Sport

13 hours ago, Unocal said:

 

Too much chaos is too much of a good thing.

 

We haven't had a chalk Cup Final since 2001. God forbid ONE year we don't get chaos overload.

The higher seed won 5 out of the 7 completed series. The Devils can make that 6/8 tonight, but even if the Rangers win that's still a coin toss series. There were only two upsets. It's already one of the least chaotic first rounds we've ever had. 

Just now, IceCap said:

Difference was Tampa didn't leave the 2019 playoffs with cap issues and an aging core staring them in the face. They still had some time with that team to turn it around and they made the most of it. 

 

Boston feels like this was their last chance. And they acted like it. This was the "all in" season. 

Yeah according this guy the Bruins have the worst prospect pool in the NHL. 

https://hockeyprospecting.com/2023/05/01/team-strength-rankings-may-2023/

The Bruins will be good again next year, but they've been "old" for a while now. Eventually that'll fall off a cliff. The 2020 Lightning were still relatively young and got the Kucherov cap-circumvention bump (or was that 2021? I can't keep track of things anymore), though I maintain that if the Blue Jackets had found a goal in the 5 overtime game in the bubble they would've eliminated the Lightning again, but every cup winning team seems to have one or a dozen Sliding Doors brushes with death so can't really hold that against them. 

14 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Oh I remember the Blue Jackets sweeping in 2019 now. Yeah, that was cool. I blocked a lot of that postseason out.

Best hockey week of my life. It was only four years ago, but it was also forever ago. I think we have maybe two guys left from that team? Outside of my big moment there wasn’t many notable moments. The Blues winning their first cup felt less climactic than I expected it to. I remember that playoffs having a lot of sweeps - The Penguins got swept by the Islanders who got swept by the Hurricanes who got swept by the Bruins, which is super embarrassing for the Penguins. 

This is the kind of dumb guy thing people say when a city wins too much and they lose all perspective. It’s a first round hockey exit, dumbass. I went to work the day after my team narrowly lost the Super Bowl and it was eye-opening what percentage of the office actually cared to the point that it affected their work performance. It wasn’t many. I think we forget sometimes that most people aren’t living and dying with sports results like we are. 
 

edit: now he claims he was being sarcastic. Lol no you weren’t. You were 100% serious. Don’t add lying on top of your unhinged tweet you shot off in an emotional moment. Cmon. 

2 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I obviously can't speak for other Lightning fans, but I've said many times since 2019 that what happened in 2016 and especially 2018 stung a lot more than what happened in 2019. 2019 was embarrassing as hell, but in terms of sting, it was like that of ripping a Band-Aid off in one clean motion. It was quick, but then it was over. They got their asses kicked. They finished 16 wins short of the Stanley Cup. They were never in position to win that series. Embarrassment hurts because you have to hear it from 31 other teams fans - well, 30 at the time - but you can just be a coward and avoid hockey forums and not deal with it. That's what I did - take the coward's approach that summer of 2019.

 

And I'll use this post to say that, if we had to be the team that Toronto finally got over the hump against, I'm glad that it at least took multiple attempts to do so. We beat Toronto last year. Toronto beat us this year. Each team gets a series win over the other. I can live with that. I wish Vasi hadn't played like utter dog in the middle games of this series, otherwise there might've been a different outcome, but goalies are part of the team like everybody else, so I'm not going to make excuses or blame luck. We had three OT games to make a difference, and we lost all of them. We've lost 11 of 12 OT games in the playoffs, which is pretty incredible. Whatever. Toronto was so long overdue and it was their turn to be on the receiving end of good fortune. 

I brought up the 2019 Lightning only to demonstrate that the last time this happened (a team with a wins record losing in the first round) it was a Sun belt team on the other end and the reaction online was largely the same as we’re seeing towards the Bruins now. The location of the Panthers has nothing to do with why people are buzzing about this. The Bruins location being what it is and Boston being what it is does, but that’s different. 

10 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

 

yeah man, I'm sure they spend every night crying about it into the two cups they won immediately after.

The point is the team with the most wins ever was eliminated in the first round and your first instinct is to declare that people are only happy about it because the underdog is some lovable outfit from the sunbelt, which is dumb. The Panthers are almost irrelevant in this story of the bruins choking, which is what really happened. It’s notable because the team with the most wins ever was eliminated in the first round. Period. Their opponent’s location has nothing to do with the reaction online and you’re the only person anywhere I’ve seen bring it up. If the Sens were the opponent it’d be the same reaction. Stop making this sunbelt non-thing into a thing. It’s so stupid. 

Nobody except like three of you freaks is thinking about how they’re a sunbelt team. The team with the most wins ever choked in the first round -I’m sorry, but that’s notable. Let me remind you the last time a team had an historic season they were a sunbelt team and they didn’t win a single playoff game. Stop making this non-thing into a thing.

I would like all Boston fans everywhere to hear my laughter and drink my farts. 

If I was a player there's no way I'd go to the draft. Not even because I'd be worried about what happened to Levis, I'd just want to spend the draft at home and celebrate with all my friends and family. And then probably get super hammered after the cameras are off. 

It is becoming alarming how many good QBs are in the AFC now. If Stroud and Richardson (bit of an if for him) pan out then 10 or 11 AFC teams have their QB set. Can't remember that ever being the case before. Bryce Young might be the second best QB in the NFC NOW. 

Little scared of how good that Eagles defense is gonna be. Yikes their Dline is "Oops All Monsters!" now. 

For all the bitching about how good the Golden Knights were right away, myself included, I must admit that it is better business to give new markets more of a chance by helping them succeed early rather than to make them suffer through a Columbus and Atlanta hazing period. Leagues have gotten smarter about how they bring in new franchises and the NBA did Vancouver and Toronto no favors by making them ineligible for the first overall pick for their first three years. That's how the Grizzlies wound up with Big Country.

It's annoying that my team had to crawl so Vegas and Seattle could fly, but that's just one of those things.  No point in dwelling on it. 

Bumgarner's always been one of the game's biggest reddest asses. I hope he's not replaced by another dork constantly distracted by opposing players violating unwritten rules and whatnot. 

Speaking of the Rangers, they've blown leads of 4 and 6 runs to the Reds the last two nights. They had one of baseball's best performing bullpens coming into this season, but gave up 6 runs in the 8th last night. The Reds and Cardinals now have the same record. Do I need to take the Pirates seriously or is this hot streak a mirage? 

16 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Lol OF :censored:ing COURSE the A’s are already demanding half a billion dollars from the state of Nevada now That’s been the grift the entire time! Take public money from whatever idiot municipality will give it to you and keep all the profits. And Nevada, for as flat broke as they are, are ABSOLUTELY stupid enough to just give it to them. It’s infuriating but what can you do about a city/leaders who are just dying to be the mark? Just absolutely desperate to get played. I’ll never be able to wrap my head around that. 
 

Fisher and the A’s, after all of this nonsense, are going to walk away from this with exactly what they want. All of the benefits for themselves and all of the risks on the tax paying public. What a useless state I’m from. What a dumb country this is. 

It blows my mind that Vegas is growing at this rate when they won't have water in a decade. Nobody should be moving there, but especially not a baseball team. 

On 4/19/2023 at 12:57 PM, Dilbert said:

While this may not be big for the rest of the league, this is huge for Bengals Nation.  After 21 years the Bengals have switched chili partners from Gold Star to Skyline.  All of the local sports venues (Reds, FCC, UC, XU, NKU, Cyclones) all serve Skyline. The Bengals were the only one with Gold Star. Whats more ironic is whenever the networks would show the clips coming back from commercial break of the chili parlor, ladling chili, the clip was usually always of Skyline, and not Gold Star.

 

Why did they use a shot of Paycor Stadium that looks away from the Skyline? My hottest Cincinnati take is that Gold Star isn't terrible, it's just only ~92% as good as Skyline and because there's Skylines everywhere there's basically no reason to ever go to Gold Star. My dad loves Gold Star for some reason or I know other people who act like it's poison while loving Skyline, which makes no sense when it's barely different. It's good news for Bengals games, though - I once ate a Gold Star coney at a Bengals game and the cheese was frozen, the chili was painfully hot, the bun was frozen, and the hot dog was frozen. It was like eating an ice cream casserole. That's probably the fault of the stadium staff, though. 

I thought their old uniforms were the worst in the league, but there's gotta be a middle point between the most 2004 ass uniforms ever and these MAC tier templates for the Miami Redhawks. They're like the Jags in that the over-correction to the zany uniforms was to make no statement at all. 

The Leafs looked the right brand of pissed off last night. Maybe my assessment of them was early. 

This is a major bummer. 

12 hours ago, Unocal said:

 

Last year was last year. This year is not last year.

 

Tampa to me feels like a team that thinks they can go through the motions based on reputation and past accomplishments they'll magically be fine come playoff time.

 

They may get by TOR, but at some point experienced teams age out (See: Detroit when their Cup run ended)

 

Like they didn't have home ice at all last year and probably won't this year unless any of the Wild Card teams make it to round 3.

 

At some point, that can catch up to a team. You don't want to have to start EVERY series on the road.

My whole point was that they're still good enough to win A series against specifically the Maple Leafs and it wouldn't be surprising. I said nothing about the Lightning going any further than that. 

10 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

 

I assure you whenever gary retires/dies we're gonna see like five canadian teams win the cup in a row

Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews play for Canadian teams.

9 hours ago, JerseyJimmy said:

cool I love having no expectations at first only to realize the islanders 100% would've won against a sunbelt team if not for donaghy-tier reffing.

 

 

nah man that's not a high stick directly in front of your face at all. bang-up job.

Looks like the linesman is shielded from seeing the (accidental) high stick because he's behind them and is looking at that (purposeful) big ass hook Scott Mayfield is perpetrating. Doesn't crack the top 1,000 of fishy NHL playoff officiating incidents. 

19 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Last night Rays-Reds game in Cincinnati brought out the smallest attendance in Great American Ball Park history. The 7,375 who did show up saw the punching bag of MLB, the Reds, beat the top team in baseball 8-1, giving the Rays there first loss on US soil this season. Yes it was a chilly night, and a school night, but when the ownership has alienated fans this much, somethings gotta give.

I thought about going for about 11 seconds because Hunter Greene was pitching and I feel bad that I still haven't seen him pitch, but then looked at the weather and decided against it. I've been in attendance for the two coldest games in GABP history so I think I've done my time. At this point I'm literally a fair-weather fan. 

On the field the Reds are bipolar. These are their last 6 games:

W Phillies 6-2

L Phillies 8-3

W Phillies 13-0

L Phillies 14-3

W Rays 8-1

L Rays 10-0

So going by that pattern today they will win 27-1.

Also they extended Hunter Greene for six years at 53 million so that's cool. 

It's one game, but that was about as bad as one game could've gone for the Leafs and now they've got the Self-Doubt problem, the Oh God It's Happening Again problem, and the Feeling Sorry for Themselves problem. They're in trouble. I knew Tampa was a bad draw for them because while the Lightning are not what they were 2 or 3 years ago, it feels like people forget they were still in the final last year, and their core is still there. Plus, even if nothing else is going right for Tampa, Vasilevskiy could steal a series on his own if he's on his game. The Lightning have none of the baggage of the Leafs while also having the edge in experience, the mental edge, the ability to play loose and care-free, and they know how to close. And they have beaten this Leafs team before. 

My biggest takeaway from the game last night, not to be all Bill Simmons here, but the home crowd never does any favors for the Leafs. And I don't really blame them after what they've been through, but when they were down 3-0 you could hear a mouse think. The Leafs always have to drag their fans back from the brink and get their crowd back in the game, while other crowds keep the energy up and don't wilt after one goal. When it was 5-2 after the idiotic penalty by Bunting it was even quieter. 

The worst part is the Leafs have been in every possible playoff situation with this core - underdogs with nothing to lose, clearly superior favorites with big series leads, motivated young guys with a lot to prove against arch rivals, and coin flips, and they've lost them all. The last five years in a deciding game. They lost a series to the Columbus Blue Jackets and I watched every game of the Blue Jackets that season and they were not better than the Maple Leafs. I should wait until the series is over and I will be pulling for them, but what do you do if they can't get out of the first round again? How long can you keep doing this? 

Other thoughts for games I didn't watch and only saw the scores this morning:

LOL eat :censored:, Vegas.

KRAKEN!!!!!

I can't be moved to have any feelings about Rangers-Devils

https://awfulannouncing.com/local-networks/diamond-sports-reds-bally-sports-ohio-reversion.html

Interesting development with the Reds and the Diamond Sports (Bally) bankruptcy. Diamond sports didn't make their payment for the Reds rights fees, which, because the Reds own part of Bally Sports Ohio, means they're not part of the Diamond Sports bankruptcy proceedings, which in turn means the Reds immediately take back the broadcast rights to their games. 

If Diamond does not pay within that grace period, MLB believes that the team will get its rights back, expected to happen during its early May series with the White Sox. The May 5 White Sox-Reds game is scheduled for AppleTV+. The Saturday night May 6 one is where the Reds could see MLB take over production.

The Reds situation is different from those in Cleveland and Minnesota, two other markets where Diamond has not made rights fees payments on time. That’s because the Reds own part of Bally Sports Ohio, and the presence of that joint venture has kept that RSN separate from the bankruptcy proceeding.

…If it gets back the Reds’ rights, MLB’s plan is to use many of the same behind-the-camera crew and trucks that currently work on the games for Bally Sports Ohio. That because most of those staffers are freelancers, and Mobile TV Group owns the trucks, sources said. The announcers work for the team, including John Sadak on play-by-play with analysts Chris Welsh and Barry Larkin.

Hard-lining "no hockey teams should be in the south!" is as dumb as making excuses for the southern markets that have clearly failed. 

But I haven't seen this large swath of Redditors rushing to Atlanta's defense like Admiral claims exists. Mostly the reaction I've seen about this announcement is "uhhh why???" and "They get a third try, but X doesn't get a second?" or "X doesn't get a first try?" I don't think many hockey fans are sticking up for Atlanta and the ones who are are like 15 year olds romanticizing the wacky asymmetrical jerseys, but are too young to remember the Atlanta Thrashers as the silly useless goofs that they actually were. We shouldn't do Atlanta again. 

On 4/8/2023 at 7:05 PM, Digby said:

I personally cannot fathom very many cities than can support more than one 18k arena. Feels like NYC and LA and that’s it. That’s always been the flashing warning light about this Sixers idea to me. How do the Twin Cities pull it off?

Columbus has two 18,000 seats arenas set four miles apart, built two years apart, and it's still stupid to this very day. Creative arena refinancing saved the Blue Jackets about 12ish years ago, but they were only in that mess to begin with because Ohio State absolutely refuses to be a good partner with anyone in the city who isn't Ohio State. It's why the NHL has never hosted an outdoor game at Ohio Stadium and it's why they schedule games and concerts opposite one another. I'm not ready to rule out deliberate antagonism on OSU's part. 

Nationwide Arena where the Blue Jackets play is vastly superior in every way to Value City Arena* so all's well that ends well, but if I had my way the two would've collaborated on a shared arena in the late 90's like NC State and the Hurricanes did.

*which is both a total dud as far as college basketball atmospheres go while also having all the bad hallmarks of early 90's arena design without the good stuff that came a couple years later. Nationwide Arena looks like it could've opened yesterday. OSU's arena is New Comiskey Park, Nationwide Arena is Camden Yards. Does that analogy make sense to anyone else? If I had my way Buckeyes basketball would still play games at St John's Arena, which is a rowdy old barn that still houses volleyball, Skull Sessions during football Saturdays, and sometimes basketball. That place could get loud and felt like it was gonna fall down when big games were rocking. It's one of those old venues that makes college basketball great. VCA is a corporate warehouse where old alums pay a ton of money to sit in the good seats and golf clap. It STINKS!

I tried to watch and couldn’t because of the technical issues and grew frustrated with Apple’s interface. First, they didn’t have the FCC-StL game listed under the games that were happening live because of the weather delay so I had to search for the game. Then it kept telling me I had to subscribe, but wouldn’t give me any option to login so I’d click subscribe and then it’d tell me I was already subscribed and then give me a path to logging in on the appletv box’s settings which means I had to leave the apple+ app every time, which means I had to re-search for the game the ten or so times I went back into the apple+ app. That path they told me to follow to login on the appletv settings doesn’t actually exist in their settings. I was so frustrated and it was already 2-0 so I gave up. 
 

Their own tech issues aside, my inability to easily navigate through their app because of their insistence on being all “Appley” made things incredibly difficult. And I’m not 1,000 years old, I’m somewhat tech savvy. 

Just now, maz said:

 

Remind me again where your personal vendetta against Pittsburgh came from? Seriously, who hurt you?

My personal vendetta comes from having met a large sample size of Penguins fans and witnessed boorish behavior inside of Nationwide Arena that I've not seen out of any of the other visiting fanbases.

If it makes you feel better the meaningless win last night elevated us out of the 32nd spot so the Penguins got one over on us. Again. 

11 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

This is why, in comparing CSA (combined statistical area) data, I excluded San Diego and Milwaukee, due to their proximity to those other large metros. 

 

It's also why I used CSA instead of MSA, because it pulls from the region outside the immediate metro area. Comparing it to Cincy or KC is much more practical in this case.

 

I don't disagree that SLC's relative isolation should be considered, but it's already, right now, larger than the KC or Cincy CSA's and continues to be a magnet for new population. It's not slowing down; it can only get bigger. 

Still misleading with Cincinnati's CSA. By definition SLC CSA might be larger than Cincinnati's CSA, but in practice Cincinnati's region is larger. Our CSA doesn't seem to include Dayton's, which is silly because Dayton is right there, and this may be redrawn in the next census anyways as the two continue to merge in the middle. That's a million more people within an hour's drive of the ballpark that aren't included in our CSA. Cincinnati is also in the middle of the trapezoid of Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington. That's another 6ish million people within two hours drive of the ballpark. I'm not saying SLC wouldn't do well in MLB, but there's more people here than a simple CSA search would suggest.