Turning away from pointy ball
Obsessing over Tom Brady's foot for the next week will eventually become a bit of a bore, so since we have this built in break prior to the Super Bowl, lets look elsewhere in the world of sports and see what all we've been missing since, oh, last year.
Follow the bouncing standings
If you haven't been paying too close attention, and let's face it, most likely you haven't, the NBA is at the half way point of its interminable regular season schedule.
A cursory glance at the standings illustrates immediately things ain't going as expected. The perennial doormat New Orleans Hornets are on top of the Southwest Conference and Pat Riley's league champions from two years ago, the Miami Heat, are the cellar dwellers in the Southeast.
If the NBA playoffs were to begin today, eastern pre-season favorite Chicago Bulls would be on the outside looking in and out west Yao Ming's Houston Rockets are in similar straights.
The Boston Celtics, who had a winning percentage of .293 just last season, are on pace for that legendary franchise's greatest season ever. The Washington Wizards are actually playing defense and the Portland Trail Blazers are Jail Blazers no longer, just simply good.
As are the Los Angeles Lakers who, in the pre-season, were written off as too dysfunctional to compete. General manager Mitch Kupchak ignored Kobe Bryant's training camp demand to be traded and now they are challenging Phoenix for the top spot in the Pacific.
Just how strange is it in the NBA? The Atlanta Hawks are in an actual honest to goodness playoff race. That just about says it all.
Coming up to the All-Star break, the topsy-turvy standings will make for a compelling second half. Perhaps even enough to fill a football void - until March Madness takes over of course.
Frozen out
Things sure were looking good for the NHL in 2008. The year got off with a bang after holding that outdoor game in Buffalo in font of 70,000 frozen fans. The TV ratings were (for them) off the charts. Pittsburgh Penguins star, and league poster boy, Sidney Crosby even scored the winning goal.
NBC announced that they had changed their scheduling of games after receiving a flood of calls from viewers in the west complaining because Crosby could only be seen in the east.
So what happens?
Unlike Tom Brady's high ankle sprain, Sidney Crosby's will keep him out of action for six to eight weeks. Or just enough time for any carryover interest in the troubled league to all but disappear.
For the NHL the only kind of luck they have is bad.
Tiger Time
The PGA season has been underway for almost a month now. The reason you haven't noticed most likely is that, cleverly, they play these early tournaments head-to-head against the NFL playoffs. Also contributing factors may have been the winners thus far are named Daniel Chopra, K.J. Choi and D.J. Trahan.
Or, in other words, three guys you wouldn't recognize if you ran them over with your golf cart.
This week all of that changes. Criticized in some circles for skipping the start of the season, Tiger Woods makes his first appearance at one of his sponsor's tournaments, the Buick Invitational in La Jolla, California - the tournament where he just happens to be the three time defending champion.
As he most likely laps the field, to add some spice try to count how many times the talking heads say ?fourpeat?.
Is it a coincidence then that Tiger is making his first start of 2008 the same weekend the NFL is dark since the beginning of September?
Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world. He also has the best agents as well, and things like that don't happen by accident.
Next weekend, while we're just getting into Super Bowl mode, Tiger will be in Dubai. We can watch him win there on the Golf Channel before any of the NFL pre-game shows even get started.
The NFL's curious decision to take a week off before the biggest game of the year has always been a curious one. At least we have some stuff to watch while we so impatiently wait.
Cheers ? Gavin McDougald ? AKA Couch
Bet early Super Bowl Odds now!
Obsessing over Tom Brady's foot for the next week will eventually become a bit of a bore, so since we have this built in break prior to the Super Bowl, lets look elsewhere in the world of sports and see what all we've been missing since, oh, last year.
Follow the bouncing standings
If you haven't been paying too close attention, and let's face it, most likely you haven't, the NBA is at the half way point of its interminable regular season schedule.
A cursory glance at the standings illustrates immediately things ain't going as expected. The perennial doormat New Orleans Hornets are on top of the Southwest Conference and Pat Riley's league champions from two years ago, the Miami Heat, are the cellar dwellers in the Southeast.
If the NBA playoffs were to begin today, eastern pre-season favorite Chicago Bulls would be on the outside looking in and out west Yao Ming's Houston Rockets are in similar straights.
The Boston Celtics, who had a winning percentage of .293 just last season, are on pace for that legendary franchise's greatest season ever. The Washington Wizards are actually playing defense and the Portland Trail Blazers are Jail Blazers no longer, just simply good.
As are the Los Angeles Lakers who, in the pre-season, were written off as too dysfunctional to compete. General manager Mitch Kupchak ignored Kobe Bryant's training camp demand to be traded and now they are challenging Phoenix for the top spot in the Pacific.
Just how strange is it in the NBA? The Atlanta Hawks are in an actual honest to goodness playoff race. That just about says it all.
Coming up to the All-Star break, the topsy-turvy standings will make for a compelling second half. Perhaps even enough to fill a football void - until March Madness takes over of course.
Frozen out
Things sure were looking good for the NHL in 2008. The year got off with a bang after holding that outdoor game in Buffalo in font of 70,000 frozen fans. The TV ratings were (for them) off the charts. Pittsburgh Penguins star, and league poster boy, Sidney Crosby even scored the winning goal.
NBC announced that they had changed their scheduling of games after receiving a flood of calls from viewers in the west complaining because Crosby could only be seen in the east.
So what happens?
Unlike Tom Brady's high ankle sprain, Sidney Crosby's will keep him out of action for six to eight weeks. Or just enough time for any carryover interest in the troubled league to all but disappear.
For the NHL the only kind of luck they have is bad.
Tiger Time
The PGA season has been underway for almost a month now. The reason you haven't noticed most likely is that, cleverly, they play these early tournaments head-to-head against the NFL playoffs. Also contributing factors may have been the winners thus far are named Daniel Chopra, K.J. Choi and D.J. Trahan.
Or, in other words, three guys you wouldn't recognize if you ran them over with your golf cart.
This week all of that changes. Criticized in some circles for skipping the start of the season, Tiger Woods makes his first appearance at one of his sponsor's tournaments, the Buick Invitational in La Jolla, California - the tournament where he just happens to be the three time defending champion.
As he most likely laps the field, to add some spice try to count how many times the talking heads say ?fourpeat?.
Is it a coincidence then that Tiger is making his first start of 2008 the same weekend the NFL is dark since the beginning of September?
Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world. He also has the best agents as well, and things like that don't happen by accident.
Next weekend, while we're just getting into Super Bowl mode, Tiger will be in Dubai. We can watch him win there on the Golf Channel before any of the NFL pre-game shows even get started.
The NFL's curious decision to take a week off before the biggest game of the year has always been a curious one. At least we have some stuff to watch while we so impatiently wait.
Cheers ? Gavin McDougald ? AKA Couch
Bet early Super Bowl Odds now!
