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NHL NHL General

NHL Power Rankings: All-Star Edition

Here we are, at the all-star beak. Teams are starting to separate themselves from the pack in the West, while in the East, things are getting a little top heavy. New Jersey is playing better without Broudeur, Boston is sick despite their injury situation, and Montreal is starting to rebound after a cold end of 2008. Over in the west, San Jose is just keeping it on cruise control, while the Detroit and Chicago are locked in a death struggle for the Central. The Northwest is looking worse and worse by the day, but you could blame that all on Peter Budaj. How did your team finish this week?

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Tennis

Safin-Federer a Tale of Two Matches

There were two tennis matches played late Friday night in Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, and I’m not including Jelena Dokic’s three-set thriller over Caroline Wozniaki.

The marquee match, the rematch, whatever you want to call it, between former world number one Roger Federer and former world number one Marat Safin was both matches: the awful first two sets and the remarkable third one. In the first set, Federer played sloppy-but-consistent while Safin was erratic on nearly ever other point, missing wildly on his serve, backhand, and especially forehand. But the third set was a different breed: a showcase of two of the most talented players of all time playing the type of tennis that at one point rose both to the top.

And if we really want to know all that Friday’s match was about, we need to ignore the first two sets.

Federer jumped out to a quick, devastating two set lead, converting three of his four break chance opportunities and only twice falling behind 15-30 or worse on his serve. Safin never had a break point.

He closed out the first set with a break at love followed by hold at love. He was nearly as dominant in the second set, breaking Safin in Safin’s last two service games.

Those two sets took merely 59 minutes.

And then Safin turned it on.

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General Sports NFL

Girls on the Side(lines)

“A woman with a woman’s viewpoint is of more value when she forgets she’s a woman and begins to act like a man.” –Leonor Kretzer Sullivan, American Congressman

On January 20, 2009, the first African American President of the United States was sworn into office. The country wept with pride, hope and relief, with a renewed faith in their nation for breaking down barriers. It was a truly monumental occasion in American history.

Except for the fact that we elect a president every four years.

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Arizona Cardinals NFL Philadelphia Eagles

NFL Flashback: 1948 NFL Championship, Eagles vs Cardinals

On Dec. 19, 1948 the city of Philadelphia was to play home to the first televised NFL Championship game, pitting the West Division champion, and defending NFL champion, Chicago Cardinals and the home town Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles were also defending East Division champions and were looking for revenge after the previous season’s loss to the Cardinals, 28-21, in the championship bout. Mother Nature had other things in mind.

Snow piled on the city, raising questions as to whether or not the game would even be played or if it would be postponed. To today’s Philadelphia fan, this story may seem all too familiar. The championship game, held in Shibe Park, was delayed for thirty minutes while the grounds crew cleaned up the field.

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Arizona Cardinals NFL Philadelphia Eagles

NFL Flashback: 1947 NFL Championship, Eagles vs CardinalsT

Today we take a look at the 1947 NFL Championship game between the Eagles and the Chicago Cardinals.

If you are an Eagles fan you no doubt know that the last time the Eagles won an NFL championship was 1960, before the Super Bowl was even a thought.

What about the Cardinals? The last time the franchise won an NFL title came thirteen years before the Eagles’ last championship, in 1947!

It was a rough road for the Cardinals, who at the time played in Chicago. Playing in the shadow of the Chicago Bears, who had won five NFL titles in eight tries between 1933 and 1946, was a hard task.

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NFL General

2008 NFL Conference Championship Picks and Podcast

And here we go with the most exciting week in the NFL season. The conference championship weekend is so much better than the Super Bowl. Two great games, 1/100 of the hype. You can download the podcast directly (running time 90 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.

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MLB General

MLB Network Rolls Out With Bait & Swith

By Diane M. Grassi

On January 1, 2009, Major League Baseball (MLB) launched its long awaited Major League Baseball Network (MLBN) on major cable broadcast providers throughout U.S. television markets.

Hailed by MLB itself as a boon to its continued growth, the MLBN hopes to garner $150–$200 million in additional revenue in just its first year of distribution.

And to that end, the MLBN starts right off the bat with a built-in cushion of an instant 50 million television household subscribers or about one third of the cable market share.

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Tennis

Tennis Power Rankings – Week 2

Each week, I will rank the top 15 male singles tennis players as I currently see them and give a sentence or two about him. I will also select two players not currently in the top 50 of the ATP Rankings who have the talent to move up and two players in the top 25 of the ATP Rankings that are dropping and dropping fast.

The first week of official ATP events resulted in a few stunning upsets, as Gael Monfils defeated Rafael Nadal in Doha, Qatar, and Ernests Gulbis knocked reigning Australian Open champion and world number three Novak Djokovic in Brisbane, Australia.

Andy Murray beat Roger Federer, again, dropping the first set in a tie-breaker before controlling the final two sets, 6-7, 6-2, 6-2, on his way to the championship at Qatar. It’s reached the point now that if Federer beats Murray on a hard court, I’d consider that an upset.

Two-time NCAA Champion Somdev Devvarman returned to his birth country and made a stunning run to the finals at Chennai. He’ll meet Marin Cilic in Sunday’s final.

The Brisbane final features Radek Stepanek and Fernando Verdasco. Stepanek upset Robin Soderling and Richard Gasquet in three sets each on the way to his first final since last February. It is the first hard court final on the ATP Tour for Verdasco.

And in the star-filled tournament in Qatar, Andy Murray defeated Andy Roddick in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, for his ninth career ATP Tour title. It was his eighth title in past 23 months.

That said, let’s take a look at Sportscolumn.com’s inaugural tennis power rankings.

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College Football

Fox Coverage Makes Move to ESPN Make Sense

The only thing more disastrous than Bob Stoops’s red-zone offensive playcalling Thursday night was Fox’s coverage of the Bowl Championship Series. And it was disastrous.

Starting with the obvious, Thom Brennaman proved that he makes Al Michaels and John Madden appear intelligent.

Take, for instance, in the pregame show, when he introduced us to “Dolphins Stadium,” even though there’s no such place as “Dolphins Stadium.” For those who care for accuracy, the game was played in “Dolphin Stadium.”

Or, in the first quarter, when Brennaman said the Gators had third down and 10, even though it was only second down. Of course, he would later top this gaffe when he would mess up the down six times in one series.

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College College Football

Forget Ohio State! What About Oklahoma?

Last night Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators won the second BCS championship for the school in three years, bringing home a third straight BCS title to the SEC. The Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 with the leadership of Tim Tebow, who should run for President some day if you listened to all of the praise the Fox broadcast team delivered last night when it was not butchering the rest of the game.

Congratulations to Florida. Even though Utah is the only undefeated team in college football’s top level, the Gators are your national champions. Much was made about how the once relevant Associated Press poll could make a statement at the conclusion of BCS championship game by voting for another team at #1. Perhaps USC or Texas could gain enough votes for a split national title was the talk of the town. Utah made its statement but failed to gain enough support from the media to earn a so-called split national championship. Utah, you are MY national champion.

Now the time has come for me to put myself in the awkward position of defending Ohio State. What? Allow me to explain…

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