Sunday, December 26, 2004
THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY
Welcome to the day after Christmas. I hope all of you had a good day with friends and family yesterday. Basically, today has the Seahawks trying to fend off the Arizona Cardinals, and there's also the second day of play in the World Junior Championships for hockey.
Come on, Seahawks...
It's a multisport article, but Blaine Newnham puts a wrap on the year 2004. It sure did look fairly gloomy for the pro teams after 10 months, didn't it? At least the Mariners and Sonics came through to save the year for Seattle professional sports. As for Bremerton sports, it was a banner year with four former Knights on the national stage, two of which went to Athens for that whole Olympic Games thing that was going on. For our posts from that week of Games, click here. Combine that with the Hall of Fame on the sidebar and a portion of the March Madness entries, and you get the scope of a banner year for former Bremerton High athletes.
Here's the rest of the post...
MARINERS
Did anyone out there get a 16-Game Plan for Christmas?
SEAHAWKS
Boy, it looks like we get articles from Les Carpenter and Steve Kelley even before the Seahawks play.
We'll go with Kelley first. Yes, the Seahawks passed on Randy Moss in the 1998 draft [corrected ~1:09p -- I had 2001 draft in that last sentence, but luckily Jeremy kept me in check via the comments. It's a team effort here at Sports and B's]. For Koren Robinson. Has he lived up to what expectations were coming out of college? Well, he was drafted before Moss, so he hasn't. Will a 160-yard afternoon with two touchdowns against Arizona erase all the doubts? No. But it'd be a start.
Carpenter touches on something that I eluded to a couple days ago. If you realign, you get the chance that this year's NFC West might happen. Remember what happened the first year after baseball realigned? The sinking of the 1994 season took away the chance of a sub-.500 winner of the AL West. In a sick twist of fate, the Mariners had won six straight and were within two games of Texas for the division lead when play stopped. Right now the NBA is in its first year after realigning to three divisions, and the Knicks are leading their division with a 13-13 record. Indiana and Boston would be in the playoffs if the season ended last night with 12-13 records as the 7th and 8th seeds, but that's more of a sign of the crappiness of the Eastern Conference as a whole, the true travesty being that the Knicks would get the third seed for winning their pathetic division. Back to Carpenter's article, he suggests that if it weren't for Bob McNair wanting to get the expansion Houston Texans, the Seahawks might still be in the AFC West, and in turn gearing up for the draft. With the move, the Seahawks go from competing against a couple of the better ownerships in football to going against some of the worst ownerships in football. Hey, if it gets a division title, I won't whine too much. Bonus points to Mike Holmgren for the quote: "I don't think they should realign and change the whole scheduling process of the NFL because a replay official was having a hotdog. You know what I mean?"
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
Matt Peterson has one of today's year-end pieces that ran in the Times today, and it's about Williams. It's a decent blurb about Marvin, who puts in 16.5-hour days, according to the article.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are home against UNC-Wilmington on Tuesday and Cleveland State on Thursday.
Huskies
Washington is off until opening Pac-10 play on New Year's Eve against the Cal Bears.
Bulldogs
Gonzaga is on the road with a game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday against 3rd-ranked Oklahoma State and a game in Columbia on Thursday against Missouri.
Sonic-ish
Percy Allen has an article on the speculation regarding Micah Downs. He's signed to play for Kansas, but is "testing the waters" when it comes to the NBA draft, which pretty much means he hasn't hired an agent and could still fall back on Kansas. Allen brings up Robert Swift of the Sonics, who made the jump from Bakersfield High to the NBA and a $1.4M deal with one main difference -- Swift is four inches taller. Yup, I'm thinking Downs should go to Kansas.
Upcoming...
Tomorrow at Utah
Tuesday vs. Philadelphia
Thursday at Atlanta
HOCKEY
These are all scores from the World Junior Championship. I think TSN is most likely the network on this continent that cares the most about the tournament, and their page is here.
United States beat Russia, 5-4. This one had a crazy first period as Drew Stafford and Chris Bourque put the USA up 2-0 with goals 83 seconds apart. The Russians were able to tie the game at 2-2 and 3-3 by the end of the first period. Robbie Schremp scored early in the second to put the USA up 4-3, but Russia tied it again about four minutes later. Dan Fritsche was able to come away with the game-winner, a shorthanded goal on an odd-man rush to account for the final score. Al Montoya came up big in the third period, as if making up for the first 20 minutes of the game. Montoya held strong in net as the Russians outshot Team USA 12-6 in the final 20 minutes. Russia outshot the USA 34-32 overall. Anton Khudobin stopped 27 for Russia, and Montoya stopped 30.
Canada beat Slovakia, 7-3. Patrice Bergeron of last year's Boston Bruins had two goals and two assists. Sidney Crosby, 17-year-old highly-touted stud for Rimouski in Quebec, scored twice on the power play and had an assist. Clarke MacArthur of Medicine Hat in the WHL scored twice in the final three minutes of the game. Jeff Carter scored the remaining goal for the Canadians. Canada coach Brent Sutter suggested it was far from a perfect game for Canada, saying that they sat back a bit when they got the lead, and then the Slovaks were able to generate some chances. Slovak coach Boris Valabik said he felt his team could have stolen the game if they would have played the first two periods like they did the third. Canada outshot Slovakia 36-23. Jaroslav Halak stopped 29, and Jeff Glass of the WHL's Kootenay Ice stopped 20.
Czech Republic beat Belarus, 7-2. The Czechs scored five times on special teams (twice shorthanded) on their way to a thumping of Belarus. Vancouver Giants goalie Marek Schwarz made some key saves in the first period after the Czechs got a 1-0 lead. The two shorthanded goals to open the third period buried the Belarussians, putting them down 5-2 with just under 13 minutes remaining. The article blurb says that Rostislav Olesz scored twice, and that Petr Vrana had two goals and an assist. The boxscore says that Olesz scored once and had an assist, but that Vrana had a hat trick and an assist. Either way, those two guys are linemates. Alexey Ugarov and Pavel Aslamouski scored for Belarus, who was outshot 36-17 by the Czechs. Stepan Goryachevskikh stopped 29 for Belarus, and Schwarz stopped 15 for the Czechs.
Finland beat Germany, 4-1. Jussi Markkonen and Petteri Nokelainen each had a goal and two assists. One of the assistant coaches for Germany is more Stanley Cup winner Uwe Krupp. Florian Busch scored the only Deutsche goal. The boxscore says that Finland outshot Germany 34-24, though the blurb shows differently. The boxscore also says that Youri Ziffzer stopped 30 for Germany, and that Tuukka Rask stopped 23 for the Finns.
Upcoming for the World Juniors...
Today: Switzerland vs. Belarus, Sweden vs. Germany
Tomorrow: Canada vs. Sweden, Czech Republic vs. Russia, United States vs. Switzerland, Finland vs. Slovakia
Tuesday: Germany vs. Canada, Russia vs. Belarus
Wednesday: Czech Republic vs. Switzerland, Finland vs. Sweden, Belarus vs. United States, Slovakia vs. Germany
Thursday: Canada vs. Finland, Switzerland vs. Russia, United States vs. Czech Republic, Sweden vs. Slovakia
New Year's Day: elimination round begins
It looks like we've got an article on Gary Bettman's whole "relaunch" plan he has for the NHL whenever they actually get the game back up and running again. Though NBC is not shelling out the type of money we've seen thrown for NFL televising rights (in fact, NBC and NHL are sharing TV revenues when they start back up), NBC has the chance to make a killing here with the NHL. Before I got to the end of that article, I hadn't even thought of what hockey would look like in HDTV. It's worth a shot, and it sure as heck isn't a glowing puck, so it's got that going for it.
If there had been no NHL work stoppage, the Canucks would have played in Edmonton tonight. It would have been their 35th game of the season. The Canucks' 35th game last season was a 2-0 win at Calgary, taking the Canucks to a 19-8-6-2 record. The 31-save shutout was Dan Cloutier's second in three games. Mattias Ohlund and Brendan Morrison scored the goals. The Canucks were on a 5-1-3 hot streak, while the Flames lived up to more than their namesake, rattling off an absolutely torrid 12-2-2-2 span. They lost in regulation only twice in that stretch.
Upcoming for the teams usually tracked in this space...
Monday: Lethbridge at Seattle, Manitoba at Cleveland
Tuesday: Lethbridge at Vancouver, Spokane at Everett, Portland at Prince George, Manitoba at Cleveland
Wednesday: Everett at Seattle, Portland at Prince George
New Year's Eve: Seattle at Portland, Chicago at Manitoba, Tri-City at Puget Sound
New Year's Day: Spokane at Vancouver, Seattle at Everett, Portland at Tri-City, Tri-City at Puget Sound
---
Hope y'all are having fun messing with presents and stuff. Have a great day.
Come on, Seahawks...
It's a multisport article, but Blaine Newnham puts a wrap on the year 2004. It sure did look fairly gloomy for the pro teams after 10 months, didn't it? At least the Mariners and Sonics came through to save the year for Seattle professional sports. As for Bremerton sports, it was a banner year with four former Knights on the national stage, two of which went to Athens for that whole Olympic Games thing that was going on. For our posts from that week of Games, click here. Combine that with the Hall of Fame on the sidebar and a portion of the March Madness entries, and you get the scope of a banner year for former Bremerton High athletes.
Here's the rest of the post...
MARINERS
Did anyone out there get a 16-Game Plan for Christmas?
SEAHAWKS
Boy, it looks like we get articles from Les Carpenter and Steve Kelley even before the Seahawks play.
We'll go with Kelley first. Yes, the Seahawks passed on Randy Moss in the 1998 draft [corrected ~1:09p -- I had 2001 draft in that last sentence, but luckily Jeremy kept me in check via the comments. It's a team effort here at Sports and B's]. For Koren Robinson. Has he lived up to what expectations were coming out of college? Well, he was drafted before Moss, so he hasn't. Will a 160-yard afternoon with two touchdowns against Arizona erase all the doubts? No. But it'd be a start.
Carpenter touches on something that I eluded to a couple days ago. If you realign, you get the chance that this year's NFC West might happen. Remember what happened the first year after baseball realigned? The sinking of the 1994 season took away the chance of a sub-.500 winner of the AL West. In a sick twist of fate, the Mariners had won six straight and were within two games of Texas for the division lead when play stopped. Right now the NBA is in its first year after realigning to three divisions, and the Knicks are leading their division with a 13-13 record. Indiana and Boston would be in the playoffs if the season ended last night with 12-13 records as the 7th and 8th seeds, but that's more of a sign of the crappiness of the Eastern Conference as a whole, the true travesty being that the Knicks would get the third seed for winning their pathetic division. Back to Carpenter's article, he suggests that if it weren't for Bob McNair wanting to get the expansion Houston Texans, the Seahawks might still be in the AFC West, and in turn gearing up for the draft. With the move, the Seahawks go from competing against a couple of the better ownerships in football to going against some of the worst ownerships in football. Hey, if it gets a division title, I won't whine too much. Bonus points to Mike Holmgren for the quote: "I don't think they should realign and change the whole scheduling process of the NFL because a replay official was having a hotdog. You know what I mean?"
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
Matt Peterson has one of today's year-end pieces that ran in the Times today, and it's about Williams. It's a decent blurb about Marvin, who puts in 16.5-hour days, according to the article.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are home against UNC-Wilmington on Tuesday and Cleveland State on Thursday.
Huskies
Washington is off until opening Pac-10 play on New Year's Eve against the Cal Bears.
Bulldogs
Gonzaga is on the road with a game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday against 3rd-ranked Oklahoma State and a game in Columbia on Thursday against Missouri.
Sonic-ish
Percy Allen has an article on the speculation regarding Micah Downs. He's signed to play for Kansas, but is "testing the waters" when it comes to the NBA draft, which pretty much means he hasn't hired an agent and could still fall back on Kansas. Allen brings up Robert Swift of the Sonics, who made the jump from Bakersfield High to the NBA and a $1.4M deal with one main difference -- Swift is four inches taller. Yup, I'm thinking Downs should go to Kansas.
Upcoming...
Tomorrow at Utah
Tuesday vs. Philadelphia
Thursday at Atlanta
HOCKEY
These are all scores from the World Junior Championship. I think TSN is most likely the network on this continent that cares the most about the tournament, and their page is here.
United States beat Russia, 5-4. This one had a crazy first period as Drew Stafford and Chris Bourque put the USA up 2-0 with goals 83 seconds apart. The Russians were able to tie the game at 2-2 and 3-3 by the end of the first period. Robbie Schremp scored early in the second to put the USA up 4-3, but Russia tied it again about four minutes later. Dan Fritsche was able to come away with the game-winner, a shorthanded goal on an odd-man rush to account for the final score. Al Montoya came up big in the third period, as if making up for the first 20 minutes of the game. Montoya held strong in net as the Russians outshot Team USA 12-6 in the final 20 minutes. Russia outshot the USA 34-32 overall. Anton Khudobin stopped 27 for Russia, and Montoya stopped 30.
Canada beat Slovakia, 7-3. Patrice Bergeron of last year's Boston Bruins had two goals and two assists. Sidney Crosby, 17-year-old highly-touted stud for Rimouski in Quebec, scored twice on the power play and had an assist. Clarke MacArthur of Medicine Hat in the WHL scored twice in the final three minutes of the game. Jeff Carter scored the remaining goal for the Canadians. Canada coach Brent Sutter suggested it was far from a perfect game for Canada, saying that they sat back a bit when they got the lead, and then the Slovaks were able to generate some chances. Slovak coach Boris Valabik said he felt his team could have stolen the game if they would have played the first two periods like they did the third. Canada outshot Slovakia 36-23. Jaroslav Halak stopped 29, and Jeff Glass of the WHL's Kootenay Ice stopped 20.
Czech Republic beat Belarus, 7-2. The Czechs scored five times on special teams (twice shorthanded) on their way to a thumping of Belarus. Vancouver Giants goalie Marek Schwarz made some key saves in the first period after the Czechs got a 1-0 lead. The two shorthanded goals to open the third period buried the Belarussians, putting them down 5-2 with just under 13 minutes remaining. The article blurb says that Rostislav Olesz scored twice, and that Petr Vrana had two goals and an assist. The boxscore says that Olesz scored once and had an assist, but that Vrana had a hat trick and an assist. Either way, those two guys are linemates. Alexey Ugarov and Pavel Aslamouski scored for Belarus, who was outshot 36-17 by the Czechs. Stepan Goryachevskikh stopped 29 for Belarus, and Schwarz stopped 15 for the Czechs.
Finland beat Germany, 4-1. Jussi Markkonen and Petteri Nokelainen each had a goal and two assists. One of the assistant coaches for Germany is more Stanley Cup winner Uwe Krupp. Florian Busch scored the only Deutsche goal. The boxscore says that Finland outshot Germany 34-24, though the blurb shows differently. The boxscore also says that Youri Ziffzer stopped 30 for Germany, and that Tuukka Rask stopped 23 for the Finns.
Upcoming for the World Juniors...
Today: Switzerland vs. Belarus, Sweden vs. Germany
Tomorrow: Canada vs. Sweden, Czech Republic vs. Russia, United States vs. Switzerland, Finland vs. Slovakia
Tuesday: Germany vs. Canada, Russia vs. Belarus
Wednesday: Czech Republic vs. Switzerland, Finland vs. Sweden, Belarus vs. United States, Slovakia vs. Germany
Thursday: Canada vs. Finland, Switzerland vs. Russia, United States vs. Czech Republic, Sweden vs. Slovakia
New Year's Day: elimination round begins
It looks like we've got an article on Gary Bettman's whole "relaunch" plan he has for the NHL whenever they actually get the game back up and running again. Though NBC is not shelling out the type of money we've seen thrown for NFL televising rights (in fact, NBC and NHL are sharing TV revenues when they start back up), NBC has the chance to make a killing here with the NHL. Before I got to the end of that article, I hadn't even thought of what hockey would look like in HDTV. It's worth a shot, and it sure as heck isn't a glowing puck, so it's got that going for it.
If there had been no NHL work stoppage, the Canucks would have played in Edmonton tonight. It would have been their 35th game of the season. The Canucks' 35th game last season was a 2-0 win at Calgary, taking the Canucks to a 19-8-6-2 record. The 31-save shutout was Dan Cloutier's second in three games. Mattias Ohlund and Brendan Morrison scored the goals. The Canucks were on a 5-1-3 hot streak, while the Flames lived up to more than their namesake, rattling off an absolutely torrid 12-2-2-2 span. They lost in regulation only twice in that stretch.
Upcoming for the teams usually tracked in this space...
Monday: Lethbridge at Seattle, Manitoba at Cleveland
Tuesday: Lethbridge at Vancouver, Spokane at Everett, Portland at Prince George, Manitoba at Cleveland
Wednesday: Everett at Seattle, Portland at Prince George
New Year's Eve: Seattle at Portland, Chicago at Manitoba, Tri-City at Puget Sound
New Year's Day: Spokane at Vancouver, Seattle at Everett, Portland at Tri-City, Tri-City at Puget Sound
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Hope y'all are having fun messing with presents and stuff. Have a great day.
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