Sporting Madness

Much has been made [ David Shoalts , The Globe and Mail ] of this afternoon's upcoming Game I tilt between Alexander Ovechkin 's Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby 's Pittsburgh Penguins as a ready-made marketer's dream for the NHL. Hopes are high, and many seem to feel that this kind of matchup between two of the league's brightest stars could be a breakthrough moment for hockey in the U.S. There are some aspects that favour that idea, as both stars toil in reasonably large media markets where there isn't much else going on at the moment; both cities have atrocious baseball teams and Washington's NBA team didn't make the playoffs, while Pittsburgh lacks an NBA team completely and Pennsylvania's lone NBA team was just eliminated [ Howard Beck , The New York Times ]. If this series is going to draw in the viewers, though, it will have to start with a strong first game. Fortunately for the NHL, they've been able to get this game off of the obs...

Two stories on the Globe and Mail 's website only hours apart give rather different takes on this year's Grey Cup viewership. The headline for the story from The Canadian Press is "Cup audience increases five per cent", while the headline for William Houston 's column is "Small audience tunes in to Grey Cup Game" (game really shouldn't be capitalized, but so be it). The ledes are also rather different, as shown below: CP: "An average of 3.65 million people tuned in to watch the first-ever Grey Cup broadcast on TSN and RDS on Sunday, according to numbers released by the network. The total audience for Calgary's win over Montreal in the 96th Grey Cup represented a five per cent increase over the viewership for last year's game, which Saskatchewan won over Winnipeg. That game was aired on CBC." Houston: "TSN's first Grey Cup telecast drew one of the lowest television audiences in the history of the CFL championship game. Th...

Photo: A screen capture of SI's original Tim Donaghy story from beRecruited . Well, the NBA has managed to find a way to blow it yet again. The Tim Donaghy scandal had almost died down, and all of a sudden, the league starts demanding $1 million he doesn't have in restitution. In response, Donaghy's lawyers file letters and documents with the sentencing court alleging that officials altered the outcome of at least two specific games or playoff rounds: Game Six of the Los Angeles Lakers - Sacramento Kings Western Finals clash in 2002 and the Houston Rockets - Dallas Mavericks series in 2005.As respected ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson writes , accusations that easily could have stayed quiet have now become a dark shadow cutting to the very heart of the league. "Donaghy's sentencing is scheduled for July 14. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison for conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. In the usual...

(Photo from SLAM Online ) The end of tonight's Spurs-Lakers clash featured a use of the Stern Button (credit for which goes to the brilliant Matt McHale of Basketbawful ) if I've ever seen one. The Spurs were down by two with a couple seconds left, grabbed the ball under their own basket and quickly called timeout, giving them possession in Lakers' territory. Robert Horry inbounds the ball to Brent Barry, who is in excellent position for a three, but can't get it off cleanly while receiving a flying elbow to the head from one Derek Fisher of the Lakers. He still chucks it up at the buzzer, expecting the foul, but then turns in disbelief to see the officials with their whistles already returned to their jewel-encrusted cases in preparation for the trip to L.A. for Game Five, perhaps subtly prompted by a couple shocks from the Stern Button. Now, instead of a 2-2 series where anything could happen, the Lakers have an almost insurmountable 3-1 lead, and Emperor Palpatine, ...