I gues this is what you'd call slapstick comedy? HARHARHAR-HARDY-HARHAR. Ok. Seriously, here we have former Nashville Predator and 15th overall pick in the 2004 NHL entry draft Alexander Radulov. He's playing for the KHL's Ufa Salavat Yulaev and clearly has just had a frustrating shift. So far, nothing unusual here. Until he casually turns to his right and THWACKS one of his coaches in the FACE with a backhand. Guy didn't even say anything. Just... THWACK!
Clearly this guy didn't grow up with those coaches who throw water bottles and sticks and threaten physical harm to eight-year-olds. What are they teaching kids about respect over there? First Ovechkin, now this. Who will think of the coaches?!?
Or maybe I'm all wrong here. First of all that coach could've whispered an insult under his breath. Something involving Radulov's mother and his lack of success on the last shift. who knows? That would make this Bashkortostan backhand the hockey verison of the Glove Slap.
You can’t have it both ways, Dwight Howard. You can’t demand a trade out of one side of your mouth and then act as team leader out of the other side. It’s not only disingenuous, it’s also futile. Who in that locker room do you think is listening to you knowing that in five months time (at most) you’ll be suiting up with another franchise?
Howard has taken to tearing into his soon-to-be-ex-teammates a lot lately, questioning their effort and telling those that don’t work as hard as they should to stay in the locker room. He says that they can take it, that they’re professionals, but he conveniently ignores why the club is playing in such a funk, or at least a good part of why, and that is because he is constantly denigrating them in the press, either directly or indirectly, as a result of his trade demand. He teammates aren’t any happier about the club’s four-game losing streak than he is, but it isn’t helping matters much when they guy looking to jump ship is telling everyone else how to pilot the boat.
Look, when summer comes Dwight Howard is free to go wherever he wants as a free agent. That’s the contractual right he has negotiated for himself. He’s even done Orlando more of a service than LeBron James and Chris Bosh did for Cleveland and Toronto by informing Orlando about his intentions. They are now given time to try and manufacture a trade to avoid losing Howard for nothing (whether they exercise that option remains to be seen). However, after that Howard needs to man-up and accept the collateral damage that comes in the wake of decisions like those. He has to accept that maybe the guys on his team aren’t quite as grateful for his candidness. Maybe they aren’t enjoying being cast as a band of unwanted children just waiting to be orphaned by a disinterested parent. Howard cannot call himself a leader while at the same time working publicly to abandon those he’s leading because people aren’t going to respond to his leadership in that case. Heck, people probably can’t help taking their foot off of the gas pedal a little bit as a result of his tirades. That may not be excusable either for a professional athlete, but much of the drama going on in Orlando extends beyond the raw competitiveness of athletics.
So Dwight, just keep doing what you’re doing on the court and accept that you are not speaking for the team off of it. You’ve made your position clear and now you have to accept the fallout from that declaration. When your substantial weight has been lifted from Orlando’s locker room, that’s when they can finally feel free to care about basketball again.
KABLAMMO! In the face! THE FAAAACE! That's what they call a posterizer. A dunk so damn big and mean and amazing it belongs on your wall. But you never want to be the guy under that poster dunk, memorialized forever as a squinty, flinching mess getting leap-frogged for all to see.
Last night, LA Clippers star Blake Griffin did just that to Oklahoma City's Kendrick Perkins, on the way to LA's 112-100 win over the Thunder.
Doug Smith over at the Star runs down his Top 5 in-game dunks, which of course includes Vince Carter bounding over Frederic Weis, but all are well worth watching again and again.
Golf ball industry leader Titleist has released new versions of its popular NXT Tour golf ball. The NXT Tour (longer) and NXT Tour S (more spin) see some serious advancement in golf ball technology, especially at the price point that the NXT Tour comes in at. Titleist has been able to increase the quality of the ball, not only in the cover (a soft, thin Fusablend cover with a new dimple pattern) but in the core as well (new large dual core). New this year for Titleist is the option of a high optic yellow colour golf ball (NXT Tour S only), which consumers seem to be buying up like crazy -- of note, this is not Titleist's first foray into yellow golf balls, they had a yellow DT ball in the 1980's.
From the press release:
NXT Tour S features a new, proprietary low compression, highly resilient core, in combination with the same soft, thin Fusablend cover formulation and aerodynamics as the New NXT Tour. NXT Tour S offers a softer compression feel than its counterpart and, like NXT Tour, offers low driver and long iron spin for outstanding distance, a piercing trajectory and consistent ball flight, and commanding short game spin and control. As another preference option for golfers, the New NXT Tour S is offered in white and high optic yellow.
Titleist also let loose a new version of the DT Solo, and a new distance ball, Velocity. Look for Titleist's latest golf balls in stores in mid February 2012.
Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry posted a contest on Twitter over the weekend, challenging fans to send him video of them making the toughest HORSE shots they could, all while mentioning his SC30 brand. The winner gets a customized outgoing voicemail message from Curry, so they have an NBA star greeting missed calls from family and friends.
The deadline for entries was today, but Curry has picked five of his favourites and will post them to his Facebook page where the winner will be voted on by fans. This is great and all, but seems a tad elaborate for the level of prize up for grabs. Sure, a voicemail message from your favourite NBAer would be wicked, but it's also the type of thing Curry should do for a trivia question over Twitter. Kevin Durant went and played football with fans just because he was bored. Curry's asking them to video near-impossible shots while mentioning his brand and all they get is a voicemail? What might make it worth it is if he'll say anything they ask him to. Like, say, "Hi there. I'm Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors. Basketball is fun but my true love is synchronized swimming. Oh, and Bob isn't available at the moment, please leave a message."
With the Super Bowl set for next weekend in Indianapolis, all eyes will be on the Giants and Patriots, especially the two quarterbacks, New York’s Eli Manning and New England’s Tom Brady.
But a few eyes will be on another quarterback, one who put Indianapolis on the map for more than just the annual 500-mile car race in that town.
Yes, what is to become of Eli’s older brother, Peyton?
Peyton is a Super Bowl champion (XLI, in 2007, over the Chicago Bears), holds numerous college and pro records for passing yards and is a shoo-in for the Football Hall of Fame one day. He’s an 11-time Pro Bowler, a four-time Associated Press NFL MVP and the fastest quarterback to reach 50,000 passing yards, among other accolades.
Those are the metrics of legends.
But everyone’s time comes, and that time may be closer than we think for No. 18 in Indianapolis. After all, the first overall pick in the 1998 draft will be 36 at the end of March and, more ominously, he’s had three surgeries on his neck in the last year and a half, the most recent being a spinal fusion in September. We all hope Peyton recovers, but you have to wonder about life and limb for a guy in his mid-30s whose occupational risks include being pummeled regularly by angry 320-pound linemen.
Without Manning in the line-up all season, the 2011 Colts went a miserable 2-14 and have recently been cleaned house on the coaching front. On the upside, the Colts now own the first pick in the NFL draft in April and will be taking a long look at Stanford stud quarterback Andrew Luck.
Here’s where it gets tricky, though. How do you end Peyton’s decorated time in a Colts uniform in a classy way?
The drama here seems almost designed to allow fans to detach emotionally from Peyton before he is shown the door. According to reports, that is almost certainly going to happen before the draft, especially since Irsay must decide by March 8 whether to give Peyton a $28-million option bonus. Even if Peyton’s best days weren’t behind him and he was in perfect health, writing that kind of cheque would give a sports team owner pause.
It seems the roles have been set for us. Irsay gets painted as the cold-blooded businessman and Peyton the tragic hero who is exiled. We need good guys and bad guys to parse the daily avalanche of information, and the latest developments make it easier to digest.
Who knows? With Luck sporting the horseshoe come next fall, and most certainly one of the other 31 NFL teams willing to take a chance on a surgically repaired Peyton Manning, this may actually be one of those situations that truly does end up win-win.
You’ve likely heard all the puns. There was “Rob Rocks over Tiger.” Or “Rock acting like a rolling stone and over Woods.” Or maybe you caught the column that compared Robert Rock’s win over Tiger Woods in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to Rocky Balboa’s takedown of Apollo Creed. It was a big upset after all.
Or was it? That’s the question that really should be asked. Tiger Woods of yesteryear would have dusted little-known Rock like Buffy at a vampire convention. Sure there are unknowns that had epic battles with Woods – anyone remember Bob May? – but more often than not golfers folded like a cheap sheet when trying to take down Tiger on the final day of a tournament.
That’s not what happened. Rock held his own – shooting 2-under to hold off not Woods, but a charging Rory McIlroy. Woods could do no better than par, dropping to third place.
Woods on Sunday used to be like rain in Vancouver – automatic. But that wasn’t the case this week where Woods started the final round tied with Rock.
"I was right there with a chance to win the tournament and I didn't do it," said Woods.
That’s not something you’d have heard from Tiger Woods three years ago. He always got it done in the final round, leaving his competition reeling as he made seemingly impossible shots commonplace.
There’s a lot of baggage, both professional and personal since those halcyon days. There’s the obvious matters stemming from his sex scandal, but while that damaged Woods’ armor, it didn’t fully diminish his power. However, injuries coupled with his philandering being made public, and then adding a swing change to the mix, left Woods as a non-factor for much of the past two years.
Typical of sports, many took Woods’ win at his own small field event to end 2011 as a sign that his work with Canadian swing coach Sean Foley was complete. Healthy and with his swing in hand, many thought the old Woods, the one who dominated for more than a decade, might emerge.
While that storyline would have generated headlines, golf is rarely that simple. Woods hit only a couple of fairways in the final round against Rock, and not many more greens. On the first three days of the tournament he appeared in command of his swing and his game. On the final day that came unraveled.
Woods said several of his shots on the final day jumped off the planet – “A couple of my 3-woods went about 320,” he’d tell reporters – but clearly his major issue of the past couple of years – his wayward driving – resurfaced at a less than opportune time.
Just two years ago, the idea of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin both missing an All-star game was unthinkable. They were 1 and 1(a) in terms of the best players on the planet and by far the NHL's most marketable players, with both men embracing their roles as ambassadors for the game
Fast forward a couple of years and the unthinkable has happened. Neither player was on hand in Ottawa this weekend, but for vastly different reasons. Crosby missed his second consecutive All-star contest with perhaps the most infamous head injury in the history of professional sports. Ovechkin, meanwhile, skipped the game because he supposedly did not want to be a distraction, having just been assessed a three-game suspension for a dangerous hit on Pittsburgh's Zybnek Michalek.
With Crosby known far and wide as 'Sid the Kid', perhaps we should begin referring to Ovechkin as 'The Incredible Sulk.'
Ovechkin acted like a petchulant child this week. I don't believe for a moment that he was doing the league a service by staying away. If anything, I strongly suspect he wanted to take out his frustration on the league for being suspended. The true victims here were the good people of Ottawa who paid excellent money to attend the skills competition and All-star game. They were expecting to see one of the NHL's great personalities, but instead saw Ovechkin exposed as selfish and immature.
Veterans Teemu Selanne and Nicklas Lidstrom also passed on the game, although they were up front about their desire to rest and quitely asked the league not to select them. So in effect, neither were thumbing their noses at the NHL establishment. Besides, Selanne and Lidstrom have earned the right to decline an invitation; Ovechkin has not.
In the end, there were only a few surprises and memorable moments during the weekend. Zdeno Chara set the new record for hardest shot in the skills competition, Patrick Kane donned a cape and glasses, and Daniel Alfredsson had two goals and an assist in front of the hometown crowd.
All-star weekend in recent years has become more about catering to the fans in the city in which the game is played then attracting new fans or appeasing those from other cities. And it certainly doesn't help the mass appeal of the game when a couple of superstars are missing - particularly when one of them is thumbing his nose at the fans.
The Raptors are open to trading Jose Calderon! The Raptors are open to trading Jose Calderon!
Shockingly, the team that already traded Calderon in the summer of 2010 (only to have the trade fall apart at the thirteenth hour) is open to trading Calderon in 2012. Sometimes news is just too big to take in in one sitting.
Following an interview that Jose Calderon conducted with Marca, a Spanish newspaper, where he confessed that he would “like to have the opportunity to compete for something,” ESPN followed up with ‘sources with knowledge of Toronto’s thinking’ that intimated that Toronto is open to a move. Again, try and contain your shock at all of this brand new information.
The fact of the matter is that the Raptors have spent years open to moving Calderon. It’s not that they don’t appreciate his game or the benefits to having such a tremendously efficient point guard teamed with their not-ready-for-prime-time players, it’s just that he’s only going to take them so far. He’s not a stand-out defender, he can’t create his own shot and his shooting percentages are not what they once were at his peak. Plus, Toronto’s GM Bryan Colangelo has always preferred more dynamic options at the position (while in Phoenix he went from Kevin Johnson to Jason Kidd to Stephon Marbury to Steve Nash). Looking at the makeup of Toronto’s current roster, too, the team could probably use more of a scoring threat at the position than Calderon will ever offer.
All that said, though, the team isn’t really in a position to trade Calderon right now. Ignore for a second how difficult it would be to move his $9.7-million salary (with a 10% trade kicker) and consider what this team would do if Calderon wasn’t there. Without Calderon the Raptors would have no true point guard on the team at all. The Raptors are playing make believe that Jerryd Bayless has any point guard instincts in his game, and Anthony Carter is a much better practice player than in-game player at this point in his career. The Raptors rank 18th in the NBA in assists per game (20.1 apg), and Calderon accounts for 8.7 of them. If you think that the team’s offense looks broken today, take away the club’s one true point guard and see how easy it is for them to get quality shots.
Why does this matter, though, if the Raptors are in a developmental year? You could argue it matters more because they are in a developmental year. This club needs someone who can make the game easier for the seriously struggling DeMar DeRozan and Ed Davis, they need someone who knows how to run the plays and get guys the right looks. It would be one thing if the Raptors had tremendous individual talent in the young corps, but they don’t. They have a second-tier and third-tier talent (outside of the injured Andrea Bargnani) that need as much help from the team’s system to get them going as they can get. Calderon may not be at Steve Nash’s level of turning water into wine, but he’s a whole lot better than what this team would have to work with if he wasn’t around.
The Raptors only move Calderon this year is if they can replace him, and it’s very hard to think of a team with a point guard they are looking to trade that would have any interest in Calderon. The only swap that might make sense is with Portland for Raymond Felton’s expiring deal, but with Portland looking to re-up both Gerald Wallace and Nic Batum this summer it’s unlikely that they’d take the $10.5-million Calderon is owed next season just to sorta upgrade their point guard position.
The fact of the matter is that while Toronto may not be enamored with the thought of keeping Calderon around, doing so is probably in the team’s best interest. Going forward he would be an ideal backup if they do find a superior starter, and his low-mistake brand of basketball will only help the club as they compile more talent in the coming seasons. It’s easy to say that the organization is keen to move him along, and that Calderon himself is open to a new home as well, but until there is a way to make such a move more sensible for the Raptors he’s going to continue to suit up for this lottery-bound club.
The 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game gets underway at 4pm ET today (Sunday) in Ottawa. Team Chara takes on crowd favourite Team Alfredsson in what is sure to be a shoot-out.
Be sure to head over to www.TSN.ca/NHL and click on the 'Join The Live Game Day Blog' to chat with other hockey fans about the best goals, best saves (if any happen) and the funniest moments.
