Monday, November 15, 2010

3 things we learned this weekend:



Courtesy of CFL digital media guru Jaime Stein comes this picture proving that the Riders didn't really learn anything this football season. After failing math one year ago, they look to fail at grammar, too.

#1 - If you are Colin Campbell's son, expect favourable calls

By now you have surely read Tyler Dellow's damning piece on Colin Campbell's e-mails discussing the fate of axed NHL official Dean Warren. The foul-mouthed Campbell has some choice words on Marc Savard, and for officials who call penalties he didn't even see.

Scroll to the bottom of the piece, wherein the NHL VP on Hockey Operations makes bogus assertions on referees based on penalties called against his son, which he didn't even see:
Game not televised. Radio announcers said it was a bullshit penalty…you need to find out for me. How…I don’t know but this was awful. 1:30 left in 2-1 game for [team] and [player] scored with 2 second left to tie it up them won in OT. FUCK
[Team] was redacted to mean the Florida Panthers and [Player] was redacted to mean Gregory Campbell, Colin's son. Dellow does the legwork and proves this.

Foul, unprofessional language and Rider fan vocabulary aside, Dellow's work exposes some pretty shady things in the NHL Hockey Ops department, including General Managers affecting penalty calls and personal crusades against players.

Eventually, somebody will have to answer to this. In the meantime, pick up Gregory Campbell in your Fantasy League.

#2 - Miraculous performances to send a game to overtime fail miserably

We all remember Jordan Eberle's two goals with under three minutes to go to tie the game against the Americans in Saskatoon, or Zach Parise's goal with 24 seconds left in Vancouver, both ended up being in losing efforts.



This one from Eman Arceneaux is incredible, but it came in a losing effort.

Since TSN or the CFL will break down the game better than I ever could because I only caught a bit of the game while at work, I will instead debate the merits of Wally Buono going for two in that situation, to win the game, rather than the tie and overtime.

A) 5-yards away is a coin-flip. You need to go for 2 to win in OT at some point thanks to the new rule where OT touchdowns must be followed by 2-point conversions, so you may as well do it early on and capitalize on your momentum and while the crowd is out of the game.

B) Your BC Lions team isn't very good. Prolonging a game simply decreases your odds of winning the game. That's why games are four quarters long.

C) Because I saw the touchdown catch and subsequent conversion at work in the TVs section and completely missed the end of the game.

The game wasn't all bad for BC. Travis Lulay had his coming out party, and finally the Lions have a young, not total-headcase and not injury-prone quarterback determined long before training camp. Lulay went 28-of-40 for 357 yards and spread the ball around effectively. Four receivers had five catches.

#3 - But it doesn't really matter, since the Argos proved that you don't need a quarterback to win anyway

Cleo Lemon threw for 134 yards, completing just 14 passes to receivers. No completed pass went for more than 12 yards, but, with rushing and defense, as has been the case, the Argos showed up and won a tight defensive battle with the Hamilton Tiger Cats, winning their first road semifinal game since 1961.

I still have a great Cleo Lemon joke that I've been holding in reserve since Week 3 and haven't had a chance to use it because none of his fuck-ups have really cost the Argonauts anything just yet.

Good day for sports. Your sportstalk radio should be entertaining on this fine Monday.

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