Monday, December 06, 2004
CRUISER ENVY
Is everybody ready for tonight? I sure hope so. I need to get some salsa in this house. There's been a big bag of tortilla chips sitting there for too long without any salsa for them to be dipped in. It's a shame, really. Other than nachos, chips and salsa seem like the ultimate football-watching non-bar food. If it is bar food, though, I'll have to go with the Super Mother at the Tav in Ellensburg. What I wouldn't do for one of those right now.
Meanwhile, back to sports because I may have just made a lot of people hungry with that last spiel.
Since this won't fit anywhere else in the post, congratulations to the Redhawks of Seattle U for taking the D-II soccer national title. They beat Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (not to be confused with the mothership in Carbondale) by a score of 2-1.
BASEBALL
Well, it's not solely about baseball, but it probably wouldn't have appeared without the BALCO grand jury testimony leaks. John Levesque has a piece on the whole steroid thing sad says Victor Conte is actually a "smart, crafty opportunist," and that what he did is no different from when an athlete is trying to get away with as much as he/she can without getting caught. All of these recent happenings are just leaving my jaw agape because a whole can has been opened up. I'll just link you to what I said last January after Derrick Turnbow became the first Major League Baseball player to test positive for a banned steroid, though it was at a Team USA tryout camp and under the guidelines of the US Anti-Doping Agency (Terrmel Sledge's name came up a week after).
SEAHAWKS
Jerheme Urban will be living a near-complete dream. On Monday nights as a kid, he watched his Cowboys and marveled at Jerry Rice. Now, he's playing alongside Rice and against the Cowboys. A childhood story is revealed where Urban snuck out of his room after bedtime and started going nuts after Joe Montana hit John Taylor on a slant for 92 yards. My best stories of sneaking back out to the living room after bedtime were to watch new Farley/Sandler/Myers-era Saturday Night Live episodes, and/or American Gladiators.
It's only three questions, but it's quite sufficient as Farnsworth gets some cerebral answers out of Bill Parcells. Parcells says that the environment around players these days, especially younger players, has changed. The best two words in the article: long pause.
Roughly 96% of the time, I don't read Jim Moore's columns. Today, I did. Now I know that the intro tease on the ABC broadcast tonight features Jerry Rice. No surprise, but it foils Sports and B's hopes that Darrell Jackson would have dropped Eva Longoria. If I would have written that intro, I could put in some sick irony -- that Longoria would be dropped, but the towel would stay on.
Jose Miguel Romero gives us a little Sharpie, a little Rice, and a little hate for Monday night from Bill Parcells and Grant Wistrom. I'd wished Wistrom would have been one of those guys that gets pumped for Monday night, but he's probably one to get pumped equally for every game. The man likes his routines. I like the sacks. In bunches.
Steve Kelley says a thing or two about the chain reaction (others would call it a downward spiral) that is caused when receivers drop passes. In short, it messes up the whole offense. You can't have any semblance of a balanced attack when you can't pass the ball. If the receivers aren't catching it, then opposing teams can stack the line and put a few extra guys on Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson. There goes your running game. Maybe it's not that simple, but that's at least the rudimentary way of thinking.
Lastly, would it be a Monday night without an article about the Madden Cruiser? I think not. There's a paragraph in there where it lists the modern amenities, i.e., flat-screen TVs, satellite radio, DVD players, etc. Somehow, a VCR snuck in there too. The man's still got some old-school left in him!
BASKETBALL
Huskies
The Dawgs put a 89-56 hurtin' on the Eagles from Eastern, forcing an insane 30 turnovers in the process with swarming defense. Will Conroy's three, the first basket of the game, gave the Huskies the lead they wouldn't relinquish. Their smallest lead in the second half was by 22. The Huskies face San Diego State on Tuesday night.
Sonics
You know, amidst all the talk about Ray Allen's jumper being off lately, I'd totally forgotten about when he twisted his ankle in the game at Memphis (12 days ago). I guess in a way, that explains a lot, sans the 38-point effort in the overtime game against Utah. I've said I've been afraid of Ron Murray and Vitaly Potapenko being added to what seems like a great mix, but Percy Allen's right. Ray Allen has been getting a ton of minutes, and at this pace Ray would probably be gassed around April or May. Murray could ease the void left when Allen goes to the bench. Or Murray could be worthwhile trade bait. Who knows?
Rashard Lewis consistent? This might finally be the year that he meets the expectations attached to him after signing that seven-year, $60M deal just over two years ago. I remember when the Sonics drafted Desmond Mason out of college, Lewis was actually younger than him, though Lewis had the years of NBA experience under his belt. Lewis is only one year older than Nick Collison, but has six years on him in terms of NBA experience. Lewis isn't quite the man-child out of high school that Shawn Kemp was (that'd be Amare Stoudemire), but he might finally be turning the corner.
Upcoming...
Wednesday at San Antonio
Thursday at Dallas
HOCKEY
Seattle shut out Swift Current, 3-0. After a scoreless first period in which the Thunderbirds had all of their 12 shots turned away, Derek Couture stuck an Aaron Gagnon rebound into the net just 58 seconds into the second period. Just over two and a half minutes later, Chris Durand scored after a Mitch Fadden steal while down one skater. Couture added another goal on an empty net late in the third period. The Thunderbirds beat their former coach, took back first place in the US Division, and had the Stanley Cup at KeyArena last night. Some of the Broncos had been stricken with food poisoning. Seattle outshot the Broncos 30-19, with Bryan Bridges stopping the 19 shots.
Manitoba beat Binghamton, 5-4. The Senators drew first blood early in the first period, but the Moose scored the next three goals (Kevin Bieksa, Josh Green, Justin Morrison) before heading to the dressing room. In a second period featuring just 12 total shots combined from the two teams, the B-Sens tied the game at 3. But Tomas Mojzis netted a goal on a knuckling puck just 42 ticks into the final period, and Jeff Heerema cashed in for some insurance almost five minutes later. Brian Pothier's power-play goal cut the Manitoba lead in half with just over five minutes to go, but the Moose held on. Manitoba outshot Binghamton 29-28 and Wade Flaherty stopped 24. Kirill Koltsov and Peter Sarno were both plus-2 for the Moose.
Upcoming for the week in hockey...
Tuesday: Swift Current at Portland
Wednesday: Seattle at Kamloops, Vancouver at Kelowna, Spokane at Everett
Friday: Vancouver at Kamloops, Everett at Portland, Manitoba at Edmonton
Saturday: Portland at Kelowna, Seattle at Regina, Everett at Spokane, Kamloops at Vancouver
Sunday: Seattle at Brandon, Portland at Kamloops, Manitoba at Edmonton
---
Have fun tonight, everybody, because Monday night with your football team is the night for fun to be had. That's unless it's a playoff game or something. I encourage everyone to have fun tonight, but to stop short if you realize you're going to Wang Chung.
Meanwhile, back to sports because I may have just made a lot of people hungry with that last spiel.
Since this won't fit anywhere else in the post, congratulations to the Redhawks of Seattle U for taking the D-II soccer national title. They beat Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (not to be confused with the mothership in Carbondale) by a score of 2-1.
BASEBALL
Well, it's not solely about baseball, but it probably wouldn't have appeared without the BALCO grand jury testimony leaks. John Levesque has a piece on the whole steroid thing sad says Victor Conte is actually a "smart, crafty opportunist," and that what he did is no different from when an athlete is trying to get away with as much as he/she can without getting caught. All of these recent happenings are just leaving my jaw agape because a whole can has been opened up. I'll just link you to what I said last January after Derrick Turnbow became the first Major League Baseball player to test positive for a banned steroid, though it was at a Team USA tryout camp and under the guidelines of the US Anti-Doping Agency (Terrmel Sledge's name came up a week after).
SEAHAWKS
Jerheme Urban will be living a near-complete dream. On Monday nights as a kid, he watched his Cowboys and marveled at Jerry Rice. Now, he's playing alongside Rice and against the Cowboys. A childhood story is revealed where Urban snuck out of his room after bedtime and started going nuts after Joe Montana hit John Taylor on a slant for 92 yards. My best stories of sneaking back out to the living room after bedtime were to watch new Farley/Sandler/Myers-era Saturday Night Live episodes, and/or American Gladiators.
It's only three questions, but it's quite sufficient as Farnsworth gets some cerebral answers out of Bill Parcells. Parcells says that the environment around players these days, especially younger players, has changed. The best two words in the article: long pause.
Roughly 96% of the time, I don't read Jim Moore's columns. Today, I did. Now I know that the intro tease on the ABC broadcast tonight features Jerry Rice. No surprise, but it foils Sports and B's hopes that Darrell Jackson would have dropped Eva Longoria. If I would have written that intro, I could put in some sick irony -- that Longoria would be dropped, but the towel would stay on.
Jose Miguel Romero gives us a little Sharpie, a little Rice, and a little hate for Monday night from Bill Parcells and Grant Wistrom. I'd wished Wistrom would have been one of those guys that gets pumped for Monday night, but he's probably one to get pumped equally for every game. The man likes his routines. I like the sacks. In bunches.
Steve Kelley says a thing or two about the chain reaction (others would call it a downward spiral) that is caused when receivers drop passes. In short, it messes up the whole offense. You can't have any semblance of a balanced attack when you can't pass the ball. If the receivers aren't catching it, then opposing teams can stack the line and put a few extra guys on Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson. There goes your running game. Maybe it's not that simple, but that's at least the rudimentary way of thinking.
Lastly, would it be a Monday night without an article about the Madden Cruiser? I think not. There's a paragraph in there where it lists the modern amenities, i.e., flat-screen TVs, satellite radio, DVD players, etc. Somehow, a VCR snuck in there too. The man's still got some old-school left in him!
BASKETBALL
Huskies
The Dawgs put a 89-56 hurtin' on the Eagles from Eastern, forcing an insane 30 turnovers in the process with swarming defense. Will Conroy's three, the first basket of the game, gave the Huskies the lead they wouldn't relinquish. Their smallest lead in the second half was by 22. The Huskies face San Diego State on Tuesday night.
Sonics
You know, amidst all the talk about Ray Allen's jumper being off lately, I'd totally forgotten about when he twisted his ankle in the game at Memphis (12 days ago). I guess in a way, that explains a lot, sans the 38-point effort in the overtime game against Utah. I've said I've been afraid of Ron Murray and Vitaly Potapenko being added to what seems like a great mix, but Percy Allen's right. Ray Allen has been getting a ton of minutes, and at this pace Ray would probably be gassed around April or May. Murray could ease the void left when Allen goes to the bench. Or Murray could be worthwhile trade bait. Who knows?
Rashard Lewis consistent? This might finally be the year that he meets the expectations attached to him after signing that seven-year, $60M deal just over two years ago. I remember when the Sonics drafted Desmond Mason out of college, Lewis was actually younger than him, though Lewis had the years of NBA experience under his belt. Lewis is only one year older than Nick Collison, but has six years on him in terms of NBA experience. Lewis isn't quite the man-child out of high school that Shawn Kemp was (that'd be Amare Stoudemire), but he might finally be turning the corner.
Upcoming...
Wednesday at San Antonio
Thursday at Dallas
HOCKEY
Seattle shut out Swift Current, 3-0. After a scoreless first period in which the Thunderbirds had all of their 12 shots turned away, Derek Couture stuck an Aaron Gagnon rebound into the net just 58 seconds into the second period. Just over two and a half minutes later, Chris Durand scored after a Mitch Fadden steal while down one skater. Couture added another goal on an empty net late in the third period. The Thunderbirds beat their former coach, took back first place in the US Division, and had the Stanley Cup at KeyArena last night. Some of the Broncos had been stricken with food poisoning. Seattle outshot the Broncos 30-19, with Bryan Bridges stopping the 19 shots.
Manitoba beat Binghamton, 5-4. The Senators drew first blood early in the first period, but the Moose scored the next three goals (Kevin Bieksa, Josh Green, Justin Morrison) before heading to the dressing room. In a second period featuring just 12 total shots combined from the two teams, the B-Sens tied the game at 3. But Tomas Mojzis netted a goal on a knuckling puck just 42 ticks into the final period, and Jeff Heerema cashed in for some insurance almost five minutes later. Brian Pothier's power-play goal cut the Manitoba lead in half with just over five minutes to go, but the Moose held on. Manitoba outshot Binghamton 29-28 and Wade Flaherty stopped 24. Kirill Koltsov and Peter Sarno were both plus-2 for the Moose.
Upcoming for the week in hockey...
Tuesday: Swift Current at Portland
Wednesday: Seattle at Kamloops, Vancouver at Kelowna, Spokane at Everett
Friday: Vancouver at Kamloops, Everett at Portland, Manitoba at Edmonton
Saturday: Portland at Kelowna, Seattle at Regina, Everett at Spokane, Kamloops at Vancouver
Sunday: Seattle at Brandon, Portland at Kamloops, Manitoba at Edmonton
---
Have fun tonight, everybody, because Monday night with your football team is the night for fun to be had. That's unless it's a playoff game or something. I encourage everyone to have fun tonight, but to stop short if you realize you're going to Wang Chung.
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