CFL picks > Week #2

So last week wasn’t too bad…  I went 3-1 straight up, but of course if we’re going by the sports select numbers then I only got one of the three right.  (The Toronto game was fine, but the other three were “ties” … such as life in a very competitive CFL.)

I hate picking ties and I won’t again this weekend, but if I have another week like this, then I may have to re-think that strategy.

Here we go for the second week of CFL action:

Thursday July 9

Edmonton @ Montreal (Edmonton 3.60 @ Montreal 1.50 – tie 3.95)
My pick: Montreal – They looked like they were on a mission last week while Edmonton looked lost without Lumsden and squeeked out an ugly win against the Bombers.  Taking the Als at home is a no brainer.

Friday July 10

Calgary @ Winnipeg (Calgary 1.65 @ Montreal 3.30 – tie 3.75)
My pick: Calgary - The Stamps offense was dormant against the Als, but against a weaker Bombers D and with Ken-Yon Rambo dressing, it should be a different story.

Hamilton @ B.C. (Hamilton 6.25 @ B.C. 1.10 – tie 5.50)
My pick: Hamilton - I know teams out east that go west don’t usually fare well with the time change, and I know Hamilton didn’t look great against Toronto last week, but they didn’t look half bad either.  I also think BC’s offensive line still needs a lot of help.  Going with the upset here.

Saturday July 11

Saskatchewan @ Toronto (Saskatchewan 2.70 @ B.C. 2.20 – tie 3.25)
My pick: Toronto - I liked what I saw from the Argos last week.  Solid defense and Kerry Joseph is finally being used properly being moved out of the pocket and allowed to run.  I don’t wanna say the Argos will be threatning Montreal yet…  but they may be even better than I thought.

 

I’ll call it what I want!

NoMas-NYC (which is one of my favorite websites to get shirts) along with UniWatch (which is one of my favorite blogs period) is selling what they call the “Naming Wrongs” collection … Shirts aimed at the idea that naming stadiums after faceless corporations is stupid and we fans want our old names back!

For example calling it “LandShark Stadium” is very stipid and thus I still call it Joe Robbie Stadium.

But why stop at a handful of baseball and football parks?  Why not more important matters like hockey arenas? 

Sure it’s now Rexall Place… But I know Edmonton’s home rink better as Northlands Coliseum.

Screw this Honda Center crap.. It’s still The Pond in Anahiem.

I liked it better when the St. Pete Times Forum was actually known as The Ice Palace.

And what is with Sommet Center??  Why can’t we just keep calling it the Gaylord Entertain..  err..  well ok maybe that one is an improvement!

But the more I think of it, why stop at just arena names?  Lets bring back the old division names!  I long for the days when we could call a team champions of the Norris or Adams division! I know the names now are more practical and a bit more fan friendly… but really saying the Stars are a “pacific” team is kind of a lie, so why not put them in a new Smythe division?

Ya know what?  Screw it..  Those are the names I’ll call them from here on out!

I can’t wait for the Stars next game at HP Pavilion San Jose Arena for a big Smythe division battle!

 

Midweek Motivator XVI

 

Taking the weekend off!

Actually I’m not really taking it off, I’ll be tweaking StarsScene’s look and doing some site maintance this weekend.  Be back on Monday Wednesday!

Americans, enjoy the long weekend

R.I.P. Steve “Air” McNair

 

It’s football eh? – My crazy CFL 2009 predictions!

Not seen here? The 32 different ads on a CFL field...

Ok, I know this is a couple of days late since the season started a couple of days ago on the 1st, but hey, my baseball predictions weren’t made before the season either so at least I’m consistent!

CFL East Division

1 – Montreal Alouettes – Considering the Als have the kind of talent that would even survive and even thrive in the CFL west, keeping them in the east seems kinda unfair to the other teams.  This race may be over by the start of August with the Als locking up first place.  Pretty much the same roster on both sides of the ball as they had last season when they made their run, plus they have the added bonus of being very po’ed that they had a championship ripped from them!

2 – Winnipeg Blue Bombers – Even though I just said no one in the east has a hope in hell of catching Montreal, Winnipeg has a chance.  Granted it’s a snowball in hell’s chance, but it’s still a chance!  They have a fairly solid defense led by Barrin Simpson and on offense they have a good run game… question is if LeFors can make the step from backup Esks QB to starting Bombers QB and get the ball to his multiple 1000+ yard receivers.   If he can, then the Bombers may be the best dark horse pick of the season.

3 – Toronto Argonauts – So I know this team will pick up it’s regular three to four wins against the Tiger Cats and that right there will put them into playoff contention, but after that?   Sure the offense will put up a bunch of numbers, but that defense of theirs is very underwhelming.  No Dominique Dorsey returning kicks takes away a huge dynamic that the Argos also had in terms of field position even when the offense struggled.

4 – Hamilton TigerCats – Wanna know why Hamilton will never get an NHL team?  Because if they got an NHL team, they’d want a CFL team as well!  It’s a shame because Hamilton football fans deserve much better if for no other reason than the trademark Oska Wee Wee chant.  How do you know your team is in major trouble?  When the team depth chart doesn’t even have a QB listed for the first regular season game.  It’s rookie Quinton Porter by the way and he’s gonna be a great player… in a year or two and possibly with someone else knowing Hamilton’s luck!

CFL West Division

1 – Calgary Stampeders – Ok this is a homer pick I admit… If I wasn’t a Stamps fan the fact that they pretty much have a brand new defensive secondary would worry me.  The fact that they cut JoJuan Armour due to on-field issues and aren’t starting Mike Labinjo who was a monster in the playoffs would scare me.  Still it’s pretty much the same offense as they had last season when they won the Cup and that’s good enough for me!

2 – Edmonton Eskimos – If Lumsden is healthy for the season (and that’s a big if) then Edmonton could have the final piece needed to contend for top spot in the West and a spot in the championship.  They have QB Ricky Ray who is kind of the CFL’s answer to Drew Brees and a good stable of recievers.  Their defense is good and they have Tristan Jackson who is one of the leagues best at returning kicks.  It’s all on Lumsden being healthy to maintain a solid running game.

[Note: This was all written up before the Esks game and before Jessie Lumsden's shoulder injury... At this point - Friday evening - reports say he's out indefinitely so it's hard to say when he'll be back.  Without him I'm not sure if I like the Esks at 2nd place, but I'll stick with it...]

3 – B.C. Lions – The head coach of the Leos is Wally Buono who is to Canadian football what Tony Dungy is to American football.. all he does is coach winning football teams.  They no longer have two-time outstanding defensive player Cam Wake, but the defense is still good and when you have Geroy Simon as your go-to wide out and Buck Pierce – who is easily the most underrated in the CFL – as your QB, you’ll always have a chance to win games.

4 – Saskatchewan Roughriders – Don’t get me wrong, they’ll still make the playoffs as a cross over team because even the worst team in the west is better than the third place team in the east and they may even be better than the second place team in the east.  Only problem is the Riders don’t have the kind of depth on either side of the ball that the other three western teams have, so they’ll be in tough battles all season.  They’ll win their fair share, but I don’t see them being able to stay standing near the end of the season.

Playoffs:

(Keep in mind, if the 4th place team of one division has a better record than the 3rd place team in the other division, they get a crossover playoff spot… That’s what I am picking here with the Riders crossing over into the East division.)

Roughriders over Blue Bombers
Eskimos over Lions

Alouettes over Roughriders
Eskimos over Stampeders

Grey Cup: Alouettes over Eskimos

 

CFL Picks – Week 1

Every week from here until the Grey Cup is awarded in November I’ll be making my picks on the weekly CFL games.  Of course I’ll be doing it the Canadian way by playing the SportsSelect pro-line odds which can be always found here.  (FYI: A “tie” on SportsSelect is a game settled by three points or less.)

Wednesday July 1

Toronto @ Hamilton  (Toronto 2.20 @ Hamilton 2.60 – tie 2.95)
My pick: Toronto

Montreal @ Calgary (Montreal 3.05 @ Calgary 1.75 – tie 3.60)
My pick: Calgary

Thursday July 2

Winnipeg @ Edmonton (Winnipeg 5.40 @ Edmonton 1.30 – tie 4.50)
My pick: Edmonton

Friday July 3

B.C. @ Saskatchewan (B.C. 2.20 @ Saskatchewan 2.60 – tie 2.95)
My pick: Saskatchewan

 

Midweek Motivator XV

 

Onrait’s war on bloggers

Memo to all hockey bloggers, Jay Onrait is not a fan of you.

I’ll give you all a moment to get over the grief I’ve just dealt out.

…

* plays a couple of rounds of “Flight Control” on the iPod *

…

Are you done wiping away your tears and gnashing of teeth?  Good.  We can move on.

By the way for you American bloggers who don’t even know who the hell Jay Onrait is, it’s ok.  Let me inform you that he is indeed a broadcasting legend up here in Canada by which all others are measured by.  Hazel May was our brightest young sports broadcasting star until sadly one SportsnetNews AM she came to the realization she would never amount to a quarter of the greatness that Onrait is and thus she fled down south to NESN.   When she heard Jay Onrait laughed at the move, she then moved to MLB Network knowing that the channel wasn’t in Canadian homes (thanks for that CRTC, no really…) and she could finally escape his icy, disapproving glare.

Now that icy, disproving glare has fixed itself on us poor innocent bloggers and it’s come after a crazy night of Danny Heatley rumors in the form of a tweet:

Sometimes I think the internet killed sports journalism. Tonight I realized it just separates the journalists from the basement-dwellers
- Jay Onrait on Twitter

Ouch. Sharp words indeed.  Now did he point them directly at blog-nation?  Of course not exactly, but as you may remember his partner in crime James Duthie mere months ago called out us bloggers as “basement dwellers” and being that Duthie is the broadcasting Jesus to Onrait’s broadcasting god, it’s easy to make that connection.

Thankfully, two minutes later Jay realized he may have been a bit harsh and quickly tweeted again to at least make sure he hadn’t greatly offended parents and basements all over Canada:

Not that there’s anything wrong with living in your parents basement. I would be there in a second if they didn’t live across the country
- Jay Onrait on Twitter (again)

Nice cover Jay…  You are indeed the master!

Of course, we all know Twittering is something completely different than actual blogging.  It’s “micro-blogging” and if you don’t believe me just look on the Wiki page under Twitter where is says in the very first line that it’s in fact “micro-blogging” … thus Jay is completely exempt from his own scathing criticism.

Kanye always spits truth...

“But Art!” You might exclaim, “He has his own blog on TSN.ca!” But I would like to inform you that it really isn’t a blog. You see TSN only calls it a blog to appeal to us simple minded, basement dwelling, non-TV personality types.

It’s kinda like how politicians when they are on the campaign trail like to pretend they are just like us common folk by doing things only because the title of “leader of a nation” is dangled in front of them.  Activities like bowling and eating in a regular restaurant and cheering for the Flames. Ya know, things like that which are totally beneath them under regular circumstances, yet they’ll swallow their pride and do it to gain our favor.

As such, you have have Jay Onrait’s making the sacrifice of calling it “blogging” when in reality I’ve heard many rumors from inside sources that he would much rather call it “The pages where I impart my wisdom on you basement clowns“  (That’s an e4 by the way…)

I am totally with Mr. Onrait on this one.  Sports journalism was a perfect world until us bloggers came around and completely screwed it over!

Now it’s filled with the likes of 31 year old male hacks who didn’t have the drive or ambition to put himself through journailsim classes after high school, yet because he’s been a hockey fan since he was 6 and now has internet access and the ability to write half-witted opinion pieces he feels he can just vent about any random topic he wants, and call out Al Strachan whenever he gets the chance even though he wouldn’t have the balls to say a damn thing to say in Al’s face other than “pleasure to meet you sir” but it wouldn’t matter because Al is probably a nice guy in person and not only doesn’t know who the hell I am, but doesn’t care that I called him an idiot repeatedly because he gets the chance to see Martine Gaillard anytime he’d want while I sure as hell don’t!!

* sighs *

Anyway what I am trying to say here is the world of sports journalism was a fine, respectable one void of any major shenanigans…

Well ok, mostly void of it.

Thankfully an hour after his quasi-rant on bloggers, Jay’s attention was quickly diverted to a much more deserving topic:

Teri Hatcher looks better than she did when she started “Desperate Housewives”… better plastic surgery I guess
- Jay Onrait on Twitter (he tweets a lot!)

* whew *

We got away lucky tonight, but from here on out fellow bloggers let this be a lesson to us! We must be careful not to piss off the main stream media gods or else we’ll have to deal with Onrait again!

 

T’was the night before Free Agency…

Dearest Hockey Santa,

He really is real!

It’s your pal Art. Stars fan number 09052910.  I know this is coming to you in short notice, but I’ve kinda noticed that you don’t rush out to hand out the big names on July 1st like you used to, so I figure you’ll still have time to work on this wish list.

Look, I know last year at this time despite the fact we left you a huge bag of chcolate chip cookies and a large bottle of Dr. Pepper in the hopes that you would leave us a great free agent present for our Dallas Stars, you gave us Sean Avery and while we really didn’t wanna say anything to make you mad, we are pretty sure you dropped him on his head and broke him because he really wasn’t working right from the start so we simply had to return him to the cheap New York store you got him from.

But this is a new year right? A chance to win us over again by leaving a treat or two to help us in our quest to see the Stars win a Stanley Cup in 2009. You have a tough act to follow as the Draft Fairy had just came by to see us this past weekend and most of us agree she was pretty good to us Stars fans, but we’re sure you’re going to come through for us this weekend big guy!

Anyway on to the list. Now remember I’m not really speaking for all Stars fans as of course hockey fans are a peculiar bunch where you could get ten different people in to talk about a particular game and you may end up with ten different descriptions on how that game was won, so just add my wish list to the pile of other wish lists from Stars fans…

– We like this Jonas Gustavsson kid and would like to see him in a Stars uni and maybe give Turco a run for his money next season and light a fire under him. Plus he’d have a chance to join former teammate Fabian Brunnstrum and it’d be one more step towards that whole “Sweeden South” vision the club must have at this point.

– If ya can’t get us Gustavsson because you’re going to give him to the Leafs fans who – lets face it – need some sort of sunshine to make up for their miserable hockey lives, then we’ll take a solid backup goalie.  Ty Conkilin has been a very solid backup the last few years and hey, getting him on the team would maybe ensure a Stars date in a winter classic maybe perhaps? That Brian Boucher guy also proved to be a good backup for San Jose and Jason laBarbera always kills the Stars when he playes them, so why not bring him in?  We aren’t too picky here, we just want someone to get our old Marty motivated and playing the way he did two seasons ago.

– We’d like one Mattias Ohlund please. He’s big, physical and can still move the puck well.  We’re pretty sure you’re gonna give Zubov out to someone else, so in exchange Ohlund would be a very nice replacement.

– While we kinda hope that you don’t take Sergei Zubov away from the Stars, we are more than ready to bid goodbye (again) to Darryl Sydor.  In his place we’ll take that Jordan Leopold kid.  He too is young, can skate like the wind and also has some skill with the puck.

– And I know we don’t have that much space under the cap, but I do see that the Oilers for whatever reason are prepared to let Ales Kotalik walk away without an offer… We’d gladly take him!

As you can see Hockey Santa, our requests are simple and reasonable.  Sure the Sedins would be nice.. So would Bouwmeester.. But we know those may be asking for too much, and honestly after that whole big ticket Avery thing blew up in our face, we’d settle for simple, effective transactions that will only shake up the roster a little bit.

We’ve been very good boys and girls here and we hardly ever make fun of your head elf Gary Bettman, so I think we deserve something nice under the free agent tree on July 1.

Merry Free Agent Frenzy Day to you and Mrs. Hockey Santa! (Who I must say has been keeping some interesting company lately…)

Your pal,

Art

 

Zubie puts house up for sale… Is he as good as gone?

I wasn’t able to get to this with all the draft stuff going on and the fact I was away for the weekend (keep fighting grandpa) but this did come across my desk on Thursday – big thanks to Stars superfan Chris Wood (via his @taloncarde Twitter page) for bringing this to my attention – and I need to comment on it.

D Magazine has a section on it’s website for real estate junkies and this little tidbit titled “D Sale of the Week: Sergei’s Dallas Palace” was posted on the 25th.

3916 Marquette is the stunning home of Dallas Star’s ice hockey defenseman (and now free agent)  Sergei Alexandrovich Zubov, his wife Irina and two children. This Dallas palace was purchased in 2006 and the Zubov’s went to town decorating;  the perfectly finished-out interiors would make a Czar or Czarina give up the throne for good. There are five bedrooms, six and a half baths, a keeping room, wine cellar, den, study, media room, steam shower, outdoor covered loggia, dipping pool, kitchen.

- D Sale of the Week: Sergei’s Dallas Palace

The post does go on to mention that Zubie does have homes in New York and Florida and has for a few seasons now, but doesn’t mention that he’s planning on scaling down to a smaller home in the D.  So… Is Sergei preparing for a pay cut and thus looking to move into a cheaper set of digs in Dallas?  Or is Sergei planning on moving out of Dallas period?

I think it’s safe to say most Stars fans – myself included – are kinda hoping it’s the former and not the latter.