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Sunday, May 24, 2009

You Don't Mess With Machida

I said Lyoto Machida was one tough S-O-B and he proved it inside the octagon. Rashad Evans may still be wondering just exactly what hit him. Machida dominated right from the start in the main event of UFC 98 and put Evans out of his misery when he hit him with a lethal left hook with a minute to go in Round 2. The highlight of the night might have been the absolute joy going through Tim Hague when he won his UFC debut beating Pat Berry in the first round. The Edmonton native--who is 6 foot 4 265 pounds--was smiling from ear-to-ear when all was said and done and told Joe Rogan after it was time to go for some beers. How Canadian is that?? By the way, Hague is a former kindergarten teacher. Can you imagine a kindergarten teacher being 6 foot 4 and 265 pounds. I bet his class was well behaved. Maybe he could come help coach my 5year old's learn to play softball team. I'm guessing some of the kids (mine too) would be a little more attentive.
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Sid and company are going back to the Stanley Cup finals. The Penguins beat the Hurricanes 6-2 in Game 3 of the East Conference final to take a 3-0 lead. I can't even begin to tell you how much Carolina has disappointed me in this series. Its been like boys playing against men. Its bad enough giving up one goal in the last minute of a period, but two???? Detroit tries to go up 3-1 on Chicago this afternoon.
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Windsor and Kelowna meet in the Memorial Cup final. Kelowna hasn't played since Tuesday. That's stupid!!I would still like to see more teams in this event than just the league champs and the host. I'd like to see the finalists from all three leagues get in with the host and have more than one game a day. It will never happen, but I would like it to.
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So let me get this straight. The Weather Network and Environment Canada had been calling for rain on Sunday--actually starting late Saturday night for the past three days. (about 15 mm in total) and yet now that rain won't come until tonight and then it will just be 5 mm. Is it that tough to give people an accurate forecast?? Apparently it is. I would like to send Lyoto Machida to the EC offices to smarten some people up.
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Has the bloom fallen off the rose in Toronto. The Jays have lost 5 straight. Despite this, they are still in first.
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The Lakers and Nuggets went right to the wire again last night before Los Angeles won to take a 2-1 lead. I am really getting into the conference finals as they have all been nailbiters right to the end. The NBA has to be loving this. Right now, its better than the NHL playoffs. I actually taped the 2nd half of last nite's game and watched it upon returning from UFC. Taping an NBA game???!!
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NBC doesn't pay the NHL so the NHL thanks them by doing this. Here's the latest embarrassment: the league announced Friday that unless both the Eastern and Western conference final series ended in sweeps--meaning by Tuesday night, when the Pittsburgh Penguins would play their Game 4 in Raleigh, N. C. -- the Stanley Cup final would not begin until June 5.

I could basically tell you how I feel about that but Cam Cole of Canada.com does a much better job and basically crystallizes my thoughts.

"Now, never mind that this could mean 10 days between games for the Penguins if, say, they were to sweep Carolina while Detroit took even five games to polish off the Chicago Blackhawks. The Wings, under that scenario, would go eight days between games.
It's worse than that.
After lollygagging through the first three rounds of playoffs with nonsensical extra off-days thrown in willy nilly, the NHL is prepared to play Games 1 and 2 of the Cup final on back-to-back nights, because NBC is weak in prime time on Fridays and Saturdays, and will deign to telecast both games if the NHL doesn't mind twisting itself into a pretzel to co-operate. If they play on the 5th and 6th, and go every second day from that point on, they would play Game 3 on June 8, Game 4 on the 10th, and so on, meaning a possible Game 7 on the 16th, a day later than the NHL's written-in-stone pledge to have the season end by June 15."

I have nothing wrong with back-to-back games and say the season would be over now if we had played more back-to-backs, but to do it for the finals and to start the finals on a Friday. Just another example of the stupidity Gary Bettman brings to the commissioner's throne.
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The Indy 500 is today. Is open wheeled auto racing still drawing interest in the U-S. It does today with the marquis event. If it weren't for Danica Patrick, I don't know if there would be any interest in the sport. It sure wasn't that way a decade ago.
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Have a good Sunday!!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mess with Machida and you will get your lights punched out. WOW!!!! That was impressive!!


Darrell

Kevin Morrison said...

The NHL and NBC are actually in a join profit position with the games on NBC. The more ad $ NBC makes, the more $ the NHL makes. I may not agree at all with the time off between the semis and the finals, but saying the NHL doesn't make money off of the NBC games is false.

Also, I love your original thoughts, such as your UFC thoughts, but if you are going to reprint somebody else's column in your blog, as you pretty much did for the Bettman paragraph, at least give him (Cam Cole in this case)credit for it.

Mitchell Blair said...

Bad blogger.

Didn't get all of the copy and paste when posting Cam Cole's piece. Kevin, thank you kindly for noticing that because I wouldn't have. It has been fixed!!!

Anonymous said...

UFC---PFFT!!! Don't waste your time talking about that crap. I wouldn't watch that if it was on free TV--oh wait, it is half the time.

We haven't been getting accurate forecasts for years. Go complain to Angel--she must be family isn't she. I know she's not your wife so she must be what a sister in law or something.

It doesn't matter what Gary Bettman does. Everyone already knows he is an idiot. Even if he allows Balsillie to move the Coyotes to Phoenix, his reputation is already set in stone.

NASCAR is the only racing that matters.

Every team hits a rough spot during the season. The Jays will bounce back.

Steve M

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention. For your poll question, I see the Riders being lucky to be 500. Questions at QB and bigger questions on defence. 7-8 wins tops.

Steve M

Anonymous said...

I think you got the copy and paste part correct, it was the parts where you forgot to acknowledge who wrote it, maybe add a link to it, add quotations, and format it so it's clear that they're not your original thoughts. Don't worry about it, call me up and we'll go bowling some time.

Bob Hughes