Posts Tagged ‘Hockey’

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EPL, FA Cup, etc wind down. MLB, MLS, etc get started. The Circle of Life.


2010
04.11

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Just quickly, NCAA Frozen Four final was yesterday.  The hometown Badgers got annihilated by Boston College.

Also, what was the deal with the ESPN spring football coverage?  Are you really hurting that much for content.  Here’s an idea, PUT THE MADRID BARCELONA GAME ON! It’s not a matter of rights, because ESPN had English coverage of the game on ESPN3.  BTW, I can’t tell you how happy I am that ESPN3 (old ESPN360) now works in Linux!

EPL

It’s hard to imagine anyone but Chelsea winning the EPL.  The one thing that gives me hope is the two tough away games versus the one tough away for ManU.  However, if Chelsea gets a draw and ManU wins out, Chelsea could still win on goal differential…which they are winning by four at the moment.  Based on how ManU has been playing, I just don’t see it happening.  I am pleased with the signing of the Mexican striker though.

FA Cup

It’s also pretty hard to see anyone but Chelsea winning the FA Cup, thought Portsmouth doesn’t really want to quit, it seems, despite certain relegation and a likely summer sell-off.  And by likely, I mean, as likely as the sun rising in the east tomorrow.

La Liga and Champions League

With the victory over Real Madrid, I can’t imagine anyone but Barcelona winning the La Liga or Champions League.  Go Barca and Big Z!

Playoffs

The Carolina Hurricanes and many other NHL franchises are having their seasons come to a close within the next few days.  Fliers made it today, so roommate is happy.  I don’t care too much.  I’ll just cheer for the ‘local’ Blackhawks or whoever comes out of the east, accept perhaps not Crosbyburg.  I used to kinda like Crosby, but he’s become the hockey version of Laettner post-Olympics.  NBA Playoffs are also coming up.  Bucks and Bobcats are in, so plenty of basketball to watch.  It’s hard to imagine Bama or UK getting an automatic bid, but UNC seems likely…and UNC will get an at-large barring a collapse.  However, conference playoffs don’t start until late May, so I’m really jumping the gun on that.  If you’re not aware, UW-Madison does not have a baseball team.

MLB

Way too early to say anything about the MLB.  I’m hopeful for the Reds and less so for the Brewers though they have nearly identical records.  I hope the Reds only go for the for pushing off free agency and not for the Super 2 clause with Aroldis Chapman.  For a small-market team like the Reds, an extra year could be a big bonus before the Red Sox or Yankees come swooping in.  At least they brought Leake into the rotation, because, it’s never a good thing to be looking up to the Pirates.  For Chapman, keeping him in the minors for a while makes sense to me.  Chapman is learning English and I doubt there are any countries in the western hemisphere less like the US than Cuba.  Venezuela still trades with the US and has oil revenue coming in.  I’d be interested to hear if someone thinks I’m off-base with the Cuba comment.

MLS

Much, like MLB, we aren’t far into the season. However, 3 of 30 is a bit further along than 6 of 162…and baseball has a longer playoff.  Much looms over the 3-0 Galaxy though.  Buddle is playing well, but what will happen if Donovan goes to the EPL like he should?  What happens when/if Beckham comes back?  How will Beckham play without a world class partner, such as the one he has in Donovan?  The MLS is always topsy-turvy with their ridiculous salary cap, but with a few big names heading to the World Cup, will teams lose steam?  Will the big names be tired?  Will a World Cup run inspire confidence?  It’s impossible to tell.  The one thing that’s obvious is that a World Cup injury, even a short one, to a name such as Donovan, could be the difference in the playoffs or not or a championship or not.

What a dumb post?  I hate to even link to it to point out how uninformative it is.  Wikipedia is much more informative about the changes.  I’d like to see it higher.  Maybe five designated players?  I understand the rule, but it’s keeping the MLS from being a viable alternative to getting up at 6:30am to watch EPL games.  The rise of cable sports has kept the NBA and NHL off the major networks, but it would be nice to see the MLS get on the basic cable rotation more than once a week.  Of course, the question is, what would ESPN or VS drop to make more room for the MLS?  I’d certainly be fine with ESPN Deportes becoming part of basic cable, but there’s not going to be any push for something like that until the MLS is really worth watching for the casual soccer fan.  Right now, it makes more sense to pick a club in Spain and/or England and follow them, at least in Central and Eastern times.  I’m not sure I’d be willing to get up at 5:30 or 4:30 in the other two time zones.  The growth of US soccer and the MLS specifically is another post though.  Right now, I’m just happy there are games again and I’m excited about the Bobcats maybe making a run.  It’s pretty sad that the Bobcats are the highlight of my sports life, but maybe if they make a run this year Jordan will splash some cash and I’ll no longer feel that way.  They are going to need to drop the orange before I’m buying a jersey though.

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supernatural disasters, natural disasters and the Bobcats and Bucks that love them


2010
04.03

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With title races and playoffs coming up, I thought I’d simply check in with some of my favorite teams and wax philosophically about their chances of bringing home silverware.  Also, you’re getting this a few hours early.  I mean, why not?

First off, a disaster of cosmic proportions – a supernatural disaster if you will.  I’m talking about the Red Devils falling at Old Trafford.  It’s likely this game should have ended in a 2-2 draw, or even a 3-2 United win.  ManU had two penalties not called and Gary Neville’s shoulder barge also should have been a penalty.  Let’s say they make all of them (not unlikely).  That’s 3-2.  Ok, ManU’s goal may have been a hand ball.  I think it hit his chest, but I’m not exactly neutral.  However, DROGBA WAS CLEARLY AND ABSOLUTELY OFFSIDES. WTF!!!!!!!! It wasn’t even close.  A full body, plus a hair.  So, that makes it 2-2.  Even with no penalties, it would have been 1-1.  It’s clear that Rooney getting injured is bad news for Champions League and EPL.  The Red Devils are safely in Champions League competition next year, so there’s not a lot of difference in two and three, but if Chelsea slips, you definitely want to overtake them.  Unless Chelsea has an injury, I don’t see anyone catching them.  Arsenal and ManU still have Champions League to deal with.  Now, I think Arsenal are pretty much done.  Two away goals is a huge mountain to climb.  However, Fulham overcame a 3-1 defeat in the Europa Cup against giants Juventus, so it could happen. Remember that Any Given Sunday piece? I just want to note that I am cheering hard for Fulham and American midfielder Clint Dempsey to win it.  I’m halfheartedly cheering for Liverpool too, but I really want Fulham to take home the silverware.

ManU may also be done in Champions League, but coming back from 2-1 at home is certainly doable.  Defense and have Nani or Berbatov poke one in.  It’s certainly possible, despite Berbatov looking like trash today…seriously, I did not get up at 6:45am to watch that kind of performance.  If you lose and Cech plays out of his mind, fine.  To lose by simply miss chances and not put it on frame…seriously?

Well, if you don’t believe in the supernatural, there are always natural disasters…the Carolina Hurricanes.  Now, I was going to write about how the Hurricanes have an outside chance at making the playoffs, but that has pretty much evaporated as at the time of this writing, there is 2:32 left in the 3rd period of the game against New Jersey…and they are losing 4-0.  I’m not even going to say anything else about it.

Just want to throw this in here since I’m talking about my teams that at some point I’ll probably look at the Bama 2010 football season based on recruits as well as the UK 2010 season based on recruits and departures.  Should be interesting to see if any of the big three leave UK.  I think they could all benefit from another year. I think draft stock went down as the season progressed…mostly because they were sharing minutes with each other.

Additionally, I have done a terrible job following college baseball this year.  At some point I’ll check in and give an overview of how seasons are going for GWU, UK, Bama and UNC.

Now on to the NBA…I live in Madison, so I keep an eye on the Bucks, but they traded my boy Jodie Meeks, so I’m not real happy with them.  The Bucks are putting the hurt on Phoenix right now…24 points at halftime…ouch.  The Bobcats are really my team though.  The   The Bobcats are also currently losing, but only by 9 points in the 3rd, so that’s not too bad.  Playing better in the 2nd half so far.  If the playoffs ended right now they would have the 7th spot and even if they go on to lose this game, they will still be in the 7th spot by a game.  Chicago is in the 9th spot though, so this is not a good game to lose.  They’ll play one more time before the end of the season, so in football parlance, these are 6-pointers (and that’s not a touchdown, but rather the 3 points per game that soccer uses).  Bobcats were up, but now down by 5 again very late in the 4th. Not really to call it just yet though.  The only team with a better record than the Bobcats that they play in the remaining games is the Hawks, so it’s looking pretty good for them to be in, but at New Orleans and at Houston will definitely be tough.  Chicago, on the other hand, has to play Boston, Cleveland and the Bucks…those are all home games though.  Last game of the season is Bulls in what is -more-or-less my hometown of Charlotte.  It could be for all the marbles…well, a playoff spot.

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Hockey and Soccer: Separated at Birth? – Part 1


2010
02.28

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Once again I’m not writing the article I planned to write, but with a day of giant upsets in college hoops, a canceled flight and an OT Gold Medal Game, you can’t really expect me to sit around researching for articles can you? ;) Well, I did a little…

The ice-cold reality is that hockey in the U.S. is a niche sport.  I’d disagree in general and it’s particularly a hard sell after watching the US’ run to the silver medal, but despite there being teams in LA and Atlanta, I might call it a ‘regional’ sport.  For some reason, that seems less demeaning, though the meaning is probably the same.  If you can’t grow up playing a game, you probably aren’t going to be a big fan.  When I was a kid growing up in Tuscaloosa, it was a lot easier to dream of being Bart Starr or Joe Namath, than it was Wayne Gretzky, even if Gretzky was a member of the Super Friends.  By the time the Hurricanes moved to Raleigh (or Greensboro as the case was at first), I was in high school.  There can still be some backyard dreaming in high school, but the ‘childhood dreams’ are pretty much gone at that point. Even if I had been the Hurricanes fan I am now, I still would have had to have driven to Charlotte to play.  Let me be clear, I am not advocating we throw up all sorts of rinks in the south so kids can play.  I love hockey, but if I’m going to be doing any advocating for more TV time , it’s going to be for soccer…mostly because I’m tired of FSC terrible video quality and tired of getting up at 6:45am to watch the good games (might be more on this later).

Rick Liebling makes an interesting comment on niche sports, ‘Individually they will remain fringe sports in this country, so let’s not pretend otherwise,’ but fails to fully develop the idea.  Rick is undoubtedly discussing sports more niche than hockey or soccer in this country, but I think he’s on to something talking about the European club system.  Hockey and football are undoubtedly more popular in Europe (regionally for hockey again) the the big three of American sports.  I’m not trying to be all Europhile, but particularly in football (since hockey is a North American sport), taking some queues from the other side of the pond would be good.  The NASL went the way that Portsmouth is going to go in part because they Americanized the game.  The problem with the MLS isn’t that there aren’t soccer fans here, it’s that the soccer fans here don’t care.  The MLS formerly had some weird schedule rivaled probably by Scotland’s table split or Australia’s weird sorta-kinda double-elimination tournament, but thankfully that too will be going the way of the NASL due to the addition of the Philadelphia Union.  The MLS having promotion/relegation is a pipe dream, but a single table causes no problems.  Going with a ‘play twice’ format does nothing to save teams money/cut carbon, the greatest advantage of having regionalized divisions.  Odd numbers of games against teams for the NBA, NHL and particularly MLB don’t matter too much because the seasons are so long.  However, the new MLS season (as the old) will be 30 games long, making it closer to the NFL season (both in sheer numbers and by percentage).  I think crowning the champion as the person that finishes first could also be a reality without major hiccups, but one I don’t see happening.  The MLS has the Support’s Shield, but that’s not the true champion.  Have a Carling Cup style tourney if you like (and of course there is the FA Cup-style Open Cup), just make it a separate competition.  I’m with Bob Knight on this.  Single-elimination tournaments are bollocks.

There’s one last point I want to bring back the comparison between the ‘plights’ of the NHL and MLS.  The MLS is also regional, but in a different way.  While there’s nothing stopping a North Dakota native from dreaming of becoming the next Landon Donovan like there is kids from Alabama becoming the next Patrick Kane, the kids in North Dakota simply don’t care.  However, in cities where there is always going to be a larger immigrant population or in the south/southwest where there is Hispanic migration, people do care.  The NHL needs to focus on Canada and the northern US, because that’s where the money is.  I love the Carolina Hurricanes, but they are never going to get the love the Panthers do.  The MLS is already targeting major cities because that’s what professional sports teams do, but they aren’t targeting the right demographics (with perhaps the exception of Toronto, Seattle and Chivas USA)

No prediction on next Sunday’s article.  I’m still doing valuable ‘research’ on the FIFA 2010 review, as well as the indoor/outdoor soccer article.  I’m also going to come out with part two of this article at some point where I take Liebling’s idea of branding niche sports together and give you some thoughts on how this could be done.

I’d also like to get your thoughts on shorter posts.  Jeff suggested I break up my articles.  I’d like to keep a Sunday deadline, just to make sure I churn stuff out regularly.  Do you prefer the RSS feed to be populated at the same time each week?  I know I like that xkcd comes out on a regular schedule, but maybe I’m just anal-retentive.

As always, thanks for reading!

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A Day Late, But Not a Dollar Short


2010
02.22

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Posted in Hockey, The Olympics | No Comments »

So, game reviews take longer than expected.  I guess that’s why I’m a sports writer and not a game reviewer, eh?  Speaking of ‘eh’, what a game by the US last night! Watching Olympic hockey is what has me not beating myself up about this post being late.

Hockey Notes

People are already talking about the rematch in the Gold Medal game.  Wait? First off, Canada could very well lose to Russia in the quarterfinals.  If Malkin and Ovechkin are on, all it’s going to take is some solid goalkeeping and Russia will be unstoppable.  Football keepers can play for years – see van der Sar or Friedel (among many others) but I wonder if Brodeur is past his prime.  I’ve not been keeping up with The Devils, but one has to think the Olympics is a step up from the NHL season and maybe he’s a little off.  I’m not saying things were Brodeur’s fault – far from it, the Canadians gave up massive amounts of turnovers – but maybe he’s no longer unstoppable.

Random News and Notes

I’ve also been working on getting my gym membership set back up after my move, working on getting more sportazine writers and spending a fair amount of time talking X’s and O’s with my roommate.  Not altogether a lazy week!  On the sportazine front, it looks like we are going to have an NFL blogger starting a monthly post in March.  So excited!

I passed out of casual observer phase to true fan this past week by picking up my first Manchester United gear.  I suppose the walk from my office to the building where the dock is was the liminal journey.  Fittingly, the hallway is called ‘The Chunnel‘.

Ideas for columns? Let me know! Right now, it’s looking like the next one will be some form of coaching/playing tips for indoor soccer, probably with some notes on the differences between the two sports, with some coverage also of beach soccer, Homeless World Cup and futsal.  As always, open to suggestions!

Why FIFA 2010 Review?

I was supposed to write a review of FIFA 2010 this week…apparently I spent too much time playing and not enough time writing. ;)   One of the sections I did finish was why I thought it was a good idea, so I’ll go ahead and post that.  When I finish the review, I’ll either rehash the reasoning or link back to it.

One might ask what a game review *really* has to do with sports, since you sit on a couch and aren’t following real athletes.  There are plenty of studies that suggest that gaming can teach and/or hone skills.  There is a reason the US Military funds video gaming.  When I coached for Triangle FC, I suggested the boys play FIFA so that they could learn terminology (through ball, pitch, etc), to build interest in the sport and to better think the game (when is a good time to play a through ball, etc).  My roommate likes to talk about being a couple passes ahead in the game.  That’s exactly what playing a game can help you do.  As to the players, had I subscribed to Fox Soccer Channel or GolTV at the time, and realized the coverage of the sport on TV, I probably would have suggested they watch the pros, but things have come a ways since then with ESPN now covering EPL games in HD.  Of course, at the time, Fox Soccer Channel wasn’t named that, but that’s another post.  Also likely another post – active vs. passive learning. That’s what’s going on in watching versus playing.

There are two points I want to make clear:

  1. For coaches, you’ve got to meet players on their level. Especially for older coaches, video games may seem like the most unathletic thing imaginable, but kids love video games.  If you’re teaching kids that the way to become a better football player (or any sport) is to run a ridiculous amount of wind sprints, you’re doing it wrong.  Just think of a video game as an extension of the ‘game tape’.
  2. For players, study the game. Even if your coach thinks winning a state championship is solely based on hustle and outrunning the opposing team (I’ve had coaches where ‘hustle’ was something akin to ‘the’), don’t be fooled.  Watch the game.  Study opposing players if you get a chance.  Do all of this without being a jackass to your coach, even if s/he is an idiot.  No amount of one-upsmanship is going to keep you from riding the pine or being sent back home to play video games.

And, just to be clear to both sides, you need to run wind sprints too.

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