Well, the NHL season is 10 days old and the lockout is a distant memory. My boycott has been reduced to a "give them no money" protest that is as ineffective as it is meaningless. Forgiving fans have returned to the game in droves, with record ratings and sold out rinks in many markets. The NHL won't miss my $49.99 that I normally would have spent on Game Center Live. In fact, to my eternal shame, I have been watching GCL quite often. The league has employed a brilliant marketing strategy, offering the service for free for the first two weeks of...
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Every once in a while I like to take the mid-season standings in the NBA or NHL and run through a simulated playoffs to see who might win the championship. You might think such an exercise is entirely meaningless, but in 2011, my NHL simulation showed the Los Angeles Kings beating the Boston Bruins. Of course, the Bruins won the cup in 2011, the Kings in 2012. Coincidence? I think not. So get your betting hats on, contact your bookie, and read on.The standings at the 41-game mark of the NBA follow. Remember the NBA has a slightly different seeding...
Friday, 18 January 2013
In 2010, I took a couple of roadtrips in which I saw a good bit of minor league baseball. In California, I saw three games and in Iowa, I witnessed another seven matches. For all but one of those games, I mentioned a "player to watch" which was simply a player (not a well-known prospect) who I thought might have a chance to reach the majors based on his performance in that single game. Of course, baseball is a sport where even the least talented player can have a 4-4 game once in a while, so having this feature was more an exercise in learning...
Monday, 14 January 2013
If you measure a sport's popularity by the number of national federations that belong to the international governing body, basketball is surprisingly tops in the world. The Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur (FIBA) boasts 213 members to 209 for FIFA, soccer's far more famous counterpart. Of course, I'd never argue that there are more people playing basketball than soccer, but it does show that both sports have fans around the world....
Thursday, 10 January 2013
So the Leafs have fired bombastic GM Brian Burke, ensuring that this season will be the least entertaining in some time. Depending on which sources you read, the firing was due to Burke's failure to make the playoffs during his 4-year tenure, his unwillingness to trade for Roberto Luongo, or a personality conflict with the new owners (I fear the name George Cope may become this decade's equivalent to Harold Ballard).Whatever the case, there is an air of expectation in Toronto. Although I am self-righteously boycotting the NHL this season,...
Monday, 7 January 2013
During the NHL lockout, I posted encouraging fans to speak with their wallets when the dispute was finally settled. This past weekend the parties finally realized that they are better off playing hockey and generating revenue than yelling at each other across a table. It didn't take fans long to make their own views known as they flocked to social media to either welcome back the NHL or profess a complete lack of interest in the upcoming season. By a rough estimate based on my own feeds, I'd say over 2/3 of fans are actually looking forward...
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