Sports highlights: the All-Star games, Torrey Pines

By now I am used to NFL Pro-Bowl and NHL All-Star game happening on the same day (at around the same time too) I didn't really plan to watch either game (especially after NHL has chosen Kid "Loud Mouth" Rock as the guest performer) but ended up watching both. The Pro-Bowl started rather lopsided with NFC having a big lead but the AFC came all the way back under the leadership of Derek Carr (yeah, we still like the Raiders in this household) Glad we watched the game. For NHL, I did watch some of the semifinal (skipped the show) and the pre-recorded final. Also glad to see "our" division, the Pacific, winning it! However, the most exciting event of the day was probably the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines GC in San Diego. Of course the reason I watched was it was Tiger's first PGA Tour event after his long break. By the time I tuned in (after the Pro-Bowl has started), 4 players tied at -11 on top of the leaderboard. (Tiger was done with -3 and even for the last round) Then all of them went down hill from there and three ended up going to the playoff. After the first playoff hole, two left but couldn't break the tie for the next few holes (Former world #1 Jason Day wasn't able to convert a few relatively short putts for victory) The playoff has to continue on Monday! Then it was decided only after 1 hole: Alex Noren's ball spun back from the rough around the green into water. Tiger's next tournament won't happen 'til Feb. And NASCAR is coming in Feb too. That's what off-season is like for me.

Sports highlights: Back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion, first time NASCAR winner

After the European football season is over, I had to switch my focus on another championship: this year's Stanley Cup final was a great one, pitting one of my favorite sports team, the Pittsburgh Penguins against the relatively newcomer Nashville Predators. Since the Pens have won last year, I won't feel too bad if they fail to defend. After all, it's hard to repeat as champ in many pro Sports in this day of age. (That's why Real Madrid's back-to-back European cup was hailed as a big achievement) Just when I thought it's a piece-of-cake when the Pens won the first two games of the series at home, they lost the next two away. Then won 1 at home again. So they were 3-2 at Nashville last night trying to clinch the title. And unlike the previously high-scoring contests, it was 0-0 until the last 2 minute of regulation! Both goalies were at their best and proved they were the elite of the elites. At the end something have to give and it's a lucky bounce that scored an "ugly" game-winning goal for the Pens. My family was surprised that I am actually a long time Penguin fan, which I try not to show too much when they played against the local fav San Jose Sharks! I jumped on the bandwagon in the early 90s when Super Mario and Jaromir Jagr reigned supreme winning the first two of the 5 cups they have now. The current dynamic duo of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have actually surpassed their predecessor by winning the next 3 together!

After writing about a five-time winner, I would like to change the topic to a first time winner on the same day. That's Ryan Blaney of NASCAR Cup Series, winning at Pocono. Seems like many rooted for him to win because of the history of his team owners, the legendary Wood brothers. (I just found out one of the driver-turned-announcer Michael Waltrip used to ride for them and won an All-Star race. No wonder) The No. 21 car has been strong and especially at the end passing the then-leader Kyle Busch with about 10 laps to go. To be fair, if there was another caution and re-start, his car will probably be over-taken by the "Closer" Kevin Harvick. FOX sent fellow cup driver Brad Keselowski as a reporter to the Victory Lane to interview Blaney, who did the opposite one day ago for the Driver-only broadcast of the Xfinity race at the same racetrack. BTW, that really made interesting TV. Hope there will be more Driver-only broadcasts in the future!

Sports highlights and lowlights: WCH2016, Ryder Cup, October baseball, and football

Last time I wrote about this year's World Cup of Hockey, the 4th team of the semifinals was not determined yet. It turned out to be the Russian edging out Team North America (who would have got through if they could have won their last game in regulation!) Team Europe upset Sweden during the semi while the home team Canada did their job with Russia. The final was a best-of-3 between Europe and Canada. Canada took Game 1 and Europe led most of game 2 and looking to tie the series only to see 2 late goals by Canada to win the cup. It was an awesome tournament from start to finish!

Another international competition was the Ryder Cup. US was the team with home field and we certainly took advantage of it with a huge margin for the victory. However, it was not without controversy: the brother of Danny Willett of team Europe wrote about poor behaviour of US fans before the event, which Willett claimed to disagree before the event (and agree afterwards!) And the Willett's were right. I think it's too much to heckle players on the opposing golf team. This is not football/soccer afterall. Speaking of heckling fans, a funny story did came out of this: during the Ryder Cup practice round, a US fan made fun of the European players' inability to sink a putt. The players offered $100 to challenge this fan to make the long putt and that dude made it! That $100 note with the autographs of those players certainly worth more than $100 now.

Of course, for the local sports fan, the biggest deal was whether the 2016 SF Giants could make it to the playoff! If anyone could still remember how the season started, the Giants was the hottest team in baseball entering the All-star break. They seem to be able to win games that they shouldn't have won. Well, it seems like the "mirror image" after the All-star break: all players were in one slump after another. Starting pitching was not that great anymore. The bullpen was unreliable and the batters had trouble hitting the balls and getting runs scored! It was a torture to see they losing all those games they led at some points. We dropped all the way from NL West 1st place to fighting for the 2nd wild card! Anyway, it came down to the final series about the Dodgers. The way I saw it was that if we couldn't finish the season in convincing fashion, there's no point getting into the playoff (because of losses of other wild card competitors) And the Giants rose to the occasion! The first game on Friday started out close but the Giants jumped to a big lead and a win. We scored free tix to the 2nd game which feature 2-time Cy Young Clayton Kershaw vs ... well, Giant's rookie pitcher Ty Blach. I thought we were doomed but man I was so wrong! Blach matched Kershaw inning-by-inning with both teams shut out, until Pagan hit a solo homer. Then the Giants put 2 more runs on the board while the bullpen did a nice job keeping a clean sheet for the win. Sunday was the last day of the season and the Giants must win to retain the 2nd wild card and they did exactly that (and kinda spoiled Vin Sculley's last broadcast of his legendary career, who did an inning for the local station for this game)

The SF football fans were not as happy though: the 49er wasted a 14-0 lead at home over the Dallas Cowboys team that was hated by lots of their fans and fell to 1-3 for the season while the "crosstown rival" which was also the laughing stock for more than a decade, the Oakland Raiders, won another close game away at Baltimore for a 3-1 record. Oh yeah, Stanford was hammered by Washington on Friday night. I actually cared more about the Wisc-Mich and Texas-OkSt games on Saturday. Too bad both of my teams lost!

For fans of Manchester United like myself, tying Stoke City 1-1 felt almost like a loss. They barely beat their Europa league opponent from Ukraine 1-0 (scored with a mis-kick by Rooney fed to Ibrahimovic for a header) in mid-week as well. Seems like their huge victory over reigning EPL champ Leicester City the weekend before was just a fluke! Nevertheless, a 3 game unbeaten streak is way better than the 3 game losing streak before this!

Back to baseball, the playoff has officially started today with the AL wild card game between the O's and the Blue Jays. The latter was kinda like our 2nd home team since we have family there. And they advanced with a 3-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion in the bottom of 11th. It did look like the World Series winner by Joe Carter! (That's the most memorable HR in my 25 years of experience watching baseball)

World Cup of Hockey 2016

北美四大體育/聯賽中的冰上曲棍球是我最喜愛觀看的比賽之一,而四年一度冬運,頂尖球員為自己國家全力爭勝,可觀性極高!捷克由綽號Dominator的守門員及另一位名將Jaromir Jagr領軍奪金那一屆,我印象尤深;以Sidney Crosby為主將的加拿大激戰美國奪金一役,亦算經典.其實NHL職業球員能參與奧運,始於1998年那一屆,在此之前他們能參與的國際賽,是加拿大盃(1996年改為世界盃),這世界盃在2004年也舉辦了一次,停了十二年今年終於舉辦第三屆!基於全球有頂級實力的國家其實不多,就以2014冬運十二國的比賽為例,多次出現勝負相差五或六球的一面倒比數,今屆世界盃八隊中找來六個實力最高的國家,再加兩隊"明星隊":Team North America由美加U23(該歳數或以下)球員組成(主辦機構靈感當然來自奧運足球),Team Europe則是由除俄羅絲瑞典芬蘭及捷克四國外的歐洲球員組成.八隊可謂叮噹馬頭.Team North America一班初生之犢表現尤為矚目,而其有型的球衣據報相當好賣,現場觀眾很多年輕人穿著!

目前四強中三個席位已由加瑞歐奪得,美國兩戰兩敗,實在另人失望.餘下賽程越來越緊張精彩,熱切期待!

The best ice hockey player that hasn't won the cup yet

Yes, I am talking about Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. I consider him one of the most dangerous player in the game ever since he arrived in NHL. He is such a prolific scorer and led the Capitals to several President's trophy (the team with the best regular season record) However, in North American sports, it's all about the playoffs. The importance of this trophy pale in comparison to the Stanley Cup! To be honest, I have so many other teams to root for that I never feel sorry for the Caps when they bowed out to lowly seeded teams in the past. For this season, I am actually glad that they lost to the Pens. Ovechkin played quite well and his supporting cast has never been better. For some reason they just cannot get over the hump. As my son said, Ovechkin is the hockey version of Dan Marino.

Sports highlights: NHL and another John Scott story

I wrote about the feel-good story of the NHL season: journeyman enforcer John Scott played in the All-star game this year and won the MVP (and fan supports!) Yeah, he was actually in the minor league but he got called up at the end of the season. It's the right thing to do to honor a player towards the end of his career (and the team is already out of playoff hunt) Speaking of playoff, it's sad to see all Canadian teams were eliminated from this year's Stanley Cup playoff (and it's not even the last week of the season!)

All-star games

Gotta admit I haven't been paying much attention to the NHL All-star break even though I have NHL games on TV almost every night after the football season is over (sans Super Bowl) as a non-basketball fan. Then I found out it was on the same day as NFL's "All-star game" aka Pro-bowl. I was curious about the decision of putting both games on the same day by the two leagues but couldn't find much info on the net. Most articles ridicule the mere existence of these games as both have low TV ratings. In fact, NFL have indeed consider getting rid of the game a few years ago. I think the game went downhill after it was moved to the week before the Superbowl (for filling the void between the 2-week break from conference championship weekend) which prevented players from SB teams to play in the game to avoid injury, which is obviously the right thing to do but it significantly lowers the star power of the game. To be fair, the SB stars didn't play much during the "old" Pro-bowls that were held after SB either. And this new format of teams chosen by two former stars and HOFer (Michael Irvin and Jerry Rice) which was copied from NHL mixing players from different conference was confusing too. Nevertheless, I recorded and watched the game, which proved how hardcore a football fan I am! Oh yeah, the former Cowboy's team beat the former Niner's.

Ironically,  this is the year NHL moved away from the 2-opposing-all-star-team-drafting-own-player format and went back to conference/division competing with each other. However, instead of one 60 minute game, they played 3x20 min game. Each game pits one division against another in 3-on-3 format! The two winners play against each other in the last game to determine the winning division. This season was the first one that NHL uses 3-on-3 during overtime. And it was controversial: players don't like it but I do. I think it's easier to score this way without going into shootout. However, this wasn't even the controversy of this game! It has to do with one player: John Scott. BTW, I watched the pro-bowl first and the bottom ticker had already shown me him winning the MVP honor :( So, who is John Scott? I haven't followed the NHL like I used to so I only know the biggest of the biggest stars like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Quick, Sidney Crosby, and local players like Joe Pavelski...etc. Turns out John Scott plays the role of an enforcer (whom teams put on ice to fight rather than playing the puck!) most recently for the Coyotes. Why was he controversial? He was voted in by fans who wanna showcase the fan-vote loophole of the NHL All-star game. And he was traded to the minor league just before the game. Some in the league management actually tried to dissuade him to play but he refused to back down. He was chosen as the Pacific division team captain and scored twice in the game (his career total was 5 goals :) and as I mentioned already he won the MVP with real fan support at the game. It became a feel-good story and actually shed some positive light on the game drawing attentions from NPR and Wall Street Journal. The NHL got a lucky break from a potential publicity disaster.

Sports high and lowlights: MLB, WC, Stanley Cup and NBA Final

First of all, may MLB hall of famer Tony Gwynn rest in peace. It's sad to see him leaving at such a young age (54) probably due to chewing tobacco usages. I saw his Padres playing against the SF Giants many times during his playing year. What an exciting player to watch as he always seem to find a way to get on base. Even after retirement from pro-ball, he still contributed to the sports by coaching his Alma Mater (San Diego State)

Speaking of the Giants, I took the kids to the park and witnessed Giants' gigantic collapse in the 9th inning (led 4-2 and ended up letting the Rockies to score 5 in that half inning) Closer Sergio Romo was not in his usual "shut-you-down" mode. Who knows if this might be the turning point of the season (which I expected the LA Dodgers would catch up and win the division hands down with their star-studded lineup)? The Giants haven't won a game since then. (And lost 6 out of 7)

As usual, this world cup is full of drama, including the surprising landslide defeat of Spain (to Holland and Chile) and Portugal (to Germany.) However, the biggest story here is of course USA beating their nemesis from the last 2 cups, Ghana, 2-1 (Even the sports radio host Jim Rome who is known for bashing soccer mentioned the game in his promo!) The USA's first goal came way too fast (< 1 min) and seemed too easy. Then their players went down one-by-one (weather, physical play) and finally gave up the equalizer to Ghana. At that point a lot of fans would be happy with a draw but that's obviously not what the team thought and they fought back with the game winning goal.

World Cup fever obviously overshadowed the Stanley Cup final (yeah, LA Kings, the team I really dislike, beat NY Rangers, the team I really like and won the cup 2-times in the last 3 years. Still remember watching LA beating NJ for the cup in a Dallas hotel on that rare biz-trip 2 years ago) and to a certain extent, the NBA final (San Antonio Spurs, the team I really respect, beat Miami Heats, the team I really don't care, and won the championship for the 5th time while the latter went 2-for-4 in the finals during the last 4 years. Gotta be considered as a disappointment given the Miami "Big 3" made it such a big deal joining force 4 years ago)

Sports lowlights: football and more football until autoracing

It has been a few years since last time I watched this many football during the weekends and holidays near New Year's day. I was sick the last 3 days of 2013 and had WatchESPN on most of the time while listening to the (college bowl) games lying in bed. The results were mostly disappointing: Texas Longhorns lost (as expected by ESPN's stat dept, by > 3 TD to the pretty good Oregon Ducks) Dallas Cowboys lost (as predicted by me. In the recent years, the team almost always got a chance to win the final game to get into the playoff and lost) Wisconsin Badgers lost (ESPN predicted a 3 pt victory, not with high confidence though. The winner South Carolina ranked 10 places higher for a reason I guess) Man U lost (to a team in coaching turmoil like the Tottenham Spurs) I didn't even watch any of these games (so not watching didn't help the teams but helped my sanity) Instead, I watched NHL's Winter Classic (Maple Leafs vs Red Wings) played outdoor in U of Michigan's football stadium (nicknamed "The Big House") It was snowing real hard. Great atmosphere. I think it slowed down the puck movement and action a bit though and hurt the entertainment value somewhat. (I just found that there'll be a few more outdoor games, including one in Dodgers stadium on Jan 25th between the 2 So Cal teams! No snow for sure.) I also watched quite a bit of the Rose Bowl (first time not featuring the losing Wisconsin side for a long time!) My Stanford friends please don't hate/unfriend me but I was mildly happy that Michigan State won (for some reason I like this team better. Maybe because it's a Big 10 team and a public school :P) Hopefully the same vibe infects the NFL matchup between the bay area 49ers and the midwestern Packers this Sat! BTW, Aaron Rodgers WAS the man. It's the first game he came back from a broken collarbone and he led the team to a last minute comeback to win the game, the division, and a chance to challenge the defending NFC champ 49ers.

Now that the new year has started. It means the new AMA Supercross season is starting very soon. Can't wait! Here is the complete TV schedule:

• 1/4/2014, 10 p.m. : Anaheim, Calif., Angel Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 1/11/2014, 9:30 p.m.: Phoenix, Chase Field – Fox Sports 1
• 1/18/2014, 10:30 p.m.: Anaheim, Calif., Angel Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 1/25/2014, 10:30 p.m.: Oakland, Calif., O.Co Coliseum – Fox Sports 1
• 2/1/2014, 10 p.m.: Anaheim, Calif., Angel Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 2/8/2014, 10:30 p.m.: San Diego, Qualcomm Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 2/15/2014, 8:30 p.m.: Arlington, Texas, Cowboys Stadium – Fox Sports 2
• 2/16/2014, midnight: Arlington, Texas: Cowboys Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 2/22/2014, 7:30 p.m.: Atlanta, Georgia Dome – Fox Sports 2
• 2/23/2014, midnight: Atlanta, Georgia Dome – Fox Sports 1
• 3/1/2014, 7:30 p.m.: Indianapolis, Lucas Oil Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 3/8/2014, 7:30 p.m.: Daytona Beach, Fla., Daytona International Speedway- Fox Sports 1
• 3/15/2014, 7:30 p.m.: Detroit, Ford Field – Fox Sports 2
• 3/16/2014, 1 p.m.: Detroit, Ford Field – Fox Sports 1
• 3/22/2014, 7:30 p.m.: Toronto, Rogers Centre – Fox Sports 1
• 3/29/2014, 8:30 p.m.: St. Louis, Edward Jones Dome – Fox Sports 1
• 4/5/2014, 8:30 p.m. Houston, Reliant Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 4/12/2014, 10:30 p.m.: Seattle, CenturyLink Field – Fox Sports 1
• 4/26/2014, 7:30 p.m.: East Rutherford, N.J., MetLife Stadium – Fox Sports 2
• 4/27/2014, 4 p.m.: East Rutherford, N.J., MetLife Stadium – Fox Sports 1
• 5/3/2014, 10 p.m.: Las Vegas, Sam Boyd Stadium – Fox Sports 1

Sports lowlights: Dallas Cowboys, Helio Castroneves

Hate to mention "lowlights" two weeks in a row but it was disappointing to see Da' boys lost by 3 late in the game. They showed signs of brilliance from time to time but just not have the consistency for the whole 60 minutes :( And I was rooting for Team Penske to win the IndyCar championship this year but Castroneves' car had issue on both races in Houston during the weekend and lost his big point lead in the standing. I'm afraid it's another 2nd place finish at the end of the season for a Team Penske driver. That's Will Power for the past few years. Ironically, Power won the 2nd race at Houston. The "King of the road" seem to get back on track after a disastrous season. So that belongs to the "highlight" department. Another one is Manchester United's victory with new kid Adnan Januzaj scoring 2 goals (he was the difference between a W and a L.) We also have a new star this side of the Atlantic: San Jose Sharks Tomas Hertl. I was happy watching him scoring 4 goals against the New York Rangers, even though I also like the latter team and hoping for a less lopsided game. It's awesome watching the opening games of the new NHL season on TV in HD! Anytime of the year in the world of sports some leagues start while others end. One just finished this weekend was Champion League Twenty 20 (Cricket) The semis and the final were all exciting. Lots of fire powers from the final 4! Mumbai Indians deserved to win it all. Last but not least, the late late game on Sunday night, Raiders vs Chargers, was an entertaining one. Glad to see Raiders winning another one. The Ws are hard to come by these days. Maybe Pryor could make it in NFL after all (not expecting MVP/Aaron Rodgers-type of numbers) 

Topic of the day: Cinderellas in college sports

From my experiences, college sports are full of upsets (well, at least I feel that it happens more often than pro sports. Maybe it's because pro teams are more consistent. Sometimes a heavy favourite is indeed much better than its opponents and thus no surprise. And the rest of the games are usually quite evenly matched and no surprise there either)

Butler, who made it to NCAA Basketball final as a #5 seed, was certainly the "Cinderella" that is getting a lot of attention this year. However, I would argue Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) was even more deserving because their hockey team went to final 4 as a #15 seed (among the 16 teams in the tournament) before losing to my Wisconsin Badgers.

According to this article, their players are "ordinary" science/engineering students (just like yours truly!) and didn't receive scholarship like the student athletes from schools in major sports conferences did. On the other hand, it actually helped the team to stay together longer instead of losing good players every years to pro leagues.

Sports highlights (and lowlights): MLB Opening week, Champions League, F1

Last weekend was not as eventful as the previous one but it was special because it was the opening week of the new baseball season, started with none other than Yankees vs Red Sox! The funniest thing was, the commentators mentioned this was supposed to be the year of defense but the offense exploded in the first game! Also on the next day, 3 games ended with winning teams scoring 11 runs (1 scored 16!) Another funny incident was that our own Giants, Eugenio Velez, made the news because his jersey has "San Francicso" misprinted on it :D

As far as boxing/MMA went, the "big" fight was Bernard Hopkins vs Roy Jones Jr and it was booooooring! Both of them looked way past them prime and have nothing left. None of them showed any stuff that could knock another down except low blows. I literally fell asleep during the final rounds, which was good for me 'coz I got some good sleep before watching F1 from Malaysia, which was not that exciting either but it was fun to see Alonso trying so hard to pass the car in front of him and ended up blowing his engine. BTW, the Taiwanese ESPN commentator was really good. He kept saying Alonso's car was problematic quite a few laps before the problem materialized.

Even though I tried hard not to watch the Man U vs Bayern Munich Champions League quarter-final 2nd leg, I got regular updates thru IM from my 2 friends (1 Man U supporter and 1 hater!) That's certainly heartbreaking to see them going from hopeful to hopeless for a Man U fan like me.

Caught a few minutes of NCAA Hockey Final 4 actions. Glad to see Wisconsin advanced to the final. Go Badgers!

Game of the week: Stanley Cup Game 7

Any game 7 in the final series gotta be exciting regardless of the outcome. In the case, I'm even happier because it was won by my favorite NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins! I was asked how the Pens become my favorite team. Well, when I started watching hockey, there was no team in my area. (The Stars was still in Minnesota, then known as the North Stars!) And Lemieux and Jagr were simply the most amazing duo at that time. 16 years later, we have another dynamic duo in Crosby and Malkin (hope they will win another cup together!)

This is simply a fantastic series: the two same teams, Penguins and Red Wings played in the final last year. Even though the Pens were more mature by a year, most thought that the Red Wings was even more improved. They looked so correct when the Pens were down 0-2 after 2 games into the series. However, just like the series against Washington Capitals, they bounced back, which showed great characters!

When Lemieux got the cup again, this time as a owner (he was a player 16 years ago), I knew this gotta be one of the sweetest moment in sports this year.