Sporting Madness

Just a quick note that today's edition of Premier League Punditry will be at 6 p.m. Eastern instead of the usual 1:30 p.m. due to work commitments. I'll be hosting, and Amrit and Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog will be joining me. Come talk all things soccer with us!

Neate has some interesting thoughts on the newspaper industry over at Out of Left Field , particularly with relation to an online subscription-based model either through cable companies or done as a standalone (as Newsday is trying [ Steven Musil , CNET). I don't think this is the way to go, though. For one thing, subscriptions are untenable if free alternatives are offered, so you'd have to get all the papers on board (nigh to impossible) and others would certainly start free alternatives of their own to challenge this. Furthermore, bringing in subscriptions would generate some new revenue, but it would also lower your traffic numbers and thus either your online advertising rates or the number of ads you're able to sell. In my view, this would mean that going to subscriptions would either have a minimal effect or even a negative one on the bottom line. For me, the solution is a traditional one with a couple of new elements. Make all the content free; this increases the ...

A quick note that Queen's men's volleyball outside hitter Joren Zeeman was selected as a second-team All-Canadian tonight. Zeeman was named the CIS Rookie of the Year last season and was even better this year; he was the primary weapon in the Gaels' arsenal and led them to the OUA Final . He'll be one to watch in the years to come. I have the full list of All-Canadians and award winners over at The CIS Blog with some more detailed analysis.

It's the first leg of the Champions League battle between Inter Milan and Manchester United, and you know it's going to be epic! Join in the fun in the live blog below! Manchester United - Inter Milan

As a public service to all you Canadians who don't have TSN2 and don't feel like watching curling this afternoon (and anyone else who can't watch the game, or even those who can and want some text to accompany the visuals), I'm planning to live blog this afternoon's Champions League match between Manchester United and Inter Milan. Feel free to drop on by and join in in the comments! The game is at 2:30; we'll be live right around then, barring technical difficulties.

Everyone and their sister seems to have joined the Twitterati recently, including Steve Nash , Shaq , Will Leitch and Jeff Blair . Normally, I try to resist jumping on the bandwagon, but I saw quite a bit of potential in what Neate has been doing with his feed , especially the links. I'm a long-established fan of throwing out links , but haven't had a lot of time to write those kind of detailed posts recently, so this seems like a good way to get those out along with a few quick observations here and there that I don't have time for an entire post on. Thus, I'll be adding the Twitter feed to the right-hand bar for the time being. We'll see how it develops; feel free to e-mail (andrew_bucholtz at hotmail dot com) or tweet me suggestions on what to do with the feed!

Thanks to Mike Grobe of Queen's Athletics, I came across the 3 minute clip highlighting the Queen's-RMC rivalry that aired on CBC Saturday during their Hockey Day in Canada coverage. It's pretty good; some creative camera shots of both universities, a bit of footage from the old-time reenactment and plenty of coverage from this year's Carr-Harris Cup , including pre-game speeches by Queen's head coach Brett Gibson and RMC head coach Adam Shell , as well as interviews with the likes of Gibson, Paul Bradley , Grant Horvath , Bill Fitsell and David Carr-Harris . You can find it at http://www.cbc.ca/sports/ondemand/ by searching "RMC": only the right clip will show up that way. Unfortunately, I can't embed it or link to it directly, but it's still definitely worth a look. Kudos to CBC on a job well done on this segment, especially without a lot of airtime to work with.

Welcome to today's edition of Premier League Punditry! The EPL got back into full swing this week, so there's lots to talk about. Manchester United pulled off a 2-1 win over a very impressive Blackburn Rovers side Saturday to go eight points clear at the top of the league, and Liverpool could only close the gap by one point today with a draw against Manchester City . The classic line from that story is "United will have relished this performance by their neighbours, which could have given the crown to the Old Trafford club." I bet a lot of City fans are happy about that one;). Andrei Arshavin made his Arsenal debut Saturday, but couldn't help his team past Sunderland, and they only came away with one point from a 0-0 draw . Meanwhile, Chelsea recorded their first win under Guus Hiddink with a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa. For plenty of other EPL news and commentary, as well as perhaps some stuff on MLS expansion and my 24th Minute piece on Vancouver's bi...

I just finished a long exploration of Vancouver's MLS chances (specifically regarding the B.C. Place plans) over at The 24th Minute : might be worth a look for any of you interested in the Whitecaps or MLS expansion. Feel free to leave comments for me there or here, or shoot me an e-mail at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail dot com. We can also discuss it tomorrow on Premier League Punditry (starting at 1:30 p.m. as always) if there's interest.

It's Queen's and McMaster for all the marbles once again! Live from Hamilton, join me in the live blog below. Volleyball OUA Final live blog

I’ll be live-blogging Game II of the OUA men’s volleyball finals tonight between Queen’s and McMaster. The game starts at 7. It’s also going to be webcast on SSN Canada . McMaster won Round I pretty handily [myself, Queen’s Journal ] on Tuesday, so it will be interesting to see if the Gaels can bounce back and force a third match on Saturday. McMaster’s only lost one match at home (regular-season and playoffs) in the past two seasons, though, so it’s not going to be easy. The key players and aspects to watch are detailed below. For Queen’s: Joren Zeeman: When Zeeman’s hot, he’s almost unstoppable. He was the CIS rookie of the year last year and earned Queen’s lone OUA first-team all-star nod this season. He led the team with 209 kills this year. He also had 16 kills in their win over Waterloo Saturday and another 19 kills on 36 attempts against McMaster Tuesday. Queen’s is likely to go to him early and often. Jeff DeMeza: DeMeza brings five years of experience to the table and can ...

Continuing in the vein of "high school classmates who are more successful than me", it was announced yesterday that my former high school volleyball teammate Gabe DeGroot earned the OUA libero of the year award [ Guelph Mercury ]. That's very impressive, as he's a CIS rookie. Before going to Guelph, Gabe was playing at King's College out in Edmonton (where other former Fraser Valley Christian players Joel VanHuizen and David Triemstra are still on the team ). I ran into him earlier this year before a Gaels-Gryphons game and he said he was recruited by Guelph head coach Cal Wigston for his play in the college league; goes to show that you can find some quality talent in unconventional places. More impressive still is how well Gabe's adjusted to playing libero; I'm not sure where he was playing at King's, but he was primarily a setter with our high school team. It's great to see him come in and make an immediate impact in OUA volleyball, and acc...

A quick note that we will be live with today's edition of Premier League Punditry in just under an hour. Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog will be here as usual, but Amrit is lying on a beach in Mexico, so Ben Knight , one of Canada's pre-eminent soccer writers (currently of Onward! Soccer , formerly of The Globe and Mail and Sportsnet.ca ) will be filling in for him. There's only a bit of Premier League action to talk about, but there's plenty of other stuff going on in the world of European soccer between the FA Cup, Guus Hiddink 's takeover at Chelsea, rumours of Avram Grant to Portsmouth , Real Madrid possibly preparing for another run at Cristiano Ronaldo , Jose Mourinho vowing to return Douglas MacArthur -style and David Beckham supposedly coming back to MLS ( or is he ?). [All stories above from ESPN Soccernet ] The plan is to cover some MLS and Canadian soccer topics as well, including the Ottawa stadium debate , Toronto ...

This story from Alana G (via TrueHoop ) is hilarious, but frightening. As most probably know, the NBA is holding its All-Star weekend in Phoenix over the next few days. Reporter Niki D'Andrea of the Phoenix New-Times wrote a cover story about a "tattoo cap" on NBA players that commissioner David Stern was supposedly thinking of implementing, which turned out to be based off a satirical story by author/blogger Con Chapman which was republished on his community blog page at Fox Sports. D'Andrea explains her rationale in a blog post here : "Though our knee-jerk reaction to the tattoo cap story was that it might be a joke, what it touted seemed possible. Commish Stern had already instituted a business-casual dress code for NBA players going to and from games -- in an attempt to thwart a trend toward hop-hop attire among some players. Also, Suns players we interviewed thought the tat cap story was true and complained about the alleged plan in our article. Cal...

In tribute to the awesomeness that is former NHLer and current Florida Panthers play-by-play man Randy Moller and his pop-culture references after goal celebrations [ Greg Wyshynski , Puck Daddy ], here's a list of the top 10 other references I'd love to hear in Florida games, followed by a list of top 10 references that could be used more generically. Good for Moller for having some fun with the game. Video's embedded below after the lists; feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments! Florida games: 10. " Horton beats Brodeur with a slap shot! Have another donut , you fat pig!" 9. " Campbell scores! How 'bout a painting of that one, Warhol ! 8. " Lang 's carrying the puck through centre and loses it to Bouwmeester . Here comes Bouwmeester flying in all alone, and he beats Price with a low stick-side blast to give the Panthers the win! Jay and Silent Bob strike back !" 7. " McLean scores against Mason ! And that's t...

Few things during my time at Queen's have depressed me more than finding out yesterday [myself and Emily Davies , Queen's Journal ] that the dream of a new hockey arena on Main Campus was all but dead. Sure, they've been talking about it for a while and there are some financial benefits (although no one I talked to yesterday could confirm if those numbers are still accurate), but for me, the arena was always one of the big selling points of the Queen's Centre. New gyms and student space are great, but the sports experience I probably miss more than anything else here were the Friday night hockey games at Jock Harty I'd go to with my buddies from the dorm floor back in first year. There was great student support, beer gardens and just generally a tremendous atmosphere. I've been to plenty of great Queen's hockey games since, including this past weekend's Carr-Harris Cup , but it's never been quite the same; even though the Memorial Centre is a good...

Friend of the blog Norman James of A-Channel London has posted his interview with OHL hockey phenom John Tavares on his site . It's definitely worth a look.

Welcome to today's edition of Premier League Punditry, as usual featuring myself and Amrit and Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog . Plenty to talk about this week, including Manchester United's 3-month streak of clean sheets in the league, Arsenal's draw with Tottenham , Jo 's amazing success in his first match for Everton, Chelsea's draw with Hull and Liverpool's 3-2 win over Portsmouth [all links from the excellent ESPN Soccernet ]. Join us in the live blog below! Premier League Punditry 02-08-09

It should be a classic clash tonight between Queen's and RMC for Kingston CIS hockey supremacy. More than just bragging rights is on the line, though; the winner takes home the Carr-Harris Cup, and the Gaels likely need two points to keep their playoff hopes alive. Currently, they're tied with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees for the final OUA East playoff berth, but Ottawa has two games in hand. Join me in the live blog below for all the action! Queen's hockey: the Carr-Harris Cup!

Join me in the live blog below! Queen's - Ryerson Men's Hockey 02-06-09

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging Queen's men's hockey games here both Friday and Saturday. The Gaels face 4-20-1 Ryerson Friday night and then take on 7-16-2 RMC Saturday in the annual Carr-Harris Cup. Both games are at 7:30 p.m. at the Memorial Centre, and both are likely to prove rather important for the OUA playoff picture. Queen's (10-13-2) is one point behind Ottawa for the final OUA East playoff spot. We'll see if interim captain Billy Burke can continue his streak; he's notched 2 goals in each of the last three games. Check tomorrow's Journal for a piece by Julie Stewart-Binks on Tuesday's win over Carleton and a profile of Burke by Anand Srivastava , and then come join the live blog tomorrow night!

And here's my piece on why Pittsburgh will win today: If life was a Hollywood story, there's no question that the Arizona Cardinals would take today's game. Their unlikely playoff run feels like it should be on the silver screen, and the revitalization of Kurt Warner could be turned into any number of movies. This is reality, though, and the Cardinals are long past due for turning into pumpkins. That's not to underestimate Arizona. They've proven to be a very capable team in these playoffs, and much more dangerous than their regular-season performance would indicate. They have the great quarterback play from Warner and the tremendous ability of Larry Fitzgerald at wide receiver, and they'll certainly be in this game. They won't win it, though, and that's because they're a one-dimensional team. The Steelers can hurt you in a variety of different ways. Their defence is terrific against the run and the pass, and their zone blitz means that you never k...

Here's Mike's piece on why he thinks Arizona will win today's game: According to today’s New York Times, Kurt Warner wears number 13 to show that his spirituality overrides any need to be superstitious. If that isn’t enough to convince anyone of the Cardinals’ impending victory tonight, then it’s tough to know what else to say. In last year’s Super Bowl, Andrew wrote in the Journal that if the New York Giants played their best possible game and the Patriots faltered as they hadn’t before, the Giants had a chance to win. I countered that the game wasn’t even worth watching, since the 18-0 Patriots would run roughshod all over them. We all know what happened next, and I’ve been eating my words ever since. Even though analysis of every statistic and match-up flew in the face of a New York victory, the Giants managed to pull it out. This year’s Cardinals increasingly remind me of last year’s Giants. They’ve shown that with a quarterback who’s on his game (Manning or Warner), a...

In just a few hours, the Pittsburgh Steelers will take to the field in Tampa Bay to try and win a record sixth Super Bowl title against the Arizona Cardinals. I’ve long been a Steelers fan, and these past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I support the team. There are plenty of great reasons including the history of success, the focus on coaching continuity and smashmouth defence and the tremendous players who have worn the black and gold over the years. However, sometimes you’re defined as much by what you’re not as what you are. The brilliant Joe Posnanski wrote one of the quintessential pieces on the Steelers for the Kansas City Star after their win over the Ravens. Here’s the first paragraph, which really cuts to the core of this franchise. Football is violence. It’s easy to forget that sometimes, easy to start believing that football is about other more pleasant things, that it is about coaching and strategy and star quarterbacks and fabulous catches and touch...

Join us in the live blog below! Premier League Punditry 02-01-09