Category Archives: Sports

5 to 2. 
If it was the score of a hockey game you watched, you’d probably feel you had witnessed a typical game.  If is was baseball, you’d probably think the pitchers did a pretty good job.

But a score of 5-2 in basketball?  That’s crazy.

The winning basket in this Vermont high-school b’ball game came off a three-pointer in the second quarter.

I played some rec basketball at university (and damaged a knee doing it), but basketball never really grabbed me in any way. I was a pretty big Celtics fan for the last half of Larry Bird’s career, and I’ll watch the annual NCAA March Madness games, but that’s about it.  I find the first 80 points each NBA team scores to be pretty boring, and the game only gets interesting in the final five minutes or so, assuming both teams still have a chance to win. 
I cannot imagine watching this 5-2 test of fan endurance.  I wonder if, at some point, the audience (if there were any who remained) began to hope and expect the two teams to not score.
The low-point of my basketball career came in grade 7 during gym class.  We were learning to play the game and would play quick games.  I was never really into it too much, and one time I was lolly-gagging around half-court, as the action was taking place under our net, when a team-mate passed me the ball.  I was all alone with the ball, so I began to dribble down towards the opponent’s net.  I dribblied, in fact, to right uner their net, stopped and looked up at the net directly above me.  I had maneuvered myself into the one place on the court where I couldn’t really get a good shot at the net.  So I looked around at the rest of the players, running down the court towards me.  I knew I couldn’t dribble again because I’d be called for a double-dribble.  I knew I couldn’t get a good shot, standing absolutely directly under the net.  So, I did the next best thing.  I passed to a team-mate who was in a better position to shoot.
As soon as I passed the ball, the teacher blew the whistle.  I heard, in the high-sharp tweet of the whistle, the contempt and disbelief that the teacher was about thrust upon me.  He stopped the game and bawled me out for being so stupid as to not take the shot, all by myself with no opposition players near me.  I knew that explaining my position, or rather my poor position, would be futile, so I just sucked it up, let the teacher yell at me and call me a moron and have the rest of the class laugh at my folly.
A 5-2 basketball game.  I could’ve been one of the Three Stars of that game.

It is getting ridiculously funny now. The sitcom that is the Miami Dolphins’ offseason. It’s enough to make a DolFan weep.
Even before Ricky “I’m retiring in the prime of my career to pursue other interests and besides football doesn’t excite me anymore and it’s not about those pending marijuana fines but it kinda is and boy would it be great to play for the Oakland Raiders next year” Williams stunned the Dolphins with his surprise retirement, the Dolphins off-season was a mess. But when the player that the whole offense (an already weak and not very effective offense) is designed around, when that player retires suddenly and without warning, that hurts your chances to have a good season.

Still, we think as fans, all hope is not lost. Perhaps instead of relying so much on the running game, perhaps the offense will be forced to utilize the receiving corps more. Perhaps that will be a good thing and they’ll surprise everyone. After all, the Dolphins did take a huge risk in getting former pro-bowl receiver David Boston, that so-called nutjob who couldn’t fit in with the last two teams he played with. David Boston would now be the star of the offense, right? The Dolphins would show the NFL that getting Boston was a gamble that will pay off big time, right?

Yesterday, David Boston, while running a routine deep passing route, tore his Pateller tendon and is out for the season. Yet, even though hopes were shifted from Williams to Boston, and Boston’s injury should be stunningly catastrophic, we all knew that Boston wasn’t going to pay off for the Dolphins anyway, because the Dolphins don’t have a quarterback with skills enough to get the ball to him, so no big loss right? So, his injury doesn’t really matter, right?

What a mess. The good news is that the offense has pretty much eradicated itelf of players whose injury or departure will further hurt the team.

Therefore, it’s time for the defensive players to start quitting and getting injured. With its current roster, Miami’s defense should still be one of the best this season, and a great defense can take an otherwise mediocre team all the way to the SuperBowl. So, with the defense go my hopes and expectations for a successful season.

I hear, though, that to celebrate their potential dominance, the Dolphin defensive players are all going to take a cruise off the Miami coast. A three hour tour. Not to worry, though, it’s reported that the mate is a mighty sailing man and the skipper’s brave and sure. So nothing should happen to them, right?

Sorry, everyone who don’t care about sports, but here’s another (long-ish) sports post.

One of the reasons I like NFL football more than other sports is this: The season is only 16 games long and the competition is so close that practically every moment, every play of every game can make the difference between a successful (making the playoffs), and a disappointing year. In hockey and baseball, where the season is so long, and where the game is so fluid, it’s hard to define specific moments in specific games that could be considered potential season-breaking plays. An individual mistake or bad play in a regular season game in these sports doesn’t have the same potential impact on a season that a bad or missed play in football can.

Case in point: With one regular season game still to play, my favourite team, the Miami Dolphins are now mathematcially eliminated from the playoffs. At the beginning of the year, the Dolphins were considered by many to be one of the teams expected to make it to the Super Bowl. The disappointment at them not making it to the playoffs is indeed huge, but is made even greater when one theorises that, if only one or two plays this season had different outcomes, the Dolphins probably would still now be favoured to get to the Super Bowl. That is how close the competition is in the NFL. That is how important every play of every game is for a team’s success or failure. In the NFL, one or two plays in the entire season can make the difference between winning it all, or going home early. That is what makes every game in the NFL so important, and therefore, so exciting.

In the Dolphins very first game of the year, late in the game, there was a penalty (which, by the way, NFL officials admitted afterwards was the wrong call) called on the Dolphins that changed the outcome of that game. It is not really a stretch to say that this one penalty played a major role in causing the Dolphins to lose that game. All things the same for the rest of the season, if that penalty wasn’t called, the Dolphins would now be in the playoffs.

In a mid-season game, the one game that, in my opinion, changed the course of the season for both the Dolphins (for the worse) and the New England Patriots (for the better), two totally unexpected and unusual field goal misses by the Dolphins caused them to lose the game. If either of those field goals were made, the Dolphins would have won that game, and most likely would now have a first week playoff bye, and have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. But they didn’t make either of those FG’s, and are now out of the playoffs.

(To take these suppositions even further, the reason the Dolphins missed those field goals is because the kicker had to kick from the dirt on the field, instead of from the natural grass. The reason there was dirt on the field is because the Florida Marlins [who share the stadium with the Dolphins] were still alive in the National League Championship Series. The reason the Marlins were still alive was because that guy in that game in Chicago reached out for the ball and kept Moises Alou from catching it. So, if Alou caught the ball, and the Cubs won that game, the baseball infield would have been removed from the playing field and Olindo Mare, the Dolphins very accurate field goal kicker, would have kicked at least one of those two field goals, and the Dolphins would have won that game, and would today have enough wins to be in the playoffs)

Of course, it’s all for nought, now. Woulda coulda shoulda means nothing. You are in a wheel-chair, Blanche, and the Dolphins are out of the playoffs.

The experiment of NHL Outdoors was rather interesting, but, ultimately, nothing that needs to be repeated, I don’t think.
It was great to watch the (Ford-sponsored, if you hadn’t noticed) Legends game and I was surprised that I got choked up for a moment when Guy LaFleur was introduced. The image of these legends scraping the ice with shovels between periods was fantastic. Seeing these players made me realise, however, how the current game lacks a superstar. Yes, there are great players right now, but none that stand out, head and shoulders above the rest.

I loved the image of Jose Theodore with the touque over his goalie mask during the game.
Mostly, though, being a Habs fan, I was glad that Montreal won the game.

After only getting 4 picks right the last time, this week I was gloriously correct on 12 of 16. My son, who knows nothing about football, got 8 of 16 right.