Sports highlight: Golden Oak climb, rugby weekend

I ride up Alpine Road quite often, either to Portola Valley or to Joaquin Road (one of the steepest climb in the area, max 19%!) I just learned about an interesting "detour" on Alpine called Golden Oak. The entrance to Golden Oak is near the intersection of Alpine and Arastradero. It's 0.8 miles long with quite a steep climb (not as bad as Joaquin but still challenging when I did it) and lead you back to Alpine 0.3 miles further up hill. 

More on sports that I don't play: it's time for Hong Kong Rugby 7 again! Time really flies. I still remember watching it on TV in HK a few Spring Breaks ago. I watch quite a bit of rugby during this break between football and baseball season. The last-minute try scored in the London Wasp vs Northhampton Saints match was really something. A bit off-topic here: as a frequent rugby watcher, scrum means physical confrontation between strong men who fight for control of the ball. It's funny to hear the term also being used to describe meetings for software projects which definitely disallowed any physical contact and hopefully not much confrontation. Another term I learned recently is even worse: daily huddle, obviously borrowed from the sports but simply means a quick daily meeting to provide updates to the management. Whoever invented the term must have fancied himself being an elite athlete which he's unlikely to be. It probably explained why the management type likes to use the term :P

Sports highlights: Green, Zito and Allgaier

Barry Zito beat his former team, the A's, for the first time on Sat, and has now defeated every MLB team, which I think is quite an achievement! According to Sportsnet Central, his record was 109-6 when he has 4 or more run support. His overall record for the current reason is 7-2. So, I feel bad for rooting against him in his down years as a Giant. He might not deserve that huge contract but he probably deserves more credit than given to him.

I think giving English goalie, Robert Green, a green jersey for the England vs. USA world cup match was a big mistake. He didn't need the constant reminder for his inexperience. Maybe the Apple Daily analyst is right: the best goalie on this team is worse than the worst one on the German team.

I don't have much time to watch sports this weekend but I did catch the NASCAR Nationwide race. Can you believe a pro racer would shift to a wrong gear? Well, Justin Allgaier did that in his #12 car by shifting from 2nd to 1st when he meant to shift to 3rd! Too bad 'coz he could have done much better than finishing 8th.

Finally, a big applause to NBC for broadcasting the first ever NCAA Rugby 7 championship. I think they did a good job in educating the audiences about the game. I have been watching for almost a year but still learned a great deal. Congrat to the Utah Utes for upsetting the Cal Bears in OT and won it all. What an exciting game!

Games of the day: Super 14 Semi and Heineken Cup final

This is a great weekend for sports fan. The list goes on and on: NHL Stanley Cup semi-final, NBA semi, Baseball's interleague games. And outside of North America, it's also semi-final for Super 14, the Southern hemisphere's premiere professional rugby competition, and the final of Heineken Cup, the top rugby competition in Europe (rugby's version of UEFA Champion's League) Finally, everybody is looking forward to the mid-week matchup between Manchester United and Barcelona, fighting for the crown of the UEFA Champion's League.

It has not been a great one for fans of teams named Hurricane though. Both the Super 14 side (from Wellington, New Zealand) and the NHL team (from Carolina) have lost. The former is eliminated and the latter is down 0-2 in its best-of-7 series. Both teams have put up great fights though.

The game I look forward to the most is another Super 14 semi between the Bulls and the Crusaders. These 2 teams were winners of the last 2 Super 14 titles. The latter is Super 14's version of NFL's Pittsburgh Steeler. And they overcame a poor start earlier this season to make it to the playoff. The winner will take on the Chiefs (from Hamilton, New Zealand.)

Even though the European rugby matches are lower scoring, the matchup between Leinster and Leicester will be interesting as the Magner league side (representing Scotland/Ireland) and Guinness Premiership side (England) will fight for its bragging right.