Well…I wonder what I’m going to do on the weekends when soccer and football are over? Today started out well with Wolves and Leictester City going at it in a really good game and Wolves winning it 4-3 in the last minute of stoppage time…very entertaining….and now we have Man U playing Brighton and Man U has started out okay but no score yet…then we have Michigan trying to keep their unbeaten streak going in basketball against Wisconsin at noon…and then the NFL playoffs later in the aft…so, I’ve got a day of less boredom than normal and that really is something to look forward to…and, next weekend is the 24 hours of Daytona that I hope I have the channels to watch…so, for at least the next two weekends, I have something do…along with riding as soon as the parts get here…so, back to sports…more later…
Category Archives: Sports
A new day starts….Jose Mourinho is gone…
Well…as you know, I have vented my frustration with how Manchester United has been playing this year with it’s worst start in 28 years and no hope of getting to the Champions League next year. Today, though, we Red Devils fans got a Christmas gift with the sacking of Jose Mourinho as manager and I say it has been way too long coming. Under Mourinho, Man U has looked an ordinary team for more than a year even with all of the talent they have and the money they have spent…Jose turned them into a plodding, ugly team to watch and every game has left us guessing what team is going to show up…and I put that squarely on the manager…now, there is plenty of blame to go around and much of it is the players themselves who seem to be phoning it in at times and I’m not sure if it was conflict with Jose or what but maybe, just maybe we can have some hope to see our Man U team be Man U again…it will be interesting anyway….
Maybe the Wings are for real?
Well…getting up so early has it’s drawbacks in that I already have all the online papers read and it’s only 7:30…so I thought I’d come back here and talk a little bit about the Red Wings. They have been under the radar so far this season…for me anyway, with playing pretty terribly over the first ten games where they only won one game…but, there has been something happening with them over the past two weeks where they have won 5 of 6 games and have been competing with the teams that are going to make the playoffs…one of the things that might be a concern…and is to me, is that they have come from behind in every one of the wins…and three of the wins have been either in OT or shootouts and that is not a path to success in the league. Still, last night’s game was pretty exciting with the winning goal coming with 5.4 seconds left in OT and I guess a win is a win….and now I think I may need to follow them more closely…was hoping that the young guys would step up and at least make them credible…and they are starting to…and there is much more talent just waiting in GR so maybe the playoffs are not too big a stretch? Hope so….Let’s Go Red Wings!
Let’s go Red Wings!
Well….another fall comes and another Red Wings season starts tonight and I am going to admit that I am still excited when a new season starts even though they have missed the playoffs the past two years. That excitement is tempered this year by the retirement of Henrik Zetterberg who has been my guy since he came into the league in 2002 and has made me some money betting on who would score the next goal over the years…but, I am glad that he is going out on his own terms and is thinking about his health and the rest of his life…I am going to miss him but maybe there will be one of the youngsters that will step up and provide the excitement that Hank did over his career…we can hope. The boys have looked good through the preseason but we all know that really doesn’t mean much and the season is a long grind….the one thing I can say right now is that we are undefeated and I will be watching…and will be breaking my no cocktail policy for tonight…Let’s Go Red Wings!
184 mph…on a bicycle…
Well….read this article last week and forgot to comment on it until now….and WOW! Just frickin WOW! Earlier this summer, a 45 year old woman smashed the bicycle world speed record of 167 mph by riding her bike on the Bonneville salt flats at 184 mph…yep, you saw that right…184 mph with nothing but her legs providing the power…kind of makes my top speed of 42 mph downhill kind of silly…I have followed this record setting since I was a youngster and just the coordination between the pace car and the rider is amazing…she had the wind broken by a converted top fuel dragster since the cars used for other records just weren’t fast enough…all I can say is congratulations…what a feat….
Evel live….
Well….have had a lazy day today and just saw something that might be interesting to watch tonight…not sure if you know who Travis Pastrana is but he is a pretty famous motocross racer…has been on the “Xgames” quite a bit and tonight, he is going to try to re-create Evel Knievel’s three most famous jumps live on the History channel at 7…he is going to try to jump over 50 cars, 19 buses, and the Ceasar’s Palace fountain that Evel almost killed himself jumping…I remember seeing that jump live on “ABC’s Wild World of Sports” when I was a kid….well… not a kid but a lot younger than I am now…and he is even going to do the jumps on a comparable motorcycle…a big twin Indian that weighs twice Pastrana’s normal bike. So, that’s what I’ll be doing at 7 tonight…I know with the technology and preparation, there is little chance that he will crash doing these stunts but it will still be cool to watch….
And, I have leftover cocktail materials for it…yay!
A little more World Cup…
Well…just watched a stunning match with my guys from Belgium knocking off Brazil 2-1 and I actually stood up and cheered when the final whistle blew…and that leaves my two teams still in it…at least until tomorrow when England plays Sweden early in the morning…Belgium went up 2-0 in the first half but the Brazil just kept throwing attack after attack at them….and scored a goal at around 75 minutes to make the rest of the match pretty nerve wracking….this is the best word cup that I have seen since I started watching them in 1994 when the US hosted them…. and my guys from Man U, Lukaku and Fellaini were terrific all day…I’m still smiling…
Having some problems…
Well…no, nothing really serious…even with everything that is going on in the world, I just am having some problems figuring out a topic for today…and that started yesterday as you can see. Oh, okay…let’s talk about the world cup…have been watching quite a few of the games and there have been a lot of surprises…my adopted team from Mexico beat the Germans yesterday and that was not supposed to happen…the Germans looked slow and like they had no ideas how to cope with Mexico’s fast break and energetic defense that challenged every ball for the entire 90 minutes…I’ll surely be rooting for them the rest of the tournament. Another big surprise was when another favorite, Argentina, was tied by Iceland…yep, you heard that right, Iceland tied the powerhouse Argentina and Messi looked pretty ordinary for the best player in soccer…I am a little disappointed that England is playing this aft just when I’ll be shooting pool but they may have a replay somewhere later so I’ll have to look for that…okay, Belgium and Panama is almost ready to start so I’ll end here and try to find something political to write about later….
This is what’s wrong with Nascar…
Well…I’m a little tired of the political stuff right now with the drunken Godzilla trump crashing into everything and destroying the world, so I think I’ll talk a little about Nascar. I used to be a big fan of the series but lately the moves they have been making with rule changes is ruining the racing…and you can see that in the shrinking crowds at every track and the dropping tv ratings. It used to be that there was innovation when people were allowed to use their brains to get an advantage over the rest of the racers…but now, the rules are so strict that every car is exactly the same as the rest and all of the engineers and mechanics spend all their time making sure the body is not a thousandth of an inch off. Now they are even going to make things worse by introducing restrictor plates to more tracks than just Talledega and Daytona….if they do this, why do they need professional drivers at all if you can just hold the gas pedal to the floor and get around the track? Cripes..I could even drive one of them if they do that. With the shrinking crowds, I think they should just bar spectators from the big tracks and then unrestrict the engines of the cars that run there…after all, Bill Elliot ran a 212 MPH lap all the way back in 1988 and with today’s technology, they could race at 220…now that I would watch….one more thing I think they should do is, instead of mandating every damn thing down to the thousandth of an inch, there should be a range that the cars could fit in…say a range of 1-4 inches for the rear spoiler…of a range for ride height…you get the idea…and differing engine sizes…run a smaller one that gets better mileage or a bigger one with more power….the cars they have now are just spec cars that have killed the public’s interest…at least it has killed mine…
Holy Crap!
Well…just watched one of the best games I’ve seen Man U play this year where they beat Man City 3-2 after being behind by 2-0 at the half. I even turned it off since Man U looked so crappy in the first half and it looked like they were going to be humiliated by 4 or 5 goals….but then I had to look to see how bad it had gotten and Man U had tied it in the first 10 minutes of the 2nd…and they went ahead a few minutes later with a gorgeous volley by Chris Smalling…not a goal scorer by any means since he is a defenseman. This was pretty damn cool and makes me have some hope for a championship next year…City will still win it this year, but it is so great that Man U didn’t let them win it on them….