Vancouver and Ashburn

Here is a picture of the Canadian gold-winning hockey team. Congrats to them, I think that is Crosby on the far left. He looks pretty good even though he has less rouge on than normal, almost like he has been sniffing around the goalmouth waiting for the puck to bounce off his stick and is no worse for the wear.

But the men play tommorow and I can't wait. The Canadians were so mad that the US finished the semis in the 1st period of our game, but deal with it. Maybe because when they destroyed the Slovaks 14 out of the 20 Canadians racked up a point. The Golden Princess wasn't one of those 14. Perhaps there weren't enough pucks lying around the crease to just pop in for a cheap goal. Canada just got them legitimately. The game tommorow should be awesome, and just getting a silver is more than we could have expected going into the tournament.

I haven't talked about the Skins for a while so here we go. I am ecstatic that they are going to try to bring Campbell back. While he is not a top 5 QB, he is top ten, and no one you could draft is going to be better if we are not rebuilding and going on as if we won't finish at the bottom of the East for the third year in a row. Bradford's draft status went up at the combine with both his gained weight of pure muscle and pristine passing. Hopefully this tempts the Rams and one of the DTs, either McCoy or Suh fall to the four spot. I know the Skins are swithching to the 3-4, but get the talent where it lies, and maybe get rid of Haynesworth and his contract if it is an uncapped year. Otherwise trade down for multiple picks with some team that wants Claussen badly.

Friday is the deadline to see if there is a cap this year. Its not likely. If it doesn't happen, get everyone, frontload their contracts, and go from there. Julius Peppers for one, Brian Westbrook to replace Portis for another, or possibly Sproles from San Diego. But the Skins need to work on that O-Line. Lets see if Snyder ponies up the dough. We will see, but for tommorow, go USA!

Stirring the Rivalry Soup For the Soul

So I have been wrong before and will be again. I thought the RF would stomp Canada, but it went the other way around. This is good for Caps fans. OV and Semin have to be mad at getting their butts kicked out of a medal, and hopefully they take that anger out in the NHL playoffs. However, Ovechkin was still the best player on the ice.

I go to Bird and Magic as my example. They were the penultimate definition of a player to player rivalry. Ovechkin and Crosby fit that bill as well. Magic won in 1979 at the college level, and won again with the Lakers in '80. He also won in '82, '85, '87, and '88. Bird won championships in '81, '84, and '86. They are both hall of famers.

I don't know how the Ovechkin-Crosby rivalry will work out, but if it stays even I'll be happy. By even I mean the Pens didn't really win last year, the refs gave it to them. I can't stress that enough. Maybe they will make Pens-Caps games for Xbox like they used to make Lakers-Celts games on the 8-bit Nintendo. Either way, the Great 8 got hurt last night which scares me, but they got their butts kicked anyways and it wouldn't have mattered. Congrats to the Canadians and good luck with Miller if we both get to the game for the gold.

Busting Cherry

Alright I am going to touch on a number of issues here. I apologize that the IOC took down the video of Ovechkin upending Jagr at mid-ice off this blog but I assure you it was awesome. Jagr has the reputation of being "elusive" but OV literally broke his visor in a clean hit. I'm sure Don Cherry could find something wrong with it, but he is the Keith Olbermann of hockey; overbearing, wrong, and if you do not agree with him, well why bother. He said after Canada's catastrophic loss to the numer 1 seeded Americans that if Canada had run 3 lines instead of 4, they would have won. Well try to see yourself to a medal Cherry because when Russia knocks your boys out I hope your tears don't spill onto whatever stupid outfit you picked out that day. And people wonder why he always talks down the Great 8. His bias is worse then Rather's.

Canada has paid $118 million for their Olympic teams (I honestly don't know if that is adjusted for Canadian dollars or not) while USA spent just $58 million. But we are still winning the most, even on Canada's ice (or lack thereof.) Canada's slogan going into Vancouver was "we are going to own the podium." No one has ever known what you are talking aboot, especially now. Go sniff a maple leaf and hope Ovechkin falls down an empty elevator shaft, otherwise, you will win nothing in hockey this time around.

The detractors of Ovechkin who obviously know nothing about hockey say that he is a selfish player. Nothing could be further from the truth and he is proving it in this tournament. He is letting Malkin and Semin go free, and he is playing the role of tough guy which is what they need. However, he has still scored 5 goals in 8 games. I'll go to the NHL stats because Olympic stats seem impossible to pull up.

In the 08-09 season when the Caps were less talented, OV averaged 6.68 shots on goal a game playing over 20 minutes every night. This year, with a more talented team, he averages a 5.24 SOG per game, giving the puck to his teammates more often because that is what puts you at the top of the league. In the meantime, he leads the league in goals per game at .78, but is also sixth in the league in assists. All the while playing a style of hockey where he breaks people's visors from time to time.

Maybe you could say that he doesn't play defense, but if you did you would be stupid. He leads the league in +/- at +43, 6 points ahead of Schultz, 11 higher then Backstrom, 15 more then Green, and then we get to Sedin who trails by 16. I guess the Caps are kind of good, I hope they come through on their potential. The Great 8 is amazing on either side of the blueline.

I don't mean to build up the Crushin Russian too much, but I want to dispell any thought that he is not the best player in the world. I hope the game for the gold is USA-Russia and USA pulls it out. A. Because that is my team until the NHL starts up again. and B. I want OV, Semin, and Gnarly Varly to feel unsatisfied. So they can feel satisfied once they bring the Cup here. God that would make Don Cherry so angry. But maybe he wouldn't wear red again.

The Proof Is in the Pudding Thus Far

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Dy83CrO-U

There is the link to the hit that you may have missed in the Olympic hockey today. While Steinberg wanted to criticize Ovechkin for missing in the shootout vs. the Slovaks, he did make one in before his skate broke, which Steinberg did not report. He praised Crosby for getting a shootout goal against the Swiss, who won exactly zero games in the tournament, but the Crosby-led team needed a shootout to put them down. The afore-mentioned video demonstrates who is the superior player. The guy who is tougher. The guy who creates opportunities for other teamates so his team can win. The guy who doesn't like to be a Zoolander clone, just play hockey. The guy who has his team at the top of the standings of his group after the preliminaries, even after Crosby finished four points out of his. If you asked Malkin who we would rather play with The Princess or The Great 8, what do you think he would say?

The US game tonight was sweet. But it was a far cry from watching a Caps game and a little weird. First off, the crowd was completely decked in red, but were not rooting for my team. Secondly, it made me anxious rooting for a lesser team, I am used to just rooting for the Caps. I would really not like to see the Canadians again, they are an all-star team, even with a guy I think is the best goaltender in the world wearing our colors. And thirdly, does everyone in Canada always look like they are about to cry as noted in the picture above? Go USA and keep it up!

Blame Canada

This is applicable to DC sports because it involves the US, which kind of revolves around this town. I never thought I would stick up for Ryan Miller, but here we go. He got a new goalie mask painted especially for the Olympics. On it he has the American flag, the Olympic rings, a picture of a tough-looking Uncle Sam, and some red and blue stars. It looks cool, but there are two other things that make the IOC kind of mad.

The first is that he also has "Miller Time" on it, not as an endorsement, but because that is his nickname, which my family in Buffalo loves to remind me over and over again. That has already been ordered off by the IOC for commercial considerations, even though the Olympics are the biggest beggars for commercial money other than Dick Ebersol. To my knowledge, Miller is not receiving a dime from the fine people at the brewery, that is just is nickname and every hockey fan already knows that, they don't need to look at his mask.

The second thing they are considering is ordering off Miller's "Matt Man" that is scrolled across his dome protector.This is for his cousin Matt Schoals who died from cancer. You have to be kidding me to take this off. The French aren't this bad, I think they let Lance Armstrong wear his bracelet in the Tour De France. I know the IOC is international but I blame Canada. They can't even get snow right in Vancouver, what do they know. Let the man wear his mask, especially with a tribute to the cousin who he was close to.

The Caps kind of fizzled at the end, but that was a great streak. There is no need to panic, we got two points out of three games, and currently lead the league in points, and I think we all would have taken that back in October. Plus two of those games were in Canada, and they can't seem to get anything right there.

Only two more days until pitchers and catchers report. Strasburg is there already and throwing around 100. There is something to look forward too. Hopefully we don't play Toronto this year. I also hope to look forward to seeing "Matt Man" on Miller's helmet tonight when the red white and blue go up against the Swiss.

In addition, Miller's backup Jonathan Quick is being forced to take the "Support the Troops" off his helmet. It violates section IOC rule 51 of the IOC code involving propaganda. Ridiculous.

Grand Theft Hockey

I know I should stop whining about the Caps constantly being hosed, but they are constantly being hosed. The first clue that something was up was when the ref's mic worked perfectly up there in good old Canada, but never seems to work at the Phone Booth. The too many men on the ice call was bogus because no Cap ever touched the puck, and transferring players are supposed to be given about 5 to 10 feet of leeway.

I am dying to hear the explanation for why Ovechkin's goal was washed. He knocked over a guy who had the puck between his legs as he went for it, the Canadien happened to bump into the goalie, and the puck happened to trickle in for what should have been one of the goals to win the game. That there was no penalty called to boot cemented the "what is going on here?" feeling. An interference call would have been bogus as well, but what were the refs thinking? That called back goal was more legitimate than Metro's (who I love) goal that got kicked in off the skate. You keep the legit goal, wash the bogus one and the Caps streak stands at 15 and we wouldn't have even needed OT. I know I am becoming a conspiracy theorist, but do you think it might have something to do with the fact that the game was in Canada? Look we all hated Russians for about 80 years because they had nukes pointed at us, but then there was this thing called glasnost and then they tore down the wall over 20 years ago so lets make up and be friends. Plus I am pretty sure that a quarter of Canada is french, so they really didn't fight for anything the whole time anyways. I know the Caps wear red but why is everyone in Canada J Edgar Hoover all of a sudden?

Finally, the puck that was careened by the Habs in their own zone into the bench but bounced back onto the ice should have been a delay of game and a power play, but the refs ignored it, didn't even blow a whistle for a stoppage in play because they are either rain main, or clearly biased. Either way the streak is over. Lets let the Caps re-invigorate, hope no more young goaltenders get hurt (what is going on,) and concentrate on the big prize.

What I would say to the team if I was Boudreau is that "you have to work twice as hard to acheive just as much." The Caps got hosed last year, hosed out of their streak, and hosed into several suspensions this year. That is the way it is and unfortunately we just have to deal with it. Giving a 5-2 lead on the road won't get you anywhere. We have to grab the bull by the horns before the bull grabs us, because it seems that it always does.

A Snowblower for the Sports Soul

So all of DC is snowed in and it is starting to get depressing. My refuge: the MLB network where it is always sunny and there is no snow. I watched a Bob Costas interview with Willie Mays last night that cheered me up a little. Before I go on, I want to say that Costas is one of the best sports journalists ever. I know some people think he may be almost too affable, and while he may not be as engaging as Cosell, he is just as good and memorable. And much like Matthew Broderick, he seems to not have aged a day since "Ferris Bueller" came out with the exception of the hair.

I bring this interview up because it warms me up to talk about baseball, and because it further backs my point that Mays is the best ever in the sport of baseball. "The Say Hey Kid" is the original Peter Pan. Because he doesn't have the ability to age like Costas, he is getting older. But he still has the spirit and told two great stories.

The first was a story between the Giants and the Milwaukee Braves between Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal where the two starters lasted into extras. In the 15th, Marichal yelled out to Mays as he headed to the box and pleaded "could you help me out?" Mays smiled, looked back and replied "you've only gone 15 young man." The irony was that Marichal was only 27, Spahn, still on the mound was 42 and Marichal, whose arm was about to fall off couldn't be shown up by a guy 15 years his senior. Then Mays homered and walked-off. Baseball has changed.

Another story is Mays was playing in a town he did not specify, and was the only black player on either team. He was booed mercilessly in a lesser time in our history throughout the first two games but hit three homers. As he went to the plate in the third game the PA announcer boomed to the crowd; "I know you don't like this guy right here but could you just give him a clap so he won't hurt us?" After he went yard again, he got a standing O.

Just hope those stories make you feel warmer in cold bitter weather.

As an update, Mays showed up on the Jon Stewart show as well.

If You Ain't Cheating, You Ain't Winning

Baseball has the 1919 World Series, the steroids era, and about fifty other things that prove this. The NBA has Tim Donaghy. College football has FSU. But the NHL may be coming further and further into the fold of this black pox that has fallen across sports. We have seen the controversy from ref Stephane Auger, as well as the bad call on Bradley. We have seen the Mike Green suspension that Dan Steinberg pointed out was due to faulty Canadaian camera angles as I posted previously. We have seen that Mike Green is not on the Canadian Olympic team despite leading the league in defense goals, assists and points despite his three game suspension and a few injuries. The argument might be that he is an offensive defenseman, but he is second in the league in +/- behind just Schultz, so that argument is faulty.

There is an obvious Canadian bias against the Caps as shown on the NBC broadcast of the Pens-Caps game the other night. All the Canadian announcers, who are just as lovely as listening to Troy Aikman and Joe Buck during a Skins game, are skewed as well. Crosby scores and you hear from McGuire with "you don't teach this in hockey school, this is only something you can get from above." So Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, whoever you believe in taught Crosby how to play hockey, that is really good for the Pens. Ovechkin plays a game where he wills his team to win, and you hear their star "hits to hurt." How about Hat Trick, and putting a camera a little closer on Crosby while they sweep up the caps, because I really think he may have been crying this time because his teammates were telling him not to go complain about the length of time it took to get all of the hats off the ice again. There is something awry, has been for a while, and it needs to get addressed. Look, no one liked Russia until Reagan was done with them, but that does not mean the Caps should not get to play a fair game or series against the Canadian darlings. The fact that OV singlehandedly lifted our boys to victory over the refs and a good team is a testament to the greatest player in the game.

The NFL has had its cheating as well, most noteably Spygate, where the Pats should have to hand their Lombardis back much like last year's players names should have their names sanded off of the Cup for their video cheating scandal. Now I want to preface this carefully. It is not because I am bitter that both my predictions for both of Sunday's games were wrong. I certainly hope the rest I made are absolutely correct, but did something seem wrong at the end of the game? You have the most clutch (and greatest player and I won't back down from that) of all time who completely falters at a time he normally is at his best. If you could take two players from the Colts and add them to the Skins I hope you would say Manning and Wayne. They both grew up in New Orleans. I have no proof, but something is fishy. Congrats to the Saints, like I said before, if my team couldn't do it I hoped they would. I don't have a press pass, but if I find of any cheating or throwing of games it will be worse than the day I found out there was no Santa Claus. Right now it is like I am staying up all night Christmas Eve, but I don't hear any reindeer on the roof.

Dad, Dunns, Dunnos, Dunno Again, Division, and Damn the caps Are Good

First off congrats to the Caps. I am almost getting tired of saying that it happens so often. Congrats to the Crushin Russian who got point 500 in just year five of his career and was Sportcenter's number one play this evening. He took the lead in goals for the year as well, and he missed 9 games because of injuries and Canadiens. (Not the Habs, the Biases, their office is in Toronto but their team plays in Pittsburgh.) Hopefully tommorow makes a baker's dozen for the Caps.

I just wanted to take a second to say that my Dad is the greatest guy in the world. Just as awesome as my new obsession with lists. Talking to my brother today made me think of my top five live sports moments ever. That I was there for. It's like the Tupac and Nate Dogg song, "It's All About You," but I digress. My Dad, because he's a saint, paid my ticket for every one of these games, and these were some of the best events in my life:

5. Watching Warrick Dunn get stuffed at the goal-line against UVA for the first FSU loss in the ACC ever. I have seen two college football games live in my life, but that was the best.

4. I don't know if I remember this score correctly, but I believe the Skins were down 35-3 at half to Aizona. While Plummer was still their QB. My brothers and I were signaling to my Dad in a different tier of JKC to come down and get out but he wouldn't. The game ended up 41-38 in OT and was a good lesson. It was the greatest half of football I have ever seen and I almost have never left a game early since.

3.OK let us tslk hypothetically in case this ever comes up in court despite the fact that this story is over a decade old. One of my two younger brothers may have thrown a water bottle better than Peyton Manning could on the ice as the Caps lost the final game in a playoff series. But he may have just grazed Matthew Barnaby's face because Barns is a jerk and that is the nicest thing I can say about that....person. It may have been one of the greatest things I have ever seen, and no one could throw that bottle of Dasani like my brother that day. If he may or may not have done it. By the way your honor, I may or may not have any recollection of that incedent if it is ever asked about. And I have two brothers you can't prove anything.

2. When the Caps beat the Canes to win out 9 straight to make it to the playoffs, I had never heard a place so loud and so emotionally charged. Except for one other game.

1. The 1988 NFC Championship Game
The game was never supposed to happen at RFK. The 9ers and the Bears were the top two seeds, my Dad and I were never supposed to have the tickets from the guy that went to Europe. But the top two seeds lost so the Skins end up playing the Vikings, we have the impossible tickets and we were right in the corner of the endzone as Green batted away the ball as Gibbs was literally on his knees for the second to last play of the game. As the weird Asian guy in the seat behind us kept throwing confetti on me awkwardly after that play, it was one of the best things I have ever seen. The best in sports. And I got to see it the 17-10 win with my Dad. That was the best.

Addendum: I had a chance to see Nattos opening day night game last year and turned it down because I think it was supposed to be a high of 25 degrees that day. But when ZimZam jacked it and walked off, I really wanted to not be able to feel my toes.

Predictions and Predications

And yes I know that means the exact same thing.

Look at Ovechkin and Boychuk and how my boy doesn't even need an enforcer like certain other stars, he takes care of it himself. It is refreshing, but I'm sure some Canadian won't like it and the Great 8 will be suspended for two or three games because he played hockey. This team is insane, and I said I would make predictions so here we go. The Caps will take this streak up to 13 and lose on Sunday to the refs, I mean Pens. It seems to always happen, so I am counting on it. But even the Redskins have only won 14 in a row in franchise history, the longest in DC.

(As a sidenote, this is only for fans who have followed hockey more than a year or two. Not the Capstronaut or the guy who wears all spandex who is lucky there is not a school within 500 feet of the Phone Booth. Remember the old hockey jerseys where it had CCM on the sleeve? I think that is the predication. Barring any major injury, the first C is for Caps, the second is for Canucks, and the M is for the money Cup series that will take place at the end of the year with those two teams.)Yes, barring injuries, I am calling it in the begining of February.

While I'm on the topic, I wasn't going to give my Super Bowl prediction for a few more days, but you know I can't wait to be right. 38-21 Colts. I hope Dwight Freeney is officially out, but we all know that won't happen, so the line will not go down a little more which is no good for my gambling friends. There is zippy chance Peyton does not win this, and does not cover by more than a touchdown. The big story on media day is Freeney, because Peyton is so blase and boring, but he is the best ever and he puts himself there on Sunday.

And finally, I try to learn something new everyday and did from the dcist.com today. Did anyone else know what a PECOTA was? Red Sox and Yankees fans don't reply no one cares what you think. I thought it might be a weird cheese I had never heard of, but it is the "Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithim." Say that to a girl and she will be dying to go to the ballpark with you. Well they put out their study every year, but retracted two parts today. They originally predicted the Nattos to win 82 games this year. They took that back, and as sexy as PECOTA sounds, I am pretty sure they don't do that very often even though I just heard about it today. They moved the Nattos to just win 76. The second move they made was to move Lannan's predicted ERA down .5. Wow, that is kind of concrete. Even with 76 wins that is a 17 swing improvement and I will take it this year, just not in 2011. God I miss baseball and 80 degree weather.

But I will predict that it will be over 80 degrees in June.

A little bit lazy today.

But two posts on a sick day, even though the majority of the text is from somone else. I respect Dan Steinberg to death and would kill for his job, but he is a day late and a dollar short on this post. Come to your boy Big Ron for your DC Sports analysis, he is anywhere from a day to week ahead of the rest of the pack.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/02/alan_may_canadian_media_biased.html

And yes it does feel good to be that right, all of the time.

I'm Being Totally Cereal

Once again I want to apologize for bringing up politics in yesterday's blog. I was trying to make a point about freedom of speech, it figures into DC because that was the most important thing to the Founding Fathers, who made it the first amendment. Sports is the one thing that brings us together, and I feel bad bringing up the things that split the country on something that is supposed to be fun. But the Grammys were pretty bad. On a completely different issue, Sally Jenkins, who is on a different side of the political spectrum from me, makes my point more eloquently. There is a reason she works for the Post and I just write a stupid blog. Here it is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102067.html

And go Caps!!!!!