Sports Guy North

Well, I am now officially back from a nice, relaxing, summertime vacation - The last summer vacation I'll ever take stag, for the most part, with my upcoming wedding in October (only 52 more days of single life). I spent the time kicking back, relaxing, hitting up roller coasters and all in all ignoring the sports world. It's nice to get away some times, even from the things you love. Then again, it's great to get back home, crawl into your own bed, snuggle up to your girl and turn on Sportscenter while she tries to talk to you. That's especially true if your vacation took you through East Cleveland at one point. If any of you haven't had that pleasure before, I highly recommend it. Stop in at T & L's Christian Bookstore and Pest Control if you have a spare minute, it's conveniently located right beside the Walgreens that has the 10 foot security fence around it, you can't miss it.

Anyway, before I get into the Lilly-Gibbons brawl, or the Roughriders chances at the Grey Cup, or any of that stuff, I've noticed that the old inbox has been filling up while I was gone, so without further adieu it's time now for my version of the old mailbag - Dealing With Your Crap:

Curlgate

To get things going we'll start off with what's most important, Curling. More importantly, with a note about people finally respecting the power that being put on notice deserves. As you remember, due to slanderous accusations towards myself I had to put Curling on notice, and pronounced a certain curling publication dead to me. As you can imagine, this sent the curling world reeling, and with good reason. As the Publication itself said, "This is a full-fledged PR disaster!", and that's not the half of it. Even other top curling sources have turned on the once proud Curling News. Mike from inthehack.com said:

I think its unfair to punish an entire sport simply because of one outspoken curling sports "reporter"...

Do the rest of us curling fans a favour and replace curling with George Karrys on your bench.

That's right, he used reporter in quotes, and tried to shift all the blame away from curling onto one man. The curling world is running scared and are doing everything they can to be taken off notice. This kind of effort could have saved Chuck Swirsky a long time ago, but was completely lacking and resulted in his becoming dead to me. Curling, however, you keep it up and you could be seeing yourselves taken off notice soon enough.

Which brings up a good question - can someone who is dead to me be reborn? Certainly Jesus accomplished such a feet, but he was a carpenter and we're talking about mere curling reporters here. I just don't know if ethically I can allow it. In an attempt to regain face, however, George made the following offer:

Perhaps a free copy of the 2007 calendar (when printed) and a couple of free Keiths’ at the Brier Patch in Hamilton will change SGN’s mind and bring ye olde TCN back into the good books...

If you know me and my ethics you certainly know that bribery is a great place to start. I am in the Hamilton area most of the time, so be careful George, your offers will probably be taken up. Will that be enough, though? Time will tell. Of course, bumping the Brier Patch up to a ticket to the actual Brier itself one day would certainly move me towards taking all things curling off all lists altogether. Something to think over for all interested party's I'm sure.

Five Weird Things

Looks like while I was gone another of the great sports bloggers I "tagged" stepped up and joined Jim Lang in revealing his "5 Weird Things". Chris Young from the Toronto Star came back after a month's vacation (2 weeks longer than i got :( ) and immediately got to his list. So here, now, are 5 Weird Things about Chris Young:


1 The only domestic chore I like is washing dishes. And I actually really, really like washing dishes.
2 I once spent a winter living in a squat in London, sleeping on a cot in the kitchen. It was so cold
in the morning I'd hop out of bed, turn the gas stove on, get back into the sleeping bag and wait
until the room warmed up enough to get up.
3 Soccer allegiance borne out of that winter: Crystal Palace. More recently, thanks to NFL Sunday
Ticket, I haven't missed a Browns game since they came back. Between Palace and the Browns,
that's a lot of torn tickets.
4 When no one's home I like to turn the music up loud and dance with the dogs. That's not so
weird, really but the dancing ... my youngest stepdaughter says I dance like 'one of the ghouls in
a Michael Jackson video.'
5 Each year on my birthday, I decide what age I'm going to be depending on how I feel. Last year
it was 36. This year, it's 42.

All I can say is Chris - I have a sink full of dreams at home that you're welcome to come deal with (and I'm just going to ignore the dog dancing thing with a slight shake of the head, ha). So there it is, 2 down and 3 to go. And remember, Romanuk, Berkovich and Downie, the last one to comply will be put on notice, and as you read above that can be devastating, so get your 5 weird things posted ASAP. My money's on Romanuk, but I hear Mr. Canuck Op Ed is pretty stubborn himself.

Oh yeah, and I recently had a birthday too. By Chris' math last year I was 19. This year, I'm 42 right there with you Chris.


Fantasy BBall Trades

My apologies to those of you out there who send in fantasy ball questions while I was away, as in most leagues I know of the trading deadline has now passed. What can you do, though, it's not like I charge for my services, so keep those following up me-bashing emails to a minimum. That's a good way to get me to tell you to trade Roy Halladay for Hanley Ramirez anyway, so you're not doing yourselves any favours.

Closing Thoughts

Well, there are way too many other emails to deal with, so if I didn't get to yours yet, I apologize. As I go, though, I just want to send a shout out to an old friend of mine from the otherwise tiresome National Post, Adam Radwanski. It's always nice to see political minds branch out into the world of sports, as Adam has done with his new humourous take on the Toronto Argos at Boatmen Blog. I guess with the big man back at QB now the Argos aren't enough of a joke on their own anymore (as the Alouettes found out first hand last weekend), so Adam felt the need to step up the satire. A well done read for all you CFL junkies out there... all 3 of you, that is...

Well, despite my best efforts to "tag" 5 bloggers that would surely ignore my challenge, I got my first reply already tonight. And which of the 5, you ask, was the culprit who spoiled my plans? None other than Jim Lang from Sportsnet. He replied to me a few times tonight, and the last time he sent his 5 Weird Things from his blackberry (oh to have the sweet sweet money of a real sportscaster... well, and the talent too... and the looks... and charisma... wait, wasn't I talking about the Langer? :p ).

Really, though, I am impressed that he took the time to answer, and he actually did a really good job of it. For that reason, as I take a break from packing up to head to Ohio for the next few days, I figured I should take the time to post his reply. So here, now, are Jim Lang's 5 Weird Things:

1 - my 2 kids have bigger ears than me. While I freely admit to having the biggest nose in Canadian sports, I have the ears of a newt. Hence my massive sideburns. Distracts viewers from my ears and freakishly huge nose

2 - I am quite sure I love sponge Bob square pants more than my 2 kids. actually Patrick reminds me a lot of Sean McCormick. Aka "the dude"

3 - If I wasn't a sportscaster I would love to be a military historian. Especially the history of world war 2 and the Canadian army's vastly under appreciated role in the liberation of Italy, France, Belgium and Holland

4 - I was born with out wisdom teeth. To many viewers of sportsnet and readers of our website my lack of wisdom has been painfully obvious for years

5 - I don't eat liver. Makes my stomach turn. Mind you I Feed it to my 2 kids. I guess its good for you and they like the taste.

Well played, Mister Lang. So I guess that changes my game plan from finding 5 people who will ignore the challenge to which deadbeat will be the last to reply. That's right, I've 360'd so much to calling the last person to do what I expected them all to do to begin with a deadbeat. They may actually even be put on notice as a result. Or maybe I'll have another change of heart and call the last person left my hero. It's hard to say at this point. What I can do is give big props to the Langer. As a respected hockey and CFL analyst and reporter, to keep up blog entries, keep up with comments, and even play our blogger games with us is very impressive. He obviously just loves sports and everything involved with them as much as we all do. For that he has my respect, as well as my write-in vote in the Toronto Star's Sports announcers survey in the "Best Hair" category. You should all send your votes that way for him too, he deserves it.

Anyway, the JF, Goober, Tank and a couple of special ladies are heading down to Ohio for a much needed roller coaster break this weekend, so you won't have me to kick around until Tuesday at the earliest. Everyone in Canada, enjoy your long weekend, Big Dawg best of luck studying, and don't miss me too much and everyone else just have fun. We'll be back shortly.

PS - I only picked that category for lack of a better labels to start coming back again. I do not have a man-crush on anyone, I never have, and I really still don't even know what it means. I hope all you anonymouses out there get that this time!

So apparently I was called out by my old buddy Alanah at Vancouver Canucks OpEd to do some kind of Five Weird Things deal. Yeah, I had never heard of it either. Anyway, my computer is still broken (hence the lack of posts this week), but never one to back down from a challenge, I'm going to do this at work today - something I would normally not do, because I "should" be focusing my writing "talents" elsewhere when I'm here (ie. like on fantasy sports and espn.go.com). So anyway, here goes, a list of 5 weird things about Sports Guy North:

1. i don't remember anything about my life from before i was about 12 or 13. trauma induced? maybe, but like I said, i don't remember, so stop asking!

2. I am getting married on Friday the 13th in October. Really. I found a girl that was OK with doing that. Actually, I'm still kind of shocked that I found a girl that was OK with me at all to begin with.

3. i really believe that we don't exist. that we can't exist even. as a human, i don't have the capacity to understand something being created out of nothing, and i also don't have the capacity to understand something having been around forever with no starting point. if the big bang is true, its not an explanation because where did that matter come from. if there is a god, that's also not an explanation i can understand either, because where did she come from. and if she is just all powerful and what not, i still can't understand her being all powerful, forever in reverse time, without a starting point. all in all there is no comprehensible way that we could be here, so we just aren't. and that's how it is.

4. i am not an internet person. i don't know what fads are going around on it, i don't go into chat rooms, i never really venture away from 3 sports sites and a fantasy sports site. I don't even read blogs for that matter outside of a select 4 or 5. i just don't really do the internet thing. I've never even heard of 5 weird things until Alanah told me to do it. Apparently it's a fad. Who knew?

5. I cannot eat peas. Not even one pea. I have a gag reflex. If I'm even just eating rice and a pea sneaks into my mouth, it's all over.

So there you are Alanah, a list of my 5 weird things. I just hope you know that if I get fired for it, I'm coming to live on your couch!

Oh, and I guess along with this I have to send the challenge on to 5 other people. So I've decided to pass the challenge on to 5 bloggers who will no doubt ignore my challenge, making follow through much more easy for me:



1. Paul Romanuk because maybe if he sees how much Canadians miss his broadcasting, he'll come back from England and save us from the HORRIBLE options that we're left with
2. Jim Lang because if anyone has really weird stuff, it's going to be the Langer!
3. Chris Young mostly to just get him back out there blogging again. We've all missed your posts this past month!
4. Karlo Berkovich One of the best local sports writers around, and has done a great job trying to help bring blogging to his paper, so I figured I might as well give him some props while I'm out here.
5. Last but not least, I call out the sane (er) half of Vancouver Canucks OpEd, JEFF DOWNIE. And hey, don't blame me... this is all your wife's fault!

Enjoy yourselves.

So I'm logging into the email today, and I have my normal spread of emails to go through - people with baseball questions, married women looking for a go0d f$ck, offers to make big money from Nigeria (one of them will pay off, i just know it!), and so on, and then I see it. Something way out of the ordinary in my inbox - an email from The Curling News. I'm intrigued because, as you all know, I've always liked the curling. I give updates in my blog, called it one of the few Olympic sports worth watching, I never miss a Brier and so on. I am one of the few sports bloggers out there who actually bothers with curling in any way, so I thought maybe I was finally going to be praised for all my curling endorsements.

I open the email, and all it says is

Actually... there's lots of news.

http://curlnews.blogspot.com/2006/08/curling-in-august.html

Cheers,
TCN\

Simple enough, although it sure sounded like truthiness to me. I had mentioned during the blogathon on the weekend that there wasn't any curling news because curling was in it's offseason. I took the time anyway to devote one of my posts to curling, and sure I might have said that curling didn't make an interest read in the offseason, or something along those lines, but curling was still mentioned. Because of what I said I thought I was maybe being directed to some interesting news that came up in curling that I had missed, and was happy to take the suggestion... until I opened the page. At the bottom of the post, it says:

and this guy (REFERRING TO SPORTS GUY NORTH, OF COURSE) seems, on first glance, to be a complete arse, but hey, this was Blogpost number 38 during a 24-hour Blogathon – for charity – so maybe we’ll cut him some slack. Just this once.

Cut me some slack? Oh no, it is I who is the one that cuts slack for others. Nothing I ever do needs to have slack cut for it. As I mentioned throughout the blogathon, my work is gold. All gold. How anyone could find the nerve to cut me any slack is beyond reproach.

What's worse is that I read this Curling News blog post he sent to see what the "news" was which I "missed". The post mentioned a local curling club that's opening for the season in Edmonton, and that a couple more are opening up soon in Ontario towns. It mentions the one local club in Toronto that shut down, and was baffled over why there isn't a political uproar about it (anyone else out there baffled? anyone?). Some old team reunited, some random American did a news article about learning curling, and that's pretty much it. Absolutely nothing that is noteworthy outside of remote local interest stories.

In fact, if you dig a little deeper, on the tsn.ca curling page, they haven't had a new headline or post of any sort since June 15th. And that post was about how they are the exclusive home of curling coverage in Canada through 2014. That's right, the official home of curling coverage feels like there has been nothing worth mentioning in nearly two months, and I get called an arse (really, with the "r" and everything) for saying there isn't anything worth mentioning. In fact, on The Curling News' website itself, not this fringe blog that is somewhat associated with it, their main page has a listing of the top 15 male curlers as of May 1st, and a mention that the April 2006 edition of the paper is now available by subscription only. That's right, the very website who's blog called me out hasn't updated anything noteworthy in nearly 3 months.

I have always been a big supporter of curling, but now I don't know. Even though your calendar of naked women was a bold venture into my heart, I still think I'm going to have to do it - Curling, you are on notice. Next years might be the first Brier final ever I don't go out of my way to see. You certainly have a lot of making up to do before then. Curling joins the list of the following who are already on notice with me:

John Tortorella
Ken Hitchcock
Mosquitos
Jaromir Jagr
Denis Gauthier
Kelly Hrudy
Mini-Babcock
Bobbleheads
Anaheim Ducks
Curling

Along those same lines, The Curling News, I may be an arse, but you are dead to me.

And that's the Kentbert Report. Goodnight.

This is my 48th and final post of the 24 hour blogathon, so I'll take this time to sum up what we learned in this, the greatest sports adventure of all time.

Things got off to a rushed start as I introduced everyone to the days activities, and hopefully signed up this years Kick for a Million winner. Stephen Colbert then took over, explaining to us just how big his balls really are. Hammy and Bippy then reminded us just how fickle sports have become, especially in the CFL, which should be the least likely source. We then bid a tearful goodbye to a legend in Andre Aggasi, and I divulged my true testosteronism. While I enjoyed my Boo Berry, I introduced you all the the dorkiest person to ever bother with fantasy sports - and that says a lot.

We then all went on a list vacation, dropping by my top 5 fantasy players, the top 10 Non-Hockey Canadian Athletes (turns out there are only 3), and the top 30 sports movies of all time, with Dodgeball clearly leading the way. I then took a different turn through the Sexuality of women's sports, with lessons about acceptance and compromise thrown in for all the kiddies out there.

We then took the Rucchin award and applied it to other sports, with Jason Marquis seeming to run away with baseball's golden assist. I also shared my big decisions in life that I have run past my long time friend Garth Snow, who is always there to help a friend. A bit of a delay in the action was followed by a rousing description of just why Chess Boxing should be an, nay THE Olympic sport, and a trip back to the CFL looking for a certain Avery clip (still no help on that one).

Through the pain of arbitration and injuries, I was still able to send a shout out to the people that made today (yesterday?) possible, threw a special song in for a special someone, and even got some soccer in there for the fans of the lesser sports. It was a very giving time in my posts, apparently.

We then talked about a team looking to move, and a teammate looking to stay, while time and time again Jamaal goes to a non-Raptors team for basically nothing. Through recapping baseball, and prognosticating Basketball, we learned that staying at a concert longer than you intend to can lead to the worst post ever when you get home (see the Trienta if you don't believe me. I still don't know what that was). After re-grouping, Chucky Barkley got us excited about politics again.

At that point, 11 ball free for all foosball took over most of my train of thought, until we eventually put down goober to a shutout, and then praised him for breaking the colour barrier in that, the greatest of all sports. A post about curling, another ranking next seasons basketball standing, and all in all, just coming to the realization that there just aren't enough good sports in the summer, and we did our best to complain about that fact (oh, you better believe that soccer came up!).

We talked about the best things in sports, and we likened ourselves to Jeremy Burnitz's looping doubles, all the while producing pure gold up until the finish line... which was then moved 10 yards back. With nothing to do in the extra post, and playing under protest, we all prayed for a golden miracle... and a golden miracle we got as always on Sports Guy North.

Sports Guy North - Always gold.

9am. Goodnight everybody!

Well, I assumed that this would be the time for my last post, but apparently I was wrong. They were actually looking for 49 posts, and since posts don't just appear out of no where, that is actually 24 and a half hours worth of work. I only signed up for 24, but if nothing else you can say that Sports Guy North is a very charitable person, so I will keep plugging for the good of my cause. And in a great baseball tradition of futility, I will play under protest, and will certainly not have any good come of it. Why do they even have that rule anyway? I have never seen anything come of it. But it is a sports tradition, and one that I am happy to have the honour of partaking in.

If only I could find some naked cyclists to take up my fight for me.... oh wait, there they are!

This is it, the second last post before the torture is over. Get Shorty is done, Saw 2 is done, Anchorman is done, some Joe Schmo came and went, and a few hours of foosball were played, with likely another half hour yet to come. All I need to do now is sit back and coast to the finish.

While that last part might be true for all the other bloggers out there, Sports Guy North clearly prides itself on producing nothing but gold no matter the circumstances, so on I must push. There will be no coasting here. Nothing that even resembles coasting even. Just gold.

Like a little looping double, I will Jeremy Burnitz myself into the record book of blog lore. I won't foul anything off my ankle, and i certainly won't go down on strikes like Shae Hillenbrand. Like Gorzellamy, I will pick up my first career win in the Blogathon, and build on it for years to come. Finding the gap in left centre, I will provide some nice run support for the proverbial blog world. Everyone trying to outdo me will have nothing but a nice effort and a lot of K's. From southern California I will destroy the Travis Hughes offering and take it home strong, recording my first major league save to boot and coming to terms with all of my 2006 draft picks. I'm more versatile, quicker feet, and all over BC baby.

All gold. And I'm out.

7:30am is when it really hits you - there just aren't 46 things in the sports world to write about at one time. They just don't exist. And I guess it makes sense, since people who are really really into sports don't tend to be people who can handle thinking about that many seperate things at once. No offense intended or anything, but really I'm not sure anyone could handle that much of any one thing. And certainly not sports people.

That said, there's nothing left to do for this post but bail to a video of some sort. To do this, I'm just going to type "sports" into YouTube, and run with whatever the first 2 videos that come up are. I sure hope they're enjoyable, and not footbag or something.

Time to do a speed post - that means the first thing that comes to mind for each one of the headings is what gets written. The topic this time will be "What is the very best thing in, or involved with each of the following sports right now". So here we go:

Hockey - Alex Ovechkin, of course. He is going to be the face of the NHL for years to come, and rightfully so. Never in my lifetime has a player been as dominant in his rookie season. Whenever he was on the ice he was the best player, and the one most worth watching. That's huge, even if he wasn't a rookie. I'll love to see what he can do with a few years under his belt, and maybe a linemate that knows how to do anything.

Baseball - Francisco Liriano. Much like Ovechkin, he has had a rookie season that has dominated most of the long standing veterans in the league. Even his teammate, and normally considered best pitcher in the league, Johan Santana's numbers pale in comparison. Baring a mental breakdown, Liri is the pitcher in the league for the next decade. It's a very special thing going on there.

Basketball - Has to be the Toronto Raptors right now. I've never seen a team change so much, in every way, in one off season. This isn't even remotely the same team coming back next year, and I think everyone who knows anything about basketball is excited to see how it'll turn out. Whether it's a huge turnaround like in Phoenix a few seasons back, or if it's a spectacular disaster, it's going to be fun to watch. European basketball is alive and well, and it has a new home in Canada.

CFL - The Hamilton Tigercats. Nothing better than waiting to see who gets blamed for their next inevitable loss, and to what extent they are punished. Easily the most fun thing to wait for in that league.

NFL - Watching people, as they do every year, claim that the Buffalo Bills are going to contend this year, and then watching the disapointment take over as they are out of the running coming the end of November. It's an annual tradition at this point, and one of the best shows around if you live close enough to get a ticket.

Yep, it's 6:30 in the morning. Get Shorty has been on for 46 minutes and Goober has been asleep for 45. The JF is still going strong, though, no big surprise. Up here on the 15th floor there is nothing to see out the window, as the fog this morning is as thick as hospital pancakes. And still, tsn.ca and espn.go.com have each made 0 updates for the last 6 hours, which is of absolutely no help to me since I ran out of notworthy sports related topics hours ago. I think I made a few foosball related posts already in my delirium. But on I press, as there are only a couple hours left in this ordeal.

In case you just got in and were wondering why exactly I'm torturing myself this way, I'll explain one last time what's going on here.

This here is a blogathon for charity (Habitat for Humanity in my case) where from 9am yesterday and for 24 straight hours, I have to make 2 blog posts an hour. So that's pretty much it.

If you have a couple extra bucks - even 50 cents if you want - follow the link in the picture below and pledge some money to Habitat for Humanity.



A better description of what's going on can be found here - Blogathon Info

And that, in a nutshell, is the reason for the million posts and all-night 11 ball free for all tournament at the expense of Goober's ego. And while goober has now left us for good, I would like to send big thanks out to him and the JF for keeping me company and up all night. Likely would have bailed a while back if not for them. Thanks again also to Jimmy Biscuit from Erb and Erb insurance for providing the computer which also allowed me to post all night. Stand up contributions from 3 (well, 2 and a half) stand up guys. You really have to have good friends to make it in the world. Also thanks to my regulars who kept me company throughout the day as well - Sumeet, Adam, Alanah, Bippy & Hammy, Grifter, Stacey and Frank. Thanks also to everyone who donated money to Habitat, and those of you who may still chip in. You are all very much apreciated, and have helped me to do a very nice thing for the first time in my life :)

Oh, and Big Dawg, don't worry, I haven't forgotten you either. I never will. <3

Well, I'm actually not really tired, but it is 6 in the morning now so I should be, and that can only mean one thing. It's time again for the great nation of Hungary's favourite new feature - Notes of Note.

Well... kind of. I mean, nothing's happened in the world that really warrents noting since the last notes of note. And since notes of note are, and always will be, a complete collection of what's of note, that means there really isn't anything to add to the pot. But here goes nothing - a Notes of Note on Sunday the 30th so far.

Baseball Trade Rumours Looks like everyone has agreed on Abreu to the Yankees, Soriano to the Angels, and Tejada to somewhere. Those seem to be the gimmes so far as the baseball trade deadline very quickly approaches very quietly so far.

Foosball Update Goober held his own fairly well early on tonight (meaning up until 2am), but then laid down for a half dozen shutouts before the Big Dawg put the old 5:20am end to one of the noisiest games ever made (I wonder how the people on the floor below us were taking it, ha). Still, though, to be able to hold a couple of old pros off for that long only a few short months after breaking the 11 ball free for all colour barier is pretty impressive. A big shout out, and likely a future place in the 11BF4A Hall go out to the Goober. Keep striving for bigger and better things and one day you may reach your goal... as long as your goal is to only lose 10-1 that is.

Da Burger Apparently Big Ben Roethlisberger is looking good in camp, running with what appeared to be little discomfort. To recover to that point so quickly after a nearly life-ending self-enduced disaster is pretty remarkable... and it also changes my draft strategy for the upcoming NFL fantasy season. Hard to say just yet where I'm going to rank him. Hard to say what others are going to do too. It's nice to have a wild card like that to really make draft day interesting. You don't normally get enough of that in the NFL. God bless motorcycles.

Allen's Mediocre Return The big QB question in Toronto was answered tonight, as Damon Allen took the the field in the end. He took the the field and looked VERY rusty, leading the Argos to a huge defeat. Maybe Pinball was right, maybe Allen wasn't really ready to return until next week. I don't know that for sure, and I also don't know how Allen managed to talk Pinball out of his desires, but it happened and it did not go well. All in all, I'm pretty sure it's about that time to just hand the Allouettes the Grey Cup, at this point every other team in the league seems equally mediocre (Ticats excluded, of course. They are in a league of their own. It's fun, though, to see just who they'll blame and fire next week. My money's on the place kicker!).

Jackie Robinson wore #42 and they retired it from baseball. So, post #42 should be about him. And now it is.

He was the first black man to play in the majors, and goober was the first black man to play 11 ball free for all, so it all comes together nicely tonight. nicely indeed.

5:30am. Apparently that's when everything really REALLY falls apart.

I appologize to everyone for this one.

This here post is just as a thank you to Alanah over at Vancouver Canucks Op Ed, for all the hard work she is putting into this blogathon. She has raised a ton of money for a great cause, and it's the least I can do for her.

Enjoy, Alanah, I'm sure it's something you'll never see again on Sports Guy North



PS - Dan Cloutier was never really "that" bad :) Who loves ya baby

Well, Saw 2 is 36 minutes in now, and it's going pretty well. So far not living up to the first one, but still very entertaining. If it can keep three guys awake at 4:30am, then I guess it's not that bad.

There's a guy on fire in the oven now. Why would you go in the oven if you've already seen that the house is rigged to do stuff. That just makes no sense.

The heat in the oven reminds me of a song I heard last time I was in the car. And I guess here it is.



Kind of a reverse remembering - heat, cold.... you know how it is.

Ummm... so to get something sports related in here, I present to you know the CHAMP car standings as of today. CHAMP car being the only bearable racing series, as you know.

POS NAME POINTS

1 Sebastien Bourdais 191
2 A.J. Allmendinger 168
3 Justin Wilson 165
4 Alex Tagliani 110
4 Andrew Ranger 110
6 Paul Tracy 108
7 Mario Dominguez 105
8 Cristiano da Matta 104
9 Bruno Junqueira 102
10 Nelson Philippe 98

Nothing says 4 in the morning like a good, old fashioned horror movie.

Here, then, are my unnofficial early predictions for the NBA standings at the end of the year. It's a little bit out there, but keep in mind it's 4am here, so I reserve the right to change any and all of my picks at any point in time where I'm of sound mind.

East
Miami 65-17
Cleveland 60-22
Chicago 49-33
Detroit 49-33
Orlando 42-40
Toronto 41-41
Washington 41-41
Philadelphia 39-43
-------------------
New Jersey 38-44
Indiana 33-49
New York 29-53
Boston 28-54
Milwaukee 26-56
Charlotte 22-60
Atlanta 21-61


West
Phoenix 60-22
Dallas 58-24
LA Clippers 53-29
Sacremento 53-29
San Antonio 50-32
Denver 47-35
Memphis 45-37
LA Lakers 43-39
-------------------
Houston 43-39
Minnesota 38-44
Golden State 35-47
New Orleans 34-48
Utah 33-49
Portland 30-52
Seattle 22-60

What's going on in the world of curling, you ask? Nothing. Nothing at all. It's the offseason for curling, and the last time something happened was back in the middle of June when TSN and the Canadian Curling Association announced a 6 year broadcast and multi-media deal. From 2008 until 2014 TSN will be the one and only home of curling in Canada. We're talking Brier, Hearts, Men and Women's world curling championships and the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials leading into the 2010 Olympic games. If you are a Vic, Linda and Ray fan, then this has been good news for you. News you've been celebrating for over 2 months while absolutely nothing else has happened in your game.

Nothing at all.

So, how many of you actually read this entire post? I'm not even sure I did.



Wait, that's a different kind of curls, isn't it? Man, curling just does not make an interesting read. My bad.

The table's been moving fast and furious over there, I hardly noticed that it was 2:55. We got the shut out numbers up to 5 on the goobs, and we're feeling pretty good about it. We need a new type of take on the game. If any of you out there have a different way that you throw down the foos, let us know and it'll be on - Goober crushing style.

I'll take any other ideas on what to do to fill our down time in Sports Guy North central, or NAMBLA as we call it. We've got movies, and hopefully some more fooz variations coming in (if anyone out there is still awake!) but we have short attention spans and the ADD, so we need more.

Until then, I'll just put up again the why I've been posting since 9am, and I'm still up at 3am. Enjoy:

For those of you who may not understand why I'm doubling my alltime blog output, it is for charity. This is a blogathon where for charity (Habitat for Humanity in my case) where from 9am today for 24 straight hours, I have to make 2 blog posts an hour. So that's pretty much it.

If you have a couple extra bucks - even 50 cents if you want - follow the link in the picture below and pledge some money to Habitat for Humanity.



A better description of what's going on can be found here - Blogathon Info

I don't have anything to say this time other than WE SHUT HIM OUT! All it took was 2:11am and Anchorman being on in the background. 3 games later, we shut him out again in a hellish game where I took one off the chops for the team. Litterally. It was intense.

I would like to take this time to thank some people for our victory. I'd like to thank my mom for always believing in me. I'd like to thank my day for the hours and hours of hockey in the garage growing up that helped me hone my goaltending skills. I'd like to thank Goober for being one of the all time worst foosball players that you'll ever meet. I'd like to thank God for creating little blue and red men. I'd like to thank the JF for potting a few goals on the way to victory. But most importantly, I'd like to thank Mark Messier's leadership camp for giving me the skills I need to succeed in a team sport as intense as 11 ball free for all. Without that camp, I fear I wouldn't be the same victorious person that I am today. That said, it's time again to look for donations towards the Send Sports Guy North to Mark Messier Leadership Camp fund. It's too bad that great charity doesn't take online donations, otherwise these efforts would have gone to a really needy cause.

:) 11 ball free for all shut outs forever!!! :)

OK, so 2am seems like just about the time to be ranting about sports things that bother me. At the top of that list would have to be the lack of sports that are watchable in the summer. Of the big 4 North American Sports (NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA), only baseball exists in the summer months. That kind of monopoly of the sporting airwaves is rediculous... and unnecessary for that matter. Why exactly is Basketball a winter sport? It's clearly not. It's in the summer Olympics. It's played on playgrounds in the summer. So how exactly did they decide that as a professional sport it should be played from November through June. Is it just to line up with when school is in? I dont get it, and it's not fair to us sports fans out there. Baseball and Tennis and Golf and Car Racing just does not do it. And there's no reason not to have basketball in the summer. It's the whole reason sports channels started picking up poker and spelling bees and so on in their coverage. There's just nothing else to bother with in the summer. The problem is, now, that people got into those lousy year round games, and they end up staying on the sports channels into the good sports season. That's such a waste of time at that point.

One thing that could make the summer a bit better, is if they turned soccer into something good. First off, obviously, diving has to go. A red card for every diving incident. Then there's the whole if you fake an injury you have sub off. That would be key. Unless the implemented one thing that would definitely improve the game - allowing infinite substitutions. people would have more energy to spare, so there would be a lot more challenges on balls and a lot less sitting around waiting for things to happen. There are so many places to go from there, but maybe instead of fixing something that's clearly broke, they should bring back something that isn't - SLAMBALL! Slamball was easily one of the best sports of all time. I'm going to look for a video of the time the guys foot fell off playing slamball, but until then just enjoy the clips that I did find. Certainly a sport that needs to go mainstream. If people gave it a chance, it would be gold.

OK, so a game of 11 ball free for all broke out here, me and the JF on Goober. What that is, if you don't know, is foosball with all 11 balls on the surface at a time. The goal when we play this way, is to shutout goober 11 to 0. So far tonight and yesterday, it just hasnt happened. I'm dropping the bal on the face offs every time. Somehow 1 or 2 or 3 just migrate into the net without any Goober help. Until the last game right before this post. We had him. We had him dead. 8-0 with 3 balls left, and he gets one from his defenseman. Devastating. Just devastating.

See, I've lost my touch on the face offs, and I don't know why. I'm solid from then on, but the face offs are just beyond me now. I dont know what to do. So if any of you out there has some tips on how we can shut out the Goober like he deserves, send them in. This just isn't acceptable. And that last one was devastating. Time to take a break and watch Anchorman before we get back to it. Maybe 3am is what we need to take him down again. I'll keep you all posted.

So to throw back, yet again, to the sex appeal in sports posts from much much earlier today, my attention turns to TSN's coverage of the LPGA Evian Masters. The headline says "Webb upstages Wie at Evian Masters", which is a nice attempt at avoiding the sex appeal issue in womens sports... on the surface. In reality, though, Webb won the masters and couldn't even get a headline to herself. The first sentence in the article is then also about Michelle Wie. That's kind of ridiculous. If I wont the Masters, I would hope I could at least steal the headline to myself away from some jailbate. But that's just me.

Laura Davis finished tied with Wie, but she wasn't playing in a skirt, so you won't see her mentioned until later on in the article. There are even more quotes from Wie in the article than from what's her name that won.

And that, right there, explains where women's sports are at right now. And since they've all see the money it generates, it is never ever going to change now. The outfits will just get skimpier and skimpier. Is that a good thing?

First off, here is a link to Charles Barkley talking about what I'm about to talk about below. I think it's better coming from his lips:

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=12144597

Anyway, former basketball star and Republican Charles Barkley says he's decided to become a Democrat and will be running for governor in his home state, possibly in 2010.

"I really believe I was put on Earth to do more than play basketball and stockpile money, I really want to help people improve their lives, and what's left is for me to decide how best to do that."

Barkley has been talking about running for governor of Alabama since he was still playing in the league nearly a decade ago, but that was as a Republican. Why the change of allegiances? As he said:

"I was a Republican until they lost their minds".

Well put. But really, if you ask me, he probably would fit in a lot better with mind losers.

But anyway, Joe Turnham, the Alabama Democratic Party Chairman, had this to say about Chucky:

"I say welcome Charles Barkley. Charles Barkley has been a Horatio Alger story for many people, not only in sports but in business and broadcasting"

A Horatio Alger story. That says it all. Says is all indeed.