The Bonspiel

I enjoy curling, playing the game more than watching. It has some great parts to it and can be a lifelong sport. I moved to a new city just as the ruling season started. As such, I have not thrown a curling rock all winter. This is not the end of the world but I am n my mid-thirties now and I am a headed to Victoria BC to curl in a bonspiel. This bonspiel guarantees a minimum of 3 games so it could be twenty-four ends in two days. I could be a bit sore. Curling is not the most intense sport in the world but it also doesn't have movements you do everyday. Your muscles may not be used to it.

The upsides are numerous. I get to travel to a different part of the nation. I get to play a sport I enjoy. I get to socialize with great people.

I am secretly hoping that all our games are done early. I don't want to be too sore. We could go on a win streak and boom, we could be in the playoffs. I'm not sure how it could happen but you never know and then I would be quite sore.

I am excited and I will have fun. I just hope my mid-thirties carcass doesn't rebel too much.

Super Bowl XLV

It's here.

Super Bowl Sunday has again arrived. It is the culmination of the best pro season in sports. This year it features the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburg Steelers. These are both quality franchises of the National Football League. They have both won multiple championships. They are both well run. The real question is, who is going to win?

I will start off by saying I usually cheer for both these teams but when they play each other I cheer for the Packers.

I think it I'll come down to who plays better, Clay Matthews or Troy Polamalu. The defender who has the better day will be on the winning team. Quarterback play usually determines the winner but I think this year it is the defence who will decide the game. I see the two very good quarterbacks performing similarly. They are both playing well and full of confidence. I think it will be stopping the run and limiting gains on 1st down to force the teams into 2nd and 3rd and long will have the biggest effect.

Time for the prediction. I think the Packers will win in a close one. I think a late defensive play will be the difference and I think a defender will be the game MVP.

Just remember, like I said before, I am a packer fan first.

All Star Week-End

This week-end is the NHL All-Star game and the NFL ProBowl. I guess that means its a slow week-end for sports. I'm not a fan of All-Star Extravaganzas. The players don't want to get hurt so they don't play the game the way it is intended. As such, it turns into a schmaltzy love-in. It doesn't showcase the game and it doesn't matter.

This year the NHL decided to try and spice up their lacklustre no-hitter by having a draft of the players by the two team captains. The whole idea was pitched with, who will be picked first? Who will be picked last? Will the last pick feel slighted? Really? There are around 800 players currently in the NHL. I believe 44 go to the All-Star Game. So you are looking at the top 5 or 6 per cent of the league. If you are going to mope about being picked last in a game that doesn't matter, consisting of the top 6 per cent in the world in what you do, then the league has an image problem. Considering many potential fans see NHL players as over-paid prima donnas a guy sulking about being picked last would only serve to hurt the image of the game they are trying to showcase. I don't know who was picked last because I don't care. Logically I also don't know how they reacted.

Of course tonight the NHL is having their skills competition. It sounds like a good idea. We always wonder who can skate the fastest and shoot the hardest. In delivery, it doesn't go over as well. There is no flow. Most of the time the players are standing around the benches. It is made up of the All-Stars not the individuals who may be the fastest or shoot the hardest. All this leads to the crowd wanting to be in it but it never really happens.

Last year the NFL moved the ProBowl to the week before the Superbowl in an attempt to have the fans remember it. In football, just like any sport, when the champ is crowned, that's it. The fans have spent their last ounce of energy on the sport for a while. To keep the Pro-Bowl in mind they now play it before the fans forget. The players selected from the two Superbowl teams do not attend. They have a bigger mission. As such you don't get to see the best players from the best teams. In actual fact that doesn't really matter. Football is so complex that they have to put in special rules to simplify the game. Its for the safety of the players. Unfortunately it reduces the best in the world to Pop Warner football.

I know there are a lot of people who like to watch these events. Some of it is out of curiosity. Some is out of loyalty. In the big picture it probably doesn't harm or help the game. I also understand why a league wants to showcase its talent. It should bring in more fans. Unfortunately I don't think it does. All-Star games don't show off the sport.

You can argue it recognizes the players for a job well done and it does. You can still pick the teams but you don't have to play the game. When you are the best players in the best league in the world, you don't have anything left to prove.

I don't see All-Star games dying anytime soon but I wish they would.

Wild Wildcard Week-end

After a lot of really good football, Wildcard Week-end has ended. It would have been difficult to predict what happened, but that's why they play the games.

In the Eagles - Packers game both teams had the same record record. In every other game the road team had a better record. The game everyone expected the visitors to win was the only game the hosts won. Nobody believed the Seahawks should have been in the playoffs, but they won.

The hardest to pick game was Green Bay and Philadelphia. They were matched teams and it could have gone either way. The Packers showed why a lot of experts picked them at the start of the year.

There were some very entertaining games this week-end. Football playoffs bring that with the one game loser go home format. You have to get it done on game day or your season is over.

It was a wild week-end of football playoffs in the NFL. We will see what next week brings.

Meltdown

It is about 24hours after one of the biggest meltdowns in hockey history. Last night in Buffalo, New York Team Canada let a 3 goal lead at the start of the third period turn into a 5-3 loss to Team Russia in the gold medal game of the 2011 World Junior Hockey Championships.

I can't figure it out.

The Russians may be slow starters or they may have been pulling a rope-a-dope. Whatever the reason, they won the game. In the third, the Canadians seemed to be playing not to lose. That never works. You have to go with what got you there. They should have been pushing pucks deep and trying to score off the cycle.

It may have been the pressure. The expectation that gold is the only acceptable result is a lot for a teenage boy to handle. No one likes failure but that is a lot for anyone to take on their shoulders.

Although I like to cheer for the winning team, it is not all bad to not win all the time. If you always win then what are you the champ of? If you are the best of something no one else cares about what have you accomplished?

Last night I watched the greatest meltdown in hockey history and it should never happen again.

Gracious Appriciation

Tonight Team Canada beat Team USA 4 to 1 in front of a primarily pro-Canadian crowd in Buffalo, New York. This win in the semi-finals of the 2011 World Junior Hockey Championships moves the Canadians to the gold medal game and the Americans to the bronze medal game.

Before the game, returning American players were talking how great it was to shut up the Canadian fans last year in Saskatoon. Maybe they should have been a bit more gracious in their victory. A year later they lose they semi-final game in their own country. If you lose at home you would think the building would be very quiet but this was not the case. There were 3 Canadian fans to every American fan. All this makes the returning players look silly.

Yes, I just used the word silly in a sports blog.

You should always be gracious in victory as you don't know how bad the results of a loss will be the next time around. At this point the best that Team USA can do is bronze and may not even medal. This sure makes them look like one hit wonders.

As for Team Canada, they now have a date with the Russians on Wednesday for the Gold medal. We will see what that classic match-up brings.

Go Sens (Leafs??) Go

Tonight I went to an Ottawa Senators game. Their opponent was the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Sens didn't have very good goaltending and as such fell behind 5-0 before finally getting one goal for a final of 5-1.

The crowd had a lot of Leaf fans in it. I understand they were the only team in English speaking Canada for a long time. I also know that allegiances die hard. I'm the same way. You would have thought the Leafs had won the cup. Their fans were over the top. I realize that the Leafs don't win a lot of hockey games so I guess you have to cherish every win but it was truly excessive.

There were several Go Leafs Go chants and it would be muddied by the Go Sens Go chant and fade away. They did cheer when the Leafs would score. It really wasn't a game to be proud of. They didn't win because they took the play to the Sens, they won because the Sens had very bad goaltending. They scored 5 goals on 21 shots. At the pro level, that should not happen. If you give up that many goals on that few shots you will lose nearly every game. On the other hand you need to score more than 1 goal with your 28 shots.

Overall the game experience was good. The beer was cold, I could see the whole play from my seats and I enjoyed my time. It was hockey game prices for everything. The area is located in the middle of nowhere. At least it is just off the highway so it doesn't take too long to drive. I will attend more Senator games, maybe when so other team is in town besides the Toronto Maple Leafs.