3 Months Plus!

Craaazy!

Haven’t post here in awhile.  Its been 3 months plus!  Don’t fret though, its not like sports hasn’t been on our minds… just check out our twitts for our almost daily takes.  Just been crazy busy with our aspects of life and such.

The 2010 Olympics, the possible MLS work stoppage and of course the NHL, MLB and EPL are all heavily on our minds.

Speaking of the MLS, what kind of league is 3 months from its onset and doesn’t have a schedule out yet?  That is nuts.  How are fans supposed to plan ahead?  Until the work stoppage is dealt with, we don’t see a sked coming out anytime soon so its only gonna get worse.

Off to watch our Canucks face off against the Coyotes.  Whodathunk they’d be this good?  That goes for both teams btw.

FridaY CLeaninG

a few sporting odds and ends:

• we know we went out on a “limb” when we boldly predicted Micheal Owen would be hurt by Oct. 1st.  But to get injured the day before Oct. 1 was pure class!
• our predictions for the NHL we not scientifically done but some thought did go into them… still working on a post to xplain…

cANUCKS gAME 1 rEPORT

NOTE TO TEAM: do not spot the opposition a 3 goal head start and only show up for the final 20 mins. Flames 5, Canucks 3. Lets go with Sami Salo on the D with 4 shots and a even rating as the Vancouver player of the game.  He needs the honour before he gets injured next week. We are too ashamed of the first 40 to even want to talk about the rest of the team.  The Flames were skating circles around us for the first period.

2009/10 Predictions!

What else can be said? We pretty much like the chances of the Western Canadian teams of making the playoffs and the Eastern ones not. More on these picks and why in the weeks ahead. YAY! HOCKEY IS BACK!!!

Eastern Conference
1. Philadelphia*
2. Boston*
3. Washington*
4. Pittsburgh
5. Carolina
6. New Jersey
7. New York Rangers
8.  Buffalo
9. Tampa Bay
10. Ottawa
11. Montreal
12. Toronto
13. Atlanta
14. Florida
15. NY Islanders

Western Conference
1. Detroit*
2. Anaheim*
3. Calgary*
4. St. Louis
5. Chicago
6. Vancouver
7.  Minnesota
8.  Edmonton
9.  San Jose
10. Dallas
11. Columbus
12. Nashville
13. Colorado
14. Phoenix
15. Los Angeles

Worth a Gamble?

With all eyes fixed on a Phoenix courtroom today, we thought why not write about something completely unrelated. Sure we’d be overjoyed to see the Coyotes move to Hamilton or anywhere else in Canada. Its just that this saga won’t end today and we’re tired of it. Once the courts get involved, the wheels turn slowly… oh so slowly…and the draggin’ is getting to us. Today will be a big day in the history of the franchise no doubt but a final solution will be far from decided today.
So we thought we’d share a story about one of our pastimes. Something that we use as a diversion.Online poker.

We started playing a year or so ago.  Got the hang of the rules etc.  Then we put it aside for awhile.  But since we got the netbook with the internet stick, its back with a vengeance.  Its a great time killer at our job and when waiting for everyday stuff to happen.  The internet stick is great so far.  Sure Canada’s “most reliable network” has its flaws and it drops its connection every so often but its a lot better than what South Africa has.  We wonder how the news of the upcoming World Cup will be delivered if a pigeon (wtg Winston!) is faster than the country’s number internet service.  The beautiful game will sure become a lot slower!

But we digress, the internet stick has made online poker very portable and convenient for us and the interaction with other players, and the drama of Hold ‘Em keeps us lightly interested/amused. We are far from experts at it and you can play for free.  The challenge to win is there and when you do win, its great.  When you lose, there’s always another hand. Not a bad game if we do say so ourselves.  If we ever get stuck somewhere with nothing to do, at least there is always poker.

If we were in a certain Phoenix courtroom today, we’d be playing it for sure.

Imagine

We just bought a lotto tix for tonight with one purpose.  Win and we’re off to Phoenix to bid tomorrow!  Its an auction is it not?  Just imagine…

To think its come to this.  A team that had passionate fans in Winnipeg is now being sold to the best bidder in a courtroom in the desert.  There’s only 2 bidders.  Only 2 groups in all the world who want this team and one is the league. As a fan, we’d just like to be there and make a bid, have a say and speak on the behalf of all the passionate hockey fans in North America and say “shame” on you NHL for letting this happen!  Just imagine…

PS: we’ll miss you on the pitch Danny!

One Season Ends, Another Begins

Well, we haven’t updated the bowling situation in awhile.  The summer league ended last Monday.  We finished 4th in the B division.  3 pins out of 3rd place.  If we do our math correctly, we finished 12th out of 32 teams.  Not bad for 3 guys first attempt at bowling seriously in a league of pros.  We recently had to ditch “harry” the yard sale bowling ball after scores were not getting any better and the shear size of him was a tad to much.

Armed (literally) with a new ball dubbed “woody”, we took to the playoffs by storm.  The 100 dollar investment paying off immediately on the lanes. We played over our average throughout the playoffs and that bodes well for the future.  Speaking of which, the team has signed on to play in the fall/winter league.

Side bets, beer and a great social and friendly competitive atmosphere make bowling a good time out for a weekday night.  A great idea that keeps getting better and we’d advise anyone out there to get into bowling if the chance comes up.  You won’t regret it!  Updates on the team forthcoming as they happen.

We still can’t believe they cancelled the Lebowski Fest in Toronto!  Woodpeck does not abide!

2 Curious Cases

2 things that are on our mind this week:

1. we were watching a NL baseball game last week on the telly that was a blowout.  late in the game, a reliever came up to the plate to bat and was facing another reliever on the hill.  this rarely happens as relievers will usually be pinch hit for in the batting lineup.  this rare occurrence prompted the announcers to begin a discussion on an “unwritten” rule of the bullpen. we suppose there are are many of these rules but this one in particular was “relievers will only throw fastballs to other relievers at the plate“.  which is exactly what happened.  we don’t know anything about this rule.  we had never heard of it and since it happened we’ve been searching the ‘net for more info and come up blank so far.  hence the “unwritten” rule label we gather.  but it certainly was a quirky thing to witness and made a lot of sense. the hitter in this situation is at the plate 99%  of the time in a blowout and deserves every chance to get a hit.  for the record, the hitter in this instance struck out.
2. been watching tennis of late.  the Rogers Cup event in Toronto got us watching a few games recently.  one was the Dinara Safina loss.  yesterday we watched the world #1 struggle again in her first round match at the US Open.  she barely won that match against a qualifier.  in both games, one thing become very obvious to us: her coach is a jerk.   he never smiled, gave any support whatsoever and was completely negative in both affairs.  there is tough love in sport but this goes WAAAAAY beyond that.  he is a jerk and doesn’t belong anywhere near any athlete.  Safina’s confidence is at an all time low and the role of the coach is to not only help with the physical aspect of the game but the mental as well.  we’ve never seen a tennis coach(or any coach of any sport) be such a downer, or not even lift a positive finger when their client is struggling. he even acted pissed when she won some crucial points late in her match. why this jerk is in her employ is beyond us but it makes for great drama!

A Case 4 Head Cases

Marco Scutaro get beaned in last nights Jays vs. Red SOX game and sits out the rest of the game as a precaution. Early statements from the team indicate Marco has a bruise on his head but they are still optimistic he will play tonight.
We realize the team is only 21 games out of the pennant lead so to err on the side of caution here is not that wise…waitaminute!

HEY JAYS! get your head on straight!  Head injuries in sport are the hardest to diagnose so give the guy (no matter what he says) a day or the weekend off.  HIS HEAD IS FREAKIN’ BRUISED from a Beckett pitch!  As we just saw with Scott Rolen when he got beaned in Cinci that early on it looked like he’d be back right away but then was out for a few weeks.  Rolen even came back and played 2 games out of 4 (and even hitting a homer) after the beaning b4 going on the DL because of it.

The last thing we’d like to see is a guy at the plate with his head not straight!

Sure, we can identify with wanting to play and get back out there right away.  Just this past week we fell off a horse  and of course we got right back on that horse once we dusted off.  So Scoots wants to play right away again and we get that.  ERR on the side of caution here!  We’re sure this isn’t the first beaner he has gotten and it most likely won’t be the last.

Don’t mess with the head!  Sit Scutaro!

Our Lead Story is…

We will admit that if we lived in Calgary, the lure to see all of Canada’s best hockey players on the same sheet of ice would be too much for us to bear.  Especially for a mere 20 bucks!  Even if it was just a public scrimmage match.  The Red vs. White game would have been great to be there for but making it the lead story in print, radio and tv media today is beyond ridiculous.

We’ve never understood why a “practice” for a sport would ever be more important than results of a sport that was actually “played“. No matter how popular the sport, it was just a practice.  Great to witness in person.  Not lead story material.

Note to media:

Sports fans #1 need is for scores/results of actual games played.

Then everything else.  No matter what the news of the day is.

Even as we write this, Michael Vick’s return to a preseason “practice” game is ahead in the tv highlights shows this morning than actual “real” games played.  Great to see he can throw but where are the pennant race scores and higlights???

PS: kudos to Nick Green of the Boston Red Sox.  The shortstop pitched 2 scoreless innings in last nights game!  He didn’t even look out of place doing it!  We love it when things like this happen in games!  Why isn’t this the lead story???