Categories
General Sports

The Weekly Sports Roundup Podcast for May 2 2006

Welcome to another episode of the Sportscolumn podcast. If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast (which is recorded Tuesday nights) or you want to suggest a topic, drop us a line at [email protected].

You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 42 mins) or subscribe to the feed.  

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • NFL Draft and the foolish Texans
  • John Daly’s gambling problem which of course leads to our own gambling addictions
  • Reggie Evans’ testicle pull
  • NHL Playoffs – Detroit vs Edmonton
  • Planning events on important sports days

Hope you guys enjoy the podcast.  If you did enjoy it, please go to this page on Yahoo and give us a good rating so we can rise up in the rankings. If you didn’t, send us an email ([email protected]) or add a comment below. Thanks for listening.

Categories
Golf

John Daly’s a big white whale


In his new book, John Daly: My Life In and Out of the Rough, Daly claims he lost between $50M and $60M during 12 years of heavy gambling. That’s about $5M a year. And we thought Darren McCarty had a gambling problem.

It’s amazing that Daly with his alcoholism and his love of food is still alive. Now we wonder why he isn’t broke. He says that after taking home $750,000 for second place in a tournament, he drove to Vegas and lost $1.65M, mostly on $5,000 slot machines. We’ve never even seen a $5,000 slot machine.

Daly says that gambling replaced his alcohol addiction but he was able to pay off gambling debts with income from PGA winnings and appearance fees. Daily claims he has taken more control of his life in the past six years. He’s only going to play the $25 slot machines and if he does well, he’ll move up to $50 or $100 machines. Famous last words.

Links:
[CBS Sportsline]: Daly: Gambling is ‘going to flat-out ruin me’

Categories
San Diego Chargers

Ladies and Gentlemen: Your 2007 Las Vegas Chargers

It’s only a matter of time before Las Vegas gets a major sports franchise. If not the Sonics, then why not the San Diego Chargers, whose lease runs out after this year. The mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman (you know, the guy who told a bunch of fourth graders that drinking gin was a hobbie.) contacted Chargers management to make a pitch for them to relocate to Sin City. However, the Chargers are not allowed to talk to cities outside of San Diego county until after Jan 1 but there’s an amendment being passed that will change that after the mayor of San Diego said he supported the Chargers desire to explore relocating.

We realize the whole Rick Tocchet scandal might keep this from happening but why hasn’t the NHL pursued moving a team to Vegas? As we know, people will bet on anything, even if Rick Tocchet will get convicted, so why not stir up interest in the NHL by putting it in the sports gambling mecca of the world? Hell, put a team store right inside Caesars. Gambling is legal in Vegas. Embrace it, Bettman!

Links:
[SignOn SanDiego]: Las Vegas makes pass at Chargers

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends for Tues Apr 25: NASCAR catfight odds

Proving that you really can bet on anything, SportsInteraction.com has put out odds on the next catfight in NASCAR. They are putting 25-1 odds that Nicole Lunders and Eva Bryan will get into a physical altercation. The odds are only 5-1 that Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch will mix it up.

Also, drivers should keep their girlfriends/wives away from Tony Stewart, who is 25-1 odds to have an affair with one of them. Sweet.

In other news…

[Fox Sports]: Is Carmello making a name for himself as choke artist?

[News & Observer]: Because of his assault charge in D.C., Colin Finnerty now has a curfew of 9 PM to 6 AM.

[MSNBC]: Reggie Bush said that family house controversy is blown out of proportion.

[NY Daily News]: 8 out of 15 players on the Knicks blame Larry Brown for piss poor season.

[Armchair GM]: 8 mascots that need to die

[Off Wing Opinion]: NHL Playoff Roundup (’cause we’re too lazy to do it ourselves.)

[Texans Rock]: Another dumb athlete injures himself in a motorcycle accident

Real Odd of the Day: 29-1 Alex Rodriguez will admit to having a love child. (Boston fans wonder shouldn’t this be higher since A-Rod is gay?)

Categories
NHL General

Maggie the Monkey picks the 2006 NHL playoffs



A good a system as any

Ever since Eric McErlain from Off Wing Opinion joined us for the weekly podcast last week, we’ve been all over the NHL playoffs. And we’ve been rewarded with some damn exciting games over the weekend — a couple of double-overtime games, 8-1 upsets — we remember now why the NHL playoffs are better than the NBA playoffs.

In researching the experts picks for the series, we learned that Maggie the Monkey is the doyen of NHL prognosticators. Maggie, from Canadian sports network TSN, came into fame when she was the only expert on TSN to pick the Ducks to upset the Red Wings in 2003. She regulary does as well as any of the talking heads.

Oh, in case you didn’t know, Maggie picks the teams by throwing feces onto a board. Wait, no, that’s Darren Pang. Maggie spins a wheel.

Here are Maggie’s picks for the first round this year.


Tampa Bay (8) over Ottawa (1)
Carolina (2) over Montreal (7)
New York Rangers (6) over New Jersey (3)
Buffalo (4) over Philly (5)
Detroit (1) over Edmonton (8)
Colorado (7) over Dallas (2)
Calgary (3) over Anaheim (6)
San Jose (5) over Nashville (4)

So far so good for Maggie. We’ll update you after the first round.

Links:
[TSN.ca]: Monkey Business 2006

Categories
Calgary Flames

Darren McCarty is broke


Can you imagine being a professional hockey player for 12 years in the NHL and being over $6M in debt? We feel really bad for Darren McCarty even if he was a Detroit Red Wing.

Among his debts are $185,000 to three casinos. Of course, this is what everyone is focusing on because of the recent Rick Tocchet scandal but McCarty insists that the did not bet on any hockey games. He had previously said that he wanted to compete in the World Series of Poker but considering his gambling losses, that’s probably not going to happen.

Look at his assets: $5,600 in jewelry, two Harley-Davidson motorcycles worth $16,000, $500 in golf clubs and a house where the mortgage exceeds its market value. Think about this for a second. This guy is a professional athlete, a former star in the NHL, and your golf clubs are worth more than his. That’s just sad.

Finally, the Red Wings bought out his contract last year for $539k but most of that went to his ex-wife. No wonder the guy is broke. I guess the sayings’ true. In the poker game of life, women are the rake man. They are the fuckin’ rake.

Links:
[Globe and Mail]: NHL veteran McCarty embarrassed by bankruptcy

Categories
NHL General

Oh the irony – Betting on Tocchet conviction


Who says we have a gambling problem?  Just because Vegas did about $100M in legal action on the Super Bowl doesn’t mean we’re out of control right?  Hold on a second while I figure out the best odds on Tocchet getting convicted for “financing a gambling ring.”

BetEagle.com has the follow odds:
Convicted & Jail Time – 250
Convicted & Probation – 600
Not Guilty + 400

Nine.com has:
Be found guilty of Promoting Gambling  -350  
Be found not guilty of Promoting Gambling  +400  
Promoting Gambling charge will be dropped   +1000  
Mistrial on the charge of Promoting Gambling +2000

Hmmmm, things don’t look good for The Rick.    

Categories
NHL General

Rick Tocchet gambling ring update



Honey, what’s the line on
the Lakers-Suns tonight?

Things are certainly heating up in the “Operation Slap Shot” scandal. Rick Tocchet was put on an indefinite leave of absence by the NHL and the commissioner reserves the right to change the terms of the leave of absence at any time, i.e. fire his ass whenever the truth comes out. The NHL is in full damage control mode, having hired the Unabomber prosecutor to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, a couple of other names were added to the list of those involved in the gambling ring in some capacity, Mark Recchi and John LeClair, former Flyers players. Recchi and LeClair have denied the allegations and threatened to sue the TV station in Philly that leaked their names.

The most sensational part of this scandal is the potential involvement with organized crime. In the early 1990s, when Tochett was still with the Flyers, he was linked to a mobster named Joey Merlino who bet heavily on hockey games using information he obtained from Tocchet. Merlino was also linked to Eric Lindros at the time. The feds have not specified Merlino by name but do mention the link to Merlino’s organization.

Lots of rumors abound and one in particular is very damaging. While the Great One claims to have no knowledge of his wife’s gambling habits, rumor has it that she placed as much as $500,000 in bets. I know Gretzky is rich but 500 grand is alot of money to toss around. Gretzky said that he and his wife did not discuss her involvement and only talked about their concern for Tocchet. Yeah, I’m sure in discussing the biggest scandal to rock the NHL, her bets didn’t come up in the conversation.

We’ll keep you updated as we find out more but for now here are two commentaries you should read.

[James Mirtle]: The Rick Tocchet scandal: Day 3
[Tom Benjamin]: Ticky Tacky Tocchet