Aldland hits the road to see the Red Wings square off against the St. Louis Blues. The matchup was a close one that ended in sudden death overtime — after just 24 seconds of it.
Joe Louis Arena
Jimmy Howard warms up
A pane of glass is replaced midway through a very physical game
Joakim Anderson (18) faces off against David Backes (42)
Jimmy Howard scuffs up the crease
Red Wings celebrate Justin Abdelkader’s overtime goal
Read the full review here.
The Nashville Predators will be making the playoffs this season, and it could be their strongest season in franchise history. As the regular season winds down, I take a look at their possible playoff possibilities.
Read the full post here.
On Monday, Brendan announced ALDLAND’s 2015 March Madness bracket challenge. This is our fourth year hosting an NCAA tournament contest, and our second in a row partnering with Baddeus Thaddeus Lenkiewicz. Important: there still is time for you to join. Click here to submit your picks for a chance to win limitless fame and one of the other “prizes” Brendan detailed in his post.
As an added incentive, we are bolstering the first-place prize package with a Mike & Mike Fifteenth Anniversary t-shirt from the gift basket the Mikes sent us for being such good listeners and always finishing our dinners before getting up from the table. Shirt is one-size-fits-you because they only sent us one (a Golic-ish XL).
With new rules potentially on the horizon for the NHL, I take a look at how this might help or hurt the Nashville Predators over on the hockey writers dot com.
Read the full post here.
Fox Sports 1’s newest show is a weekly program hosted by Katie Nolan. Based on the debut episode, which aired Sunday night at 9:30 and is available in its entirety here, the program will mix “Weekend Update”-style headlines with Olbermann-like short commentary segments, and guest conversations. We already know from her extensive online work and role on the late Crowd Goes Wild that Nolan can be both funny and precisely critical.
What remains to be seen is whether she can use her growing influence to draw good guests. If the premiere episode is any indication, this shouldn’t be a problem either. The first guest was FS1 NFL guy and (possibly former) BlackBerry user Peter Schrager, who seemed to succeed at 1) avoiding the use of his chair’s right armrest, and 2) convincing Nolan that wild wheeling and dealing during the NFL offseason is a good thing. Next up was Adam Carolla, who reportedly and completely believably “spoke at” Nolan for the better part of an hour to fill a five-minute segment, which is embedded above. Schrager and Carolla were good first-episode guests because they are interesting and entertaining, but also because they are used to carrying their own segments, ensuring that there would be no lulls in the conversation.
Garbage Time airs Sunday nights at 9:30 on Fox Sports 1.
I put together a post comparing faceoff strength, goals, and game location for the Nashville Predators over at The Hockey Writers. The post, more my usual speed, shows that home ice at Bridgestone Arena seems to give a home-team advantage to scoring goals and an even bigger advantage to winning faceoffs.
Read the full post here.
Here we are on our thirdfourth year of the ALDLAND March Madness bracket challenge and our second year of partnering with the esteemed Baddeus Thaddeus Lenkiewicz. Who won last year? Everyone who participated, of course. Did we make good on any of the prizes we said we would offer? Maybe? Anyway, here is what we have on tap for this year.
Everybody had a good time with Will Ferrell’s Major League Baseball debut last week, and that’s no surprise. Will Ferrell is funny and good at making people laugh, and, it’s always seemed with him, the bigger the stage, the bigger the laughs. Ferrell started Thursday as an undrafted amateur free agent signee of the Oakland Athletics, and he finished the day as a San Diego Padre. In between, he appeared in games as a member of eight other teams and played every position, including designated hitter (pictured above). He even has his own Baseball-Reference page!
All of this feels like it belongs within Ferrell’s entertaining wheelhouse. Close examination of his B-R page reveals a little surprise, however:
Who knew Cincinnati held Norm’s rights to begin with? Maybe it has something to do with the Marge Schott joke he made on Weekend Update nineteen years ago, forever “preserved” on this broken NBC.com video? Baseball, like Norm, proves to be a continually unfolding mystery of the most enjoyable variety.
My first post over at The Hockey Writers, a hockey commentary site, considers what might be in the Predators’ best interest going forward through the rest of the regular season. If the Predators value Lord Stanley over the President they might want to sit goalie Pekka Rinne for much of the final month of regular season hockey.
The full post is available here.
My own Detroit Tigers series for the upcoming season– name to be revealed in due course, but let’s just say I wish Wallside Windows would sponsor it– will be underway at this site soon. In the meantime, I have collaborated with Mark Sands to produce an extensive preview of the 2015 Detroit Tigers for Banished to the Pen, which is available today.
The full post is available here.
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