Monday, January 1:
HAPPY NEW YEAR
to one and all!!!
Only the Detroit Lions could win a football game when a loss actually meant something. By winning yesterday, they surrendered the first overall pick in the draft. Mind you, they likely would have screwed it up anyway, and I enjoyed watching a rare win -- on the road at Dallas, no less.
Tuesday, January 2:
Well, I liked how Michigan matched up with USC on paper but on the field it was a far different story. The two teams played to a 3-3 stalemate in the first half, and then it was all Trojans on both sides of the ball. USC made adjustments at the half and romped 32-18 in the Rose Bowl and for the third year in a row Michigan finishes its season with a loss to Ohio State followed by a loss in a bowl game. Next season the Wolverines -- who have a ton of key players returning -- get both Notre Dame and Ohio State at home. A similar finish and the heat on coach Lloyd Carr will be tremendous -- and perhaps rightfully so. Carr and his staff were horrendously outcoached by Pete Carroll and his USC crew yesterday. Makes you wonder if the Michigan staff even looked at film of the USC-UCLA game and how the Bruins pressured Trojans' quarterback John David Booty into numerous mistakes.
Any question about whether Michigan was robbed by voters in the rankings have been put to rest. The Wolverines do not deserve another shot at Ohio State. Neither does USC after its two-loss season, although I think the Trojans may have the best shot at beating OSU. But maybe Boise State should be there in a week's time against the Buckeyes. They capped an undefeated season with an unbelievable win over an excellent Oklahoma team in the Fiesta Bowl. Maybe Lloyd Carr should catch the highlights. He may notice Chris Petersen of the Broncos doing some pretty solid coaching.
He's 19 years old, a budding star for Canada and you've probably never heard of him. You might soon. David Edgar, a 19-year-old soccer whiz born in Kitchener, scored the late equalizer for Newcastle in an exciting 2-2 draw with Manchester United yesterday at St. James' Park.
Kudos to the CBC for giving tonight's Anaheim-Detroit tilt the full "Hockey Night in Canada" treatment. Yes, it's a pretty good match-up but it's also the night they raise a red number-19 banner to the rafters at Joe Louis Arena, honouring Steve Yzerman. "The Captain" has been a combination of class and talent throughout his sterling NHL career in the Motor City. It's only right that Canadians get to see the accolades he so richly deserves.
Wednesday, January 3:
On a night in Hockeytown when everyone came out to thank him, Steve Yzerman ended up thanking everybody else. His wife and his three lovely daughters. The evening's opposition, the Anaheim Ducks. His Detroit coaches, and especially Scotty Bowman (and as his words of praise for Bowman spilled out, the old coach came as close to public tears as I've ever seen). Then his teammates, from 1983 to 2006. Red Wings legends of the past. Team management. Owners Mike and Marian Ilitch. And especially the fans. "You never let me down," Yzerman said, before his #19 was officially retired and raised to the rafters at Joe Louis Arena. No Steve, the fact of the matter is, you never let us down. And in my personal case, that goes back to Ottawa, interviewing a young but mature-beyond-his-years teen captain of the Tier-II Nepean Raiders and thinking to myself, "why can't all kids be like that?" You never let us down as a major junior star in Peterborough and you never let us down for one minute of your outstanding NHL career in Detroit. There was also one other night I'll never forget, a decade ago in Philadelphia following game one of the World Cup of Hockey after you scored the winning goal in overtime for Canada. Due to some technical screw-ups and personal unfamiliarity with the new Wachovia Center, I was late getting downstairs to the Team Canada dressing room. I was able to speak to some of the stars of that game, but your time with the media had come and gone. Then I spotted you getting ready to depart the building, and pleaded for a quick minute of your time. You had every right to say no and it frightens me to think of the percentage of pro athletes who would have done just that. But you stayed, gave me all I needed and then some -- and I've never been more grateful for anything in my years in radio. Members of the sports media don't cheer for particular teams (or shouldn't), but you'd better believe we cheer for certain individuals. Steve Yzerman, you were never "just one" of a bunch of guys making up a great team. You were and are the epitome of class. You never let us down.
Friday, January 5:
OK, the autumn of 2006 must be living on borrowed time. It was about 50 Fahrenheit here today and it's supposed to stay warm at least through the weekend. I can't help feeling that we'll pay the piper sooner or later but I can't ever remember reaching the first full weekend in January without once having to use my snow shovel for the driveway. No complaints -- I'm lovin' it!
Last February I rambled on about the joys of taking a Caribbean cruise. The greatest joy at the tail end of last year's was signing up for another cruise on the same line (same ship as it turns out) the following season. Same price, but a step-up in accommodations (with a balcony) and an 11 day cruise instead of 7. Knowing we'd signed up took a lot of the sting out of coming home. Well, we depart three weeks from Monday. Can't wait!
Saturday, January 6:
It never gets old, does it? A bunch of ecstatic, sweaty hockey players, lined up on a blue-line, belting out `O Canada' for all their worth. Never does such off-key music sounds sweeter to the ears. Congratulations to Canada's juniors, world champs once again, beating Russia at their own game yesterday in Sweden. The Canadians were flying in the first period, jumping out to a 3-0 lead in a period where they did everything right. The 4-2 final gave them a third straight world title and first in Europe in a decade. A brilliant performance.
My yearly blog archives (previously labelled "2005" and most recently "2006") were hard on the eyes, lengthy to load and a pain to scroll through. So I've restored all monthly pages with a button index at the bottom of every blog page. Just click and go to whatever month you choose, from September 2005 to now.
Monday, January 8:
Five years ago, a pretty good Ohio State football team had somehow run the table and found itself in the BCS championship game against an overwhelming favourite. Yet, when the dust had cleared, the Buckeyes were the champions, shocking Miami in overtime. Today, it's Ohio State playing the role of the heavy favourite, but I don't see an upset this time. The Buckeyes -- in my mind -- are far and away the best college football team in the U.S., and should handle Florida with relative ease. Urban Meyer's a great coach, but so is Jim Tressell. He's even played the superstitious card. Because the Bucks were the visitors in the 2002 game at Tempe, Tressell has booked them into the same visitors' team hotel in Phoenix. Ohio State will even wear white tonight. It will be interesting to see if Florida trots out what they consider to be their lucky blue pants to go with blue jerseys. But they could have four-leaf clovers in their pants pockets for all the good it's going to do.
PREDICTION: Ohio State 41, Florida 21.
Dallas coach Bill Parcells said during the season that his biggest problem with quarterback sensation Tony Romo was keeping him grounded and away from overconfidence. After mishandling the snap on a potential game-winning field goal in the Cowboys' playoff loss in Seattle Saturday night, I don't think that will be a problem any time soon.
I had hoped to take the camera out to some hockey games over the weekend, but I was completely grounded. The new thermostat that was installed in my vehicle Thursday lasted all of one day before it quit and my engine was running dangerously hot. So I'm going to be asking my mechanic some pretty pointed questions when I see him today.
Tuesday, January 9:
Yep, like I said -- a blowout. "Relative ease." Forty-one points for winners, just as I predicted. Oh, did I say Ohio State would win?! Must have been a typo. The Florida Gators ate the Buckeyes for dinner. Holy cow, 41-14?! Take away Ted Ginn's opening kickoff touchdown return and it's 41-7 ! So we're chewin' on crow today, and especially in regards to Urban Meyer, whom we lambasted for campaigning for his team to be in the championship game. Well, Florida deserved to be there, and how! What a night for the SEC, the toughest conference -- and evidently the best -- in college football. And what an indictment against the Big 10, which went 2-and-5 in bowl games. Makes last November's Michigan-Ohio State "showdown for the ages" kind of second-rate in retrospect. Just one more thought before we leave college football for the season: How is it there's one team -- Boise State -- with a perfect record, but not a national championship to go with it?
Have to admit, I saw very little of last night's game, but heard plenty of it on the radio. The Bride, three weeks to the day before we embark on an 11-day cruise, badly sprained her ankle. So it was off to get x-rays in the evening and up to Newmarket to get her laptop so she can work from home. The sweetest words we heard? The doctor saying "no fracture." He's pretty sure she'll be just fine in a week or two.
Wednesday, January 10:
Had to happen someday. Snow. Not a lot, but a good five centimetres of lake effects snow this morning out here in the northeastern 'burbs. Enough that I'll have to get out the snow shovel tonight for the first time this season. I could wait for the promised rain tomorrow and Friday to wash it away, but I need the exercise -- and it's light and fluffy. Toronto? Not a flake. But the forecast in the whole region calls for snow Sunday and it's supposed to stay cold for at least the next week. Winter was inevitable.
Thursday, January 11:
OK, maybe two centimetres of snow. It sure looked worse at the time, so when I got around to shoveling it, it was pretty easy to remove. Still, January 10th has gotta be a personal record for the latest snow shovel appearance in a winter.
Looks as if The Bride will be just fine. Just 48 hours after the ankle sprain, she wanted to go shopping for new clothes. There's very little swelling and the pain, she says, is minimal. Thank heavens for that!
I wonder where the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to end up? Kansas City is offering a pretty sweet deal by the sounds of it, depending on how much the club would get in terms of concessions and parking, etc. One thing is certain. Under Gary Bettman's NHL, it will never be anywhere in Canada. Personally, I hope the Pens stay in Pittsburgh where they belong.
Friday, January 12:
Wednesday's snow? Melted. As if it never happened.
White smoke signals the election of a new pope. But it can also be an ominous signal if it's coming out of your exhaust pipe. It is with a painful memory that I recall a late spring car trip from Detroit to Cincinnati with a friend of mine for a Reds game -- back in 1976. I was just out of college, newly employed, without so much as a credit card to my name. Twenty miles out of town that night on our way back, the engine overheated and white smoke came out of the exhaust. A blown head gasket. I had to leave the car in the Cincy suburbs, take a bus home to get back to work, and then bus it back to southern Ohio (an all-day milk run) a few days later, all the while begging and borrowing for enough funds to cover this very expensive repair. (I recollect that I also had to hitchhike once I got to Cincinnati, to the outlying region where my car was waiting. A trucker bailed me out.) Not a happy time. Well, my overheating problem of last week? You guessed it. I now recall the white smoke, and sure enough, another blown head gasket. My mechanic (who is also upset, having wasted most of a week trying to fix the most likely culprits) is giving me a pretty solid break on the overall cost, but man, oh man, this one's a major gunshot wound to the wallet.
Sunday, January 14:
Scorepics question of the day: Who gets to a Super Bowl first? Marty Schottenheimer or the Detroit Lions?
Leave it to the west to save the day. The traditional clubs, the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs served up twin stinkers on Hockey Day in Canada, but the Oilers and Flames saved it with game three of the tripleheader. The first period just flew by. The NHL is warning that -- unless the schedule system changes in the off-season -- an American team will have to be part of the tripleheader next year. Apparently, none of the three western Canada clubs are scheduled to play in eastern Canada. The sooner they get that resolved, the better.
Monday, January 15:
Scorepics answer of the day: The correct answer, of course, is neither. Marty Schottenheimer, who will likely be fired as coach of the San Diego Chargers any day now, will be pushing up daisies before he ever gets a sniff at the Super Bowl. Too bad -- he's a guy we've always liked. And the Detroit Lions? Playing in a Super Bowl? Stop it! You're killin' me here!
Looking for a San Diego scapegoat? Marty Schottenheimer isn't it. The Chargers players couldn't have gift-wrapped yesterday's playoff loss to the New England Patriots any better if they had placed a big bow on top of it. So much for their 10-game winning streak. All the mistakes they avoided in that late-season run were on display yesterday. I remember chuckling in disbelief in November when I heard a San Diego radio sports host predict the Chargers would run the table through the end of the regular season. And they did. But yesterday's game was there for the taking. And it was the Patriots who took it. So now it's another New England-Indianapolis showdown and I couldn't be less interested. Go New Orleans!
The problem with mild winters is that the massive snowstorms you avoid turn into massive ice and freezing rain storms. There were plenty of vehicles (and drivers) totally unprepared for that weather today. Folks, slow and steady will get you there in one piece.
Tuesday, January 16:
It started, to the best of my knowledge, in 2000 when Terrell Owens, then of the San Francisco 49ers, celebrated on the gridiron by running to the centre of the field and dancing on the famous lone star logo at Texas Stadium. That is, until the Dallas Cowboys' George Teague came up and knocked him into next week. Since then though, players in both the pros and colleges seem to get their kicks immediately after a road victory by dancing or planting a flag upon the 50-yard-line logo of the vanquished. Why? This isn't war (and spare me the correlations that always accompany the hype before a big game). This isn't some oaf planting a flag on a spent battlefield, exclaiming, "I, Herkamer Crump, claim this land and all it encompasses in the name of King Fungus the Fifth!" This is football, a sport seemingly without sportsmanship and this "celebration" is, above all, classless to the extreme.
Thursday, January 18:
Glad to see that Marty Schottenheimer will be back as head coach of the San Diego Chargers for another season. His players were responsible for the playoff loss to New England. Under Schottenheimer's direction, the Chargers went 14-and-2 and won 10 in a row. He deserves another year.
It's been far too long since we took in some OHL hockey, save for the closing of the Oshawa Civic Auditorium, the opening of the General Motors Centre and the NOOF VIII trip. So we'll rectify that, starting tonight with the IceDogs-Majors game at St. Mike's.
Today is Mandy the Wonder Pooch's ninth birthday. I'm guessing that only those who have pets -- especially childless couples -- will appreciate the significance.
Friday, January 19:
I'll miss the old St. Michael's College Arena when it's no longer a part of the Ontario Hockey League. Sure, it's ancient and cramped and not up to league standard. But nowhere in the OHL -- not even Windsor -- are you on top of the action the way you are at St. Mike's and it's a great place to take pictures, even when the game's a one-sided stinker as last night's was, a 5-1 Mississauga win over the home side.
Wednesday was Muhammad Ali's 65th birthday. It doesn't seem possible. It's so very sad to see this bright and incredible athlete struck down by Parkinson's disease. And by the way, a huge tip of the hat for the hour-long Prime Time Sports radio show Bob McCown and Stephen Brunt presented Wednesday evening on Ali's 65th. It was sports radio at its very best.
Saturday, January 20:
Has there ever been a pro coaching system in hockey to emphasize offence? The trap, the left wing lock -- they're all part of a way to take scoring out of the game and slow it down. Yes, much of the interference has been eliminated with last year's rule changes, but coaches are finding ways to get around it. Most of the hockey is still good, but I'm starting to see some boring clunkers in the mix.
If I hear Gary Bettman refer to fan surveys one more time, I shall scream. Every time the NHL commissioner is grilled on his league's problems in the states -- declining attendance, virtually zero television exposure -- he falls back on his old argument that "fan surveys" show that everything is just hunky-dory. Well a positive fan survey and $1.58 will buy you an extra large double-double at Tims. And if "if's" and "but's" were candies and nuts, then we'd all have a Merry Christmas.
While I'm on my high horse, let me add another pet peeve. It's those radio ads touting the "new" sportscasts on a certain TV sports network. The ones that basically say that nothing on the ice, floor of field will "make" the sportscast -- the sportscast will "make" the sportscast. Yes, let's always remember that we in the media are far more important than the newsmakers themselves. Rubbish.
Monday, January 22:
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. Guys trying to gain extra yards and not taking care of the football. Receivers dropping perfect passes. Too many guys in the huddle. Too many mistakes doomed the New Orleans Saints and New England Patriots yesterday. So it's the Bears and Colts in the Super Bowl. Much will be made of the fact that Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning has finally made it to the big game. Big deal. He never won the big one at Tennessee and it took until now before he finally won a big one in the pros. I'm much happier that Colts' coach Tony Dungy, one of the class acts in sports, has finally reached the Super Bowl. And it's pretty cool to see his friend Lovie Smith, another African-American head coach, join him there with Chicago. So it's a Midwest Super Bowl, Indiana vs. Illinois, Peyton Manning vs. Rex Grossman. I'll be cheering for Da Bears and I usually pick the team with the best defence, which I think Chicago has. But Manning vs. Grossman? That's potentially too large a QB mismatch to ignore. Colts'll win by 10.
Tuesday, January 23:
Well, that was disappointing. I'm as much a lover of sports uniforms as I am of bygone arenas, ancient stadiums, old scoreboards and of course the the games themselves. Not sure who was at fault here, but the NHL certainly implied that it would reveal next season's new uniforms for individual teams at yesterday's news conference in Dallas. It did not -- so we're left to guess until the spring or summer. If the league and Reebok screw up the classics, there'll be hell to pay!
Speaking of fashion, there's no question that Fashion R-nt Us. I have a nice Columbia blue golf shirt that I wear sparingly, as its light colour accentuates my Labatt Lard and Molson Middle. And whenever I do wear it, I spill coffee down the front of it. Every time. Guaranteed. Including yesterday, first thing in the morning. I'm wearing a black shirt today and of course, not a drip -- except for the guy writing this.
Thursday, January 25:
It's a no-brainer and since the Detroit Lions are involved, it's precisely why it will never come to pass. The Lions should stumble through one more season of Matt Millen's (24-and-72) leadership, and then drop him like a steamin' baked Idaho spud and hire Bill Parcells (who is contracted to Dallas for one more year) as their general manager. Parcells is a guy who I believe won't be able to get football out of his blood, even though he likely won't want to coach anymore. But I think he's the guy who would respond to the ultimate football challenge -- turning the most poorly-run franchise in North American pro sports into winners. Each and every football decision would be his to make. It makes perfect sense. It will also never come to pass. These are the Lions, after all.
Friday, January 26:
Vacation !! Yahoo !!! (well, as of 12 noon). And with the temperature at minus 21 Celsius (6 below zero Fahrenheit) here by 8 o'clock last night, you can bet I'm looking forward to some Caribbean sunshine. First though, a long-awaited basketball game to add to the Scorepics pages. I've long been a Boston Celtics fan -- about the only deviation from all things Detroit and Michigan. And I'm pretty impressed with the way the Toronto Raptors have played this season. The Raps are about the only Toronto team I cheer for. So I'm really kind of blasé as to which team I want to win this evening. I just hope it's an entertaining game.
Saturday, January 27:
Oooh, that was stump-ugly, but a win is a win is a win. The undermanned Boston Celtics outworked the Toronto Raptors for much of the second half, but just when it appeared they were poised for an upset, Toronto went on a 19-0 run and pulled it out. But the home team was sloppy throughout much of the final 24 minutes and started a pattern of settling for the outside shot instead of trying to muscle into the paint. The Raptors looked much like the Vince Carter-led club of a few years ago. But this is Chris Bosh's team, and the all-star delivered again last night. I'm liking what I see from this Raptors outfit, even though they were far from at their best last night.
Setting a custom white balance is apparently crucial when it comes to basketball photography. I failed to do so last night with the Canon S3 (settling for the auto setting) and paid the price. I'll run last night's pictures back through the photo editing software when I have some time, to try and find a proper balance.
Sunday, January 28:
Very saddened to learn of the passing of "Gump" Worsley at age 77. The hall-of-fame goalie went maskless for all but the final six games of his storied career. In my hockey-watching life, he spent more time with his hometown Montreal Canadiens, but I'll always remember him as a New York Ranger, where he spent his first decade in the NHL. I was privileged to have Worsley as a between-periods guest years ago when I was working in Ottawa and he couldn't have been more accommodating -- and funny to boot. Always loved this line from his days playing in Manhattan: When asked which team gave the Rangers' goalie the most trouble, he quipped, "The Rangers."
Monday, January 29:
The Bride and I have been wanting to do this for a long time, so we finally managed it last night. We drove out to Etobicoke to Hollywood on the Queensway to catch Robbie Lane & The Disciples over the dinner hour. Yes, I was actually around when he hosted the mid-60's TV music show "It's Happening." He wouldn't remember me from Adam, but we worked with Robbie back in the '80's at a few dance events when I was employed at a Toronto radio station. He and his band are still superb. (And we can still do the boogaloo with the best of them!)
We're off on the good ship GTS Constellation for the next 11 days, so blog updates will be spotty or even nonexistent for awhile.
Wednesday, January 31:
GEORGE TOWN, Grand Cayman Island -- OK, we've found it. Paradise. We're going to buy an expensive beach house on Seven Mile Beach, and live out the rest of our lives here. All we have to do is win the lottery. No biggie, right? This is one of the very best places in all of the Caribbean -- which is, of course, one of the very best places on earth.
We're being sinfully pampered by the great staff on board the Celebrity Constellation, but we were nervously looking over our shoulders on our first day at sea. The music in the martini bar included selections from "Titanic" -- honest! -- and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Are they trying to tell us something?
