Monday, January 03, 2005
FALL IN, FALLOUT
I'm not sure if anyone caught how I was posting one section at a time with this post and now I finally have it done. Yes, sometimes I fall asleep in front of the keyboard. This happened a lot back when I was at school as well.
Anyway, for those in line outside the box office at the Q waiting to get tickets...I just hope there isn't a roll-call list, and if there is, I hope nobody eats it.
MARINERS
Spring training can't come soon enough. For baseball fans who are without significant others, the time of the year around Valentine's Day serves a whole different purpose, and it can't come soon enough this year.
SEAHAWKS
For my take on the game that clinched the 2004 NFC West title for the Seahawks, visit the latter portion of the game post.
Recaps first. Here's Farnsworth, and here's Bishop. Basically these two articles are in the vein of "all this bad stuff happened in the game, but it's still a win, and still an acoomplishment.
Notebook second. Times here, P-I here. The Rams can't possibly beat the Seahawks three times in a year, can they? Here's hoping for a big fat NO out of that. Grant Wistrom also said he hopes to play Saturday. Ken Lucas says replay should be thrown out, when in fact any lack of replay still wouldn't have enabled his interception play to be called correctly in the first half -- it was whistled incomplete right away.
Arguably, when the Seahawks beat Minnesota, the Vikings weren't at full strength either (Thiel implies that they were) because Randy Moss was nowhere close to 100%. Still, with Terrell Owens out, there is no powerhouse team in the NFC. None of these NFC teams are anywhere close to what Pittsburgh and New England are to their conference.
My goodness, the Seahawks stopped a key draw play!! Let's make a playoff win the next reason to stop the presses.
Does it seem like Jerramy Stevens was tied for third on the team in receptions this year? According to the end of that article, he was. He made a couple of very key catches yesterday, atoning for the one pass over the middle where he didn't turn inside quickly enough over the middle and the ball sailed past. Hilarious quote? "Obviously, I'd like to be starting, and I feel like I should be, but that's not my decision to make." First, he should work on feeling like he's producing before feeling like he should be starting.
Now for the big stories...
Koren Robinson. Levesque has his piece, and Kelley goes off. Levesque says Koren needs to "get his brain started." Both writers point out that Shaun Alexander might have gotten two yards or more had Koren actually played and was blocking in addition to catching passes (not dropping, for the sake of the argument). Kelley says Koren ran the routes in practice for the offense this week. Then Koren decides to miss a team meeting or whatever, and it messes everything up. I've seen the word "knucklehead" used in the Seattle media a number of times to describe this guy, but Kelley also flat-out said "Koren Robinson is a lousy teammate." Short and sweet. And you know what? I suggested voiding his contract in the game post, but at the very least they should bench him for the rest of the playoffs. He hasn't done much to get the Seahawks to this point, and if anything, he's hindered them from getting further. What has he done for us all lately? Exactly. I think it's an injustice to give him another chance. To hell with it. Cut your losses, and move on. Bonus points if you can dock Koren's per-game pay.
Shaun Alexander. Farnsworth and Carpenter chime in on this one. With the Seahawks on second down and "on the freakin' goal line," the call went to Matt Hasselbeck for the sneak. It's not like the Seahawks couldn't have, I don't know, maybe ran Shaun at least once and then still could have done the sneak. Or God forbid, maybe they could have handed Shaun the ball twice. He's only the top rusher in his conference, though obviously he can't have the NFL's top rusher to his credit. The longest yard, indeed. By the way, I find it hilarious that after Shaun said he got "stabbed in the back," he was "quieted by a Seahawks media relations employee." I read that sentence and thought the Mariners' PR people had taken over the Seahawks or something. But Carpenter hits it all on the head at the end of the piece. Why the hell can't Shaun Alexander be given the chance to get one yard, when Koren Robinson's gotten all the chances in the world to do anything? When has Koren Robinson earned this privilege? This is disgusting.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
In North Carolina's 105-66 win yesterday over William & Mary, Marvin Williams had 14 points, 8 rebounds, an assist, no turnovers, a block, and two steals in 21 minutes off the bench. He got 10 of his points from the free-throw line. The Tar Heels have the work week off (though they'll be working hard in practice) before conference play starts in the Dean Dome against Maryland on Saturday.
Huskies
Mike Jensen scored a career-high 17 in the Huskies' 76-73 win over Stanford, hitting some key free throws down the stretch as well as a three. Every time I think about Stanford basketball now, all I can think of are the 'fro on Josh Childress and Mike Montgomery leaving the coaching job so he could coach the God-awful Golden State Warriors. Brutal. As for the actual game, the Huskies had to withstand a three-point attempt by Stanford's Nick Robinson (not Nate) to rattle off at the buzzer before the victory was official. The Huskies go to USC on Thursday and UCLA on Saturday.
Bulldogs
Gonzaga is off until they travel to Santa Clara to open West Coast Conference play on Thursday. They'll be at Saint Mary's the following Saturday.
Sonics
Here's a couple articles with Shaq prominently involved. Since hack-a-Shaq is a good policy most of the time when needed, I think Vitaly Potapenko might see about 5-8 minutes tonight, for the mere reason that he brings six more fouls off the bench. The hilarious thing is that Jerome James is also involved in these articles, as he was the recipient of some of Shaq's gifts when O'Neal was a member of the Magic (gifts frowned upon by the NCAA). James jokingly says that he'll give Shaq a run for his money, saying he's in better shape than Shaq. Then he hilariously adds in that he's going to go that speed for all of the 15 minutes he's actually out there. The P-I article has James tossing out a Superman/Clark Kent analogy with "six kryptonite fouls" involved. The most fear-striking part of the P-I article? They're putting Ray Allen on Dwyane Wade. I'm not sure about this, but I'm hoping that Wade can't defend, let's just put it that way. I saw the last TNT game where the Heat played, and during the fourth quarter, they put up that cool superimposed-on-the-court shot chart up for Wade, and all but three or so of his shots were within that semicircle under the basket. So basically once Wade blows by Ray Allen, the Sonics are going to have to find a way to clog the lane so Wade doesn't get an easy path to the basket, all the while hoping they can take Shaq out of the play as the second option. No, that's not going to be easy. In a related note, the Sonics will have to hope that Wade doesn't start sticking jumpers, because the chances of Ray Allen putting a hand in his face are no better than 50/50.
Upcoming...
Tonight at Miami
Wednesday at Orlando
Thursday at Washington
HOCKEY
Portland beat Vancouver, 6-3. Adam Courchaine (twice) and Gilbert Brule accounted for Vancouver's offense, but Brule was benched for the entire third period after his penalties for cross-checking and roughing late in the second period turned a tie game into a 5-3 Portland lead. The Winter Hawks scored one other goal in the second period, in addition to their two first-period goals and their single third-period marker. Dan Da Silva had two goals along with an assist for Portland. His teammates Cody McLeod and Brandon Dubinsky (alos a plus-2) had a goal and two assists each. Darrell May and Brendan Mikkelson were also plus-2 skaters. Adam Jennings stopped 15 of 20 for Vancouver before he was pulled after the second period. Dustin Butler stopped 29 for Portland in his 22nd consecutive start. Vancouver outshot Portland 32-29.
Ucpoming...
Tuesday: Everett at Kamloops, Moose Jaw at Vancouver, Cleveland at Manitoba
Wednesday: Seattle at Spokane, Vancouver at Prince George, Cleveland at Manitoba
Friday: Kelowna at Seattle, Spokane at Everett, Portland at Saskatoon, Vancouver at Prince George, Puget Sound at River City
Saturday: Tri-City at Seattle, Kamloops at Everett, Portland at Prince Albert, Vancouver at Kelowna, Puget Sound at River City, Edmonton at Manitoba
Sunday: Edmonton at Manitoba
In World Junior Championship play...
Russia beat United States, 7-2. The Russians only led 3-2 after the first period (Robbie Schremp and Patrick O'Sullivan scored for the USA) and both teams were held scoreless in the second period. Then the Russians exploded in the third for four goals. Russia didn't actually tally until just under nine minutes remained in the game, when Evgeni Malkin notched a goal to get the Russians a 4-2 lead. Then with under three minutes left, the USA pulled Al Montoya from the net and Washington Capitals draftee Alexander Ovechkin (who plays wearing a really cool visor) slid one into the empty net from long distance to make it 5-2 and effectively put the game out of reach. He did taunt the crowd some, and made a bicep-flexing motion or two. Malkin added another goal on the still-empty net, throwing some fuel onto the fire. The Russians added another goal at the buzzer. In the waning minutes, a camera shot captured some images of the teams' benches, and players sniping at each other verbally. One of the Russians in a suit was making some smooching motions and pointing up at the scoreboard multiple times. I did manage to see the last three minutes of this game, and they had Darren Pang at ice level hearing all the words going back and forth and he said the future NHLers that are on this Russian team are not going to be able to get away with this stuff at the NHL level. In other non-sport related realms, the USA gets bashed for being too self-centered as a nation and not caring about the rest of the world. In the arena in Grand Forks last night, the Russian team did not make any friends whatsoever. The USA outshot Russia 43-24. Montoya stopped 36, and Anton Khubodin stopped 22 for Russia.
Canada beat Czech Republic, 3-1. In the five power plays that the Czechs had in the first two periods, they only got off four shots, and 11 total shots in the game. That's some suffocating defense by the Canadians. The Canadians will go on to play the Russians in the gold medal game, the third time in the last four years this matchup has taken place. Jeff Carter tallied his sixth goal of the tournament toward the end of the first period. Nigel Dawes scored on a power play halfway through the second period, and Patrice Bergeron got the Canadians a 3-0 lead a couple minutes later. Rostislav Olesz scored shorthanded early in the third for the Czechs. Jeff Glass of Kootenay (WHL) stopped all 11 shots he saw, while the Canadians put up 42 on Marek Schwarz (Vancouver, WHL) in the Czech net and got three by him.
Slovakia beat Belarus, 2-1. Belarus scored the first goal of the game in the second period thanks to Konstantin Zakharov, but the Slovaks put two in the net in the latter half of the final period thanks to Andrej Sekera and Peter Olvecky. Shots were 26 apiece. Jaroslav Halak stopped 25 for Slovakia, and Stepan Goryachevskikh stopped 24 for Belarus.
Only two days left to go in the tournament...
Today (all relegation games): Belarus vs. Germany, Switzerland vs. Slovakia, Finland vs. Sweden
Tomorrow: Czech Republic vs. United States (bronze medal game), Canada vs. Russia (gold medal game)
---
Have a good work week and get yourself juiced up for the playoff game. Anything can happen.
Anyway, for those in line outside the box office at the Q waiting to get tickets...I just hope there isn't a roll-call list, and if there is, I hope nobody eats it.
MARINERS
Spring training can't come soon enough. For baseball fans who are without significant others, the time of the year around Valentine's Day serves a whole different purpose, and it can't come soon enough this year.
SEAHAWKS
For my take on the game that clinched the 2004 NFC West title for the Seahawks, visit the latter portion of the game post.
Recaps first. Here's Farnsworth, and here's Bishop. Basically these two articles are in the vein of "all this bad stuff happened in the game, but it's still a win, and still an acoomplishment.
Notebook second. Times here, P-I here. The Rams can't possibly beat the Seahawks three times in a year, can they? Here's hoping for a big fat NO out of that. Grant Wistrom also said he hopes to play Saturday. Ken Lucas says replay should be thrown out, when in fact any lack of replay still wouldn't have enabled his interception play to be called correctly in the first half -- it was whistled incomplete right away.
Arguably, when the Seahawks beat Minnesota, the Vikings weren't at full strength either (Thiel implies that they were) because Randy Moss was nowhere close to 100%. Still, with Terrell Owens out, there is no powerhouse team in the NFC. None of these NFC teams are anywhere close to what Pittsburgh and New England are to their conference.
My goodness, the Seahawks stopped a key draw play!! Let's make a playoff win the next reason to stop the presses.
Does it seem like Jerramy Stevens was tied for third on the team in receptions this year? According to the end of that article, he was. He made a couple of very key catches yesterday, atoning for the one pass over the middle where he didn't turn inside quickly enough over the middle and the ball sailed past. Hilarious quote? "Obviously, I'd like to be starting, and I feel like I should be, but that's not my decision to make." First, he should work on feeling like he's producing before feeling like he should be starting.
Now for the big stories...
Koren Robinson. Levesque has his piece, and Kelley goes off. Levesque says Koren needs to "get his brain started." Both writers point out that Shaun Alexander might have gotten two yards or more had Koren actually played and was blocking in addition to catching passes (not dropping, for the sake of the argument). Kelley says Koren ran the routes in practice for the offense this week. Then Koren decides to miss a team meeting or whatever, and it messes everything up. I've seen the word "knucklehead" used in the Seattle media a number of times to describe this guy, but Kelley also flat-out said "Koren Robinson is a lousy teammate." Short and sweet. And you know what? I suggested voiding his contract in the game post, but at the very least they should bench him for the rest of the playoffs. He hasn't done much to get the Seahawks to this point, and if anything, he's hindered them from getting further. What has he done for us all lately? Exactly. I think it's an injustice to give him another chance. To hell with it. Cut your losses, and move on. Bonus points if you can dock Koren's per-game pay.
Shaun Alexander. Farnsworth and Carpenter chime in on this one. With the Seahawks on second down and "on the freakin' goal line," the call went to Matt Hasselbeck for the sneak. It's not like the Seahawks couldn't have, I don't know, maybe ran Shaun at least once and then still could have done the sneak. Or God forbid, maybe they could have handed Shaun the ball twice. He's only the top rusher in his conference, though obviously he can't have the NFL's top rusher to his credit. The longest yard, indeed. By the way, I find it hilarious that after Shaun said he got "stabbed in the back," he was "quieted by a Seahawks media relations employee." I read that sentence and thought the Mariners' PR people had taken over the Seahawks or something. But Carpenter hits it all on the head at the end of the piece. Why the hell can't Shaun Alexander be given the chance to get one yard, when Koren Robinson's gotten all the chances in the world to do anything? When has Koren Robinson earned this privilege? This is disgusting.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
In North Carolina's 105-66 win yesterday over William & Mary, Marvin Williams had 14 points, 8 rebounds, an assist, no turnovers, a block, and two steals in 21 minutes off the bench. He got 10 of his points from the free-throw line. The Tar Heels have the work week off (though they'll be working hard in practice) before conference play starts in the Dean Dome against Maryland on Saturday.
Huskies
Mike Jensen scored a career-high 17 in the Huskies' 76-73 win over Stanford, hitting some key free throws down the stretch as well as a three. Every time I think about Stanford basketball now, all I can think of are the 'fro on Josh Childress and Mike Montgomery leaving the coaching job so he could coach the God-awful Golden State Warriors. Brutal. As for the actual game, the Huskies had to withstand a three-point attempt by Stanford's Nick Robinson (not Nate) to rattle off at the buzzer before the victory was official. The Huskies go to USC on Thursday and UCLA on Saturday.
Bulldogs
Gonzaga is off until they travel to Santa Clara to open West Coast Conference play on Thursday. They'll be at Saint Mary's the following Saturday.
Sonics
Here's a couple articles with Shaq prominently involved. Since hack-a-Shaq is a good policy most of the time when needed, I think Vitaly Potapenko might see about 5-8 minutes tonight, for the mere reason that he brings six more fouls off the bench. The hilarious thing is that Jerome James is also involved in these articles, as he was the recipient of some of Shaq's gifts when O'Neal was a member of the Magic (gifts frowned upon by the NCAA). James jokingly says that he'll give Shaq a run for his money, saying he's in better shape than Shaq. Then he hilariously adds in that he's going to go that speed for all of the 15 minutes he's actually out there. The P-I article has James tossing out a Superman/Clark Kent analogy with "six kryptonite fouls" involved. The most fear-striking part of the P-I article? They're putting Ray Allen on Dwyane Wade. I'm not sure about this, but I'm hoping that Wade can't defend, let's just put it that way. I saw the last TNT game where the Heat played, and during the fourth quarter, they put up that cool superimposed-on-the-court shot chart up for Wade, and all but three or so of his shots were within that semicircle under the basket. So basically once Wade blows by Ray Allen, the Sonics are going to have to find a way to clog the lane so Wade doesn't get an easy path to the basket, all the while hoping they can take Shaq out of the play as the second option. No, that's not going to be easy. In a related note, the Sonics will have to hope that Wade doesn't start sticking jumpers, because the chances of Ray Allen putting a hand in his face are no better than 50/50.
Upcoming...
Tonight at Miami
Wednesday at Orlando
Thursday at Washington
HOCKEY
Portland beat Vancouver, 6-3. Adam Courchaine (twice) and Gilbert Brule accounted for Vancouver's offense, but Brule was benched for the entire third period after his penalties for cross-checking and roughing late in the second period turned a tie game into a 5-3 Portland lead. The Winter Hawks scored one other goal in the second period, in addition to their two first-period goals and their single third-period marker. Dan Da Silva had two goals along with an assist for Portland. His teammates Cody McLeod and Brandon Dubinsky (alos a plus-2) had a goal and two assists each. Darrell May and Brendan Mikkelson were also plus-2 skaters. Adam Jennings stopped 15 of 20 for Vancouver before he was pulled after the second period. Dustin Butler stopped 29 for Portland in his 22nd consecutive start. Vancouver outshot Portland 32-29.
Ucpoming...
Tuesday: Everett at Kamloops, Moose Jaw at Vancouver, Cleveland at Manitoba
Wednesday: Seattle at Spokane, Vancouver at Prince George, Cleveland at Manitoba
Friday: Kelowna at Seattle, Spokane at Everett, Portland at Saskatoon, Vancouver at Prince George, Puget Sound at River City
Saturday: Tri-City at Seattle, Kamloops at Everett, Portland at Prince Albert, Vancouver at Kelowna, Puget Sound at River City, Edmonton at Manitoba
Sunday: Edmonton at Manitoba
In World Junior Championship play...
Russia beat United States, 7-2. The Russians only led 3-2 after the first period (Robbie Schremp and Patrick O'Sullivan scored for the USA) and both teams were held scoreless in the second period. Then the Russians exploded in the third for four goals. Russia didn't actually tally until just under nine minutes remained in the game, when Evgeni Malkin notched a goal to get the Russians a 4-2 lead. Then with under three minutes left, the USA pulled Al Montoya from the net and Washington Capitals draftee Alexander Ovechkin (who plays wearing a really cool visor) slid one into the empty net from long distance to make it 5-2 and effectively put the game out of reach. He did taunt the crowd some, and made a bicep-flexing motion or two. Malkin added another goal on the still-empty net, throwing some fuel onto the fire. The Russians added another goal at the buzzer. In the waning minutes, a camera shot captured some images of the teams' benches, and players sniping at each other verbally. One of the Russians in a suit was making some smooching motions and pointing up at the scoreboard multiple times. I did manage to see the last three minutes of this game, and they had Darren Pang at ice level hearing all the words going back and forth and he said the future NHLers that are on this Russian team are not going to be able to get away with this stuff at the NHL level. In other non-sport related realms, the USA gets bashed for being too self-centered as a nation and not caring about the rest of the world. In the arena in Grand Forks last night, the Russian team did not make any friends whatsoever. The USA outshot Russia 43-24. Montoya stopped 36, and Anton Khubodin stopped 22 for Russia.
Canada beat Czech Republic, 3-1. In the five power plays that the Czechs had in the first two periods, they only got off four shots, and 11 total shots in the game. That's some suffocating defense by the Canadians. The Canadians will go on to play the Russians in the gold medal game, the third time in the last four years this matchup has taken place. Jeff Carter tallied his sixth goal of the tournament toward the end of the first period. Nigel Dawes scored on a power play halfway through the second period, and Patrice Bergeron got the Canadians a 3-0 lead a couple minutes later. Rostislav Olesz scored shorthanded early in the third for the Czechs. Jeff Glass of Kootenay (WHL) stopped all 11 shots he saw, while the Canadians put up 42 on Marek Schwarz (Vancouver, WHL) in the Czech net and got three by him.
Slovakia beat Belarus, 2-1. Belarus scored the first goal of the game in the second period thanks to Konstantin Zakharov, but the Slovaks put two in the net in the latter half of the final period thanks to Andrej Sekera and Peter Olvecky. Shots were 26 apiece. Jaroslav Halak stopped 25 for Slovakia, and Stepan Goryachevskikh stopped 24 for Belarus.
Only two days left to go in the tournament...
Today (all relegation games): Belarus vs. Germany, Switzerland vs. Slovakia, Finland vs. Sweden
Tomorrow: Czech Republic vs. United States (bronze medal game), Canada vs. Russia (gold medal game)
---
Have a good work week and get yourself juiced up for the playoff game. Anything can happen.
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