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...

Time for a quick update in my playoff bracket standings. After Round 1, I'm leading with 24 points. I managed to get all eight series right in terms of winners (beating all of the TSN experts ), but only predicted the exact number of games (six) in the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia series. Still, my bracket is still intact, which has to be seen as a victory. My father, Frank Bucholtz , is hot on my heels with 23 points; he picked seven out of eight series correctly, but figured that the Devils would knock off Carolina. However, he got two series exactly right: Pittsburgh in six and Washington in seven. New Queen's Journal co-editor-in-chief Mike Woods and Canadian University Press board guy extraordinaire Ricardo Bortolon are tied for third place with 19 points each. Both picked New Jersey and San Jose to advance incorrectly. Mike was dead-on on the Washington series, while Ricardo called the Detroit sweep. My mother brings up the rear with 14 points; she incorrectly picked Calg...

Here's the final post from my series of interviews for this piece for The Good Point on free agency in the NFL, featuring an extended interview with Kevin Ewoldt of the great Washington Redskins site Hogs Haven . Previous posts in this series include my interviews with Sean Yuille of Pride of Detroit and Michael Bean of Behind the Steel Curtain . My questions and Kevin's answers are below, with minor edits for clarity. I also highly recommend this recent post from his site, comparing the Redskins' front office to those of the Patriots and Colts, and this older interview with Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis about the Capitals' franchise-building philosophy and how that might translate to football. Andrew Bucholtz: Is there any free-agent signing by the Redskins over the last two decades that stands out as particularly bad to you? Did it seem like a bad idea at the time, or did it prove that way in retrospect? Kevin Ewoldt: There are a lot: Deion Sanders ...

Yesterday's news that New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella would be suspended by the league for today's Game Six against the Washington Capitals after squirting a fan with water and throwing a water bottle into the crowd [ James Mirtle , From The Rink ] was interesting, but not unique. Of course, Tortorella is famous for his temper; this video of him tearing a strip off Larry Brooks of the New York Post is hilarious, but it shows that he perhaps isn't the most controlled coach in the world. It's also worth noting that this came after he benched Sean Avery for Game Five for his own lack of control. However, the most interesting part about this story is that assistant coach/assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld is going to replace Tortorella behind the bench. Schoenfeld, of course, was famously involved in a similar situation back in the 1988 Prince of Wales Conference Finals when he was coaching the New Jersey Devils: Yep, it's that Jim Schoenfeld who confronted ...

Yes, this is a little late, but seeing James Mirtle 's playoff bracket yesterday inspired me to create my own. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as pretty, but it's functional. If you're interested in joining my bracket pool for fun, just go to Simply Sports Ware ; the pool name is SportingMadness and the password is Sporting. The pick deadline is Friday night at 7 p.m.; that will allow picks to be made after one game in every series has been played. Let's see who comes out on top! Here's my picks: Round One: West: - Vancouver over St. Louis in six games. - Anaheim over San Jose in seven games - Detroit over Columbus in six games - Chicago over Calgary in five games East: - Boston over Montreal in five games - Washington over New York in six games - Carolina over New Jersey in six games - Pittsburgh over Philadelphia in six games Round Two: West: - Vancouver over Chicago in five games - Anaheim over Detroit in six games East: - Boston over Carolina in ...