Dont bet on the Cowboys.

I think its pretty clear who Jesus isnt pulling for in the NFC East this year...

A Tale of Two Cities

Vancouver:
Despite being the bank robbery capital of North America, Vancouver seems to be a lovely place, full of over-priced condos and heroin addicted junkies getting high on the taxpayers dime. What more could you want?





Chicago:
Look, I loved my time in Chicago, fantastic town. But I lived an undeniably lily-white exisitence on the North Side. I worked a couple blocks from Oprah, my boss had a 13th floor condo overlooking the lake. Heres a stat for the rest of the city:

314 US Soldiers killed in Iraq in 2008
509 People Murdered in Chicago in 2008

Also, the corruption capital of the country. Even the residents love it!



So, in summation, Vancouver wins this. It also helps that they are a better team. They will probably win.

BUUUUUUUTTTTTTTT,

They, in the end, are a bunch of filthy dirty stinking Canadians. Fuck them.

Chicago makes America proud in 7.

The Alexander Ovechkin Theme Song

NHL Playoff: Detroit vs Anaheim

Detroit Red Wings (2)

VS

Anaheim Ducks (8)

What the hell is a Red Wing anyways? Do you know how hard it is to find a mock picture that has to do with "Red Wings"? Seriously, type it into a google image search and see if you can find a good picture to use. It makes this post tougher. Thanks assholes.

Anyways, after their surprising trouncing of the President’s Trophy winner San Jose Sharks (who I thought would be good enough to choke at least in the second round), the Anaheim Ducks get to take on the Red Wings, who to no surprised treated the Columbus Blue Jackets like they were practice.

Forwards
Detroit is filled with all stars, and they're not the one dimensional types. The main firepower comes from Zetterberg, Hossa and Datsyuk and they are supported by the likes of grinders Holmstrom and Franzen. Anaheim isn’t a slouch having Getzlaf, Ryan and Selanne, but they aren’t quite the caliber of Detroit’s. Furthermore the Red Wings are carrying more all around depth at forward, not having a real weak spot. Advantage: Detroit.

Defensemen
Anaheim’s defense anchored by Niedermayer and Pronger is well known for bringing them in a cup victory, and at the deadline they traded for additional depth in Wisniewski and Whitney. The return of Beauchemin is a plus too. Detroit has one of the best defenseman of this generation in Lidstrom supported by Rafalski, Stuart and Kronwall. It’s pretty evenly matched here, but I think Detroit’s system gives them the edge. Advantage: Detroit.

Goaltending
Jonas Hiller has filled in quite well for the injured Giguere, who probably won’t get a start until Hiller falters. When you can rely on your back up to beat the top team in the league you’ve got a good thing going. The Red Wings though are lacking. The starter position has switched hands all year between Conklin and Osgood, neither really able to do good for extended periods. If the team in front of Osgood wasn’t so good last year, no way he is able to take the Red Wings far. Advantage: Anaheim.


Coaching
Both Carlyle and Babcock have a Stanley Cup under their belts, and they won one after the other. Despite a rough season Anaheim has pulled through while Detroit has managed to keep plugging along as a top team in the league. Still both are good coaches you’d like to have behind the bench. Advantage: Even.

Prediction

Anaheim shouldn’t be ruled out, but unless they find a way to constantly attack Osgood and put the series on his shoulders, I think Detroit has too much depth and talent for them. Detroit in 6.

Reason to Cheer for Anaheim: the underdogs, you can’t enough of the city of Detroit being miserable, to spite Brian Burke who left mid-year for Toronto
Reason to Cheer for Detroit: you can’t bring yourself to cheer for a team called “The Ducks”, you want something good to happen in that city for once.

Reason to Cheer against Anaheim: you’re a Sharks fan, they could have done better than “Ducks” when they changed their name
Reason to Cheer against Detroit: Chris Chelios, they won last year, you’re a Pens fan who is still pissed at Hossa, it’s the RedWings

A Late Preview to Penguins / Capitals

So I missed posting this before game 1 yesterday. My bad. With that in min, here's an abbreviated post on a preview that's already 1-0 Craps.

Forwards
On paper I would give this to the Penguins but there's a slight caveat to this. The Washington forwards continuously have played better against the Penguins. Whether it be schmucks like Chris Clark, Brooks Laich or David Steckel, one of the 3rd or 4th liners always seem to score a huge goal against the Penguins. Once these guys score than you are behind the old 8 ball because no matter how much you try to Ovechkin, Semin and Backstrom, they will get their points. They never come out flat in the past two seasons. The Penguins still only rely on Crosby and Malkin. The wingers for the Penguins have been horrendous and unless Jordan Staal and the 3rd line become factors again, this could be a quick series. Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko have been worthless for Evgeni Malkin.

Advantage: Washington.

Defensemen
The Caps have a good young defensive core. Mike Green gets all the headlines but is atrocious in his own end. Ditto Shaone Morrison. Tom Poti has played well this season but is still prone to the dreaded brainfartitis, Milan Jurcina and Erskine are solid in their own end but won't provide much in the offensive zone. Caps get a big boost with the return of Brian Pothier. Penguins have Gonchar and Letang for offense and Eaton, Gill, Scuderi and Orpik for defense. Mark Eaton has scored 3 goals in the playoffs already and has been big in both ends of the ice.

I like Pittsburgh here overall.

Advantage: Pittsburgh.

Goaltending
Simeon Varlamov was the story of game 1 and is the key to the Capitals success this series. He isn't a world beater yet but he is young and has some clutch built in him. Far different than Jose Theodore. He is prone to the horrendous goal but so is his counterpart, Marc Andre Fleury. Fleury has been clutch when needed but still has poor rebound control after 6 years in the league. He still has the athleticism to curb some of those but he needs to bottle up the rebounds. Fleury has struggled against Washington in his career but I still give him the edge in experience.

Advantage: Pittsburgh.

Prediction

As stated above, the Caps gear up for the Penguins more so than the Penguins gear up for the Capitals. I have no scientific basis for this or any stats that back this up. Their were stretches against the Rangers, where if the Caps played like that, the Pens would blow them out of the water. Even at game 1, the Penguins dominated for the first 10 minutes but still found themselves down at the end of the 1st. Penguins also need to steal a game in Washington were the Caps are much better.

Washington in 6

At Least We're Not Detroit

Since I'm sure you all enjoyed the first one so much... I'll beat Devo to the punch on this one... Part 2 in the Cleveland tourism series....

SWINE FLU MADNESS

What the hell type of shit is this. It's amazing outside. The girls are out. The dudes are out. Places are filled again. The Park is loaded. The streets are filled. Life's good.

Until word that some punk kids who went to Mexico have now brought some mutant disease with them which has now infected half of Queens and sent the nation and this city in a panic. Literally, everyone is talking about the Swine Flu. It's become the new topic at the water cooler. With every passing sick day, the Swine Flu witch hunt is in full effect. Does he have the swine flu is echoe'd throughout the halls. But think about all the other nonsense.

Do you really want to ride the subway now? Who knows who or what touched the railing your putting your hand on. It's pure madness and is for the record, driving me insane. I've seen various individuals walking around with masks and wearing gloves. Is this a movie? Will some of us turn into zombies? Will we the infected have to be quarantined?

The flu apparently lives on surfaces for up to 72 hours so things like dollar bills can carry it for 3 days. Not to mention doorknobs in public buildings, faucet knobs, hand rails on a bus or subway. To top it off it's a totally new strain and we know very little about it. Course some heads are saying wah wah wah we'll be fine but DUDE we know nothing about it. Do people get that Spring Break more or less happened across the country in the last 2-3 weeks. This is going to spread like wild fire from anyone who went to Mexico for spring break.


So pardon me, as I bid thee adieu and run off to the mountains of Pennsylvania where I'll hide for few weeks. Actually screw it, there are two game 7s tonight. And no spawn of the baconator is going to keep me away.

Man you yinzers are gonna love this bitch...

Cue Girl From Cleveland's failed attempt to defend her town in 5...4...3...2...1...

What grinds my gears: Self Yankee hatred edition

1)Brian Cashman should be fired as he is an inept and incompetent general manager- The sox get Beckett and Schilling and we get Pavano and Randy Johnson. They develop John Lester and Dustin Masterson, we develop the biggest first round bust in recent memory in Phillip Hughes and lost cause Ian Kennedy. We spend 8 gazillion dollars this off season and the Sox spend a meager 14 million. More than anything though, if you have the highest payroll by leaps and bounds in a sport, you should be the best team every year, at least during the regular season. Brian Cashman has not done anything better than Isaiah Thomas, he just has a limitless payroll to fall back on. It’s time to move on to a new head of baseball operations.

2) I love you to death Mo but can you start
struggling against a team other than Boston- As my recent face book entry of
“my 5 favorite athletes” demonstrates, I love you Mo. But must you only struggle against Boston. Can’t you shift that over to say the Royals or White Sox. That home run you gave up Friday night was by far the worst regular season Yankee moment I have ever experienced. That implosion you had in 2007 was pretty awful too but this was with 1 out away from a game 1 win. I know you pride yourself on your pinpoint control but would it kill you to walk Bay or hope he swings at a pitch out of the zone rather than throw a get me over fastball.

3) Burnett had me believing but now I stopped- Many apologies to Journey but I have indeed stopped believing in you AJ Burnett. With a 6-0 lead through 3.5 innings on Saturday all seemed right with the world. We had our ace, our stopper, pitching in a place where he hadn’t allowed an earned run since Mark Walberg was Marky Mark (I would hate your guts if not for Entourage). Then, with the bases loaded and 2 outs, Posada makes one of the worst pitching calls I have ever seen. Varitek is a dead red hitter. I have never once seem him hit an off speed pitch hard. If you throw him sliders and curve balls, he has no chance to succeed especially with the movement on those pitches that AJ boasts. Yet Jorge calls a get me over fastball and Varitek hit a ball that has not landed yet and the 6-1 lead is all but gone as was any chances of his pathetic team winning the game. Oh btw, there is no law prohibiting AJ from settling down after this bad inning and going 7 innings and keeping his team in good position to win. However, AJ proceeds to give up 3 more runs and embarrass himself and Yankee fans everywhere. The rest of the game was inevitably going to go the Sox way as they have a far superior middle relief corps and clutch hitting club.

4) Can somebody get a clutch hit on this team?- It seems that both NY teams have the same problem, they have nobody that can get a clutch hit. My club seems to be allergic to getting runners in from 3rd whether it is with 2 outs or even 0 outs as we saw during that debacle on Friday night. I don’t buy the sabormetrician argument that hitting with runners in scoring position is just a flukey thing or a product of randomness. There is a reason this team has not hit at all in the clutch since the beginning of last year. That reason is………..

5) Giradi shouldn’t be fired because this team is not his fault but still………. Don’t get me wrong, this team’s ineptitude does not fall even 1/3 on Girardi. At least 65% of this team’s shortcomings are a direct result of Cashman’s horrible decision making. Still, Girardi seems to have his players tight and anxious. People complain about the Yankees since 2004 but the teams of 05-07 were very clutch in the regular season. They frequently made gallant comebacks and got huge walk off home runs. Since Torre has left, the team seems to be less relaxed and significantly more streaky. I think Giradi manages a bullpen much better than Torre but otherwise he kind of sucks so far. I’ll give him till mid June to have his team 10-15 over 500. If not, in the words of Michael Kay SEE YA!

A life lesson from the NFL draft

This is the story about a naive, if fairly balding 26 year old. He believed in things like "treating others like you would want them to treat you," "never lie," and "Santa Claus." So when Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum and the rest of the Jets brass essentially said "we're comfortable with Erik Ainge, Brett Ratliff, and Kellen Clemens," this blogging CEO innocently assumed that the Jets saw something in Ainge, Ratliff, and/or Clemens. But now, with Tannenbaum perpetrating a lie and trading Ratliff and some picks for Mark Sanchez? I don't know what to believe in anymore...

BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!

He couldn't win the starting job over John David Booty at USC, how the hell is he going to make it in the NFL?!?!

COLOSSAL MISTAKE

Because I Like Using This Picture

More to come later on this series and other.