Hockey Pictureshow

For my birthday, I got 4 sets of hockey tickets. For starters was the Redwings/Panthers game on the 15th. I was so excited because this was surprisingly my first NHL game. It was also dollar hotdog night. I ate 4. Did I mention they were only a dollar? I was surprised at how little "promotion" and "show" there was surrounding the game. There were no player introductions, no cheesy promotional games, and nothing more than a blaring siren when a player scored a goal. At intermission, they had a little kid hockey player shootout. The Redwings were 3-6 on the powerplay and 1-2 on penalty shots (the first time in team history they've had 2 in a game). In the end, they won 5-2. Here's a look from our seats.

On my birthday, Stacey gave me an envelope with two Bluejackets tickets (thanks Stacey!!! I love you!). I was pretty excited, but even more so when I realized that the game was that night. I was then ecstatic when I realized they were 3rd row seats. Hockey is a little different when you are sitting this close.


The hits look a little like this


And I got to see my first live hockey fight.


The game was interesting because you can DEFINITELY tell the difference between a team that is 25-6 and another that is 14-13. The Bluejackets finished the game with 10 penalties - if they played the Redwings like that, they would give up at least 5 goals while shorthanded. Fedorov is ineffective - he has 6 G 11 A in 33 games. The one thing the team does well is making the game exciting. They had great intros, funny jumbotron clips, cheesy intermission games like musical chairs on center ice, a scantily clad "Mountain Dew Ice Crew" that cleans the ice during breaks, and they shoot a freaking cannon off after goals. Too bad we only got to see one during their 3-1 loss to the Flames.

A Bluejacket, by the way, refers to a Union soldier and is "celebrating patriotism, pride and the rich Civil War history in the state of Ohio and, city of Columbus."

After watching two NHL games live, you realize how poorly it translates to TV. The hits are louder, the scoring opportunities are more exciting, and there is so much more happening on the ice than the small portion that you see on TV. I'd rank sports the following in terms of how well it translates on TV: basketball, baseball, football, hockey. The only reason why I rank baseball 2nd is because a good portion of the enjoyment comes from sitting in the beautiful, open ballpark. I love hockey, but I am growing tired of watching it on TV.

Oh, and the other two hockey games? The Fri/Sat night series of MSU at OSU. Can't wait!

Bowls

Here's what the stories of the Bowl Season will be:
1. Playoffs?! I just read that NCAA President Myles Brand supports a "plus-one" plan to involve a 4 team playoff. The BCS can't change until after the current biggest-monopoly-in-sports contract expires in 2009. I am confident 2010 will be the birth of a playoff system.
2. Big 10 doesn't show up again. 3 of the Big Ten's 8 opponents were ranked 1 or 2 at some point in the season and 5 are currently ranked #16 or higher (compared to only 2 Big 10 Teams). I have them going 2-6; I think they are a solid lock to lose at least 4.
3. Almost Every Florida team going bowling.... except Miami?! This would sound absolutely ridiculous 3 or 4 years ago. Florida Atlantic, Central Florida, South Florida, Florida State, and Florida are playing on while Miami's program has gone down hill fast. The only other one staying at home is perennial "Bottom 10" placeholder, 1-11 Florida International. There was a segment on College Gameday this year about how schools like South Florida are growing exponentially by throwing more money into their athletic programs. Their lower academic standards are luring top recruits that can't play at schools like Miami and it's working. How did Miami finish 2-6 in the ACC?
4. Distractions. What effect will coaching changes have on Arkansas, Michigan, West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Houston, Navy, Southern Miss, Texas A&M, and UCLA? A major one if I'm right - I have all 9 losing in their bowls.

Poinsettia Utah over Navy
New Orleans Memphis over Florida Atlantic
Papajohns.com Cincinnati over Southern Miss
New Mexico Are you allowed to pick anyone to defeat New Mexico in their bowl game? I can't... New Mexico over Nevada
Las Vegas BYU over UCLA
Hawaii Boise St over East Carolina
Motor City Upset special... CMU defeats Purdue
Holiday Second best non-BCS matchup - Arizona St over Texas
Champs Sports Huge mismatch. BC big over MSU
Texas It is a true Texas matchup, I like it. TCU over Houston
Emerald "Crabcakes and football..." sorry, not this time. Oregon State over Maryland
Meineke Car Care Great basketball game... UConn over Wake Forest
Liberty Mississippi State over UCF
Alamo Penn State over Texas A&M
Independence Alabama over Colorado
Armed Forces Same rule as the New Mexico Bowl... can't go against the Armed Force in their game. Air Force over Cal
Humanitarian Fresno State over Georgia Tech
Sun Dennis Dixon not playing? This one's easy. South Florida over Oregon
Music City 25 FSU players out? This one's even easier. Kentucky over Florida State
Insight Indiana over Oklahoma State
Chick-fil-A Auburn over Clemson
Outback Tennessee over Wisconsin
Cotton Best non-BCS matchup. Missouri over Arkansas
Gator Texas Tech over Virginia
Capital One Michigan's weakness: spread offense. Best spread offense team in the country: Florida. Happy retirement, Lloyd. Your reward is to be massacred on New Year's. Florida over Michigan
Rose USC over Illinois
Sugar Georgia over Hawaii
Fiesta Oklahoma over West Virginia
Orange Virginia Tech over Kansas
International Rutgers over Ball State
GMAC Tulsa over Bowling Green
BCS National Championship LSU over Ohio State

The streak continues....

I'm on a little bit of a blogging streak... 4 posts in 4 days. Let's take a second and acknowledge my lameness.

Since I couldn't sleep last night, I turned on ESPN to find the Bobby Petrino Arkansas press conference and DeAngelo Hall's comments. Just for fun, I am going to defend him since everyone else is attacking him. This column, therefore, is dedicated to Kevin, the king of "devil's advocate".

To begin, take a step back and look at the process of quitting your job in the first place. If you are searching for another job, most people don't tell their boss. It can feel kinda sneaky, but you could be setting yourself up for a bad situation if you do. The timing of Petrino's situation (coaching the Falcons on MNF, brown nosing the Razorbacks' boosters on Tuesday) is peculiar. Obviously, he and his agent got the ball rolling on this weeks ago. DeAngelo Hall berated him for trying to get the players to buy into his system while he knew he was on his way out the door. But wasn't that his job until the second he left - to coach the team? If he would have told the players and management of his plans earlier, wouldn't they have asked him to leave? What then if the Arkansas position fell through?

Another reason why he's been dragged through the coals is that he came to Atlanta for a very short period of time after leaving college. From the reports that have come out, it sounds like he had a difficult time adjusting to coaching pro athletes. DeAngelo Hall pointed out that you can't treat guys whose job is to play football to support a wife and kids the same way you coach 18 and 19 year olds. He's definitely right and I think that may be one of the reasons why Petrino didn't adapt well to the NFL. That, and the fact that his franchise QB was suspended before the season began. He didn't leave for more money or "a better position" - he left because he realized he made a mistake in going to the NFL.

The problem many had specifically with the timing is that he left before the season was over. While it may have been more admirable to stay through the end of December, college jobs are filled by then. He will have a lot of work to do to save Arkansas' recruiting class and build a coaching staff. Contracts are treated as suggestions by teams; coaches can be fired any minute. So shouldn't he be able to leave according to the contract's out clause?

Ok, now that I am done defending him, I want to make it clear I wouldn't want him within 10 feet of MSU or the Lions. I hear he is currently in talks with U-M about their vacancy. He looked so shady during the press conference. Plus, does any one believe Arkansas is the position he is really looking for? We'll be seeing him asskiss some other school's boosters in 2-3 years and we all know it. DeAngelo Hall put it best when he said "they're not a great team in the SEC anyway."

Two Reviews and a Statistic

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw
The commercials make it look cool - you get to do a crotch chop just like Shawn Michaels! But that is actually the only fun thing about this game. And that gets old after 2 minutes. The problem with this game is that they made every single move involve shaking the Wii remote. Wanna punch someone? Shake the remote. Wanna tie someone up in a grapple? Shake the remote. Wanna reverse a move or kick out of a pin? I think you get the point. This was a bad game to play right after I donated blood. I felt like I was going to have cardiac arrest. The story mode is horrible. You get challenges through text messages (screw you and the other t.m. addicts, Mike) and it is too difficult to beat people. I guess I wasn't shaking the remote hard enough. 2 out of 5

My Sims
I literally played this game for less than 5 minutes. My impression of the game was that it would be the Sims with your Miis. Wrong and wrong. This is a dumbed-down version of the Sims where you can rebuild a crappy city. Rebuilding involves stacking the chimney on top of the roof on top of the 2nd story on top of the first. Even though this is probably for 10 year olds, I give it a 1 out of 5

Now for the stat
16, -3, 56, 23

Those are the rushing totals for the Lions against the Minnesota Vikings over the past two seasons. That's only 92 total yards!

Who U-M Should Hire

It's been almost a month since Lloyd Carr stepped down and U-M still is looking for a head coach. After being rejected by Schiano and Miles, the position has lost a lot of its luster. They can't use "it's Michigan" anymore and expect to get the top head coaches scrambling to interview. To me, there are a few people they should go after right now.

Tyrone Willingham
He played at MSU and was an Asst. Coach for MSU and CMU.
His record at Notre Dame was 21-15. Charlie Weis' is currently 22-15.
His record at Washington has been bad, but I think he's a good coach. He recruited the players that went 9-2 in Weis' first year.

Jim Herrman
Defensive Coordinator for U-M for 9 seasons, current LB coach for NY Jets.
He lead some of the best Defenses that U-M has had. This year's team was weak on D.

Ron English
Current Defensive His name has been mentioned for a number of vacancies in the past and he's already interviewed. He has the experience to take the next step.

2007 Movie Reviews

One of the thing I miss since we've moved out is rating movies. Below is a collection of my thoughts on every movie I've seen this year. In parenthesis is where each movie ranks on the current box office standings in 2007.

Thumbs Up
Knocked Up (11) - Best comedy I've seen in about 2 years. After watching the bonus features, I am convinced at least 50% of the movie was ad-libbed.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (5) - Seen it 3 times (for a total of like $9). It was my favorite movie of the franchise.

300 (7) - Everything I was hoping for, especially on iMax.

Bourne Ultimatum (6) - Best of the series. He's the best action hero in years.

Thumbs 3/4
Ratatouille (8) - Surprisingly good. Pixar really has the formula for creating movies that both kids and parents can enjoy.

Simpsons Movie (9) - Almost every review: it wasn't spectacular, but it didn't kill the franchise. I agree that it got the job done.

Superbad (15) - A more realistic American Pie. Not as good as Knocked Up, but still pretty funny.

Reign over Me (95) - Adam Sandler did a great job.

Idiocracy (limited release in 06) - A few improvements to the script, some bigger name actors, and a marketing plan and this would have easily cracked the Top 30 Box Office of 07. The concept was great.

Thumbs Middle
We Are Marshall (Released in 06) - It was a decent "football movie". McConaghey and Fox made the movie.

License to Wed (46) - Worth the $1. Robin Williams wasn't obnoxious, but his young boy partner was. Did anyone else think it would be a bad idea for a priest to have a 13 year old boy as a sidekick?

Evan Almighty (23) - It was cute, but nothing special.

Shrek the Third (2) - They should definitely stop now.

Thumbs 1/4
Blades of Glory (18) - Mediocre. Talladega Nights - Nascar jokes + gay skating jokes - some humor = Blades of Glory

Spiderman 3 (1) - It was bad. I think the actors' apathy about the series that we saw on talk shows the week it came out was very telling.

Thumbs Down
Ocean's 13 (19) - Horrible. Much of it didn't make any sense to me. Reminds me of the original Ocean's 11 - put a bunch of famous actors together and people will watch it even though they half-assed the plot.

Epic Movie (52) - Lame recycled jokes and pointless gross out humor.

More Wii Reviews

I am starting to consider selling my Wii for $450-500 and buying a new one in February or March. Have you seen the demand for them right now???

Anyway, Stacey and I resumed our monthly game pass. Here's my latest ratings.
Mario vs. Sonic in the Olympics
This is apparently the first time Nintendo has featured both characters in the same game. They really got the character aspect right. If memory serves me correct, you can play as 16-18 different people plus any of your Miis. Each character has different controls. For example, during the swimming events, you may do the butterfly or the backstroke, etc. depending on your character. The one thing I question is the playability of the game. There don't seem to be a ton of events, so you may get bored after a month. The best events are rowing, swimming, archery, and fencing. Overall: 3.5 out of 5

Super Mario Galaxy
The Nintendo 64 version brought the game into 3 dimensional landscapes. Galaxy takes it one step further because in one world you can travel any direction around a planet. Even if you are upside down, you stay attached due to gravity. Dimension seems to be the biggest aspect of the game as you are launched from planet to planet in different galaxies. There are still the familiar Mario aspects - the music, goombas, stars, 1 ups, etc. Ok, I admit, I haven't played this game for 1 second. I watched Stacey play it for 5-10 minutes and she really likes it. 4 out of 5.

I am concerned about the 2007 version of the Yankees/Red Sox arms race. It feels very similar to the battle for ARod in 2003. This time, of course, the gem is Johan Santana. I was totally fine with Boston's offer of Jon Lester and Coco Crisp + minor leaguer. I was excited when the Yankees looked like they were willing to give up the farm for him. Now that the Red Sox have offered Ellsbury, I am upset. Lester and Crisp make perfect sense - pitching for pitching and you give up Crisp (who hopefully wouldn't be starting next year anyway). I really like Ellsbury, though. I just don't see the need for Santana for a year when you have Daisuke, Beckett, Schilling, and Bucholz coming up. They're turning into the Yankees. Ok, you guys can wake up now, I'm done.

BCS Mess

Even though I know every sportswriter in the country will kick this dead horse of an issue over the next month, I have to comment about the BCS Armageddon season. First, I want to take a look back at how we got to this situation. The first sign this season was going to be a disaster was when App State beat Michigan, who many predicted would be in the National Championship game. Since then, 11 teams that were ranked #1 or 2 have lost (including S. Florida, who was number 2 after week 7.) At this point, I see legitimate arguments for nine teams to fill 2 spots in the National Championship game: Ohio State, Georgia, West Virginia, LSU, Virginia Tech, Kansas, USC, Oklahoma, and Hawaii. If we had a (I won't say the dirty word, but it rhymes with shmayoff), then we would be arguing over which 8 of those 9 would have a shot rather than which 2. I think we can all agree that is a preferable situation.

At this point, it seems OSU is a lock to make the championship and make me sick for another month. So how will the voters and computers decide their opponent? For starters, the BCS voters aren't ready for a non-BCS team to make the championship game, so Hawaii is out. (The way the top 6 conference chairpeople formed the BCS, thereby deciding only their teams are worthy of competing for the Division 1 Championship is the worst example of a sports monopoly today). The second criteria they're gonna use is winning your own conference. That takes the team many believe to be playing the best right now (Georgia) and the other one-loss team (Kansas) out of the picture. The next factor that they are going to use is how they finished - it doesn't seem fair to put a team that lost their last game in the championship, so bye bye West Virginia. Finally, you have to look at head-to-head matchups. In week 2, LSU destroyed Va Tech 48-7. In the end, strength of schedule will decide among USC, LSU, and Oklahoma. Tonight, LSU will jump three teams that were ranked ahead of them (none of which lost yesterday) to become the #2 team in the country. What a great day for Tiger fans - they keep their coach and make their way back into the national championship game.

Who, you may wonder, do I think should make the National Championship game? Hawaii. They did everything they were asked to do - beat all 12 teams on their schedule.

This year has made the need for a shmayoff even more apparent. Let's revisit the arguments against one.
1. The regular season is a playoff - every game matters! Partially true - U-M was knocked out when the last second ticked off the clock against App State. However, as I said before, Hawaii went undefeated and they won't be playing for the National Championship. Kansas only lost 1 game, but a 2 loss team will be playing instead of them. Out of the 3 teams with similar credentials, only one will make it.
2. The playoff will interfere with academics. We have to worry about finals! I can sympathize with this argument, but the NCAA isn't truely worried about this. Team tutors administer exams to athletes on the road all the time. Plus, not every school follows the same academic calendar. Ohio University students take their finals before Thanksgiving and have a month and a half of Winter break. However, the largest hole in this argument is the fact that the other Divisions have had successful football playoffs for years.
3. It will ruin the bowl season. We must keep the tradition! Bowl season tradition was killed when we were introduced to the Papajohns.com Bowl and on January 3rd, 2002 when neither a Big 10 team or a Pac 10 team played in the Rose Bowl. An 8 team football playoff could begin next week with the second round on the following weekend. The bowl season would begin the weekend after and would conclude with the National Championship game as always. Or, you could enhance the bowl season by having the semi-finals on New Year's Day with the Championship taking place one week later.

The current BCS system is bringing a lot of attention to the sport and causing a lot of discussion, but for negative reasons. There really is a lot at stake over who makes the national championship game. Besides the obvious excitement for players and fans, there is a lot of money at stake. The payout to each conference is expected to be $17 million. On top of that, there is the increased amount of donations a school receives because of excited alumni who want to be a contributing part of the action by signing a check. If you don't think this is a big deal, read this article about the University of Florida's success. In the end, I will watch the bowl games like I normally do and be hopeful that MSU is never the team on the outside looking in like USC and Oklahoma will be on January 7.

Addendum
After seeing the BCS Results show (which was painful to watch) the biggest winner other than LSU was Illinois. I am excited that we will see a Big 10/Pac 10 matchup. The lowest scoring game will be the Alamo Bowl - Penn State vs. Texas A&M. Most interesting: Brut Sun Bowl - Oregon vs. S. Florida. Upset: Motor City Bowl - CMU vs. Purdue. Biggest Blowout: International Bowl - Rutgers vs. Ball State. I really like MSU's opportunity; BC is a tough opponent and it will be fun to watch.

In my research, I discovered 7 Big 10 teams have made a BCS Bowl - MSU, Minnesota, Indiana, and Northwestern are the only ones who haven't. Florida State, Notre Dame, and Michigan are a combined 2-11 in BCS games. LSU and OSU are 7-1.