on your resume in a contract year? At this point you have nothing to lose, Raptors fans have nothing to lose, and the organization has nothing to lose. If you fail, it will be the teams fault. If you succeed it will be attributed to you. But if you don’t even bother to show up, that is the only way you can lose. I trust that you will do the right thing

Back to the trade, losing a $17 million contract from next year on a guy that clearly (and inexplicably) the team didn’t feel fit in is always a great move. But did it really need to cost a first round draft pick? It was, in fact, a draft pick the raptor’s picked up in the Vince deal last year. What does this mean? Well, if AD doesn’t show up, and you piece all the movements together, the exedus now looks like this:

Two potential superstars, Vince Carter and Jalen Rose, traded WITHIN the division, along with $20,000,000 in buyouts and cash, for 3 late picks and a bench warmer.

Honestly, that's what it comes down to now. They have all this cap room to work with next year, but with that kind of track record, who in their right mind is going to want to sign with Toronto in the offseason? I know that I wouldn’t if I was a free agent. I guess they can resign Mike James now, maybe. As far as I can tell, the only thing that saves all of this is if AD shows up, plays like he can, and gets the Raptors into the playoffs this year. Otherwise I think that the league should take the team away from MLSE and force a new owner into the situation. The brass there may know something about hockey, but enough is enough with this basketball debacle. I can’t even end this section with a joke because at this point it just isn't funny anymore.

Steelers –4.5 Seahawks

Thank you from the bottom of my heart

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I'm a little bit tired today, so instead of a few articles I've decided to start a new feature which I've called "Notes of Note". Basically, it's a way for me to get a bunch of ideas out there, without actually taking the time and effort to piece them together creatively. Yeah, I'm lazy like that sometimes. So, now it is time for the nation of Hungary's new favourite feature: Notes of Note

Mighty One Last Time Teemu Selanne made history today, becoming just the 7th European hockey player to get to 1000 career. In what may or may not be taken as a compliment to Steve Rucchin, Teemu said:

"I'm very lucky that I've always played with great players who have helped me a lot. You can't score 1,000 points if you don't have great linemates and great teammates"

Of note, minor-leaguer Alex Mogilny is one of the Europeans on the list, with 1,032 career points. Not too bad for a AHL player. I hear the guy with the most talent in the league this year could only get 6 points in 25 games with the Islanders.

Rucchin Update I tried to put something nice about Rucchin in there, because apparently I may have given the impression that there is nothing positive about his game, somehow. So that was my best stab at complimenting him. But at this point, though, no matter what I say, the damage is apparently done. References to the Rucchin of the Year are popping up all over cyberspace. For example, below are listed some message boards that i've noticed sending hits my way (outside of the normal espn, and NHL team page message boards that have been flooding my traffic flow). Needless to say, the references to him are not all that positive, but I want to thank the following for their support anyway:

Ranger Pundit
Ordinary Least Square
More Dissent I received almost as many angry emails yesterday as I did from Celtics fans the day before. Well, I'm no math major, so 5 is almost as many as 21 in my books. Anyway, apparently writing only one piece, and writing it about basketball, and more accurately about a single player playing for a team in Sacramento isn't very popular with my most foul-mouthed readers. And here I thought I was doing everyone a service by finally getting Ron Artests lyrics onto the internet. See if I do any public service again in the future.

The Way of the Williams Risking some stern emails again, I turn my attention to basketball (don't worry foul-mouths, I'll get back to hockey shortly). The Toronto Raptors dealt the perma-benched Aaron Williams to the New Orleans Hornets of Oklahoma City, for two second round draft picks. This leaves Eric Williams as the only remnant in Toronto of the famed Vince Carter trade. If they are fortunate enough to deal him for an equivalent offer, then maybe by 2009 the Raptors will have 2 players in the NBDL and 4 in Europe to show for Vince Carter, along with some salary playing in Miami. And the Babcock legace will thusly live on not only in Canada, but in Europe, Southern Florida and random backwoods NBDL towns as well. How many former GM's can claim that kind of coverage from one trade?

Dunk Ideas Just a reminder to those of you out there to get your candidates in by the end of the weekend for the White Guy Dunk Contest. I have a few more lined up now, but am still looking to take suggestions. Get them in ASAP.

Adrian Aucoin Injury Question OK, hopefully you all survived the basketball notes. We turn our attention now back to hockey for you. So, with Adrian Aucoin now possibly out for the season, I pose this question to those of you out there: Who now has the worst shot in the league. Clearly I'm implying that Aucoin had the least effective shot in the NHL. I think I have enough to back that up, among which is the fact that he has gone 48 shots on net (and many others not on net) without a goal. Anyway, I was just wondering who you all thought has the worst shot in the league now that Aucoins injury has taken him out of action.

Lalime Recalled Speaking of injuries, you know that my mom must be on the IR with a broken ankle when the St.Louis Blues recall none other than Reggie Lalime himself. First off, for those of you wondering why Reggie, it is because I have a long standing tradition whereby if I don't think the player has appropriate talent once he has been in the league for a little while, I assign him some other name that isn't his, but sounds kind of familiar. Another such example is Tyson Nash in Phoenix. Anyway, Lalime was familiar to Lemelin so Reggie was born. And has he ever out-Reggied himself this year. So far this year he is 3-11-4 with a 3.97 GAA and a .866 save percentage. I'd tell you how he did in the minors, but I promised no more minors references until I got a Mogilny update from somewhere. Thus far, no one has provided it to me, so I will just finish with a disappointing sigh at yet more evidence as to how far the Blues have fallen from grace. This will be the first year in my entire existence that the Blues are going to miss the playoffs, and it really is a shame. How Blues fans must long for the guaranteed playoff spot that went along with sharing a division with the North Stars and the Leafs. I know that Leafs fans don't.

Groin Watch Naslund has joined the growing list of NHLers afflicted by sore groins this year. His injury will keep him out of the upcoming Olympics, and he isn't the only probable Olympian affected in the same way. What is going on? Was there a secret clause added to the CBA this year that provided 3 hookers in every city to each player, and is fatiguing groins league-wide? I just don't understand where this influx in groin injuries is coming from. All I know is that the list is growing almost every day, and I'm a little worried about my own groinal region every time I lace up the skates lately. For some reason the rash of concussions a few seasons back didn't have the same worrying effect on me as the groin injuries have. Imagine that.

Ron Artest Tribute Band

Artest made his home debut the other day, and helped lead his team to a 98-91 victory over the Nuggets. Artest hustled up and down the court, played with the audience and had a huge smile all game long. This is not the Artest of old. This is a man happy to have a new start, and excited to be playing where he is. That is so much more than what I expected to come from this situation. The Kings are still 4 games out of the playoffs, but if I were any of the playoff teams in the west, I would already be worried about them. As I said, Artest with a chip on his shoulder was going to be tough. A happy Artest who is enjoying his situation? That's unprecedented. No one can control a team like Ron, and if he's doing it for the positive now, the results will be tremendous. Will this unexpected trend last? Who knows. But if it does, the Kings are my surprise pick to come out of the West this year.

As an Artest holder in my fantasy league, this surprise turn around is very welcome to me. To pay tribute I spent today with a few Ron Artest songs kicking around my ipod. I must say, he really isn't as horrible a rapper as people say. But maybe the fact that I don't normally like rap music, yet I like his stuff, does go to show that he isn't a good rapper. Either way, there was one song on there that seemed to have some interesting, basketball-related lyrics. It was titled "Make a Wish", but when I looked for the lyrics on the internet, there weren't any that came up. So, in honour of Ron's turnaround, I present to you my take at the Artest lyrics. He is a master of the mic, though, so some of the words might have escaped me. In any event, here they are:


Ron Artest - Make a Wish Lyrics

way back, when I was too short to touch the rim, I used to look at the people in the buildings I was living in
I had a project, to rise up like the sun, took my basketball wishes and said f*** to a gun
a killer cross over, and when the sun's falling down, the biggest star I ever seen, 1000 wishes came around
I haven't changed since then, wishes still torment me, I'm a sinner and a winner, lord forgive me
I wish me and my family could live together, for sunny weather when it rains, for rain when it gets better
I wish Q to prevail, no one to fail, for that uncle Wally could have made bail, get out of jail,
I wish my kids love me forever, although I know its not always all good, I wish people would stop telling me to get out of the hood
I wish for no poverty, more food, for parents stop neglecting, for kids to stop getting hectic
for those young ones in the cribs to start looking at books instead of me as an idle,
wish for bars and hooks to some out in the summer with a banger, I wish I knew my guardian angel, can you arrange that?

make a wish, kid, in this game of life
make a wish, son, if you living in trifle
make a wish, son, before the sun goes down
biggest star you ever see, where's your wish to come around?
make a wish,queen, in the blink of an eye
make a wish, word, could be just another lie
make a wish, life, don't you wait for them stars
what you are is what you say.

I wish for world peace and all, no war, I wish cali and Daniel artest will make it in ball I
I wish Dominic will stay a straight A, and for me, to get back to St. Johns and get my degree
good to see nate, on his next album release date, cuz we from the same place, same block same plate
same gates, I wish to zero the death rates, I wish for health, not just cars and real estate
I wish for the impossible like my team to get a championship, I wish authority no hold us down, no punishment
I wish Tyson reclaims the title, I wish my mind to open wider, my soul to feel tighter
I wish I come to Greece more often, for more beats, though, not a rapper, just a player, not a gangsta, you know how it is
I wish people don't think wrong about me, I am what I am, don't you doubt me, got me?
I wish to guard Tracy McGrady, you know t mac, stop shaq, give him a little bit of pac man
I just wish for more hope, so I can always wish, so make a wish, son, hey Q, make a wish

make a wish, kid, in this game of life
make a wish, son, if you living in trifle
make a wish, son, before the sun goes down
biggest star you ever see, where's your wish to come around?
make a wish,queen, in the blink of an eye
make a wish, word, could be just another lie
make a wish, life, don't you wait for them stars
what you are is what you say, what you say is what you are.


Please, anyone out there who knows the real lyrics, feel free to let me know. This was just my stab at them. And I do have a few notes on them:

1. I love the use of the noun "son" when talking to someone. When I first heard this song about a year ago, it excited me to hear that it might make a come back. Me and the JF immediately threw it in our normal repertoire of speech. Unfortunately, the lyrics above didn't quite make the hit that I had anticipated, and "son" isn't as common place as it should be. I sure do get funny looks sometimes when I use it. Try it out, see how it works for you, son.

2. He wishes for the impossible like for his team to win the Championship. I would say it was fan-outrage in Indy at this lyric that turned the city and team against him, if I thought that more than 12 people had heard this song. Basically he was saying that it is impossible for Indy to win the Championship. Hard to imagine since they've been a dominant team in the East for a few years. Now that Ron has left town, though, I'm inclined to agree with his masterful lyrics.

3. He wishes he could guard T-Mac? As far as I remember, all he has to do to be able to guard Tracy is throw a zone defense at him. Remember November of 2003 when TMac told the world that he didn't know what to do with a zone defense, then he put up 4 points against Minnesota while the Magic went on a horrible slide after winning their first game of the year? I had TMac on my fantasy team that year. We will never speak of that disastrous month in here again.

4. Ron was making wishes last year, but since then he has become a little more grounded. This year he has turned his sights to setting unattainable goals, instead of just wishing for them. Ron Artest's new years resolution this year? "Teach math classes in elementary schools throughout the country. And, of course, I want to sell 10 million records." Well, at least once he does that kids everywhere will be forced to throw son into their vocabulary. Now that's a goal I can live with!

Sound Thinking?

This has really been the season of highlites in the NHL this year. We all remember the Ovechkin goal, and Malik's shootout goal, big saves by Aebischer and Fleury, and countless pretty plays by Crosby, just to name a few. Well, the hockey highlite real grew tired of being limited to the NHL lately, and recently decided to recruit some AHL action into the fold. In particular a goal by Robert Nilsson of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers is making the rounds this week. A first round pick in the 2003 NHL entry draft, Nilsson has split his time this year between the Islanders (6 points in 25 games) and Bridgeport (20 points in 21 games). What better way to give note that you want to be called up again than to score a goal that will be shown over and over again across the nation? CNN Headline News even aired it twice an hour during its daily run sportscasts. Reminiscent of the Crosby goal from his time in Rimouski, Nilsson took it to the next level. If you haven't seen it yet, follow this link: Nilsson's Goal . I'm sure most of you have seen it already, but it's worth another look. Not only was it a highlight real goal, but it also helped Bridgeport hold on and eventually take the match in a shootout. Their defeat of the first-place Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins allowed them to hang onto the final playoff spot in the AHL's Eastern Conference.

You don't hear much about the AHL these days, up to and including what exactly is going on with Alex Mogilny , and there may be a reason why. As Sean Bergenheim, one of Nilssons teammates, explains "There's not too many players with that much skill in this league." So deep is his skill that he was able to get a whole 6 points in 25 games in the NHL this year. And with that, until I hear something more about Mogilny, so closes my commentary on the AHL for the year.


Backlash

Apparently Celtics fans are very, very vocal. Concerning my post regarding the Celtics coming up on the short end of their trade, I received more emails telling me I'm an idiot than I knew I had readers. Like 10 times as many. That is to say, 20 emails, but that is still an extreme amount. The long and short of the details (leaving out the profanity) is that Celtics fans are happy to be rid of both Blount and Banks, no matter the cost. This is an interesting perspective, I had no idea that Blount and especially Banks had done enough to warrant such hate. But 20 emails when you only have 12 readers doesn't lie. I clearly underestimated the negative effect that those players can have on both their teammates and fans even. If they really are such a negative influence, then getting an expiring contract and a first round pick in return might be a pretty good deal. I also still think, however, that the trade works out well for Minnesota. With a fresh start, Blount and Banks might ride the results of their actions in Boston to more sound and professional careers in the land of the lakes.

It's also not like Boston is getting choir boys in return. Or any quality outside of Wally, who I still feel is slightly less valuable than Ricky. Bill Walton said it best when he said:

"Anytime you bring Michael Olowokandi on to your team, disaster is soon to follow"

Trading two malcontents for only one could be looked at as positive, but I think 29 GM's out of 30 would take Blount over Kandi any day. They could also think that given a chance, Banks could turn into a very good player. If the Celtics, however, have already given up on this season, and are looking to next year, this trade is a good one for them. But only if they have committed to giving up on this year. The level of talent in Boston in the short run has certainly decreased. As Charles Barkley said:

"This deal totally shifts the balance of power in the East. Now we can add the Celtics to the list of teams that UConn could beat"

Blount wasn't an excellent rebounder, but could get 12-15 points a night. A Kandi, Perkins, LaFrentz tandem is a huge downgrade in on court play, and I also think it will be hard for the Celtics to find someone as good as Blount in the offseason. The state of centers in the league right now is beyond sad. Just ask the Raptors how easy it has been to find a center since Keon left. But again, the backlash from Celtics fans has me really questioning the hearts of and negative impact that Blount and Banks could bring. Only time will tell if they will work out in Minnesota. But if trading for below value just to get malcontents out of town is what Boston fans enjoy, then I know a certain Babcock or two who might be good fits if the Celtics are ever looking to hire a new GM. He is the king of devaluing and giving away malcontent players, and may be a great fit in Boston.

McCabe Watch

Bryan McCabe was back on the point for the Leafs tonight, and his effect was felt immediately as he brought the old Butt Bomb out of retirement, laying a huge bomb early on. Fittingly, the announcer had the following to say about it:

"That's something that's been missing from the lineup - the old double cheeked hit. The last one was Carlo Colaiacovo's, and he still hasn't recovered from it"

That is referring, of course, to Carlo's attempted hip check that he unfortunately telegraphed from 10 feet away, allowing the intended hit to slip out of the way while he bounced off of him and went concussing head first into the boards. Outside of the butt bomb, however, McCabe's presence was felt on the point, both on the power play and in the defensive end. The Leafs only picked up a single point in this game, losing in a shoot out, but you could tell the team plays a lot more comfortably with Bryan on the point. The defensive end of his game is under appreciated , and justifiably so, based on his mediocre play there early in his career. But his game has turned around, and the play last night really looked different in the Leafs end than it had in the previous 9 games. Welcome back, Bryan, the Leafs missed you way too much.