Today's Top Stories

Marc Crawford not informed Slap Shot was fictional, put a bounty out on Scott Moore.
Marc Crawford, current LA Kings coach, former Canucks coach is being implicated in one of the dirtiest hits in NHL history, and it was all done from the bench. Multiple reports came out in the last 24 hours citing recent court documents that stated Crawford was behind Bertuzzi’s career-ending attack on Scott Moore a few years ago. Reports state that the attack was pre-meditated and was called for while in the locker room as retaliation from an earlier shot delivered by Moore to Markus Naslund, the Canuck captain earlier that season in February. After ordering the hit Bertuzzi attacked Moore from behind breaking 3 vertebrae in his spine and ending his career. The recent reports are part of sworn testimony by Bertuzzi while being investigated in the $38 Million dollar lawsuit being put together by Moore’s attorney.

The NBA playoffs get off to a great start in 2007-2008 campaign.
NBA officials must have realized that 82 games is a long time and decided to showcase some quality match-ups much earlier in the season than usual. This coupled with increased quality and intensity of play might just bring the NBA back into the limelight much earlier than it’s usual April/May debut. Recent match-ups have included:
11/26: Washington @ Dallas, Phoenix @ Golden State
11/28: WAS @ San Antonio, Houston @ PHX
11/29: Denver @ Lakers, HOU @ G. S.
11/30: LAK @ Utah, Orlando @ PHX
12/1: Toronto @ WAS
12/2: ORL @ LAK
12/3: ORL @ G. S.
12/5: PHX @ TOR, DAL @ S. A. , LAK @ DEN
12/6: DEN @ DAL
12/7: PHX @ WAS, TOR @ Boston, UT @ S. A.
12/8: UT @ DAL
12/9: HOU @ TOR, G. S. @ LAK
That’s 21 games between two .500+ teams in a 2 week span. This is a good thing for the NBA, and for the sports fan.

What else are you supposed to do on Monday night?
ESPN released its numbers from Monday Nights Ravens vs. Patriots game and they were not only the highest the network had ever seen (12,529,000 homes average) but with over 17.5 million viewers it passed Cable’s all time highest rated program. Take that High School Musical 2. Thus further proving a few theories I have always maintained. ESPN has better programming than the Disney Channel, Football provides more viewing pleasure than Musicals, the 17.2 million people who watched High School Musical 2 need to get off the couch, 17.2 million (estimated) people watched a made for Disney Musical.

Florida Doomed to Lose
Sorry to the folks in Florida. It really must be kinda tough to be a fan of pretty much any team in the US’ Wang. Every time the Marlins win they trade away most of their roster. And this time, they weren’t even winning they just decided screw it and got rid of the last two people on their roster with WS rings from only 4 years ago. Do the Marlins think it will be easy to replace the All Stars Stats? Cabrera finished off last season with 34/119 and batting .320/.419/.542. And Willis’ numbers, though slightly down from past years included a 10-15 record in 35 games started with a 5.17 ERA but a career ERA of 3.78 and Florida is losing one of their better bats in Willis. A real shock is that he heads to the AL. How can you even support the Marlins at this point when the players there don’t last longer than 5 years. Is it even worth buying any Marlins gear. In Miami, Wade has only played in 10 games leading former All-Star and Shaq’s first little buddy to stack up over 20 minutes/game this season. When Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway is in your starting line-up and it’s not 1994, that’s a bad thing. And Shaq’s been limited to under 30 minutes/game due to the fact that he’s 35 and 325 lbs. The state only has 2 football teams in the final top 25 and one of them is South Florida who had one of the craziest years in College Football History. Furthermore typical Bowl powerhouses (until recent years) Miami (5-7) and Florida State (7-5) finished out of the BCS picture for the 2nd straight year. Florida State is playing Kentucky in the Music City Bowl and Miami didn’t even qualify for a bowl game. And Florida is getting a gift playing after New Years in the Capital One Bowl. Oh and they are the home to the Miami Dolphins.

Don’t get upset at the numbers
To cap off a column I wrote a few months ago about the wacky College Football season here are some final numbers going into Bowl Season:
Tim Tebow: well deserving of the Heisman with 29 Passing TDs and 22 Rushing TDs and only 6 Total Turnovers, but might not receive it because he’s a Sophomore.
Colt Brennan: well deserving of the Heisman with 38 Passing TDs and 8 Rushing TDs and almost 4200 yards passing (in limited minutes due to blowout and injury), but probably won’t receive it because he played at Hawai’i.
Final Tally: 61 total times a Top-25 Team lost, 28 of those were top-10 teams, 7 times (in 14 weeks) the #2 team lost, 4 times the #1 team lost (3 of those the #1 and #2 lost in the same week) twice the #4 team lost, 3 times the #5 team lost but after all of that the #3 team only lost once all season. Of course when said #3 team moved the #2 they didn’t fare so well. Yet these same voters who ranked Cal (6-6), Oregon (8-4), BC (10-3) and South Florida (9-3) as a #2 during the season are the one’s deciding that deserving teams can’t play in the National Championship game, wonderful system. Fun Stat: LSU was 6-0 this season as a #2 Ohio State 3-1 as a #1.
There was a 15 lateral victory by Trinity College and Jonathon Weiner actually called it, perfectly, pretty much ensuring a good shot at a successful future in broadcasting. But the best quote of that game, and of the entire college football season, by far was by a little known 6 foot even 250 lb offensive lineman Josh Hooten, who not only once but twice held the ball, if only for a nano-second, during the 15 toss drive, including the blind over his head toss. “On these lateral plays, a lot of times there’s some fat guy trying to score and he gets tackled at the 10-yard line. I didn’t want to be that guy. I just hot-potatoed it and looked for someone to block”.

See Ya Tomorrow Sports Fans.
More after the jump...

No love

I hate homers (def. noun. 1. someone who roots for their home team and follows blindly into believing their team is always right. 2. biased 3. incapable of seeing things through an unbiased eye). With that said I have some beefs with College Football analysts and reports, specifically centering around the UA vs. Oregon game.

No one is reporting about how UA won that game, only how Oregon lost it. Last time I checked Oregon's defense and special teams allowed 27 points (27 = 34-Cason's INT TD return), and Dennis Dixon does not play for the Ducks defense or special teams. Oregon's defense came into the game (as I reported last week) in the lower third in every defensive category and I thought UA could win before Dixon's knee decided that Dennis needed to rest a torn ACL. (On a side note I do commend Dixon for playing on a torn ACL and I don't think it had anything, or at least had less to do with, his Heisman hunt than his team winning and I do give him credit for that.) I believe I also said UA could win by stopping Dixon and Stewart, now was I implying we should hurt both of them, absolutely not, but if that's how it goes that's how it goes. When Dixon left the game he had run for a 39 yd TD on a surprise 4th and 3 attempt and followed it with a surprise 2 pt conversion for the Ducks. Then on his next possession, 1st and goal on the 4, he threw a pick in the end zone to Nasty Nate Ness to end that drive. (He threw 3 to the Cats last season, who is to say that the UA outstanding defensive backfield wouldn't be teeing off on his passes all night) Arizona took that and made it 7 to make the score 8-7.

Then he drove them 65 yards back into the red zone and went down with his injury on 2nd down, on a play that wouldn't have gained yardage and would have made it 3rd and 10+. So we'll say the Field Goal can be attributed to him to, when he left the game they were up 11-7 UA's next drive also resulted in a field goal making it 11-10 Oregon before Brady Leaf took the game over. There is no guarantee that Dixon would have made that big of an outcome in this game, other than a pair of 20+ yd completion and a 39 yd TD run, he didn't do too much while he was in the game. During the same time Willie Tuitama had a couple of 30+ yd passes and a big 18 yd first down run to keep their 1st scoring drive alive. He was playing head to head with Dixon and some might say he was a little more impressive. Losing Dixon did not mean Oregon was going to lose they had a Senior back up who has thrown over 150 passes in Div. I football.

Arizona won this game but apparently no one thinks so. I guess with Dixon out Pima Community could have beat Oregon. UA gets no love. Ever. Another issue of non-love, the guys on ESPN giving out helmet stickers for performance. Here were the winners (and their stats) followed by my winner (and his stats):

PK Austin Starr, Indiana: 49 yard Game Winning Field Goal (2/3 FG on the day, 3/3 XP)

DE Vernon Gholston, OhSt: 4 tackles for loss, (3 of which were sacks)

QB Tim Hiller, W. Michigan: 367 in the air on 45 attempts and 3 tds vs 6-6 Iowa.

WR Michael Crabtree, TxTech: 12 catches for 154 yards 1 TD

WR Jeremy Maclin, Mizzou: 360 All-Purpose Yards (115 PR, 194 KR, 143 Receiving, 8 Rushing)

CB Quintez Secka, La-Monroe: 5 tackles (5 solo) 2 INTs, 42 total yards, 0 Passes Defended

and My Helmet Sticker who we can compare to Mr. Secka

CB Antoine Cason, Arizona: 9 tackles (7 solo) 1 INT, 5-7 passes defended (depending on the source) 1 PR TD, 156 total yards (PR and INT return), and a TD saving FF late in the game.

WR Mike Thomas (2 TDs), QB Willie Tuitama (266 Yds 2 TDs), and PK Jason Bondzio (2/2 from over 40, 1/1 from 50+ yards) oh and let's not forget MLB Spencer Larsen who added 16 tackles (12 solo), 3 TFL, 1 Sack, and 1 FF in Thursday nights game, they all had similar stats to these helmet sticker winners and Cason's were far and above Quintez Secka, but as usual UA gets no love. No player of the week awards have surfaced yet but someone need look at Antoine to have the answer to that question.

Why does the U of A football team receive no credit for such an outstanding victory. Appalachin State took down #5 Michigan and they changed the AP voting rules, and still received votes even though they lost in a FCS match-up. Our boys have had outstanding weeks, Any one of Tuitama's THREE 5 TD games, or his two games of over 400 yards passing (446 and 510), Nic Grigsby's 262 yard performance (rushing and receiving), Mike Thomas' game this week or his 10 Rec 3 TD 165 yard game, True Freshman Rob Gronkowski's 4 Rec 115 yd, 2 TD game, and Bondzio's 12 pt game (6/6 XP, 2/3 FG), or Larsen's game vs. Oregon or his 17 tackle (10 solo), 2TFL, 1 FF, and 1 INT performance. Not one helmet sticker between them.

Where's the love for Tucson.

P.S. for those of you who are sick of my posting of fans rushing the field, you're gonna have to stop UA upsetting ranked teams first each of these pictures posted have come from different games over the last 4 years.

More after the jump...

Enough already

Ok we get it, beware the upset, fear the low- and mid-major conferences, and don't forget about D-IAA or D-II schools (FCS in football). It was cute when Appy State took down Michigan in September. We were all schocked and amazed and it was like when your little cousin says something and it's so cute that everyone claps and awwwws. Once is enough. Or so I thought.



Now every week there are more than a couple outstanding upsets. Major upsets in college sports have become so common this football and very young basketball season that a ranked team beating an unranked team is starting to be the surprising part of the weekend. Texas actually beating Texas Tech surprises more people than say Maryland beating BC. Now when your cousin does that thing that made everyone laugh it's just not funny anymore and you really wish it would stop for your sanity sake.



It is expected that there will be more than a couple upsets every week. A year ago we would expect 1 maybe 2 upsets a week in the top 25 and usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 in a given season. Last season The Ohio State University went coast-to-coast as the consensus #1 the entire season and it wasn't too deep into the season when Michigan was #2 and rode that spot until they lost to OSU in the Big 11 Championship game, and OhState kept the #1 until the BCS Championship game vs Florida (who alledgedly shouldn't have been in that game) and lost, so too did Oklahoma lose to a "less worthy" opponent in Boise State and the Fiesta Bowl, maybe this was the start of it all, 2007 a wierd year for football. Things were just kind of expected last year, USC and Texas were the major powers ranked high early who fell to foes and dropped in the rankings in the big upsets and Florida just trudged along hanging out in the top 10 and top 5 for most of the season until the end. A few surprises and more than a couple upsets but an average College Football season. And as far as basketball is concerned, the upsets are a little more common since there are three times as many games but still it was a pretty typical season, especially early on when playing the softer out of conference schedules, almost no movement in the top 25 last season, Florida dropping in week three to #5 after a road loss to then #12 Kansas was a pretty common ocurrance, this is not a huge surprise on anyone's calendars.



Now fast forward to this year:

Appalachin State over #5 Michigan (@ the Big House), week 1, only major upset (Clemson also upset then #19 and highly overrated Florida State who barely see the top 25 again the rest of the season) and it was a pretty average week of College Football, but people who saw that game or score had a funny feeling. Sure Appy St. was an amazing FCS team and we all knew that Michigan was taking them lightly, but there is not enough excuses in the world to reason out why an FCS team should beat the #5 team in the country. Then week 2: #22 Boise State fell to Washington, #11 GA fell to South Carolina and #17 Auburn fell to S. Florida. still nothing setting off the Radar, this fulfilling the average about 1-2 upsets per week and we have 4 through 2 weeks with 1 huge surprise and 1 mediocre surprise (SF over Aub).

Then week 3 and the upsets started piling up but nothing too crazy, 3 more, Utah over #11 UCLA, Kentucky over #9 Louis-ville, and #21 BC over #15 Ga. Tech. People now start noticing this new trend of upsets.

Week 4: Miami over #20 Auburn, Syracuse over #18 Louis-ville, (left for dead) Michigan over #10 JoePa's, and #22 GA fighting back after the SoCar loss to upset #16 Bama. Starting to get a little stranger then ...

Week 5. The week that absolutely killed me in my poll:

#18 SF over #5 WVU, Illini over #21 JoePa's, Boulder over #3 Ok, Kstate over #7 Horns, GaTech over #13 Clemson, Maryland over #10 Rutgers, Noles over #22 Bama, and Auburn over #4 Florida. 5 top ten teams lose this week, 4 to unranked teams. Ok this season is officially starting to get crazy for the football fans but it can't continue at this pace.

Week 6: SoCar over #8 Kentucky, Illini over #5 Wisconsin, Kansas over #24 Kstate, Tennessee over #12 GA and Stanford over #2 USC. Two of the top 5 teams lost and 3 of the top 10, things aren't looking safe in the top 10 anymore. But all of the upsets are out of their system now, the rest of the season will go off with out a hitch right?

Week 7: Wake over #21 Noles, Iowa over #18 Illini, #17 Kentucky over #1 LSU, JoePa's over #19 Wisconisn, Oregon St. over #2 Cal, and Louis-ville over #15 Natti (from this point on Natti is almost always upset or upsetting someone else) Let me get this straight, Numbers 1 and 2 lose in the same week AND a # 2 loses in back to back weeks. For those of you counting at home in the last 3 weeks ELEVEN of the Top 10 teams (at any given week) lost.



For comparison sake let's look at Week 4's top 10 going into week 5: 1 USC, 2 LSU, 3 OK, 4 Fla, 5 WVU, 6 Cal, 7 TX, 8 OhSt, 9 Wisc, 10 Rutgers.

Now lets look at the top ten after week 7 was over (3 weeks later): 1 OhSt, 2 SF, 3 BC, 4 OK, 5 LSU, 6 SoCar, 7 Ore, 8 Kent, 9 WVU, 10 Cal

5 of the top ten fell out completely and others rebounded to only drop a couple spots. At this point all the upsets have to be over right. Wrong, we're in Conference Play where anything can happen, and this is usually the point of the upsets:

Week 8: Rutgers over #2 SF (third straight week #2 lost) Pitt over #23 Natti, Vandy over #6 SoCar, Bama over #21 Tenn, #15 Fla over #7 Kentucky, UCLA over #12 Cal, OkSt over #25 Kstate.

Week 9: MissSt over #14 Kentucky, #23 UCONN over #10 SF, #18 GA over #11 Fla, NcSt over #15 Va, Tenn over #16 SoCar.

Week 10: Natti over #18 SF, FSU over #2 BC (4th time #2 lost in last 5 weeks)

Week 11: Wisc over #12 Michigan (heartbreaking for Michigan after the effort to get back in the polls after 2 early losses to Appy St. and Oregon), MissSt over #22 Bama, Illini over #1 OhSt (at The Horseshoe, 2nd time #1 lost this season) and Natti over #13 UCONN.



Grand Total: 49 upsets this season, 19 top ten teams lost, 4 #2's, 2 #1's, 1 #4, 1 #3, and 3 #5s. And there's still a couple weeks and a few heated rivalry games and Conf Championships. Be prepared for more. Arizona over Oregon or Arizona State (quite possible in the Stoops era).



If that's not enought let's look at the first week of College Basketball Gardner Webb over #22 Kentucky, Mercer over #18 USC, Grand Valley State over #8 Michigan State, Findlay over Ohio State (though the last two were exhibitions, it's still an upset).



So how terrible is this to watch, that annoying cousin keeps saying and doing the thing/s that are driving you crazy. Every week someone is beating someone they're not supposed to. Well it completly ruins my football pool because you never know what's going to happen and there's nothing anyone can do about it. But as a fan, this has by far been one of the most exciting College Football seasons in recorded history, the Pac 10 getting some serious love, the Big East Fielding more than a couple ranked teams and climbing multiple teams into the top 10, the Big 11 fighting amongst each other constantly ultimately making the Big 11 Championship game between Michigan and OhSt less appealing as in past years but knowing each week Wisc, Illinois, Penn St, had a chance, that's fun. Watching highly touted programs falling to teams who before the game didn't even belong on the same turf.
And Then this can happen.


God I love this game.






On a side note this was one of the most fun times of my life being in the middle of that pack by the goal post after upsetting UCLA 52-14, and eventually just standing at the 50. Upsets and rushing the field are one of the highlights of college. If you never get to rush the field, I guess the only consolation is that your team is too good to necessitate such a thing, if it's because your team is so bad they don't win a game, then I'm just sorry.
More after the jump...

Random musings in between sales calls

...a few random thoughts:
Ohio State, do they really have a shot if they play LSU or even Oklahoma? Or are they going to make it in because of tough schedule (Illinois and Michigan still lying in wait) just to get trounced again and they start looking like the Buffalo Bills?

On a related thought, with the Tribe out again, in heartbeaking fashion, and if the Buckeyes go back and lose in the title game again, will that cause suicides throughout Columbus and other reaching parts of Ohio that mirror Heavens Gate? Will black Nike runner shoe sales skyrocket in Feb. after the game, and White PJs (too soon for a heaven's gate joke?)

Let's look at the last few weeks of college football, 5 of the top 10 lose, then 4 of the top 10 lose, then numbers 1 and 2 lose, it's like a cruel formula that's starting to add up, like the college football Gods were just finding a way to ruin college football pools across the country and in turn ruin gambling for a nation of young future gambling addicts.I can't get over it, 10...TEN...top 10 teams have lost to UNRANKED opponents this season, and 6...SIX...times it has been on their own field.

If you could pick one sports reporter/anchor/color guy/analyst etc to do the play by play of your life and capped off with highlights at the end of the night who would it be? I think Kenny Mayne would have to do my highlight real, as for the play by play does it get any better than Keith Jackson, just imagine, Schilders has something important to tell Domschke, she moves in WHOA NELLY she's pregnant, I did not see that coming. Or doing the play by play for one of our beirut games, Fighting through his own mistake of knocking a cup over we're in the 2nd overtime, this is a barnburner here tonight. I wouldn't mind them throwing it to John Clayton to debate my good and bad decisions along with any updated injuries, while just waiting to see if his head actually falls off one day, and then the eventual top 40 highlight show with Chris Rose and Spider Salley.

Is Brett Favre overrated, and I'm not just saying this as a Bears fan, yeah he's the all time touchdowns leader (it took him longer than Marino) but he's also the all time INT leader (and it took him less throws than Blanda), he's in his 78th season and he still throws passes like that one to Urlacher a couple weeks ago, he makes TERRIBLE decisions. And he really needs to retire, I think he's the Emmit Smith of QBs, good but not as great as everyone thinks. Just wait until he's in Arizona, mark my words they went after Montana 12 years ago before he went to KC, they have Warner, and we can't forget Emmit Smith. The Cardinals, really do have the greatest front office, they want the stars but can't afford them, until they're too washed up to play anywhere else then Bowtie Bill (Bidwell) opens the door to overpay them. It's amazing. I heard Howie Long just signed a three year deal in AZ to make a comeback.

Why are my teams always in contention for the overhyped, extremely overpaid players, ARod constantly in Cubs talk, Kobe again re-entering into possible Bulls Uni, Why break up Deng, Gordon, Tryus or whatever ridiculous combination it would take to make this deal, I'll eat crow if he comes and we win a title but didn't we all see how much of a team player he is and the Bulls are the quintessential team. And ARod is a little more understandable, we'd only be getting rid of a lot of money not players, but didn't we struggle enough in October as it is, why not go after a guy who gets better in October, the only benefit to this is seeing a Cub shatter Bonds' *h*o*m*e* r*u*n* r*e*c*o*r*d*

Every week we're getting closer to hearing "and with the 7th pick in the 2008 NFL Draft the Chicago Bears select Brian Brohm, in another QB failure to add to the list, or Darren McFadden, to continue with a longstanding tradition of Heisman winning or finalist running backs or quarter backs to have their career start and end in Chicago, Darren have you met Rashaan Salaam and Curtis Enis yet? Or Brian let me introduce you to Cade McNown and Rex Grossman. They sell programs across the street. I think they'll have an opening in 4 years.

Is it too much to ask to be this guy in 30 years http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3062376

Is this what it feels like to be Bill Simmons getting paid while just writing thoughts on sports and life? Of course I'm not getting paid by ESPN, my musings really aren't that insightful or funny, and no one else is reading it, but still, yeah not really that close, just wait till I do a running diary, that'll show em.

Is it March yet?
More after the jump...