Case of the Mondays

Proof that there is still hope for hockey as a relevant sport

A packed house in Laredo, Texas of all places turned out to watch the Central Hockey League's annual All Star Game on Friday, a game won 14-13 by the Northern Conference All-Stars in a shoot out. Laredo, Texas! For those not familiar with the geography of Texas, Laredo is south and slightly to the west of San Antonio on the Rio Grande River and a short walk across a bridge from Mexico. Put it another way: Minneapolis, a hockey hotbed, is the northern end of Interstate 35, and Laredo, about as "Sun Belt" as you can get, is the southern end of the same highway. It snows in Laredo, on average, roughly once every 30 years. If a place like this can pack an arena for a hockey all-star game, then there is still hope for hockey in the United States. It's also a testimony to how hard the marketing and promotion people work in minor-league hockey towns. Which is good, because right now minor league hockey is carrying the torch for the sport.

From the "Does it Really Matter?" department

There have been entirely too much focus last week on sports talk radio, PTI, Around The Horn, and I, Max on Serena Williams wardrobe. First the focus was on the fact that Serena made fashion critic Mr. Blackwell's Worst-Dressed List for the past year. Then, we heard that she unveiled her latest outfit at a press conference at the Australian Open. Big deal.

Why is this relevant to anyone? Very few sports fans are "fashionistas." The rest of us don't care what she wears, so long as she shows up and beats the woman across the court from her, which she hasn't done in a Grand Slam final in a while (although she did take her first step towards fixing that little problem this weekend). For the amount of time spent on her wardrobe, we could have gotten better analysis of most of the NFL divisional games, or even some bare-bones analysis on Carolina-Wake.

Speaking of Carolina-Wake...

What a statement by Wake Forest on Saturday! The former preseason #1 beat North Carolina 95-82 in their only scheduled meeting this year. They managed to slow down an up-tempo team, which isn't bad for a team whose defense had been criticized. Also, They denied Sean May, a man many thought the Deacons wouldn't be able to stop, from having a good day. May went 3-9 shooting for nine points, not good for someone who averages 15.7 points per game. Not only that, the Deacons were perfect from the line(32 shots on 32 attempts, an ACC record). What a game! 55 days to Selection Sunday and I'm already pumped.

Clean Sweep

The difference between the Wild Card and Divisional rounds of the NFL Playoffs is often like the difference between Round 1 and Round 2 of the NCAA tournament. In Round 1, a lower seed can catch a higher seed not playing at 100%, catch a few breaks, and get a win. By Round 2, the higher seeds, usually because they are on upset alert, don't lose as often. In Round 2 of this years NFL Playoffs, the top seeds had a clean sweep (4-4).

• New England 20, Indianapolis 3 - Shannon Sharpe, who, like me, picked the Colts, summed up Indianapolis' offensive collapse this way in the post-game show, "They didn't do anything with the opportunities they had." Credit the Patriots' depleted defense with showing some character. A little credit also has to go to first-time playoff performer Corey Dillon, whose 144 yards limited the opportunities for the Colts' defense.
  What has to trouble the Patriots as they go forward is that they didn't get a touchdown at all in the first half, despite two trips to the red zone. Field goals may not be enough against the likes of Pittsburgh, Philly, or Atlanta. They have to do a better job of cashing in their red zone chances early on.
• Pittsburgh 20, NY Jets 17 - Give the Jets credit for showing up. They played good on offense and defense. If their kicker could kick it in the right direction, we'd be talking about a playoff upset. However, the Steelers still won a game when they looked absolutely horrible, and that counts for a lot more. They showed a lot of heart getting back into the game and eventually won it, but given that they play the defending world champs next week, they can't have a repeat performance.
• Atlanta 47, St. Louis 17 - This was a "woodshed" game, pure and simple. Atlanta came to play and ran all over the hapless Rams defense. What was interesting about the coverage of the game, and I wish more stat people did this when covering the Falcons, was the Fox stat people calculated the yardage difference Michael Vick makes for the Falcons by adding the sack yardage he would have lost (had he been sacked) to the yardage he got scrambling. They said Vick's scrambling accounted for a 100-yard swing by the end of the first half, and it probably went up from there (I can't find a final number anywhere, but when I do I will give it to you). Just goes to show you what Vick means to the Falcons.
  Lost in all the Vick-tracking: Allen Rossum had a career punt return day, including a punt return for a touchdown, and Warrick Dunn broke Jamal Anderson's franchise record for rushing yardage in a playoff game.
• Philadephia 27, Minnesota 14 - The headline for this game should read "Minnesota beats Minnesota" because that's exactly what happened. Mike Tice summed up what killed the Vikings thusly, "Mistakes, penalties at the wrong time, taking some points off the board, stopping a drive, having a nice play called back... We didn't finish anything." Oh, and Freddie Mitchell may not be Terrell Owens, but he'll do for now. Next week, it may be Todd Pinkston or L.J. Smith who picks up the slack.

Tomorrow: OSU-Texas on Big Monday.

Pink Floyd Edition

Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

I actually got my first letter from a fellow blogger today. Yoni Cohen, who runs a college basketball blog simply called "College Basketball"(Nice title, simple and straight to the point.) offered his compliments. I think he's got a great site as well. As soon as I figure out how to start a blogroll, I will include him. For now, I will point you to http://collegeball.blogspot.com/. Bookmark it! It's a must-read.

Brain Damage

Despite the fact that potential first round pick junior quarterbacks who return for their senior year don't do as well (remember Ty Detmer?), Matt Leinart is staying at USC for his senior year. Why? Look, I'm the biggest proponent for people staying in college, and I think a college degree is important, but he's a top-5 pick who has the potential to play at least 10 years at the next level. What's he going to prove by staying in college? History says he's not going to win the Heisman. And the only thing you gain by staying a year too long is an injury. Besides, there are such things as summer classes and distance learning.

Money

Everyone's talking about this weekend's UNC-Wake Forest matchup for good reason. Both teams are highly talented and highly ranked. Both could end up top seeds. However, because of ACC expansion, both teams are meeting for the only time this year.
This may not be a big deal to the rest of the nation, but I'm sure this rankles a lot of people down Tobacco Road. The charm of the ACC used to be that it was the only major conference left where every team played an old-style home-and-home series. The old saying goes, "familiarity breeds contempt." Playing your conference rivals twice a year helps fuel that contempt.
Plus, in a lot of other major conferences, there's the missing aspect of getting your league's best team every year on your floor. Believe me, as a Texas Tech fan, I'd love a shot at Kansas or Missouri in our barn every year, but because they're in the North division, we only get them at the United Spirit Arena every other year.
However, because the ACC felt like it needed a little extra football money, it grabbed Miami, Virginia Tech, and BC (who start ACC play next season), which, in addition to watering ACC basketball down, forced them to limit which teams get home-and-home series. Shame, really, that ACC commisioner John Swofford would destroy something beautiful for a quick buck.

Also, as a practical matter, what was Wake Forest going to save in terms of money by eliminating a short bus trip from Winston-Salem to Chapel Hill?

Oh, as for the game, with both teams having great backcourts, I think Sean May makes the difference. He's the one guy the Deacons don't have an answer for.

The Division Bell

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. Teams that have home field in the NFL Playoffs' Divisional round are 45-11. Put it another way, the home teams win slightly over 80% of the time. Yeah, the bye week helps, but it's pretty clear that there's some separation in between the top 2 teams in the playoffs and the rest of the playoff qualifiers.
So why do people pick so many upsets on Divisional Playoff weekend? Well, the media tends to ignore teams that have the week off and focus on the teams that actually play (This happens during the season also), and because of the topsy-turvy nature of the NFL, some teams that get byes may not have a whole lot of playoff experience (The Falcons and this years' edition of the Steelers come to mind).

• New York Jets at Pittsburgh (Saturday, 3:30 pm Central on CBS) - Too many exclamation points for the Jets. Not question marks, exclamation points, as in these are areas of great concern. Chad Pennington is sick, John Abraham is in worse shape than he was last week, and coach Herm Edwards is having another press conference meltdown 4 days after going ballistic with his running backs coach in the Wild Card Game. Will Edward's out-of-control emotion cause him to make a bad play call?
  Yeah, Roethlisberger is a rookie, but if he hasn't played like a rookie all year, what makes anyone think he's suddenly going to play like a rookie now? Plus, in the rare times the Steelers needed a play, he's made it. The Steelers win big here.
• St. Louis at Atlanta (Saturday, 7:00 pm Central on Fox) - If the Seattle game revealed anything about the Rams, it's this: Mark Bulger can't escape the rush. The Falcons, of course, have one of the best pass rushes in the league, and one of the best overall defenses. In addition, Isaac Bruce is injured and may not be able to play. The Rams, on the other hand have one of the worst rushing defenses in the league and they are facing the dual rushing threat of Michael Vick and 1,000 yard rusher Warrick Dunn (and that 1,000 yards came on 4.2 yards/carry). Gotta like the Falcons in this one
• Minnesota at Philadelphia (Sunday, noon on Fox) - Yes, Terrell Owens is out, but there are still 4 factors that haven't changed since the Eagles' Week 2 dismantling of the Vikings. First, The Eagles still have a top rated defense. Second, the Vikings still have a horrible defense, they just got a lot of help from Brett Favre last week. Third, Donovan F. McNabb is still quarterbacking the Eagles and rarely makes bad decisions. Finally, Mike Tice is still in a position to screw his own team with a bad play call. All this spells trouble for the Vikings. No contest, Philly wins big
• Indianapolis at New England (Sunday, 3:30 pm on CBS) - As I've been hinting all week, This is the only potential upset out there this weekend. New England can do whatever it wants to the field and try to scheme it's shorthanded defense all it wants. You still need talent to run your defense last time anyone checked, and the Patriots are depleted when it comes to defensive talent. That's bad news facing a team with a great passing game and a running back averaging 4.2 yards/carry. What will make this game close, however, is that when the Patriots have the ball, they will be facing a bad defense as well. I expect this one to be a shootout, and you have to like Indianapolis in a shootout.

Take care this weekend and God bless.

Monday: Division Round Wrap, and the unhealthy focus on Serena Williams dress.

Major steps forward for 2 governing bodies

While most of the world has been focused on Randy Moss's antics and Mike Vanderjagt's trash talk(see yesterday's blog). Major League Baseball and the NCAA have taken major steps this week in cleaning up their respective organizations.

NCAA Academic Reform

The first change was on Monday, when the NCAA passes the biggest academic reform in the institution's history since Proposition 48 was passed in the mid-1980s. According to the AP, The NCAA approved a rule change that would penalize a school's scholarships if they graduate less than 50% of their players over a 5 year period, with possible postseason bans for repeat offenders It's significant for 2 reasons.

1. It's the first time the NCAA has placed the responsibility for academics on the school. The NCAA has always kepts statistics on graduation rates, but the schools were under no pressure to adhere to any minimum standard. This led to a difference in how schools punished low-performing (in the classroom) athletes. Some schools simply ignored the problem; others only punished benchwarmers. Only in rare cases were there schools who took the problem seriously enough to punish anyone who didn't make the grade. Now, it's on the school to make sure that athletes are going to class and getting the necessary grades to graduate and everyone suffers if students don't graduate.

2. It makes a fundamental change in the formula that makes it fairer to the schools. The NCAA's formula used to be based on a four year period. In other words, the percentage is based ratio of the number of athletes that graduated to the number of freshmen that entered the program four years ago. This created some problems. Academically-minded athletes (and yes, there are some out there) in 5-year bachelor/masters programs , MBA programs, and similar programs were excluded in the calculation because they took, well, 5 years to finish. Some athletes entered college through sub-standard schools and needed an extra year to catch up to their peers. "Red shirts," students who missed a year for injury or other reasons, never counted. Plus, studies show that college students on the whole are taking longer to graduate. A change to a 5 year period eliminates these loopholes and gives the school a more accurate rating.

Myles Brand, who has recieved criticism (and deservedly so) for failing to stand up to the BCS, enact tougher standards on schools who allow improper benefits, and stop the rapid pace of conference changes, deserves some praise for this, and he's not getting it. He has finally pushed forward a change that will improve the overall academic climate at major universities across the country, and actually force institutions to care about the athletes in their charge. The media response: slap it on the back page or ignore it altogether. Yes, there's more work to be done, but most of the media want to focus on the negative rather than talk solutions. Brand and the NCAA just pushed through a solution, and they should be praised.

MLB's New Steroid Policy

The next big change in sports came when baseball's two great adversaries, the Commissioner's Office and the Major League Baseball Players' Association, agreed to change the policy on steroids. Aside from the tougher penalties, which everyone expected would be part of the agreement, the league and players for the first time approved random testing for steroids. Why is this significant? Performance enhancing drugs have to be "cycled on" and "cycled off" to actually have any "benefits". If you know when you are going to be tested, you know when to cycle off so you can pass the test. If the test is random, you can't cycle off in time. This means the system actually has some teeth to it.

By the way, If you're wondering why the word "benefits" is in quotation marks it's because steroids tend to have side effects that limit sexual performance, increase the chance of cartilage and ligament damage, cause developmental problems in teens, and increase the risk of certain forms of cancer. All of which should make a rational person question whether or not all that muscle or speed is worth it. (Maybe we should advertise it like they do those perscription medications where they have to have "voice-over guy" state all the side effects. Those things scare the heck out of me and make me not want to get a prescription. But I digress.)

Like the NCAA, Baseball still has a ways to go to totally clean up it's problem. Amphetamines and other drugs for attention span, for instance, are still allowed and may be more of a cheating problem than steroids, but the game is one step closer to getting everyone on a level field.


"Tilt"ing the ratings in ESPN's favor

Finally, After much promotion and hype, the new ESPN series, Tilt, which stars veteran actor Michael Madsen as a slick Las Vegas card shark, debuts tonight. I have to admit my natural reaction was to ignore all the hype and dismiss it as an attempt to cash in on the poker boom. But I think this series has a chance to succeed.
First, the writers for the poker classic Rounders are producing and writing the series, Since they've done a good enough job with this subject before and made a cult classic film, they can probably come up with decent scripts for a TV series based on poker as well.
Second, ESPN did a great job portraying the underside of pro football with Playmakers. So good in fact, that the NFL forced ESPN to pull it off the air because it hit too close to home, but the series recieved much critical acclaim.
Third, if poker's dirty little secrets come out, all the better. I've only heard stuff about the poker world, and it's enough to discourage me from trying it as a career. Maybe seeing Tilt will discourage others from trying to play it for a living as well. That's not to say I don't like poker, I just enjoy watching it rather than playing it. (I'm a gin rummy player, myself)

Tomorrow: The Divisional Playoffs

Idiot kicker got liquored up and ran his mouth off again...

Probably what Peyton Manning is thinking right now.

In case you haven't heard by now, Mike Vanderjagt, the Colts' kicker who has a history of unfiltered comments, called the Patriots, "ripe for the picking" and said that they, "weren't as good as last year" in an interview with WISH-TV. With the exception of Rodney Harrison, most of the Patriots seem to be blowing this off.

This comment can be taken one of two ways. Conventional wisdom suggests that it's not good to give your opponent bulletin board material before a big game. The Colts, after all, need look no further than last week's Wild Card game with the Denver Broncos for an example. John Lynch delivered a bulletin-board statement with a helmet to helmet hit the week before and the Colts responded by torching the Denver secondary in the playoff game.

But this is one time where conventional wisdom may take a back seat, and here's the reason: Vanderjagt is dead on about the Patriots' depleted defense. They are so thin at secondary that their nickelback is a wide receiver. Add to that Richard Seymour's questionable status and the Patriots defense may very well be ripe for the picking. I know people will point to Bill Belichick and Romeo Crennel and say that "they will come up with something." Problem is, a scheme is only as good as the talent that's playing in it.

Vanderjagt's statement reminded me of the most famous piece of bulletin board material in football history, Joe Namath's guarantee before Super Bowl III. Namath was largely ridiculed for his comments about the then-Baltimore Colts, but even before the Jets' 16-7 victory, there were signs that he may have had a point.

First, the AFL had been snapping up the nation's premier collge talent and had been more proactive than the NFL about getting quality African-American players. So the average AFL team actually had more talent than the average NFL team. The problem is in the first two Super Bowls, the AFL challenger ran into the only NFL team that had the talent to compete with them, Lombardi's Packers, which skewed the public perception of the two leagues.

Also, Jets' coach Weeb Ewbank was previously the Colts' head coach and knew the weaknesses of their players and schemes. He also knew he had better players. And he could use knowledge of both to defeat the Colts, and he sold his game plan so well that Namath was able to make his famous guarantee and get away with it.

Now granted Vanderjagt is a kicker(who comes in a few plays at most) and Namath was a quarterback(who was very involved in the offense), but I think we could see a similar situation come Sunday. It will definitely be close

Tomorrow: NCAA's Proposed Academic Reform.

More commentary:
Bob Kravitz in the Indianapolis Star (for a conventional wisdom-based view)
Boston Globe's Patriots Notebook (for how the Patriots are taking Vanderjagt's comments)

The Beltran Deal

OK, I've given myself a couble days to calm down over Beltran leaving the Astros and I still think the deal stinks on a number of levels

1) It proves that the luxury tax doesn't keep salaries down. We've had 3 offseasons of this "payroll tax" in baseball and every year there seems to be someone who signs a big contract. And the same teams pushing up the market for everyone else before 2002 (when the luxury tax was agreed to by MLB and the MLBPA) are the same after 2002. Nothing changed.
People try to bring me examples of small-payroll teams that can compete like Oakland (breaking up its starting staff), Minnesota (traded away it's potential free agents; only wins its division because the White Sox doesn't try hard enough; can't beat a high-payroll, big-market team in the playoffs), San Francisco (can't surround Bonds with decent talent because of financial issues), and Toronto (can't keep Delgado, will trade Halladay soon) and none of them wash.
2) If a player who is considering other offers while negotiating to re-sign with his current team, he should say so. In other words, just tell people you're going to take the offer with the most money. At least you're telling the truth. Don't try to tell us how you want to stay where you are when it's not a consideration. No one buys it, and it just makes things worse when you take the bigger contract.
3) Why do these idiots take huge contracts in New York when a huge portion of it goes to pay New York's ungodly state income tax? Beltran realizes he's not going to keep all that money, right?
4) Why, of all teams, the Mets? The Yankees would have made more sense in terms of being in position to win the World Series. Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times made the point on "Around the Horn" yesterday that the Mets have a lackluster bullpen, and unless Minaya has cash we don't know about, he's probably tapped out at this point and can't fix the situation. All those big signings won't do the Mets any good.
Also, when the Mets aren't competitive, it's going to be Beltran's fault. Hell, if Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez both get injured, it's going to be Beltran's fault. Believe me, "Mike and the Mad Dog" and the New York newspapers will somehow make any problem with the Mets his fault. It won't matter whether the Mets struggles are his fault or not.
I'm sure Piazza loves it though because the pressure's on someone else now.

Quck Hits

• The dominant topic this week on the Jim Rome radio show seems to be the upcoming Pats-Colts game. Given that the winner may have to go to Pittsburgh next week to get to the Super Bowl, why all the attention on a game that may mean nothing in the long run?
• Congrats to Peyton on the MVP. I still think Terrell Owens is the "most valuable" player because he got the Eagles believing they were getting over the hump this year before the injury, but Peyton is certainly the "most outstanding" and deserves recognition
• ESPN has released their first projected bracket of the college basketball season. Top seeds: Illinois(Midwest), Kansas(South), Wake Forest(East), UNC(West). Big XII has 5 teams: Kansas, Oklahoma St. (#2, West) Texas (#5, Midwest), Oklahoma (#6 Midwest), and Texas A&M (#12, West). Still a lot of time for change, though. Selection Sunday is 61 days away.
• Tom Arnold has just gotten more annoying and less funny as the Best Damn Sports Show has continued its run. I used to like his humor, but his act has gotten old.
• This week's Greg Easterbrook column brings up 2 interesting stats to keep in mind. First, Home teams are 45-11 ( a .803 winning percentage) since 1990 in the divisional playoffs. Second, Home teams are 16-12 (.571 win %) in the conference championship round over the same span.
• Syracuse scores a major coup by signing UT defensive coordinator Greg Robinson. Unfortunately, that Big East conference is going to be a lot tougher next year now that Louisville is joining the conference. Difficult to say if he will bring Syracuse back or not. But believe me, nothing pleases me more than to see one of Texas Tech's conference rivals have that much coachining staff turmoil. Mack Brown has lost 3 key assistants this offseason.

That's all for today...

Tomorrow: TBA

A Wild Weekend

Sorry, it's late on Monday when this is going up, I got called in today. So here's some thoughts on wild card weekend

• Wow, what a wild weekend in the NFL! Three home teams lost and two 8-8 teams won (the first time ever an 8-8 playoff team has won a game).
• I figured that the Colts were gonna come out fired up, but I wasn't expecting the dismantling the Colts did to the Broncos. Also, not only did the John Lynch hit have no effect on the Colts' receivers, but Dallas Clark, the man who Lynch hit, had 6 catches for 112 yards and a touchdown, and Reggie Wayne had the third-highest passing yardage game in playoff history (221 yards on 10 catches) with another 2 scores. It will definitely give the Patriots pause, more on that matchup Friday
• Speaking of Lynch, weak move to get your lawyer involved. If you can't take care of your on-field buisness, don't get your lawyer to do it for you.
• On second thought, Lynch's lawyer probably could have played better pass defense than Lynch did Sunday.
• As for the other Sunday game, maybe the Vikings weren't as soft as any expert (or in my case, so-called expert) thought. They went into a hostile environment, took advantage of the Packers' lousy defense and Brett Favre's erratic arm and won.
• Advice to everyone, ignore Randy Moss, he's just trying to be Terrell Owens
• If you happened to flip over to the Kansas-Kentucky game at any point during the Minnesota-Green Bay game, I don't blame you one bit. That was a better game.
• The Jets-Chargers game proved 2 things: First, Chad Pennington has a tougher arm than we thought. Second, Pennington also has thicker skin than we thought.
• It's fashionable to rip on Marty Schottenheimer for not reaching a Super Bowl, but the guy is still a winner and deserves his job as long as he's got a playoff team.
• Sure, the Rams-Seahawks game turned out have fewer turnovers than anyone thought, but St. Louis was picking on a horrible pass defense.

That's all. Good night and God bless.

Tomorrow: Beltran's move, (which I have *plenty* of thoughts on), Peyton's MVP, and more.

Orange Bowl, The NHL Lockout, and Wild Card Weekend

OK, the week that was in sports.

Orange Bowl

I thought Oklahoma would go in there and blow away USC, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one. The Sooners blew out almost everyone and seemed to be on a mission to get back and win what they think they should have won last year. What happened in the game completely shocked me, and it wasn't just because I got to watch the game on my friend's new HDTV set. USC was the faster team *and* the team that wanted to win more. It wasn't that the Sooners weren't trying, though. The problem was they fell behind, which they hadn't done that early at any point this season, and panicked.

You know what happens to a playground bully when someone actually punches them? That's what Oklahoma looked like in the game. Hopefully, Bob Stoops has learned his lesson about blowing teams out, but I doubt it. He's as stubborn as his mentor, Steve Superior...um..Spurrier.

Since the halftime show is getting more run than the game, I will address it briefly. Ashlee Simpson's handlers are killing her. Their first mistake was telling her she should be a rock star rather than a pop star, because backing tracks are acceptable practice in pop music. Their next mistake was not calling it quits after the SNL incident. I guess the parents needed a new Mercedes and the Orange Bowl paycheck was too good to turn down.

NHL Labor Situation

TSN, the Canadian version of ESPN, is reporting that the owners have cancelled a meeting where they would have voted cancelled the season. It's probably delaying the inevitable, but at least it gives them a chance to maybe negotiate once more.

I'm going to talk about this situaton once, and not again until they reach a deal. I don't like either side. But the players make me more mad than the owners in this situation. They have no perspective. These pampered athletes demand millions of dollars for playing a game when many people I know are under the constant threat of losing their jobs to downsizing and outsourcing, and others can't make enough to get by. The only people who deserve to make even close to a million dollars (because they have the most important job) are school teachers. Period. End of story. Athletes don't deserve a dime and they should be happy someone is actually letting them play sports beyond college. It's a privelege to play pro sports, not a right.

What's worse though is that the Players Association suppresses the free speech of it's members. You remember free speech right? That right in the U.S. (and Canada) that allows us to say what we think? Well, NHL veteran Rob Ray got his strike pay wiped out for merely suggesting that he was going to cross the picket line and similar players who have made statements critical of the union have "revised their statements" after getting calls from the union. I don't care what contract you signed, you have the right to be critical of the people negotiating on your behalf.

But I'd rather talk about solutions, and the owners and players need look no further than the other winter sports league for a good compromise. Yes, as much as I hate the NBA, they have the only salary cap that satisfies everyone's interest, owners, players, and fans. The NBA exempts the full salary of star players and a part of the salary of veterans. They also tax the big spenders who try to load their teams with good players. The star players get what they think they deserve (which is actually more than they deserve, but there's no perfect world), the owners make money, the veterans get to play a little longer that they would under a hard cap, and the fans get to see their favorite players for years.

This could be done in the NHL (with a extra exemption for the starting goalie) if the players would just listen to a proposal that contains a salary cap. (And yes, this means the owners are going to have to give up the demand for a hard salary cap, but this would be a better solution than no cap or a luxury tax).

I know the NHL players proposed a luxury tax, but I've been following the baseball winter meetings and it's pretty clear that the luxury tax isn't a solution. The Oakland A's, which every pro-union supporter points to as an example of a competitive team in a luxury tax league, is having to trade it's best starting pitcher because they can't afford him as a free agent, and may do the same with it's other starters. Plus, baseball's luxury tax hasn't deterred the Yankees, Red Sox, or Orioles from driving up the free agent market and forcing the mid-market Astros to overpay for Carlos Beltran (Yes, I said "overpay". For what he's going to make he should be able to throw a 100 mph fastball left-handed and have a wicked curve and change-up rather than play centerfield) There's your luxury tax in action, union sympathizers.

By the way, A friend of mine on Avalancheboard.com complained that I wasn't ever going to talk hockey, hmm...

Wild Card Weekend

The story line of the NFL's Wild Card Weekend seems to be rematches, which is always fun because there's an element of revenge involved that makes the game more watchable than normal...

• St Louis at Seattle (Saturday 3:30 PM Central on ABC) - ... except when it's this matchup which pairs two underacheivers. What makes this game interesting, if you like soap operas, is that both teams are in locker room turmoil and both coaches are on the hot seat. Except that the winning coach may only delay the inevitable by a week. The last two meetings were both sloppy, mistake-prone, and won by the Rams and there's nothing that suggests this one will go any differently. Oh, and I don't like soap operas, so I'm going to mow the lawn while waiting for...
• New York Jets at San Diego (Saturday 7:00 Central on ABC) - This matchup is a re-match of the Week 2 meeting between these two clubs, both of which have gone in different directions since. The Jets have played mediocre football, and the Chargers have played great. Both teams can run the football and play defense, which promises to keep this game close. What will win it for the Chargers, however, is Drew Brees. He's healthy and Chad Pennington isn't.
• Denver at Indianapolis (Sunday, noon Central on CBS) - It would have been bad enough had one of the Broncos only said something to fire up Indianapolis. Unfortunately, John Lynch had to knockout Dallas Clark, and as we all know, "actions speak louder than words." That hit was worth more bulletin board material than any quote in a paper, and you know Indy's going to come out fired up. Plus, Jake Plummer will find a defender open at some point and launch the ball his way. You know it will happen. I like Indianapolis in this one.
• Minnesota at Green Bay (Sunday, 3:00 Central on Fox) - Granted, The Frozen Tundra isn't the home field advantage it used to be and Brett Favre has reverted to his younger days where he tries to make plays himself and ends up throwing picks instead. Still, I can't see how Minnesota, which backed into the playoffs and tanked another late season game, is suddenly going to show the character needed to win this game. Green Bay wins.

Accentuate the positive

Kudos to Jermaine O'Neal, Pau Gasol, Tracy McGrady, Jalen Rose, Bob Sura, and Mike Miller, who are donating $1,000 per point scored in games last night and tonight toward to tsunami disaster relief.

Have a good weekend, and see you all Monday

Monday: Wild Card Recap