Other Sports

Rockin’ For Rice – Be there

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This evening marks the day of a very special event here in Buffalo. Rockin’ For Rice will kickoff at 6:30 (doors) and showcase four local bands to help benefit the Alix Rice Peace Park Foundation. Tickets are only $20. You can get them on Tickets.com, Phatman or at Town Ballroom. As the information below will show you, there will be plenty of reasons to come out. Hopefully I’ll see you there.

(Rockin’ For Rice)

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Sportscenter 2.0

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Where are you Mackenzie McHale? ESPN needs you.

As each month passes, I feel like the content produced by ESPN edges closer to a skewed, rating-driven approach as compared to balanced sports coverage. You can see why this would be a problem for a station dubbed as the “Worldwide Leader in Sports”, no?

I’m sure she wouldn’t let Tebow in the rundown.

Perhaps there is some brazen American woman with a sexy accent (due to her British upbringing) who is concerned with actually providing sports news to sports fans, as opposed to much of what ESPN does on a daily basis.

It should be noted that this has little to do with ESPN’s hockey coverage. While their hunger for ratings is obviously what has kept the station away from acknowledging the sport even exists at the professional level, this isn’t just about that.

The continued employment and use of Skip Bayless, consistent coverage of a below-average quarterback who is expected to be a backup this season. Factor in the embarrassment that was “The Decision” and the laser focus given to singular players or teams as compared to the entire sport, and you see what ESPN has become.

They aren’t all bad, of course. Their ensemble analyst casts on College Gameday kills it every week, the NFL crew isn’t the worst setup of all the networks (see Sharpe, Shannon) and the other specific analysts do a phenomenal job. Whether you’re talking baseball, basketball or anything else. Factor in their new devotion to soccer and there is room for a winning recipe here.

It is the tabloid-level crap that needs to be scrubbed from existence. When Skip Bayless isn’t lying about his history as an athlete, he is drumming up arguments based less on fact and more on radical opinions. That, of course, is his job. But there isn’t much real sports talk occurring every time he pollutes the airwaves. Continue reading →

Armstrong’s white flag should change nothing

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As someone who has been such a huge fan of Lance Armstrong for so many years, last night was a tough pill to swallow.

Lance Armstrong probably lost a lot of fans with the statement he decided to release yesterday. While there was no admission of guilt in the 800+ words, there was an admission of surrender. His decision to stop his fight against those who have long accused him of doping has opened the door for quite a bit of scrutiny.

Sorry, Travis. You can’t change that.

This changes nothing for me, of course. In 1999 I cared little about what a bicycle did besides taking me from a-to-b. By the end of his seven-year run I actually cared about the Tour de France and held Armstrong as one of the athletes that I have a supreme admiration for. That admiration will remain, no matter what Travis Tygart says.

As nearly every commentary on Armstrong’s decision has indicated, his decision to quit or give up on something seems strange. As someone who has always fought back and persevered, It was safe to assume the word quit was not in his vocabulary.

It is very encouraging to see so many sports writers proclaiming his legacy will not be tarnished, regardless of the titles that are to be stripped from him. What Armstrong has done physically, mentally and for others is unparalleled and no lawyer or drug administration can take that away from him.

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Tape delayed coverage a necessary evil

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The choice made by NBC to run most elite events from the 2012 London Games in primetime on tape delay has caused an uproar with just about everyone.

However, the choice that NBC has made is a necessary one based on the time difference between London and the United States. Not offering any sort of tape delay coverage would be more infuriating to American fans than showing our athletes participate in events that had been decided hours previously.

It is simple math. London is six hours ahead of the US, most US citizens are at work between 11 am and 4 pm when the vast majority of Olympic events will be taking place. Once US primetime rolls around, it is 1 am in London. This is not a good recipe for live television. Of course, sports are always better enjoyed live, rather than in a microwave.

The problem that NBC has run into is two-fold. The obvious spoiler card is in play every day of the Olympics as major events are being decided while most American sports fans are surfing the net or trolling Twitter as opposed to working. Secondly, their coverage has begun to run over events that have yet to be fully televised at times.

The most cardinal of all NBC’s sins was running the Missy Franklin Today Show promo minutes prior to her first gold medal race. In case you missed it, the promo was all about Franklin’s first gold medal and celebrating with her family. This is the same medal most were sitting down to watch her win once the commercial break ended.

Of course that is a major gaffe, but something that surely won’t be repeated. What I think has hurt NBC’s coverage is the fact that they aren’t showing many of the premier events live. Continue reading →

2ITB Bucket List: Frozen Diamond Faceoff

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There is definitely something fascinating about walking into an open-air stadium to watch a hockey game. The same can be said about simply playing the game outdoors. But watching a game has a very unique feel to it.

I was afforded the opportunity to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines play on an ice rink erected down the first base line of Progressive Field (Jacob’s Field). The Frozen Diamond Faceoff was part of a larger event hosted by the Cleveland Indians called Indians Snow Days. The Snow Days celebration included a large tubing hill built in left field and basically the frozen equivalent of a lazy river. The centerpiece of everything was, of course, the ice rink.

Since my only other outdoor hockey game came at the 2008 Winter Classic, I won’t bother trying to compare the two events. They are apples and zebras. However, considering what the Indians did for the game, I was quite impressed with the overall result.

The Indians did a great job maximizing the spectator experience, providing quality entertainment and finding an attractive matchup for a city who has a strong hockey community but little allegiance to the higher levels of the game. Continue reading →

Accuscore app – A must have

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The smartphone is a wonderful thing. I hadn’t really understood the full benefits of said device until I finally broke down and purchased an iPhone. Now the entire second page of apps is devoted to 2ITB, fantasy football and other sports applications.

One application I’m happy to have been turned on to is the Accuscore app. It is a free application that offers sports forecasting on every major sport. This includes the NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA in addition to College football and basketball. The app includes the forecasted winner, winning percentage for both teams, forecasted player statistics, real-time alerts and one free tip per day that projects margin of victory, total points scored in the game and who will win.

Have I mentioned that this is free? Continue reading →

UB joins CCHA conversation with Canisius, Niagara

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Suddenly the college hockey scene in Buffalo is exploding.

Nick Veronica first broke the story about a joint venture between the Sabres and Canisius to build a rink for the Golden Griffins and Sabres to share. That story has continued to gain momentum recently as Veronica has kept abreast to the situation.

In addition, news also broke that Canisius and Niagara could be part of a coalition to part ways with Atlantic Hockey to join the recently fractured CCHA. Mercyhurst and Robert Morris were the other two schools in on the original conversation. Continue reading →

ESPN dropped the ball

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Yesterday was a tough day for the hockey world. There have been countless hours and words devoted to the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv tragedy. One thing that really bothered me yesterday was the lack of coverage that ESPN seemed to be giving to this matter.

Of course, I couldn’t watch SportsCenter, but numerous tweets said that the top story on the sports news show was Peyton Manning being ruled out for Sunday’s game. ESPN considered that breaking news. Funny, I knew he wasn’t playing in this game two weeks ago. Add to that the fact that their website hadn’t been updated with the story. It was buried on the sidebar on the NHL page, but nowhere to be found on the homepage.

Thrashing the Blues has a great breakdown of ESPN’s coverage.

The wake of an international tragedy like this is no time to start pointing fingers and telling people they are jerks. But, it is difficult to ignore the disregard ESPN showed to this story. I think it is an embarrassment that ESPN wasn’t able to lead SportsCenter and their website with this story. They are the “worldwide leader in sports” after all. Ironically, they had no trouble digging up cell phone video of the UConn basketball fight in China.

I lost most respect for ESPN a long time ago. I don’t expect their hockey coverage to be very good because they have no vested interest in the sport. But showing blatant disregard for a tragedy that has struck the global sports community is pretty pathetic.

A slight retrospective

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It was last year at this time that I was settling in at the Hampton Inn on Robson St. in downtown Vancouver, just steps away from BC Place. I was lucky enough to spend an unforgettable month in that great city to take in the incredible spectacle of the Winter Olympics as an employee with NBC.

I kept a running blog of my activity there, you can find it here, at Ozzylympics. Take a quick read, hopefully you will enjoy it. All I can say is that I made a bunch of good friends, worked with a ton of great people and I will never forget the four weeks I spent getting little sleep, watching a lot of hockey and spending time with some fantastic unique people.