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Bdoyk asked me during the game whether I felt any split allegiances. I certainly have a love of Nashville that probably comes through in some of my posts on this site, but the Red Wings are an erstwhile pillar of my comprehensive sports worldview, and I can’t imagine anything that would ever change that.
That said, Shea Weber erased any doubts that may have lingered with his move on Henrik Zetterberg at the end of Game 1 last night.
The Predators shrugged off the move after the game, while the Wings appear to be letting it stew internally. Detroit fans can only hope that this is the sort of thing that will energize their team into the juggernaut of yore, allowing them to steal Game 2 on the road before returning to the much friendlier confines of Joe Louis Arena.
This time of the year is a bit of a lull in the sports calendar, though college basketball continues its upward march toward March, and both Michigan State and Vanderbilt— two teams that have traveled in different directions a bit, mostly by virtue of their original positions this year– appear to be pulling it together when it counts.
After the Red Wings’ record-setting win on Valentine’s Day, they have extended their home winning streak to 23, now besting all such streaks (and not merely those within a single season).
Out East, the Linsanity rolls on. Out West, a rolling avalanche killed three skiiers, including the head judge of the Freeskiing World Tour, in Washington. (These, of course, are not the season’s first skiing deaths.)
Coming attractions here this week include my overdue report on the Kentucky-Vanderbilt game, bdoyk’s nod to Tim Wakefield, and a preview of the 2012 NASCAR season. Thanks to Jalen Rose and all the rest of you for dropping by.
Last night, the Red Wings set an NHL record with 21 straight home wins. The record had previously been held jointly by the 1929-30 Bruins and the 1975-76 Flyers. There has been a lot of chatter on the internets about how the Wings’ record does not mean as much because the two other teams that made it to 20 straight wins did it without overtime or shootouts. That’s bogus . . . 21 straight wins at home is 21 straight wins at home, however you cut it. The record wasn’t “number of wins at home in a row without overtime or a shootout.” It’s just “number of wins at home in a row.” There are also compelling arguments for why the Red Wings’ winning streak is equally as or more impressive than the ones rattled off by the Flyers and Bruins, such as the fact that the salary cap-era NHL features significantly more parity and the fact that the Red Wings continued this streak amidst several trips to and from the west coast. In the end, the Wings should be happy about this accomplishment, but not too happy because I still expect to be flying back to Detroit for a parade in June.
I started my New Year’s sports roadtrip in Chicago, where the Blackhawks beat the Red Wings 3-2 at the United Center. The game was exciting, with five goals and lead changes spread out across the three periods, and some brawling by Todd Bertuzzi. Although the game was tight and balanced, Chicago stayed slightly better throughout the night.
This was my first visit to the United Center, and it’s an impressive, fun place to watch a game. It feels both large and consuming at the same time, and from the start of the National Anthem, the fans keep it loud. Keep reading…
We normally do this on Mondays, but with the breakdown of this fall’s orderly football schedule, together with adverse outcomes in the two games I attended over the weekend and the opportunity to post the song below, I figured it was ok to wait until Tuesday this time.
On Friday, the Red Wings lost by a goal on the road to Chicago, and on Saturday, Vanderbilt lost by a touchdown to Cincinnati in the Liberty Bowl. Recaps of both of those games will come later.
There wasn’t much of special note in the NFL’s final week of regular season play on Sunday, except that Steelers’ RB Rashard Mendenhall tore his ACL and is done for the season, a literally crippling blow to Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl chances, especially considering Ben Roethlisberger’s lingering leg injury.
The traditional New Year’s Day bowls were played on January 2 this year, and Michigan State came back to win a triple-overtime game against Georgia in the Outback Bowl, much to the chagrin of commodawg and bpbrady. By the second half, it appeared that nobody wanted to win the game. The officials insisted that there had to be a winner, though, and two missed field goals by Georgia, including one the Spartans blocked in the third overtime, sealed the game.
The BCS games played yesterday were exciting as well. Oregon topped Wisconsin for the Ducks’ first Rose Bowl victory in over ninety years, and Oklahoma State beat Stanford in overtime for all the Tostitos in the Fiesta Bowl.
Tonight, the once-proud Sugar Bowl stakes its claim to irrelevancy when Michigan takes on Virginia Tech. Our bpbrady is there. Watch for him on tv, assuming he makes it into the stadium after a week in the French Quarter.
Today’s Friday Jam comes to you from the road, where I’m beginning my reverse reinactment of the second third of the great blues migration. I will be in Chicago tonight for the Red Wings and Blackhawks, and I’ll be in Memphis tomorrow afternoon for the Liberty Bowl, where Vanderbilt will face Cincinnati. Given the recent spate of hockey head injuries, the most recent victim of which is Nashville’s Shea Weber, featuring Warren Zevon and Mitch Albom’s “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)” in this spot didn’t seem quite right. The other selection never was in question, however, and I was happy to find this particular clip because it was the first time I’d ever heard the tune:
I hope that happens to me exactly, minus the rain and the catfish. I’ve caught catfish. I’ve eaten catfish. Various preparations. I’ve tried. I can’t do it anymore. And the pouring rain. It always seems to rain for the Liberty Bowl, but this year is shaping up just fine.
NHL officials approved a radical realignment plan Monday that will give the league four conferences instead of six divisions and guarantee home-and-home series among all teams.
The Board of Governors authorized commissioner Gary Bettman to implement the proposal pending input from the NHL Players’ Association. It could be put in place as early as next season.
…The board opted to go with the more dramatic switch, creating four geographic conferences — two with eight teams and two with seven.
The new format will increase overall travel in the regular season, especially for Eastern Conference teams who will now have more trips West. But it cuts down on travel for some Western Conference teams, which was a critical issue for teams like Detroit, Dallas, Columbus and Nashville.
This deal isn’t finalized– the NHLPA still have to approve it, and players seem confused (“‘I don’t even really get it,’ Phoenix defenseman Keith Yandle said”)– but it seems like it will be without substantial changes. The new conference alignment would look like this: Keep reading…
It was a busy weekend, really, and mostly because it was twice as long as most ordinary weekends. Plenty of football, including another Lions Thanksgiving day defeat at the hands of the Packers, injuries, and Ndamukong Suh (more on him later), a dominant performance by LSU over then-number 3 Arkansas that left Razorbacks head coach Bobby Petrino less than happy with the Tigers’ Les Miles (Clay Travis (who else?) has the video here), Michigan State rolling over Northwestern in a classic trap game, Michigan beating Ohio State for the first time since 2003 (more on that exciting game later), and Vanderbilt destroying Wake Forest to finish the regular season with a bowl-eligible 6-6 record, tripling their win total from last year and besting their win total of the last two seasons combined. In an era when a new coach routinely gets three or four years to “get his guys in” before he has to show success, Vanderbilt’s James Franklin turned a 2-10 team into a 6-6 team in one year, playing in the toughest conference in America, and he’s mad because they were a couple plays away from being 9-3. The Commodores’ loss to UT still stings, but the Vols’ defeat at the hands of lifeless Kentucky will keep the Big Orange out of a bowl this year, and that definitely is a silver lining for Vandy fans.
In Sunday NFL action, I have to mention Tim Tebow, who continued his improbable winning ways, and the Indianapolis Colts, who continued their extremely probable losing ways.
Two pieces of basketball news sure to be disappointing to large segments of the population: first, throwback UNLV took down top-ranked UNC in decisive fashion at the Las Vegas Invitational on Saturday, and the NBA is back, games to start piously on Christmas Day (link to the entirety of Grantland.com pending) (UPDATE: here it is.). (More seriously, the situation in Syracuse seems to have entered a new phase.)
In hockey, the Red Wings took down the pesky Predators and the Capitals fired their coach 22 games into the season.
Oh, and despite their loss in Ann Arbor, Buckeye hearts are aflutter with news of the hiring of Urban Meyer as OSU’s next head football coach. (More on that later, too.)
I come back to the Crosby press conference. I’m not sure how it could have been done better. The message was that we are in uncharted territory. We know some things, there is much more we don’t know, and we’re going to do what we know and respect what we don’t until we know better. This is serious, and we are serious. And we want you — all those who are watching — to experience what we have experienced and learn what we have learned, because as people who love sports, we’re in this together. It is this same tone, attitude, and approach on head injuries that Bettman and Goodell need to take. … Read More
(via Grantland)
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