A Rainy Winter Classic Goes to the Capitals

For the past four years after the ball has dropped and a new year has began the boys of winter takes the ice for the Winter Classic. The Winter Classic this year was played at Heinz Field, which is home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the two teams that took the ice was the visiting Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

This was the first time the Winter Classic was played at night and that was because of the rainy weather that was in the Pittsburgh area throughout the day and continued off and on during the game. With the game being played outdoors the weather of course played a role in ice conditions that was kind of slushy and wet at times, but that did not stop the Capitals from pulling off a 3-1 victory over the home team.

The game started out sloppy as neither team was used to the ice which lead to a scoreless first period even though the ice was choppy the emotions was high which lead to a first period fight to excite the fans on hand.

The second period was different it was exciting play as the players began to calm down and adjust to the situation. The penguins was the first to get on the board early in second quarter as Kris Letang had a banked pass off the board to get the puck to Evgeni Malkin who would score. The home crowd went wild and the terrible towels went flying which is a Steelers tradition which made its way to the ice.
Near the seven minute mark in the second period the Capitals took advantage of a power play which would lead to a goal by Mike Knuble to tie up the game. From there on out this game belonged to the Capitals and Eric Fehr who would go to score two more goals one at around the 15 minute mark and again around the 12 minute mark in the third period.

Coming into this game everyone expected big play from what some say are the best two players in the game of hockey in Sidney Crosby of the Penguins and Alex Ovechkin but both of these players was really a non-factor in the game. The poor ice really caused Ovechkin to have a poor game as he took a fall on to his stomach while attempting a shot in the first period. Crosby also took a rough hit in the second from a blindsided hit he would have a limp as he went to the locker room at the intermission but finished the game.

The fourth annual Winter Classic proved to be another exciting event and helps the sport bring in fans it may normally not get in the regular season. This outdoor event with such press brings positive viewership to the game that is normally competing with other sports during this time of year. It always brings in fans of the home city to watch the game because of its location and the show that is brought on. This year’s puck drop was done by former Steelers star’s Jerome “Bus” Bettis and Franco Harris. These two players also did a celebrity shoot out of a Pittsburgh charity and made a show out of it. I believe the Classic is good for the game of Hockey and will bring in more fans to the game.

Cats have Cards for lunch in the Yum! Center

When Kentucky and Louisville take the court you know it’s going to be a great game. Today’s match up was no different. It was a great game but the Wildcats come out with a huge victory over the Cards 78-63.

This game came with several surprises with a career high double-double play from big man Josh Harrellson had 23 points and 14 rebounds. This was a huge deal as he normal averages about 5 points per game and only scored 28 total points last season. He has really stepped up into this leadership role on this team as he is the only senior on the roster and is the only big man with big man Enes Kanter being ruled ineligible to play by the NCAA.

As it was last season this team is lead by a group of incredible freshmen talent which has two of the teams leading scorers. They showed up to play against the Cards as Brandon Knight had an outstanding game scoring 25 points and Terrence Jones had 12 points, eight rebounds and six assist. This group of freshmen have really stepped up since the loss to North Carolina on ways of their game they are playing better defense as well as offense and are really looking good as they are about to enter SEC play.

As for Louisville they came out early hitting the three but that did not last as they went eight for 20 from three-point line. The Cards was out match on all levels they got beat in every category from field-goals to rebounds they just could not play with this Wildcat squad. They did get some good play out of Preston Knowles who scored 22 points which is above his season average of 15.2 points per game.

This game set a record attendance for the new KFC Yum! Center with 22,803 people. This is the first year of the new arena and it will play host to many more great games between the two rivals for years to come.

With the win over Louisville this puts Coach Calipari 2-0 in the battle of the bluegrass and puts the Wildcats 11-2 on the season.

The next match up for the Wildcats will be Monday against Penn in Rupp Arena at 7:00 PM EST.

Cats Lose a Quarterback for Bowl

As the Kentucky Wildcats are preparing for their fifth straight bowl appearance they will do so without starting quarterback Mike Hartline, after being arrested early Friday morning.

Hartline was taken into custody outside a Lexington bar and was charged with second-degree disorderly conduct, alcohol intoxication in a public place and failure to notify the department of transportation of an address change.

After news of the arrest got to head coach Joker Phillips he went on to suspend Hartline from what would be his last game in a Wildcats uniform.

“Mike Hartline has had a good record here conduct-wise, and I regret that this happened,” Phillips said. “I really hate that it happened because of what he did, leading this program to our fifth straight bowl, and he’s done a great job at that. But we have clear expectations for how we want our players to act and for them to behave.”

This has been a big blow to the Wildcats going into the BBVA Compass Bowl without Hartline. He started all 12 of Kentucky’s games this season and put up some of his best numbers in senior season. So far on the year he is ranked sixth in the SEC and 24th nationally, in pass efficiency. Hartline also lead the Cats to a 6-6 record.

Since Hartline will not be allowed to play the Cats will look to Sophomore Morgan Newton to take the reins and lead them to a victory. Newton has thrown seven successful passes on season and will be expected to get the start.

The Wildcats will take the field on January 8 against Pittsburgh who has had problems of their own in the firing of former head coach Dave Wannsted after six seasons there.

After Long Day Sox Sign Gonzalez

December 5, 2010 may go down as one of the most stressful but exciting days for fans of the Boston Red Sox. This is the day that the biggest trade in recent history went down sending first baseman Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox by trade but it almost didn’t happen.

All trade talks began on Saturday saying that Gonzalez had been traded from the San Diego Padres for three of Boston’s top minor league prospects, which included Casey Kelly a right-handed pitcher and was considered there top prospect. It was said the only way the deal would go through was if Gonzalez, who is coming into his final year of his contract, was willing to sign a contract extension allowing him to skip free agency and become of a long term member of the team.

The two sides began to negotiate a long term contract with a 2pm ET deadline on Sunday to get a deal complete. Both sides worked long into the night and Red Sox Nation began to worry if a deal would get done. It was said that Gonzalez camp was requesting a six year deal worth $150 million and the Red Sox are not known for signing players over five year deal due to injury or age.

Well the 2pm deadline comes and goes, the fans are nervously waiting to see if a deal had been agreed upon between the two camps.

When a tweet from SI.com’s Jon Heyman came out saying that the “Gonzalez trade had feel thru”. Peter Gammons also added that Gonzalez was leaving Boston on a 4:30 flight and had left a hundred million dollar deal on the table.

At this point the hearts of all Boston fans was broken as some fans were calling for the firing of General Manager Theo Epstein and saying that John W. Henry should sell the team if he wasn’t willing to spend money on winning players. This would be the second time they was unable to finish a deal as they lost in the bidding two years before on first baseman Mark Teixeira to the New York Yankees.

Later in the day as hearts of broken fans sit around to hear from the team sources come out to say what had happened. Rumors began to surface that the two sides was still working on a deal past the deadline deal. This began to bring hope back.
Then at around the 9 pm ET, out of nowhere Heyman sends out a tweet saying that a deal had been completed sending Gonzalez to the Red Sox. This was not the deal Boston had originally wanted and the deal was done without contract extension that they had hoped for.

With all the speculations over of will he or won’t he play in Boston, Monday morning the deal became official in a press conference. Gonzalez said that as a boy his favorite American League team growing up was the Boston Red Sox.
“I’m very excited,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve had five incredible years in San Diego. When I grew up, my whole dream as a kid was to play in the major leagues and be a Padre. My second dream was to be a Red Sox. So, I’m very excited. God has been very, very good to me, and I’m just very excited to start this new phase. I look forward to a lot of world championships.”

Boston fans couldn’t have said it better than that; he is being brought in as a bat that has been missing in the lineup since the trade of Manny Ramirez in 2008.

Since a deal is not in place as of yet he is currently under contract his original contract for one year for a bargain of $5.5 million. It is said that the Red Sox and Gonzalez have common ground and they feel that a deal can be done at a later date. Some believe that a deal will not come from the Red Sox until after Opening Day so to avoid any luxury taxes on the 2011 pay roll.

So now that it is all said and done Gonzalez will take the field on April1, 2011 as the starting first baseman for the Red Sox, the fans can now be excited for the future of the team and no longer be calling for Epstein’s head because of his success.

Lee Leads Rangers to First Series Win

Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers win the ALDS and franchise first series win, against the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1. This was also the first season in which the road team won every game.

Coming into the game the series was tied at two games apiece and with the being the deciding game both teams had their ace on the mound; Cliff Lee for the Rangers and David Price for the Rays. Coming into the game Lee had a 3.98 ERA since joining the Rangers and Price had a 2.72 on the season.

Lee came out on top as he threw a complete game. He also struck out 11 men and only gave up six-hits and only allowed one run not allowing a walk. Lee threw 120 pitches 89 of which was strikes and he threw 73% of his first pitches as stirkes. This is his fourth post season game where he struck out at least 10 batters and he also remains undefeated in the post season. When ask his thoughts about the game Lee said:

“It was a lot of fun, I know that much,” Lee said. “We had our back against the wall today and we came out and performed.”

That is exactly what they did the Rangers struck early and off often as they scored one-run in the first, one in the fourth, one in the sixth and two in the ninth. The two runs in the ninth were score off second basemen Ian Kinsler to insure that the Rangers came out on top.

As for the Rays they only scored one run when Ben Zobrist singled into center field to allow Sean Rodriguez to go home. Pitching for the Rays was also a difficulty as they went through four different pitchers but starting pitcher Price went six innings while he struck out six batters and gave up three runs. While closer Rafael Soriano gave up three hits and two runs in the ninth inning alone but the lose goes to Price.

Most teams after winning a series especially the first one in the teams franchise want to celebrate with their teammates with champagne and beer but not the Rangers. Out of respect they wanted to celebrate this as a team with outfielder Josh Hamilton, who sit out the celebration when the team clinched the division because he is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. So out of respect the team celebrated with ginger ale instead of alcohol. Pitcher C.J. Wilson was also able to celebrate with the team as he does not drink as well. The idea was came up with by the equipment manger.

“It was a great idea,” third basemen Micheal Young said. “Josh and C.J. are a big part of our ballclub, and we wanted them to be able to celebrate with us.”
Hamilton was excited to take part in the celebration and said;

“This stuff burns your eyes, too,” Hamilton said. “But for them to adapt the celebration to this, it really says a lot about our organization.”

The team would later celebrate in normal fashion after those two guys left but they wanted to show the respect to wait.

With the Rangers winning this game they will move on to face the New York Yankees on Friday at 8:00 PM at home in the ALCS. The starting pitchers for this game will be C.C. Sabaitha for the Yankees and Wilson will take the mound for the Rangers.

Patriots Trade Moss Back to Vikings

There has been an extreme change of events that has happened in the last 24 hours. Today I planned to prepare for the MLB playoffs but I check my phone on the way to class to see that the New England Patriots have traded future Hall of Famer Randy Moss to the Minnesota Vikings for a third-round draft pick.

The drama with Moss started after the week one game when he addressed the media for the first time to discuss wanting a new contract with New England. Which lead to a meeting to discuss his actions with head coach Bill Belicheck and Moss giving an apology interview with the Boston media. This was the beginning of the end of his time with team, which may have lead to his poor performance on the field and his extremely poor performance in the Monday night game on ESPN this could have been the last straw for the team who was willing to give him away for nothing but a draft pick which could be key as that makes the team have eight draft picks in the 2011 draft two per round in the first through fourth rounds.

This will be Moss seconded stint with the Vikings who have had a poor season at this point in the season as they are 1-2 on the season coming off of the bye-week this should be a huge Improvement for the team as it will give quarterback Brett Farve a new target in the back field which could be what the team as they have several players with injury some that keeps them off the field for the season and some that just prevents practice so this is a relief for the Vikings.

This could be an exciting but rare midseason trade in which Moss will get to meet up with his former team on Halloween night.

Madness is Here in the Bluegrass

It's that time of the year in Kentucky the leaves are changing colors and the temperature is starting to drop and what does that mean? That means it is time for basketball season to start in the bluegrass as big blue nation has set up camp at the Joe Craft center on the UK campus waiting for their shot at tickets to the biggest basketball event in Lexington to true blue fans Big Blue Madness.

Big Blue Madness is the first official practice of the season and will be part of an ESPNU event this year. It has been a record breaking event for the school in the past and they are excepting it again for the event. Tickets are available tomorrow morning at 7 am and will be gone extremely quick so it's a battle for the fan to get the ticket but it is well worth it end.

I have been lucky enough to attend the event three times in my life and it is one of the most exciting events for a fan in how it is put together. The team looks at this as a way of honoring the faithful fans giving them a good show and preparing them for a winning season and it is never disappointing the fans that show up. They do different things to wow the crowd some include bringing back a former player the fans love to take part sometimes a dunk contest they actively involve the fans and they always add something new to wow the crowd.

The team has been involving the fans all week by stopping by as signing autographs for the fans and even stopping by early in the morning to deliver them a warm breakfast from the teams official sponsor McDonalds it a special event all Kentucky fans should experience once in their life as a fan I hope to try my luck at the Holy Grail of tickets tomorrow wish me luck I'll keep you posted on how it goes.