Sporting Madness

And here we go! Live from my living room and big-screen TV, I'm here with my compatriots in broadcasting: a plate of homemade breakfast burritos in front of me, a cup of French Vanilla coffee spiked with amaretto liqeur to my right and a bottle of Mill Street Tankhouse Ale to my left. Can't think of a better way to watch soccer than this, except perhaps live at the stadium. And the lineups: Manchester United: In goal, Van der Sar. On defence, Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra. In the middle of the park, Fletcher, Scholes, Anderson and Nani. Up front, Rooney and Tevez. Zenit St. Petersburg: Malafeev in goal, Anyukov, Krizanac, Puygrenier and Sirl on defence, Zyryanov, Tymoshchuk, Danny and Denisov in the midfield, and Dominguez and Pogrebnyak up front. looking pretty good in the midfield so far. He's a Portuguese star. What is it with these Portuguese midfielders? Ronaldo, Nani, Danny, Deco , Miguel Veloso : does the country have a monopoly on good midfielders? 12: The ga...

This is interesting. Four Trinity Western University soccer players were apparently arrested in Oregon on Saturday and charged with criminal trespass, criminal mischief, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and minor in possession of alcohol, according to a report from the Corvallis Gazette-Times [I couldn't find the original story either using their website's search function or a Google search of their site, but their archives seem to be limited, so it may not be there anymore]. I was pointed to the story by Langley Times colleague Gary Ahuja , who does a great job of covering the Spartans. His story can be found here [ The Burnaby NewsLeader , another Black Press paper that picked it up: the original Times version hasn't hit the web yet due to the newspaper's publishing schedule, but I'll add a link when it does]. The players were in Oregon to face Northwest Christian University on Friday morning, on the campus of Oregon State University. They'd origin...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging the European Super Cup match later today between Manchester United (2008 winners of the Champions League) and Zenit St. Petersburg (winners of the UEFA Cup). The match kicks off at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time (11:30 a.m. Pacific) in Monaco, and will be shown live on Fox Sports World. United stars Owen Hargreaves and Gary Neville are both expected to return to the lineup, which should be interesting to watch. United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is making his fourth Super Cup appearance and is going for his third win, a feat no manager has accomplished to date. Ferguson won the cup in 1983 with Aberdeen and in 1991 with United, but lost to Lazio with United in 1999. He's facing another coaching legend, though, Dick Advocaat of the Netherlands, so it should be a clash of titans. Hope you can join me here for it! Here's a collection of previews to prepare for the match: - "United's returning stars help add to Super focus" [Dani...

Breaking down tonight's men exhibition basketball match between Queen's and the Anderson University Ravens , a Division I NCAA school from Anderson, Indiana... The score: 91-72, Anderson. How I saw it: In person, at Bartlett Gym on the Queen's campus. The Good: - Mitch Leger: Leger starred for Queen's in their first exhibition match against Northeastern University on Monday night, pouring in 20 points and adding five rebounds in a close 69-59 defeat to a strong Huskies' squad. He delivered an even better performance tonight, notching 28 points (12-19 from the field, four of eight from the line) and ten rebounds (five offensive, five defensive). The 6'7'' Leger looks to be in strong form again this season, and he'll be a key component of this year's Gaels' team. He was named Player of the Game for his efforts. - Rob Shaw: The Gaels' veteran big man was in fine form, grabbing seven rebounds (four on the offensive glass) and notching six...

A quick breakdown of the first match of the qualifying campaign for the CONCACAF Champions League: the Montreal Impact of the USL against Nicaraguan club Real Esteli, Thursday night in Montreal... (A preview of the match can be found at CBCsports.ca ) The Score: Montreal 1, Real Esteli 0 How I saw it : On TV, but buried on bold (formerly CBC Country Canada ). The Good: - Matt Jordan: The Impact keeper looked somewhat shaky early on, but improved as the match possessed, and made several key saves. One of his best saves denied Esteli in stoppage time and preserved the win for the Impact. - Joey Gjertsen: The former Whitecap midfielder had a solid game for the Impact, and notched the only goal of the contest. The Impact weren't overly impressive on the day, but Gjertsen did well, and his goal was all they needed in the end. The Bad: - The defending: The Impact sat back too far after they scored, which only works with rock-solid defending (and not always then). Their defence sh...

And, we're back! No, I wasn't shut down by the Chinese or the IOC over last week's post : instead, the horrible duty known as "work" intervened. I flew back to Kingston today, so I had to spend most of the last week finishing up stuff at the Langley Times and completing my football previews at Out of Left Field (I did all the Western Canadian CIS teams). Thus, it was tough to get anything up here, but I've been working on a couple of posts. Here's the first one: a GBU breakdown of last Friday's Vancouver Whitecaps match against the Portland Timbers. The score: 2-1, Vancouver How I saw it: In person. The Good: - Jay Nolly: Nolly has become somewhat of an omnipresent fixture on the "Good" side of the ledger in Whitecaps games this season, due to his strong play. He turned in yet another outstanding performance in goal Friday night, and was one of the best players on the field. His most impressive save came in the 65th minute, where he d...

I was glad to hear that International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge decided to take a stand for the good of the Olympics. However, I wondered which of the many available targets he would shoot at. Would it be China's failure to live up to its promises of democratic reforms [ Amnesty International ]? Perhaps the arrest and sentencing to "re-education through labour" of those people who dared to apply for permits to protest [ Deadspin ]? The censorship of the Internet [MSNBC] sites available to journalists who had been promised open access? The massive cheat-at-all-costs campaign the Chinese have employed to win the gymnastic events with underage athletes [Juliet Macur, The New York Times ]? The rounding-up [Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online ] of Falun Gong practioners, disaffected minorities and Chinese writers who dare criticize the regime, probably to be shipped off to secret forced-labour camps [Geoffrey Clarfeld, National Post ], where they might ...

Well, here we go! Apologies for the delay in getting the first posts up: the Internet gremlins seem to have returned with a vengeance, so I had to write these offline and fire them up later again. First half: 0: The match is indeed being shown on TSN, if any Canadians out there are near a TV and want to watch it. Here's the starting lineups: Brazil: Renan in goal, Rafinha, Alex Silva, Marcelo and Breno at the back, Hernanes, Anderson, Lucas, Ronaldinho and Diego in midfield, Rafael Sorbis as the lone striker. Argentina: Sergio Romero in goal, Ezequiel Garay, Luciano Monzon, Pablo Zabaleta and Nicolas Pareja at the back, Fernando Gago, Juan Riquelme, Angel Di Maria and Javier Mascherano in midfield, Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero up front. 5: Not much action to speak of so far: both sides seem to be feeling each other out cautiously. 8: The Brazilians create a few early chances, with some solid runs forward by Rafinha. 10: A good break for Argentina, and they manage to earn a cor...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging tomorrow morning's men's Olympic soccer semifinal between Brazil and Argentina. It should be a great clash of South American superstars, with Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi going head-to-head. Here's an excellent preview of both semifinals (the other, earlier one features Belgium and Nigeria) from ESPN Soccernet 's Jeff Carlisle. The Brazil-Argentina match starts at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. Pacific). It may be on TSN: they say they're showing one of the semifinals, but don't mention which one. In any case, it will certainly be on CBC's digital streaming coverage (www.cbc.ca/olympics), and it will be here as well, gremlins permitting.

Sunday Night Lights Photo: The Vancouver Whitecaps take on the Puerto Rico Islanders Sunday night under the lights at Burnaby's Swangard Stadium. The match ended 0-0. [Andrew Bucholtz photo]. Breaking down yesterday night's match for USL supremacy, featuring the second-place Vancouver Whitecaps and the top-of-the-league Puerto Rico Islanders... The score: 0-0 How I saw it: In person The Good: -Jay Nolly: The Whitecaps' keeper continued his outstanding season with another stellar performance, including several diving saves, key interceptions of crosses and corner kicks, and a couple of crucial stops on potential breakaways. -Alfredo Valente: Valente had a solid game on the wing for the Whitecaps, creating several quality chances with his speed and crossing ability. His crosses weren't always exactly on the mark, but on balance, he turned in a strong performance. -Luca Bellisomo: The SFU product came on for Lyle Martin in the 63rd minute and demonstrated again that...

What a way to go. The Canadians came so close to beating the U.S. in today's Olympic baseball game, and held a 4-0 lead at one point. In the end, they lose 5-4 after some bad pitching and a couple of poor fielding plays. The brutal thing was how it ended, though, with Canadian legend Stubby Clapp at the plate. Clapp, the man who had to fight the Astros just to get here, the veteran whose key hitting and fielding inspired many Canadian baseball fans, playing in possibly one of the last games of his career. Once more, Canada was counting on him to get the job done after the rest of their bats came up short, and this time, he couldn't come through to save the day. You know his spirit was willing, but sometimes the aging bodies just can't do what you need them to. It was so close to being a tremendous comeback, though. Matt Rogelsted flied out on the first at-bat of the night, but catcher Chris Robinson singled to right, and Brett Lawrie was brought in as a quicker pinch-runner...

Photo: Natasha Kai celebrates her game-winning goal against Canada with teammate Amy Rodriguez (left). [Photo from the New York Daily News ]. I've already posted a more thorough recap of this morning's Canada-U.S. Olympic soccer match over at Out of Left Field , but I figured I'd do a quick GBU breakdown here. The Score: United States 2, Canada 1 in extra time. How I Saw It: On the tube. The Good: -Karina LeBlanc: LeBlanc has been the backup keeper to Erin McLeod for quite some time now, but she showed no rust when called upon after McLeod was injured early on. LeBlanc made several tremendous saves for Canada, including at least two on breakaways and one diving one-handed stop right in front of the goal line. Given the amount of quality chances the Americans had, LeBlanc was a huge reason that the Canadians were even able to take the game to extra time. She only allowed one goal, which came on a six-yard Natasha Kai header that was unstoppable by any mortal keeper...

Well, here we are with the promised Canada – U.S. quarterfinal liveblog. Apologies for the late posting of the first few entries: the technical gremlins from last time returned to eat my Internet connection, so I had to write the first 20 minutes or so offline and post it once I got the connection working. First half: 0: It looks like a miserable day out in Shanghai: the rain is pouring down and the pitch appears rather a bloody mess. Some notes on formations from the official start list : it looks like the U.S. has opted to play defensive with a 4-5-1, while Canada counters with a 3-4-3. The lone American striker is Amy Rodriguez, who's just 21. Here's the starting lineups: U.S.: Hope Solo in goal, Heather Mitts, Christie Rampone (wearing the captain's armband), Kate Markgraf and Lori Chalupny on defence, Lindsay Tarpley, Shannon Boxx, Heather O'Reilly, Carli Lloyd and Angela Hucles in midfield, and Amy Rodriguez up front. Canada: Erin McLeod in the net, with Emily Zur...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging the women's soccer Olympic quarterfinal between Canada and the U.S tomorrow morning. Kick-off is at 5:49 a.m. Eastern (2:49 a.m. Pacific). My preview of the game is up over at Out of Left Field . Hope to see you here then!

The whole kerfuffle around the Olympics' lip-synching switch, pre-taped fireworks and "volunteer fans"–which got a nice front-page expose from Bruce Arthur in the National Post this morning-better reveals the true nature of the Beijing Olympics and China than most of the coverage so far. If you're one of the five people living under a rock somewhere who hasn't yet heard about this, here's the basic run-down. During the opening ceremonies, the Chinese featured a song entitled "Ode to the Motherland" that was sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, but lip-synched live by nine-year-old Lin Miaoke because Yang's face was apparently too round and her teeth were too crooked. Not content with this masterpiece of propaganda, they then inserted pre-taped fireworks footage into the montage of live fireworks to add to the event and sent in volunteer cheer squads to fill some of the empty seats. This trifecta of deceptive maneuverings shows us plenty about C...