If you think that all the action at a football game is going down solely on the field then you’re nuts; the stands are where all the good stuff happens. And if you think that dudes are the only ones who take team pride seriously then, again, you’re nuts. Chicks have just as much school spirit as any campus meathead; especially when you’re talking about camera time.
Jets fans must be loving this!
Links:
[Awful Announcing]: Oregon And Arizona Do Not Like Each Other At All
When rivalry time comes rolling around for most schools, it means no holds barred. Oregon and Oregon State are no different. So, when some loyal Beavers fans get together to tailgate for the big game on Dec. 1, they won’t be taking leaks behind some guy’s Chevy Tahoe or squatting behind a leafless bush. Nope, after an afternoon of boozing and binging, these lucky fans will be relieving themselves in style. These Beavers fanatics mean business and when it comes time to do their business it all goes down in the…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…the Bellotti Potty!!
Classic.
Guess this means that the potty’s patrons are dropping ‘Beaver Steamers.’
Links:
[The Wizard of Odds]: Introducing the Bellotti Potty
[Beavers Blog]: The Monday Morning Bellotti Potty
Former MLBer and current Long Island Ducks shortstop Jose Offerman was arrested on Tuesday night after he went ballistic and attacked Bridgeport Bluefish pitcher Matt Beech with his bat following a beaning in the second inning.
The game started off pretty good for Offerman as he homered in the first inning, but a fastball to the calf in the second caused Offerman to charge the mound, bat in hand, and a major league fight broke out in the minors. Offerman was charged with a second-degree assault and reportedly got out of the pokey after posting the $10,000 bond.
He hit him with a cut fastball in the left calf,” Bluefish manager Tommy John said. “And the next thing you know, Offerman’s going to the mound with his bat over his head taking swings at Beech. He took at least two, maybe even three [swings].
Luckily, the only thing that was seriously injured in the scuffle was Offerman’s integrity. The focus of Offerman’s fury escaped the assault with a broken middle finger on his non-throwing hand, but catcher John Nathans ended up being an unintentional victim in the whole ordeal as he went home sporting symptoms of a concussion.
Listen, we love a good dust-up as much as the next guy, but is this baseball or a reenactment of the infamous brawl in The Warriors? Whatever happened to simply charging the mound and matching fists with the guy? Maybe Offerman was afraid something like this would happen.
Links:
[NewsDay.com]: Ducks’ Offerman, wielding bat, attacks pitcher
I’m not even going to discuss this game, because it was never in doubt. Honestly, these Cup Finals were pretty much never in doubt – once Buffalo got eliminated, I thought it was pretty much over; the Sabres had the best chance of rolling with these Ducks.
Here’s two things of a broader societal sports trend nature I’d like to bring up:
1. Southern California is, indeed, hot right now: Consider some examples. USC football – sure, they lost to UCLA last year and doomed their national title shot, but hell, they’ve been the best team in college sports the past half-decade (with 1, maybe 2, national titles). The Angels won it all in 2002, and are arguably the best team in the AL right now. The Lakers won three straight titles, and are probably 1 legitimate point guard away from being able to get back to the Western Finals at least. The Dodgers might be a sleeper candidate for the World Series. And hell, even the Clippers have a bunch of talent. Oh – don’t forget about USC (O.J. Mayo!) and UCLA hoops, and UCLA football. And now, the Ducks. Pardon the pun, but that area’s Cup runneth over.
2. The NHL needs to intervene; You have to figure Buffalo is knocking on the door, i.e. they might finally win a Cup next year. Pittsburgh, with Crosby and Malkin, isn’t far off. Anaheim will stay good. Detroit always has dudes, and I have to guess Colorado will rebuild as well. What do all these teams have in common? They don’t play in Canada. The last north of the border team to raise Lord Stanley happened in 1992-1993, which was almost a decade and a half ago. Bettman needs to do something completely illegal, and move Crosby to the Canadiens on some “home draft” principle he creates out of thin air, just to keep this sport moving in the right direction. If the Canucks (the people, not the team) get turned off on hockey because they keep getting trounced on its grandest stage, well, the sport is utterly doomed. I mean, your last three champions are now from SoCal (beach), North Carolina (college hoops and tobacco), Tampa Bay (slutty co-eds mingling around huge pirate ships), and New Jersey (industrial waste). I see nothing about snow and French-speaking people in there, do I?
One positive from all this: Pronger, Selanne, and Giguere now will have their name etched on the trophy. They all deserve it. Pronger has probably been the best defenseman in hockey since Scott Stevens; Selanne has been around forever and done some amazing things with the puck at the end of his stick; and Giguere is probably the best goalie in hockey at this moment, all things considered. I’m happy for all them.
That concludes our Stanley Cup series over at Sportscolumn. Give me a visit or a shout anytime at A Price Above Bip Roberts. I’ll be back here from time to time, but be sure to visit. I get lonely, and that’s not a good thing.
Ducks 3, Senators 2
The central issue of this game going into it was the Chris Pronger suspension. For the second time this postseason, though, the Ducks won a game without their defensive leader. They now lead the series 3-1, with Game 5 slated for Wednesday night on the Pond (that’s Anaheim, although it’s really called “The Honda Center” now – damn corporate sponsorship).
It’d be easy to discuss the ramifications of the Pronger suspension, but the fact is: it didn’t matter. When you’ve got Jiggy between the pipes, I don’t care if you’ve got two acne-riddled teenagers who weigh 100 pounds soaking wet in front of him. If he’s in the zone, ain’t nothing gonna light the light.
It would also be easy to discuss Dustin Penner, who scored what ultimately proved to be the game-winner, but again, that’s just too easy.
The true story of this game was Andy McDonald. McDonald is the Ducks center, and he’s entirely too small to be playing that role in any type of competitive playoff series. If this dude was staring down Scott Stevens, Stevens might just start cackling. But there he was last night (McDonald, not Stevens – I need to work on my modifiers), deking and out-thinking cockroach-eating Ray Emery en route to two goals in the 2nd period. Once you give Giguere that kind of support, you’re winning the game. McDonald might be the Ducks’ Daniel Gibson for these playoffs, which is to say Dustin Penner might be Daniel Gibson, Giguere might be LeBron, Chris Pronger might be Z, and McDonald might be Larry Hughes. Heck, I’m just trying to make it relevant to a broader audience.
[Ted Bauer will be covering the NHL playoffs for us this year. You can find more of Ted’s work at A Price Above Bip Roberts.]
Ducks 1, Senators 0
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually watch this game, because I was at a coffee bar in Hartford, CT trying to pick up some foxy ladies. It’s a good thing, too – not that I failed miserably in trying to get girls (that’s bad), but that I didn’t watch it – because me, not being a hockey purist, probably wouldn’t have appreciated this see-saw battle.
The only goal came from Samuel Pahlsson, interesting in the sense that Sami’s main role in this series was supposed to be checking the hell out of good, scoring-centric Sens players. Now, for two consecutive games – that being 1 and 2, for those of you in the know – an Anaheim player mostly responsible for checking (Travis Moen in Game 1) has scored the essential goal for the Ducks, in the process giving them a 2-0 advantage and helping them to retain home ice advantage.
As we said earlier, no Canadian team has actually hoisted Lord Stanley’s chalice since 1992, when the Montreal Canadiens did it. That’s 15 years, which seems like an egregiously long period of time considering that Canada is probably the No. 1 thing you associate with hockey, at least in a geographic sense. For the Sens to make this interesting, here’s what has to happen:
1. Emery has to enter complete lockdown mode, like Giguere was in last night. No mental mistakes.
2. Their first line – Heatley, Alfredsson, and Spezza – has to start lighting the red light frequently.
3. They have to take the Ducks checking lines and let them hit ’em, but don’t let those guys get open looks at the net.
4. They have to somehow imagine the Ducks are, in fact, the Buffalo Sabres.
Brett Hull predicted this series would be over in five games. One win in Ottawa, and I’ll go with him. Every Cup Finals since ’01 with just one exception has gone seven games. I’d love to see this one join it, so long as we can get a few 5-4, 2OT finals in there as well.
Ducks 3, Senators 2
In many respects, the key to the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals is probably going to be Anaheim’s checking line. See, if and when they match up with Ottawa’s first line – easily the best line in this entire series, with no disrespect to Anaheim intended – they need to hold their own against the Alfredsson, Heatley, Spezza dynamic, because those boys can go off at any time.
It was interesting, then, that Anaheim’s checking line did play a key role in Game 1, but not – ahem – for checking. Rather, Travis Moen of that line scored the game-winner to help the Ducks hold home-ice advantage after a hot Senators start (they scored maybe 1 minute into the game, immediately followed by a Versus interview of Cuba Gooding Jr in the stands, a guy who knows way more about hockey than you might assume).
Moen’s Wikipedia page makes a big deal for no apparent reason (read: the editor is from Calgary) over the fact that he was drafted by the Flames, but never played for them. The Flames can’t be happy. Maybe if they had Moen in ’04, they woulda been able to win one of those close games in the Finals against the Lightning, and the Red Mile would still be celebrating.
For now, though, “Quack Attack” or whatever the bars in Anaheim call themselves when people get sloppy and celebrate the Ducks, is rolling. Game 2 could be more of the same: if Giguere stays his sharp self, Pronger and Niedermayer get even more uncorked and just go around nailing people, and Ray Emery has a couple of mental mis-steps on the Canadian side, well… it could be 2-0 series wise pretty quickly. The last time a team from north of Michigan hoisted the Lord’s goblet was 1992 and the Montreal Canadiens. C’mon, Ottawa. Get after this. (Also, since the NBA playoffs have been yawn-inducing, we need this puppy to go 7, and then 3OT).
[Ted Bauer will be covering the NHL playoffs for us this year. You can find more of Ted’s work at A Price Above Bip Roberts.]
Ducks 4, Red Wings 3
That sound you hear right now is Dominik Hasek’s slinky spine crumbling to dust.
See, Jean Sebastian Giguere had a rough final period – allowing three red light specials to the Wings – but he was stone cold lights out for the first two periods, when nothing got past him. Hasek was pretty much the reverse, but in the end, the Ducks still won (with help from a Samuel Pahlsson goal). Whether or not this means the adage “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” is something that’s complete bollox, I’m not ready to say just yet.
What I am ready to say is this: the Cup Finals are set, and it’s Anaheim vs. Ottawa. Anaheim was here four years ago, when they lost to the Devs in seven. Ottawa has never been here, at least not in their present, since-1992 version.
The series is boring for this reason: small markets. Anaheim is 10th in the state of CA alone, and Ottawa is 4th in Canada. People will consistently use that argument to prove no one cares (meanwhile, if Cleveland somehow stuns Detroit, the NBA Finals would pit Cleveland against San Antonio, which has to be equivalently disastrous markets).
The series is interesting for this reason: Ottawa’s first line has been incredible during these playoffs. Hell, it’s been just about the only thing Ottawa is doing really well (besides Ray Emery). Anaheim has the personnel to really rumble with that line, and maybe even create a few fights in the process. That’s going to be the Ducks’ big advantage; dudes like Pronger might just level dudes like Spezza as the series winds on.
Depending on how you view the Angels of baseball geographically, you might think that neither Anaheim or Ottawa has had a major sports championship in quite some time. It’s also interesting for that reason: two “fringe” sports communities battling for arguably sports’ most renowned hardware. Y’all ready for this? We’ll be back Thursday with a detailed preview and prediction in this very spot.
Red Wings 5, Ducks 0
The postseason in both sports currently experiencing it can get many titles – “Not that interesting” and “Lacking Individual Stars” come to mind – but here’s one I’d like to go with: “Men Behaving Badly.”
Nary a night after Robert Horry made Suns vs. Spurs Game 4 look like a hockey game, Chris Pronger whips out a nasty hit in the middle of Anaheim just getting laughed off their own ice in Game 3. Now the Wings are up 2-1, Pronger could get some type of disciplinary action, and here’s the aftermath for you, dear fan: out of all the potentially interesting Cup Finals Matchups – say, Buffalo vs. Detroit (Hasek), or Anaheim vs. Buffalo (two really good teams) – we’re likely going to get Ottawa vs. Detroit.
Now, I have no problem with this, per se: Ottawa’s first line is redonkeyballs, and there’s some good storylines there within. But, can the brothers on the ice and the hardwood just start being civil so that we can play these games full strength and see who really deserves a shot to lift the hardware? I hate tainted outcomes, unless I’m the one that cheated and did so successfully. But that was once – third grade dodgeball – and never again.
[Ted Bauer will be covering the NHL playoffs for us this year. You can find more of Ted’s work at A Price Above Bip Roberts.]
Ducks 2, Canucks 1
In the irony of all ironies to end this one, a team that was based on a brother duo – the Sedins – for most of the season (hell, the Sedins ended that 4OT game in the Dallas series) gets run out of the playoffs for good by another, less-heralded-overall brother duo. Rob Niedermayer deflected a puck in the second overtime over to his brother, Scott, who poked it through Roberto Luongo to end another overtime battle between these guys.
Even though the series ended up 4-1 Ducks – they’re headed to the Western Conference Finals, awaiting the winner of Red Wings vs. Sharks – it was actually closer than it appeared. This makes us sad, when cities with one professional team of record get bounced. Look, I mean it sucks to be in Dallas right now (Tony Romo can’t hold snaps, Dirk is growing a man-gina, the Rangers haven’t been relevant since – well, ever, and the Stars lost to Vancouver itself in the first round of the NHL playoffs). But it might suck to be in Vancouver, because now you have nothing, unless you’re fans of the Warriors because the Sonics have ceased to be relevant, and, you know, well, the Grizzlies kind of left and all.
We’ll say this much: at least Luongo got his first-round win, right? At the very least, that happened. And Ducks vs. Sharks, if it happens – the battle for Paul Kariya’s Metaphysical Soul – is going to be a barn burner.
[Ted Bauer will be covering the NHL playoffs for us this year. You can find more of Ted’s work at A Price Above Bip Roberts.]
