An advice column for people who live with people who live for sports
What happened on Tuesday, January 20, 2015?
Tied up after one: The first leg of the Capital One Cup between Chelsea and Liverpool ended in a 1-1 tie. Liverpool had the better of the chances all game long but game up a silly penalty kick in the first half to give Chelsea their goal. Line: Because it was in Liverpool, a tie gives Chelsea the slight edge in the series.
Old school hockey: The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in overtime last night in a game that would have been at home in the 1990s or even 1970s. There were several ugly hits, four fights, and countless skirmishes throughout the night. Line: The Flyers always seem to force the Penguins into games like that and then beat them.
Celebrating .500: The Oklahoma City Thunder are celebrating today because they’ve finally climbed back up to having an equal number of wins and losses on the season. They started the year out with injuries to both their best players and have been scrambling to catch up ever since. Line: I would never have imagined the Thunder celebrating .500 but here we are.
Surviving Australia: Bill Bryson once wrote a very funny book about Australia called In a Sunburned Country whose conceit was that there are more things that will kill you in Australia than anywhere else in the world. There’s (hopefully) nothing that will kill the tennis players in the Australian open but there do seem to be a lot of upsets every year. Maria Sharapova narrowly avoided being upset by Alexandra Panova. Panova was up 4-1 in the deciding third set of the match before giving way to Sharapova who eventually won 7-5. Line: Australia is a dangerous place for favorites but Sharapova survived to play another day.
whose conceit was that there are more things that will kill you in Australia than anywhere else in the world. There’s (hopefully) nothing that will kill the tennis players in the Australian open but there do seem to be a lot of upsets every year. Maria Sharapova narrowly avoided being upset by Alexandra Panova. Panova was up 4-1 in the deciding third set of the match before giving way to Sharapova who eventually won 7-5.