3.01.2010

The Main Event...Fatigue: 3/1

Yo, it's my weekly(ish) round-up of all things sports related! This week, I'm just going to talk briefly about USA v. Canada, Peavy and the White Sox, and the Bears. Hit the jump.



The Main Event... Fatigue: 3/1

USA/Canada: The Gold Medal Game

Man, I have no idea what happened to the US in this game. All through the Olympics they looked great, dominating teams that experts had predicted to be better than them from the beginning and anchored by some terrific play from up-and-coming superstars, like Chicago's Patrick Kane. But in the game yesterday, the best team that day won and it was not the United States. Now, I don't know what the big difference was for the U.S, but I think that it came down to either blowing out Finland or the fact that the U.S. had already succeeded in everybody's eyes led to complacency. Here's my thinking: first, they went up 6 goals against Finland in the first quarter, so pretty much from then on they didn't play any of their starters or really try for the other 40 minutes of the game before the Gold Medal game, which it probably would have helped them a lot more to play a closer contest. Secondly, the U.S was predicted to finish out of medal contention, so the fact that they even got to the Gold Medal game was a huge victory for them whereas the Canadian team would have been considered a failure if they did not win the game.

The Canadians were the best team yesterday, they played with way more heart and were flying all over the ice while the U.S seemed struggling to keep in the game (they trailed all but 30 seconds of the entire game). Not only that, but it seemed like the Americans had never even practiced overtime, since the rules for OT are different (4 on 4 instead of regular numbers on the ice) they really lost that game because they were not prepared for that eventuality. But, even though they lost, the U.S hockey team did very well, and it showed the world that America can still compete in hockey.

Jake Peavy: Great dude

So Spring Training has just started in Baseball, and already we've got some feel-good stories about the White Sox for this season. And no, I don't mean Ozzie's Twitter account (AKA the biggest Non-story in Chicago). Word has come out that Jake Peavy, new White Sox ace who got traded to the team last season, was offered the chance to start on Opening Day but turned it down so that Mark Buerhle could get the franchise record and because "This is Mark's team". Peavy is a great pitcher and here we see that he's a great guy, as with his talent he could easily have just been about the stats and trying to get a big contract but instead shows that he's a team guy. Plus, reports are out that say that Peavy is trying to talk Kenny Williams into trading to get Adrian Gonzalez from the Padres, a move that would shore up our offense and land a successor when Konerko retires. I gotta say, everything I'm hearing about Peavy has been great since he seems to be enjoying his teammates and is trying to do everything to make the White Sox the best team, which is refreshing from a superstar pitcher honestly.

The Bears: Making Chicago Winters even more depressing since 1986

After not firing their incompetant General Manager and their loser of a coach, and then not bringing in a dynamic O. Coordinator and promoting Rod Marinnelli to D. Coordinator, the Bears have announced that they are not going to "Go hog wild" in free-agency. So a team that desperately needs to win and clearly doesn't have the right talent in place is going to specifically not pay to land big-time players like Julius Peppers, Antrell Rolle, or Darren Sharper. Despite the fact that those players are marquee players who would fill holes that desperately need to be filled. I don't know why I even bother following the Bears anymore. And insult to injury: they announced that they were raising ticket prices across the board and increasing prices on parking and merchandise the day before they said that they weren't going "hog wild" on free-agents. So the fans can spend money, but god forbid if they ask the Bears to.

No comments:

Post a Comment