kapkomet

This by Dan Wetzel on Yahoo! Sports: Women scream. And I don't just mean for their team – "Let's Go Bruins" for instance – although they do that too. I mean the horrifying, bloodcurdling screams of fans who cannot bear to see what terrible thing may happen next. Like if they were watching a guy attempt to tightrope across Niagara Falls. The cause of all this angst is just a bouncing puck in your team's end of the ice, just an opposing winger getting the lightest bit of space, just the wonderful unpredictability of Game 7 playoff hockey. Two such games – Montreal-Boston and Calgary-Vancouver – take place on Monday night. Hockey has proven difficult for the American masses to latch on to. No matter how many screwball towns Gary Bettman expands the league to, the sport has struggled to add fans outside its core base. Bettman's expansion plan has been the near-ruin of the league, watering down the quality of play, ignoring tradition and diluting rivalries. But his thought process was sound. Get America to watch a Game 7, hear the women scream from the upper sections, sit on the edge of its collective seat for hours (if at all) and how could the nation not get hooked on hockey? (Interestingly, and maybe not coincidentally, Canada's CBC Television does a much better job incorporating crowd noise into its broadcasts than the vain U.S. networks, where it is all about the announcer blather.) Hockey perfectly lends itself to do-or-die games, which may be why the relatively meaningless regular season can be so boring. But in a one-and-done deal, hockey's back-and-forth nature, its anything-can-happen-at-any-point style of play makes it the most thrilling contest in sport we know. Seriously, where else do women scream? In baseball the defensive team can never immediately become the offensive team and score the winning run. Once you get that struggling pitcher off the mound you can breathe easy for half an inning. Basketball is basically a possession-by-possession sport, full of time-outs, huddles and designed plays. Football games are filled with "drives" and games often are decided by field goal kickers whom opposing coaches try to "ice" with time-outs. Each sport produces stirring endings, but not the sudden victory/sudden death that hockey can, especially if a Game 7 goes to overtime. Then you can hit the crossbar at one end of the ice and lose the game four seconds later at the other. It is that quick. It is that wild. It is that impossible to foresee. One second you just about win, and the next the opposing team is jumping the boards and mobbing some Canadian with a beard. Which is why any time the puck gets anywhere near a net, especially by the third period of a tight game, someone starts screaming over the possibility it is going to go all wrong. Hockey is, in essence, a game of turnovers. Teams rarely control the puck for more than 15 seconds, except on the power play. The game hangs in the uncontrollable balance the rest of the time. "You just can't control bounces and weird goals," New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur said last spring. Which puts everything on the line. Which is why legends and goats are made in Game 7's. The stakes are so high, the margin between advancing and golfing so small, this is when players become stars. Monday's delectable doubleheader of Game 7's will be no different. This is as wildly wonderful as sport can get, anything goes meets winner-take-all. You don't have to be a hockey fan to appreciate it. Just try to have a strong heart. And listen for the late-game screams.

Awesome. You wrote that VERY well.

I'm not going to dig up crap I wrote in December but let's just say I was in the camp that said the start of the season is VITAL to the Sox chances this year. I think they've accomplished what they wanted but let's re-evalute this on April 30. Once this team gets into May and June they always play better then they do in April. If we're still at the .667 area at the end of April, the chances are much better for the rest of the season.

Wow, what a game. I keep telling anyone that will listen to me that Ottawa and Toronto will be the best playoff series of the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs this year, and game 6 did nothing to disappoint. GAME 7: In Toronto Tuesday night. For ANYONE who follows hockey even if you aren't a fan of either of these two teams, THIS is old-time hockey and be sure to catch it if you can.

:headshake :banghead

You eat assholes regularly?? :puke

Today's the first game I've gotten to watch pretty much start to finish. And I liked what I saw, guys trying to do the small things to help the team win. And let's hope that Frank's injury is not too serious. Hammy injuries suck. Hopefully he can get some trainers to stretch it out and he'll be none for the worse and wear.

That little kid made it look easy on that catch, didn't he?

what a bomb Jose!!!

I'm not talking about the TIMING of the article, just it's content. I agree fully about the timing sucking, however, I think there's validity for an asshole writer to be an asshole - it sells more papers. My point is, topics like that sells and he's right about this one... which would more people talk about, Willie Harris and Uribe playing well, or Thoma$ b****ing about his contract? Now, what would you write about if it put more money in your own pocket? Thought so.

Gosh I haven't even looked at the schedule enough yet. I'll go to the games when the Sox are here this year. Last year I had a bunch of stuff that came up and couldn't go. By then hopefully we'll be looking at a 1st place team in the Central vs. the doormat Rangers (although I wish the Rangers were better).

Please take the blinders off, folks, on this one because he's right on the money. If you all bash Moroniotti on this column after seeing what many of you typed in the original thread I'll be disappointed. He still might be a moron but he's right on this one.

/hijack GOOD MORNING, TEX! Beautiful day here in Texas, isn't it? /resume

?? Explain? Or do you mean to say they're all "heretics" of their times?

Here's the link. It's the Dallas Guitar Show. Dallas Guitar Show

Something really cool re: the Beatles. At Dallas Market this week, there are tons of Beatles memorabilia up for auction. I don't remember them all because I only caught the last little bit of the story, but some original drawings of a couple of albums, some clothes owned by Lennon, a piano, and a couple of other things that I can't recall. I wonder how much this stuff will go for...?

Prediction: On that soldier that they showed on Arab tv - now let's make a prediction on the reaction if, God forbid, he dies at the hands of his captors. The media is going to portray this soldier's death as Bush's failed policy. And where will the outrage be for the actual killers? .................................................................................................... ..................................................................... We'll hear NOTHING........................................................... And I find that absolutely sickening. Why don't people get that? I mean, yea, Bush's policies might be wrong, but these captors are smart enough to know that they are polarizing the country over here by doing what they are doing. Our media will portray this as I stated above, and the blood thirsty murders will not get the wrath they deserve. I hope I'm wrong, but when I saw this on tv, that was my first thought, how gullible we are as Americans to let things happen this way.

Frank is the one who has opened his mouth about this stuff. Now he has the reputation to back it up. HE created this, no one else did. That's why some of get pissed off when we start seeing this OVER and OVER and OVER again. It gets old. If he'd just go play ball, it would be fine.

I hope that's the case here, because otherwise that would really suck.

Is it me or is this going absolutely nowhere? :headshake

Ok. I wondered if I misunderstood.

You notice when he sucks at the beginning of the year, he starts this crap? It's like, well, I can't get the money I'm due by PLAYING so I have to make a case by my HISTORY. This only comes up on years he sucks coming out of the gate. Pretty ironic. And the sad thing is, usually it means he's going to be dead weight the rest of the year. Let's all hope this year is different. Put the #'s you did last year up or better, and HMMMM the $$ will come! What a novel concept.

You just said it yourself on the Frank thread that management doesn't do this kind of thing. So which is it?

You really like this guy don't you?!?!