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- Chelsea leave Paris happy: Two legged playoffs like the Champions League are such that the visiting team is happy to come away with a tie in the first game, especially if it’s not a scoreless tie. This is because the first tie-breaker in case the two teams are even on goals after their second game is how many goals the team scored as a visitor. After yesterday’s 1-1 tie against PSG, Chelsea has the upper hand.
Line: When is a tie a win? When it’s the first half of a two-leg playoff.
- 5-1 but not that lopsided: The Nashville Predators beat the San Jose Sharks 5-1 last night but the game was not nearly as lopsided as it appears from that score. Nashville’s goalie, Pekke Rinne, made 42 saves. That’s a lot of saves! If the Predators didn’t have one of the best goalies in the world on their team, they still may have won, but the score would probably have been 5-3 or 5-4.
Line: Having a great goalie is the most important thing in hockey.
- St. John’s Law: They may not quite be up to the standard of Murphy, but it did seem like anything that could go wrong for St. John’s last night in their game against Georgetown, did. The St. John’s team ended the game limping and losing, 79-57.
Line: Coming in with a three game winning streak, I expected more from St. John’s.
- New York Rivalry on ice: For the first season in a long time, the New York Rangers and New York Islanders are both very good. Regardless of record, over the years their rivalry has remained strong. Now it’s even better. Last night’s game went back and forth and back and forth until finally the Rangers won 6-5.
Line: When the Islanders were terrible, they seemed to always get up to play the Rangers. Now that they’re both good, it’s pretty even.
- So close, but no tea: The English FA cup is a psychological challenge for top-flight teams like Manchester United. Instead of playing against equals, they frequently play against teams, like Preston North End, which plays in League One, the third tier league in the country. The mind-game goes like this — “it’s not going to be hard to win, we should win, uh oh, what if we don’t win, we have to win!!” This only gets worse, when, like happened yesterday, the underdog scores a goal first. Preston North End couldn’t hold back the flood of Manchester United forever, and finally gave way to a barrage of goals in the second half to lose 3-1.
Line: These David and Goliath games seem to follow a pattern with David threatening but Goliath almost always winning in the end.
- West Virginia wins a thriller: There was a time when West Virginia’s men’s college basketball team made the NCAA tournament almost every year behind coach Bob Huggins. That’s not the case anymore — it’s actually been three years since they played in March Madness. This looks like it will be their comeback year. The West Virginia team is ranked 23rd in the country and just beat the number eight team, the Kansas Jayhawks, last night in a thriller of a game. West Virginia went up by a point with four seconds left and then defended a last second attempt by Kansas to win the game.
Line: The NBA has higher quality players but it’s hard to match the joy of watching a college team win a close game.
- The NBA All-Star Game: That’s the most that can be said about it, really. It happened. The West beat the East, 163-158, in a game that (as always) was more of an offensive exhibition than actual basketball. Russell Westbrook scored 41 points and won the MVP award but the real MVPs of the game were former President Bill Clinton and retired NBA player Dikembe Mutombo who sat together and generally seemed like they were having a great time.
Line: The NBA All-Star game is fun, I guess, but without real competition, basketball isn’t really worth watching.
- USA Rugby teases viewers: Playing at home in the one stop of the Rugby World Series in the United States, the USA Rugby Sevens team made the semifinals before hitting a wall. In their semi-final game against New Zealand, the USA team jumped out to a 7-0 lead before letting up (or more likely, just getting outclassed) and eventually losing 26-12. In the third place game, the United States was shut out by South Africa, 31-0. Fiji won the tournament, beating New Zealand 35-19.
Line: It figures that the US team plays great when virtually no one is watching and then stinks up the joint on Sunday when they are on NBC.
- Chicago wins in a shootout: No, it’s not prohibition — we’re talking about a hockey shootout. In the nationally televised NBC game of the week, the Chicago Blackhawks played a tight, 1-1 game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the shootout to decide the game, Chicago’s Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Sharp each scored against the Penguins goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury. The loss left Fleury, who usually stops over 90% of shootout attempts against him, hopping mad.
Line: The shootout is not the best way to decide a hockey game because it’s pretty much a separate skill, but it can be extremely entertaining.
- Ahead early: Sometimes having an early lead in hockey means you run away with a game, like the St. Louis Blues did in their 6-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Sometimes it means you let in four goals in the third period and need overtime to edge your opponent. That was the situation for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their game against the Ottawa Senators, which they eventually won 5-4 in the shootout.
Line: I’d rather have the lead than not, but sometimes it means you get sloppy.
- Rose comes up big: Just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend, Chicago Bulls guard Derek Rose played his best game of the year, scoring 30 points and helping the Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-98 in the last game before the all-star break. One fun thing about the Bulls is that it seems like the more they want to win a game, the better they play. That’s a surprisingly rare characteristic, even for a professional sports team.
Line: I think the Bulls really wanted to win that game to make a statement. And when they want to, they usually win.
- Giant win for Anna Fenninger: The women’s competitions at the Alpine World Championships had been dominated by Slovenian Tina Maze and her attempt to make history by medaling in all five events. That ended yesterday when Maze failed to medal in the Giant Slalom competition, which Austrian Anna Fenninger won. All of a sudden people noticed that Fenninger actually has as many medals and as many golds as Maze — two golds and one other medal.
Line: With one race left, Fenninger and Maze are tied. We’ll see what happens in the slalom.
- Chelsea stays ahead: It looked like second place Manchester City might get closer to first place Chelsea yesterday when, through almost 90 minutes of soccer, Chelsea was even with Everton and Manchester City was winning their game 4-1. Chelsea scored right at the end of the game, just seconds after Everton went down to ten men, on a shot that went through about three people’s legs before beating goalie Tim Howard. Chelsea won 1-0 and retains their lead over Manchester City in the standings.
Line: Soccer is brutal sometimes. Imagine playing well against a better team and holding them from scoring for 88 minutes only to lose in the last two?
- Penguins explode: Not really, of course, that would be horrible whether we’re talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team or actual penguins. The hockey team bearing that name did explode offensively in their 4-1 win last night over the Detroit Red Wings.
Line: When the Penguins are at full strength, watch out!
- LeBron and Co. beat the Heat: In LeBron James’ second game against the team he played on for the last few years, the Miami Heat, he got his first victory. The Heat were without Dwayne Wade, who sat out the game with an injury, and they simply couldn’t score enough to stay with the Cavaliers who beat them 113-93.
Line: After the Heat won the first matchup, it makes sense that this one would mean more to LeBron and the Cavaliers than to the Heat.
- Tiger Woods says the obvious: Tiger Woods has not been playing golf very well lately. In his last two tournaments, he shot his worst round of golf ever (professionally, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he played better as a kid) and then had to pull out of a tournament with a back injury. Yesterday he announced he wouldn’t come back until he felt he could play better and more safely. Which is pretty much the same thing as saying, “I will come back when I can compete.” Which is obvious. Still, this was big news.
Line: You won’t come back until you can come back? Got it.
- A high scoring, exciting soccer game: That’s right, I know soccer has a reputation for being a little bit dull and low scoring. Not true! At least, not true in yesterday’s game between Tottenham and Liverpool. The game went back and forth and back and forth until Liverpool finally won it 3-2 thanks to a late Mario Balotelli goal. The game was extremely important to the English Premier League standings. Liverpool climbs to seventh place, only one point behind Tottenham.
Line: I wish all the soccer deniers could have watched that game!
- Power Plight: A power play in hockey is when one team, because of a foul committed by the other team, has one or more than one more players on the rink than their opponents. It’s a big opportunity to score a goal, which is why it is all the more depressing for the team with the extra player when they let in a goal. That happened twice last night to the Boston Bruins during their 5-3 loss to the Dallas Stars.
Line: Terrible night for the Bruins on the power play.
- Harden, James Harden: When you look at the box score of a basketball game, one of the things it shows you quickly is who, from each team, had the most points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. When you look at the box score for last night’s game between the Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns, the only name you see on the Rockets side is James Harden. He led his team with 40 points, 12 rebounds, nine assists, and three steals, and tied for team lead with two of his teammates who each had one block. That’s quite a game from him as the Rockets beat the Suns 127-118.
Line: There’s a reason that people are talking about James Harden for Most Valuable Player (MVP) this year.
- The real number one: Women’s college basketball experienced a rare meeting of the top ranked team in the country and the number two ranked team last night as South Carolina met the University of Connecticut on the basketball court. UConn is the traditional power of women’s college basketball and they flexed their muscles, beating South Carolina easily, 87-62.
Line: UConn always seems like a safe bet, no matter who they are playing.
- Mike Smith, generic sounding hero: I’ve always thought that Mike Smith, the goalie for the Arizona Coyotes would get more recognition if his name was something slightly less generic. Last night, he survived a crazy sequence at the end of regulation to help his team beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 in a shootout win.
Line: Did you SEE that Mike Smith save?
- Sport of attrition: People often complain that the National Basketball Association season is too long; that it should be cut from 82 games to 72 or 64 or something. One argument against that is that playing 82 games poses a specific challenge to basketball teams that might not exist in a shorter season — can they stay healthy? The game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks was a case in point last night. The teams came into the game missing key players — Blake Griffin on the Clippers and Rajon Rondo on the Mavericks, and then the Mavericks lost two more, Monta Ellis and Tyson Chandler in the first five minutes of the game. The Clippers won, 115-98.
Line: Part of the game is finding a way to stay healthy.
- Rivalries, new and old: The NHL scheduled their nationally televised games yesterday in a way that reflects the nature and status of the sport. Hockey is blessed to have some great and very old rivalries that continue today with as much fervor as they did decades ago. The Boston Bruins vs. the Montreal Canadiens is one of those. The sport also has the ability, because of its physicality, I think, to develop new rivalries between good teams. The Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues may be on their way to developing a new rivalry. Yesterday, both sets of teams played. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins 3-1 and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the St. Louis Blues 4-2.
Line: There’s no rivalry like Boston, Montreal, but Chicago and St. Louis have potential.
- Change the playoffs, exhibit L: This past week, the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), Adam Silver, came out in favor of the idea of letting (basically) the sixteen best teams into the playoffs instead of the top eight in the Western Conference and the top eight in the Eastern Conference. The game yesterday between the Toronto Raptors (East) and San Antonio Spurs (West) was just one of many reasons why. After an 87-82 victory over the Spurs, the Raptors are in second place in the East with a 35-17 record. The Spurs, with an almost equivalent, 32-19 record, are in seventh place in the West!
Line: And that’s why it may be time to change how playoff qualification is done!
- Home cooking good for the USA: The USA Men’s National Soccer team had not won a game since their thrilling victory over Ghana way back last summer during the World Cup. Since the World Cup, they had lost or tied five games in a row until yesterday when they beat Peru 2-0 in Los Angeles. Probably no one should be happier about the win than coach Jurgen Klinsmann, who was getting some seriously heated criticism from fans and media members for the team’s lackluster play.
Line: USA! USA! FINALLY!
- Tiger Woods drops out: No, it’s not the sequel to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but unfortunately for Tiger Woods and his fans, it’s becoming a pattern. Woods pulled out of the Farmer’s Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in the middle of his first round due to a back injury.
Line: No one, not even Tiger, can play well once their body starts falling apart.
- Mrazek shuts them out: Detroit Red Wings goalie, Petr Mrazek, earned the third shut out of his career by saving all 28 shots the Colorado Avalanche threw at him. The Red Wings, who won the game 3-0, have now won eight of their last nine games.
Line: The Red Wings have made the playoffs for 23 years in a row (the longest streak in the NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL) and there’s no sign they’ll miss them any time soon the way they’re playing.
- Clippers lose their temper and the game: The game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Cleveland Cavaliers seemed like it was over before it even got started. The Cavaliers jumped out to a 65-42 lead in the first half and never looked back. If they had, they would have seen the Clippers losing their temper and receiving five technical fouls, mostly for arguing with the refs. The Cavaliers have now won 12 games in a row.
Line: It’s starting to feel inevitable that the Cavaliers will be in the Finals this year.
- Justice is served in English soccer: The Bolton Wanderers looked like they might get away with beating Liverpool 1-0 on an ill-earned penalty kick. One of Bolton’s players went down a bit too easily for my liking when he was barely grazed and he fooled the ref into calling a foul. Liverpool managed to rescue themselves and reestablish global justice by scoring two goals in the final fifteen minutes to win the game.
Line: I don’t think anyone says “ball don’t lie” in soccer, but they should.
- The only blight on Boston’s day: While the Patriots celebrated their Super Bowl win with a duck-boat parade, and the Celtics won in Boston 104-100 over the Nuggets, the only sore spot was a 3-2 Bruins loss against the Rangers.
Line: Boston can’t have EVERYTHING.
- Fifty one for Steph Curry: The Golden State Warriors were down 22 points to the visiting Dallas Mavericks at one point last night. They ended up winning 128-114 thanks in large part to Steph Curry’s 51 points. Curry made a massive 10 three pointers and scored 26 points in just the third quarter.
Line: I don’t know if they’ll actually do it, but I would like to see the Warriors win the title this year. They’re so much fun to watch.
