In Play, No Outs

The diference between a soft goal and an easy save

2012-02-02T02:15:00.003-05:00

About 2 inches.
I was 1.5' off center, but even then, less than 2 inches closer to my correct position and the save is easy. Of course, it doesn't help that the puck moves so fast.

1.5' off center is a slight lean to the right when falling into the butterfly instead of a straight push.

"Albatross"

2011-12-10T15:40:00.002-05:00

Obviously, I'm excited about the Angels again. Albert Pujols is a fantastic player, and his constipated batting stance has generated prodigious offense throughout his time in the league. There is little debate about his current status as an elite first baseman.

I've long railed against long term contracts for athletes. It doesn't make sense, financially or otherwise, to devote a large proportion of a limited resource to a single entity. Baseball, in particular, deemphasizes individuals and thus limits the value one can reasonably obtain from a single player. A quick trip to Fangraphs illustrates the obvious disparity between value and salary for most players under expensive, long term contracts.

Unfortunately, I can only think of a single modern case where an expensive, stupid contract has succeeded in hamstringing a franchise, and that case is Alex Rodriguez with Texas. And I don't think it's likely to happen again.

Pujols will be paid 25 million dollars a year for a decade. The last year of his contract, he'll be 42 and undoubtedly a mediocre, below replacement-level player. He'll still be responsible for 25 million dollars on the Angels payroll. I just don't think it matters.

The 2010 average salary for MLB players was, heavily rounded, $3.5 million. Inflation has been increasing by roughly 3% annually since 1913, but let's say the economy remains relatively weak and we see 2% inflation through the life of the Pujols contract. Assuming no increase in average player salaries outside inflation (yeah right), the average salary will be $4.25 million and the $25 million owed to Pujols will only represent roughly 80% of the cost it bears today.

Is it a huge discount? No. But considering the additional benefits Pujols brings to the franchise in increased ticket, merchandise, and in-stadium sales, plus the newly negotiated TV contract, I don't really believe it would be reasonable for the Angels to limit their spending based on this single contract. It just doesn't happen.

Penner 4 prez

2011-12-07T02:36:00.004-05:00

While new Kings whipping boy Dustin Penner was having his best game in recent memory, the rest of the team decided to show up in time for the third period before carelessly losing in the closing seconds.

Fire Terry Murray. Promote Dustin Penner?

A quick three-save compilation from my game last night. One of my best games, so, naturally, we lost. I owe my teammates some additional video from both games, but goodness, editing video is time consuming.

"Put THAT shit on YouTube."

2011-11-30T02:46:00.003-05:00

So says the ref at my 4 on 4 game last night.

While I was safe from the unwashed masses and their pepper spray over the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself struggling to avoid buying unnecessary electronics. After making it through Friday, I thought that I had succeeded and allowed myself to privately gloat about my self control. But a text from my dad informing me that Amazon was having a sale on GoPro Hero cameras cracked my resolve and, 3 hours before my game on Monday, I found myself unboxing the camera and ruthlessly deleting photos from my SD card.

Scheduled to play the hapless Honeybadgers, I figured it'd be as good of a game as any to try the camera out with minimal risk of seeing a slapshot ricochet off a newly shattered consumer electronic. I found the camera to be moderately uncomfortable when worn with the head strap as it compressed my mask into my forehead and increased its weight substantially. Regardless, I played for half the game with the camera on, facing about 5 shots, 3 on penalty shots, allowing no goals and acquiring 24 minutes of incredibly dull footage.

First, warmups (make sure to watch all of these in HD if you check them out on YouTube):

Here's a penalty shot that resulted in the ref making the remark noted in this entry's title:

During the intermission, I traded the camera with a teammate. The footage from his time on the ice is substantially more interesting, if slightly nauseating. Interestingly, the save highlighted in this video saw my blocker deflect the puck directly into the former location of the GoPro. Hooray for life's fortunate timing.

Some skater-view:

There's more interesting footage that I haven't yet found the time to edit. Hockey definitely dictates shooting in 720p at 60 fps to get cool, smooth slow-mo and a wider angle. I might try some 1080p for science.

John Lackey

2011-09-30T00:55:00.003-04:00

I never really took it personally when Lackey left. Without a doubt, he was a tremendously important player in 2002, but he never really felt like an Angel. Orlando Cabrera possessed the qualities of leadership and team identity that Lackey never did despite coming up through Montreal's system and playing only 3 seasons with a Halo. I don't find much glee in Lackey's historically poor season despite his contribution to an epic Boston collapse, but I do think the results were predictable.

Jeff Weaver drew the ire of Angels fans during his brief stint with the team for his on-field histrionics and apparent lack of ability. Lackey possesses a similarly fragile psyche, one which seemed unlikely to make an effective transition to the deranged Boston sports environment. Indeed, after several months of poor pitching and persistent grumbling from the press, he blurted "everything in my life sucks right now." He finished the season with the worst ERA in Red Sox starting pitching history and is entering divorce proceedings with his wife. It also sounds like he's got a mouthful of marbles when he talks.

My suggestion for Lackey? I'm not sure if this is even possible, but he hasn't had a single positive experience in the last year, so perhaps it's worth a try. First, he needs to request a release from his contract. If this doesn't void the contract, then he should have it voided as well. He needs to fire his agent and start calling teams. He should pitch for one year at the major league minimum for any team not located in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. I have no doubt that with the pressures of a huge contract and a rabid fan base removed, he will return to form and earn the top-tier pitcher label he lost this past season. I have to imagine he'd receive a universally positive welcome in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, or Houston.

If you don't like the way something's going, change it. I'm sure the Angels would be happy to have you again.

Refreshing

2011-08-25T00:02:00.003-04:00

"How much more money do you need? I've never played this game for money. I play it for love and for championships."

"It's the way I was brought up. If $85 million is not enough to take care of my family and other generations of my family, then you're stupid."

"Loyalty is very important to me. The Angels drafted me. I want to stay here until I get a ring, or two, or three."

Torii, per the LA Times:

Right fielder Torii Hunter called Weaver's decision to ignore the lure of a richer payday "refreshing," saying the deal was smart for both sides.

After Lackey's insanity, and the continuing descent of professional sports into unsustainable fiscal irresponsibility, Jered Weaver has proven himself to be a tremendous athlete, teammate, and Angel. Thank you.

Fine. Dan Haren is good.

2011-07-06T01:32:00.002-04:00

I don't know why, but when Dan Haren emerged as a top-tier pitcher with Oakland, I couldn't figure out why. For some reason, I had watched him pitch a few times a year and was never particularly impressed. It just didn't seem reasonable that some dude who had a 4.12 ERA in the first season I saw him could possible be anywhere near the 3.07 ERA pitcher I was seeing a year later.

Regardless, he went on to the National League and had two extremely impressive years paired with Brandon Webb as the 1-2 punch of the Arizona Diamondbacks. When he was traded to the Angels during a season where bad luck had forced his traditional stats into a steep decline, I praised the move as one which fundamentally strengthened the team without creating any new deficiencies. It was, and remains, Regains' best move as general manager.

Tonight, he pitched a 2-hit shutout, winning 1-0 over Justin Verlander. Verlander, competing for the AL Cy Young with Jered Weaver this season, was superb, but not good enough to earn the win, allowing a single run to the Angels on an Erick Aybar double. A good call by third base coach Dino Ebel sent Kendrick home when Detroit outfielder Magglio Ordonez sent the ball in to second base rather than home. With Haren allowing only 2 hits while striking out 9, a single run was all the Halos needed.

The Angels have, over the last few series, managed to put together a respectable record that has them, somehow, tied for first place in the division. Baseball's great curse, the neverending season, has already begun to warp my perceptions of the team. With the best 1-2 starters in the league and a thoroughly respectable 3-5, the Angels are unlikely to lose many games on account of their starting pitching. Meager offense notwithstanding, this Angels team is no fundamentally different than the 2009 division title club. Perhaps they'll make the playoffs after all.

To Riot and Stab in Vancouver

2011-06-16T22:05:00.003-04:00

So I think it's pretty interesting to watch the world react to the post-Stanley Cup loss rioting in Vancouver. Vancouver, and Canada as a whole, has developed a bit of a reputation. While the gun-toting cowboys to the south struggle with national healthcare and start wars faster than they can announce them, gentle Canada remains quiet, focusing on logging, deer hunting, and whatever else Johnny Canuck supposedly does during his 11 months of winter.

To watch the city of Vancouver burn was unsettling. Countless Canucks fans poured through the street like a boozy syrup, smashing windows, flipping cars, and kicking assorted inanimate objects. Decidedly un-Canadian, people around the country are assigning blame for the insanity on myriad groups: the Canucks, the police, Canucks fans, Canucks "fans," alcohol, the city, the suburbs, the results of the game, and "hooligans," the mere mention of which brings to mind other tragedies.

But as I watched a video (hat tip to Copper and Blue, a superb Edmonton blog) of the riot, I noticed something remarkable. A couple guys were trying to defend the stores. It was mind-bogglingly stupid, to be sure, but noble nevertheless. While hundreds of complete idiots were mercilessly kicking a mailbox*, these two dudes were out there yelling "It's our city [you idiots!]" at the riotous mob. I honestly don't know whether this ever happens during LA's many sports-incited riots, but it seemed, to me, to be uniquely Canadian. Of course, one of the guys proceeded to get his head kicked in after stealing a signpost away from a vandal, but some other folks stepped into help him, which I thought was nice.

There's no real moral to this story. Idiots do as idiots please, so trying to figure out "why?" and "seriously, why?" is a fool's errand. Sports have always brought out the best and worst in people, and that's because the same animal instinct that makes us want to fight people at bars when their collars are popped is the same instinct that sports stoke and embolden. Getting rid of sports would just force us to find a new avenue to pursue that instinct, and overall violence would remain unchanged. But as you watch a game where men skating on sharpened blades repeatedly smash each other into solid walls in an effort to shove a hard rubber puck into a net, you can't help but wonder whether that violence gets commuted to the fans. Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't.

I think it was a wonderful series, even if it was far more lopsided than the results might suggest. I think that the Bruins deserved the Cup, I think that Thomas will regress next season just as he did two seasons ago, I think that the violence in Vancouver was stupid, and I think that neither fanbase has a critical mass of people who've watched either team for more than 5 years. Nevertheless, I'm sure the residents of New England are thrilled, and it was nice to see a little emotion out of Canada.

*I can't figure out why anyone would kick a mailbox without some sort of severe complex regarding the postal system. I mean, if I'm rioting, I probably get a couple of my buddies to lift the thing and throw it somewhere. Kicking a metal box for the sake of kicking a metal box just seems stupid.

Adult League Hockey

2011-06-04T23:43:00.003-04:00

Image credit: Dad. Game is versus the Caribou, and puck is just off my leg pad.

Much like everything else after graduating college, my hockey has become expensive, serious, and exhausting. 48 minute intramural games against relatively sedate, but skilled, fellow Northeastern students have turned into 60 minute league games against violent, hodgepodge groups of miscreants whose primary focus is injuring others without getting called for enough penalties to be forced out of a game. It's been an interesting transition, but I feel as though I'm slowly getting better, undoubtedly aided by the frequency with which I now play and my far superior equipment. Stepping into 2010 after learning to play in the '90s has been a delight for my knees, although the puck certainly finds holes in my pads and strikes exposed flesh more than probability seems to dictate.

I play in what's ironically called the "novice" league at a rink in El Segundo. In reality, novice league is a league for people who want to play on Friday nights. The advantages to playing on Fridays are numerous: no work the next day with late games, the ability to mesh one's post-game drinking with the established routine of the night, relieving stress through sport at the end of the week. Unfortunately, for the learners I encounter weekly at stick time, this league is a hilarious misrepresentation of the term "novice." Nobody in the league is truly a novice, and players typically hang around the league for over three years. How somebody can be a novice for three years is certainly an interesting question, and one best explained by the ratio of ringers to appropriately skilled players.

My team, the Ice Crue (undoubtedly named by some player following an in-game concussion and a post-game beer), started off the season 2-0 while combining to score 17 goals while allowing 3. We feasted on the two worst teams in the league. The league administrators rewarded us by removing our two best players, neither of whom was in our top 5 scorers at that point. This woud've been okay had the league followed through with the even-handed removal of all ringers from all teams, but all this action truly achieved was making the Ice Crue utterly uncompetitive.

We lost our next game 14-4, the next 4-1, and last night's game 4-0. After seeing a total of 32 shots in my first two games, I saw 118 in the next three.

Last night's game was a superb example of the inequity in the league. Both teams had 10 players a side, so there was no real advantage in conditioning. However, the first goal was scored by a player who, while falling down, put the puck into the high glove corner of the net on a one-time pass from the corner. The next goal was scored when a player skated from his net, got all the way to my blue line, cut over to his back hand and cut through three defenders, then came across the crease and put the puck off the corner pipe short-side above my blocker. This is not a novice procedure. Meanwhile, my team struggled to string together more than two passes in a row, and accumulated penalties with a confident resolve.

The previous game was similar, with our team managing to tie the game at 1-1 early but then falling to a team which actually utilizes a coach on the bench. Yes, they have former NHL player Daryl Evans standing on the bench for their "novice" league games. The entire team is ringers, and they will not lose a game this season.

It's frustrating, but also exhilaration. My first two games were marked with the peculiar feeling that there was nothing I could do which would allow my team to lose. Ken Dryden spoke of this feeling in The Game, and it's not particularly attractive. Certainly, winning games is delightful for everyone involved, but I felt no different than a backup goalie, a scratched player, or a spectator. My efforts were ultimately unimportant.

Obviously, this changed when we lost our best players. Suddenly, I became critical. Giving up a goal is no longer a mild inconvenience, but an enormous obstacle, and an obstacle which I am hopelessly unable to assist my teammates in overcoming. The 14-4 game was a transition, played with 5 total skaters for the Crue and countless acts of idiocy by the opposing team*. Now, the team has entered a phase where it must play perfect hockey to win. Whether this is possible remains to be seen.

For anyone interested, statistics are logged in this league and published online. You can find me here by looking for the Ice Crue. You'll find my league-leading 125 saves and mediocre .833 save percentage under the Goalie Leaders link.

*Ironically, the team was the Huskies.

2011-06-02T00:15:00.003-04:00

I haven't written much about the Angels recently. I'm still watching hockey, and adjusting to the pace of baseball always takes a couple weeks. With the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals having ended moments ago, I suspect the Angels will begin to play a larger role in my life.

I will note, however, that the initial optimism I felt while the Angels sat atop a weak AL West has faded. The team suffers from the same problems which have prematurely ended their seasons for the last 3 years, and it's frustrating to watch.

Reagins needs to be fired, the team needs to dump salary for prospects, and the fans need to put up with 2 seasons of bad play to return to the top of the division.

Loathing

2011-04-26T01:15:00.003-04:00

Certain things inspire a particular loathing in the fans of a sports team. This year, the Kings managed to hit most of them during a single playoff series; they managed to hit most of them in one game:

Fail to win at home
Fail to win in overtime while losing in overtime regularly
Fail to score on the power play

Yup. My expectations were low for this series with Kopitar out, but as I watched the Kings build a 4-0 lead a the start of the second period of the third game in a 1-1 series, I foolishly allowed myself to believe that the Kings were, somehow, improved over the team that lost consecutive games to Anaheim and choked away the 4-seed.

In reality, the season was something of a success. They lost their best player and still finished with the same number of playoff wins as they did last year. Regardless of what happens in the offseason, though, failing to make it out of the first round next season must (and likely will) have dire consequences for the team and front office. The Kings were ahead of schedule in making the playoffs last year. They will be behind schedule losing in the first round next year.

Es el tiempo, amigos. This was the last playoff series the Kings are allowed to lose while still blaming youth, inexperience, and a developing system. This was the last year of my standing up for Dean Lombardi and Terry Murray when results don't reflect effort. This was the last season of writing off Doughty's defensive lapses, Kopitar's missed nets, and Quick's soft goals.

There is no more room for error. And there wouldn't be next season regardless of the ultimate results of this season. Kings fans put up with some very, very lean years with the promise that, given 5 years, the team would be able to regularly contend for the Stanley Cup. This was the fifth year.

2011-12 will be the most important Kings season since their acquisition of Wayne Gretzky. Failure will once again implode a promising core of young players in an effort to improve the product on the ice, a process which rarely succeeds in professional sports. It will derail all of the progress made over the last 5 years and, in my mind, severely impact the future of the franchise in Los Angeles. It will be entirely up to the players to play to their abilities, earn a strong seed in the playoffs, and make it out of the first round.

I can't say I'm angry. I'm disappointed, to be sure. Next season, failing to score on a 5 minute major through the last 3 minutes of regulation and the first 2 minutes of overtime will engender a very different response.

Why watch sports? Or, How To Ramble On About Sports While At Work

2011-04-06T18:52:00.003-04:00

In sports, there are players, and there are fans. Clearly.

I'm certainly not an athlete. 90% of my sports-related life falls into the fan category. I spend hours on the couch, at my computer, and at the stadium. I analyze, critique, and applaud with a very broad view of the game and its context. I can scoreboard watch, check line charts, look up advanced batting statistics, and consider receiver/cornerback matchups in real time.

When I spend my 10% as an athlete, all that mental processing, the cerebral analysis and statistics, geometry and physics, doesn't go away. For real athletes, it does. This separation is an unfortunate consequence of the speed of games, as mental operations compute on a seemingly geologic timescale when compared to fast-twitch muscle fibers and hand-eye coordination. It's in this separation of mind and body that great athletes are forged, and where I most frequently fail.

The nervous energy I feel before stepping on the ice, or field, or court, is unmanageable. The incessant doubt which creeps throughout my mind as I glide to the net simultaneously poisons my skills and slows my reactions, generating a new wave of doubt in turn. Professional athletes, for the most part, are not burdened with such pervasive thoughts. Kobe Bryant sees the ball, sees the court, sees the game clock tick away the first second of the game, and immediately flips the Brain Switch to off. Evan Longoria steps into the batter's box and sees nothing but the pitcher, the ball, the simple geometry of a parabola, and the instant of bat:ball contact. Robin van Persie sees the ball arcing into the box and instinctively jumps to meet it a fraction of a second before the defender makes contact.

I see the puck, figure out who the shooter is, see if I can remember if the shooter likes going blocker or glove, high or low, and the likelihood of a pass. Then I check my position to make sure I'm cutting off the angle and start widening my stance to decrease my time to ice. I make sure my stick is on the ice, turn around, and fish the puck out of the net. It's inevitable.

The few times I've played well have been marked by a combination of factors, all of which have been present during those brief flashes of competence.

Significant distraction from or disinterest in the game
Some degree of physical pain from previous exercise
At least some level of discomfort with my equipment
A particularly noisy environment

While professionals are able to turn off their minds and play the game, I must rely on constant distraction and routine. I stopped 19 of 21 shots during a stretch at a practice yesterday:

I had just been selected to a team for the upcoming season and was bored with practice
My knees and back were in moderate pain from patio construction and Sunday's draft skate
My leg pads were uncomfortably lose
26 children were occupying the other half of the ice

The physical frustrations associated with sports are widespread but relatively easily overcome. With enough practice, any basketball player can excel at shooting free throws. The mental aspect, however, is an unwinnable war for all but the top 1% of athletes.

Despite all of this, the hallmark of the truly great athlete seems to be one who transcends the separation of the mental and physical aspects of the game. There are many whose greatness is a combination of relentless practice and superb execution, but these players, many of them All Stars and in their respective Halls of Fame, always fall short of epitomized greatness. Wayne

Gretzky possessed a skill bluntly described as "vision," but, in reality, an impressive ability to both play and analyze the game simultaneously. Being able to act as a fan while actively playing a game at the professional level is a generational feat for all sports, and it provides a spectacle which defies statistics, probability, and reasoning.

Why do people watch sports? Because it is typically more interesting to watch a game played well than to play a game well. With the exception of those generational talents, even the best professional athletes can never truly appreciate their abilities while still maintaining that level of excellence. Although a fan cannot score a goal, hit a home run, or execute a brilliant pass, he can analyze the game to a satisfaction which is otherwise unknown in modern society.

So the next time someone asks you why you spend 3 hours a day watching sports, just say "because sports are cool." Because they are, and you know the real answer anyway.

Ill will in three easy games

2011-04-04T13:27:00.003-04:00

Last season was a train wreck by Angels standards. The offseason threw gas onto the fire. But as the months passed, I began to look forward to baseball once again. Surely, the many issues which plagued the 2010 Angels would be muted by regression to the mean. A bullpen once renowned for greatness would rebound from a depressing year, a sputtering offense would regain its best hitter, and an admittedly terrible offseason signing would still improve the team with better-than-Abreu defense. Birds would sing, the Rangers would flounder, and I'd again have a reason to watch baseball in the fall.

Opening day was a pleasant affair. The odor of failure had already begun to leak from the bullpen, but, masked by some good defense and a home run by Jeff Mathis, it was easily ignored as the fetid scent of yesteryear. But that which is ignored so easily during a win is acutely inhaled in a loss. The essential failures of 2010, notably a bullpen with a disturbing propensity to take on earned runs from offenses with questionable skill, continue today. Fernando Rodney, another example of a signing inspired by an Angels management structure that lacks any insight into valuable, realistic player evaluation, has successfully provided below replacement-level production for the mere sum of 5.5 million dollars per year. Meanwhile, the only capable arm in the bullpen belongs to Jordan Walden who, despite showing flashes of brilliance, is still young and coming off a major surgery which should force Scioscia to limit his innings count.

The bullpen failures are perplexing because they seem unique to the Angels. Nearly every other team routinely calls up AAA relievers and earns league-average production for the pittance of an entry-level MLB contract. LA, on the other hand, signs disproved statistics (saves, holds, ERA) to multiyear, multimillion contracts and exclaims "this is our year!" while quietly booking time at Augusta for the first week of October. Someone, be it Arte Moreno or Bill Stoneman or another "advisor to baseball operations" must recognize the incessant failure of Tony Reagins and suggest an alternative. Or perhaps not.

Meanwhile, the starting rotation which looked so promising a week ago is already showing some very obvious defects. Scott Kazmir, whose signing I resolutely defended, is undoubtedly weeks away from retirement. His new found inability to throw 95+ could be overlooked if he learned to manage the strike zone, but his poor command leaves him without a single worthwhile pitch. Some pitchers manage the transition from power pitcher to finesse junkballer, but Kazmir has not, and will not, and thus must not occupy a space on the Angels roster.

Joel Piniero continues his time on the disabled list with a sore shoulder. When this malady inevitably turns to a season-ending surgery, the best top-4 in the majors turns into a mediocre top-3 with a still-tepid offense.

The Rangers managed to sweep the Red Sox, again allowing Boston to trample my wishes and desires, this time several months earlier than usual. The Angels, already in last place and 2.5 games back of Texas, will need to play better baseball against much better teams than the Royals if they wish to avoid a second straight year of fall golf and offseason injuries.

Engineering safety into sports

2011-03-10T19:57:00.006-05:00

This was prompted by the Chara/Pacioretty hit during the most recent Boston/Montreal game. Make no mistake: it was a dangerous hit. Chara earned a 5 minute major for interference and a game misconduct penalty, but no supplemental discipline from the league, drawing the ire of countless Fench Canadians, including the Montreal police, who have opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

Quisp brings up a great point:

If anything, the league ought to redesign the turnbuckle, so it isn't so hazardous.

Damn right, Quisp. We've got legions of unemployed engineers in this country. There are legions more in the tundras of Canada. Why don't we try to create some solutions for this problem?

Challenge accepted!

I've created a couple options for the NHL to consider below. All of these will require some measure of change for fans sitting along the glass. If the NHL is serious about reducing injuries, then they need to consider these options even at the expense of reduced high end seating.

1.) The ramp.

Instead of having a stanchion for the glass that begins immediately at the end of the bench, continue the glass down to the boards along the door to the bench. Pad the top of the ramp. Now, instead of slamming into a pole, the player will be hitting a ramp, slowing him down as his feet leave the ice and he drags along the upper padding. This method has the added advantage of reducing the number of pucks sent into play and thus reducing the total number of stoppages.

Negatives: Makes it harder for players to hop over the boards along the bench. Some reduction in glass protection for the spectators. My diagram shows one option, where a small triangle is removed from the glass. The other option is reducing glass height all around.

2.) The hinge.

Replace the bottom portion of glass with a hinged door. The glass is angled slightly (3-10 degrees) towards the bench. When a player collides with the door, he'll push it to an angle of up to 45 degrees, thus ramping himself back onto the ice. This is a cool design because you could, theoretically, automate a lot of its functionality. You could have it stay parallel to the boards until a proximity sensor detects an imminent collision, at which point it angles a few degrees so that the player does not contact the vertical portion of the door. Automation makes this method ideal, as being able to keep the glass parallel to the ice is important for gameplay. Automated or manual, though, this solution would work.

Negatives: You'd lose two, possibly three seats along the glass. The system is reliant on a shock absorber to cushion the player as he impacts the glass, and tuning this shock absorber to properly deflect with the disparate sizes of NHL players might prove difficult. The non-auto version will result in glass which is not parallel to the ice, inhibiting clears along the glass.

3.)The curve.

This is just a large sheet of gently curved glass which extends two or three feet behind the boards and continues out to meet the glass beyond the blue line. It's way better to run into curved glass than a vertical stanchion. Simple, effective, and thus unlikely to be considered.

Negatives: Lose some space on the bench, curved glass is more expensive/fragile than standard glass, not as effective as the two previous methods.

Alternatively, players could try and care about their colleagues and not intentionally ram them into the boards along the benches. But as we all know, that's as likely as NFL players agreeing to wear real helmets.

Baseball

2011-03-02T21:57:00.003-05:00

Baseball is a funny thing.

In 2006, as I was beginning my ascent (descent?) to quasi-insanity and regularly watching Angels games with pixelated 320x240 Slingbox feeds, baseball was the thread that tied together my day. With the eastern time zone moving afternoon games to the evening and evening games well into the night, was able to watch most games without constant distraction from real obligations. Subsequent years of mechanical engineering courses, a new found need to sleep more than 5 hours a night, and waning interest in a 162 game schedule shifted me out of tune with the dynamic baseball landscape. While there were certainly moments of intense focus, my overall baseball awareness dropped in favor of other interests, inside the sports world and otherwise.

As the Giants lifted the Commissioner's Trophy in November, I found myself asking whether I was still, in earnest, a baseball fan. Certainly, I never expected to sustain the level of involvement I had while in college, but I only watched the first and last games of the Series, and only portions thereof, with the end of the regular season a blur of late-season call ups and boredom.

My musings seemed valid as I leaned heavily on the Kings for my competitive sports intake. With half the games and twice the pressure, hockey was an effective substitute for the relative parity and slog of major league baseball. When the Angels acquired Vernon Wells, simultaneously worsening and aging the team while increasing payroll, my interest reached an all-time low. If the front office couldn't even figure out player valuation, why should I care about the team? The Angels traded away their second-or third-best offensive player in Mike Napoli for millions of dollars of bad contract and a mediocre, possibly bad, former center fielder.

Yet, as the offseason progressed, I found myself oddly interested. Every day, I'd find myself checking the MLB sections of various websites, logging in to my usual baseball blogs, and contemplating the 2011 roster. Perhaps the Angels would improve despite their miserable offseason. Maybe Vernon Wells might play to the level of his contract. Mike Scioscia might begin to consider a more flexible bullpen roation. Texas wasn't actually good last year, so why should they be good this year?

Baseball. It's coming back. Hope springs eternal.

The Beanpot

2011-02-12T19:49:00.004-05:00

As I sit here waiting for my liquid exhaust gaskets to dry, my mind wanders, again, to Monday. The Huskies will be playing #1 Boston College for the Beanpot trophy, a prize which has not seen Huntington Avenue since 1988.

It seems only natural that Northeastern should make the championship game for only the second time in the last six years, with my graduation taking me from Boston back to Los Angeles and away from the noise and competition at the Garden. Regardless, Northeastern seems dedicated to maintaining alumni relations through the Beanpot, allowing me to throw a Beanpot viewing party in Santa Monica with funding from the school for food and a box of NU swag. While watching the game, here are some things to keep in mind:

The last championship game which featured Northeastern was a close game until, trailing 3-2, the Huskies gave up consecutive shorthanded goals on the same power play to the Terriers of Boston University, cementing another year of Beanpot frustration and failure. Perhaps one of the most predictable and saddening losses of my time at NU, the game reinforced Brad Thiessen's disturbing tendency to implode in critical games.
Northeastern has beaten a #1 ranked Boston College team recently, opening their stellar 2008-2009 season with a 4-3 victory over BC.
The Huskies have improved their record almost entirely on the back of sophomore goalie Chris Rawlings. Despite nearly always looking like he has no idea what he's doing, Rawlings is only one shutout short of the Northeastern record and is drawing attention from NHL scouts.
Current BC forward Chris Kreider scored one of the most impressive college goals I have ever seen.
BC goalie John Muse is nicknamed "Moose." In addition to the Moose script across the bottom of his mask, he also has a moose silhouette on his backplate. I have a hard time thinking of a less athletic animal than a moose.
The Boston Garden, replaced by the Fleetcenter (now TD Garden) in 1996, has never seen a Beanpot victory by Harvard or Northeastern. The last Harvard championship came 3 years before the Garden was closed. The likelihood of Harvard breaking this streak this year is 0. Same for next year.
Northeastern lost in the title game in my senior year of high school, 3-2 in overtime to BU. The player who scored for BU was subsequently dismissed from the school for not going to class. It is unlikely he attended class before the Beanpot, either.
The consolation game of the Beanpot is a meaningless game which should not be played. I have watched 4 of these consolation games. Northeastern has played in 45 of these, possibly more, as counting that high is outside my math capabilities these days.

Go Huskies.

Joe Vitale vs. Jon Quick

2011-02-10T14:54:00.004-05:00

Joe Vitale of Pittsburgh makes his NHL debut tonight vs. the Kings.

Since both teams have former Hockey East players, I did a quick check of statistics for games in which Vitale (Northeastern) and Quick (UMass) both played.

In three career games against each other:

Vitale: 0G, 1A, (team record 1-2)
Quick: 3GA, 70SV, SV% .959 (team record 2-1)

The lone Northeastern victory over a Quick-led UMass team during Vitale's tenure was, interestingly, during my freshman year, when the team won only 3 games while losing 24 and tying 7. They managed a 2-0 victory with Adam Geragosian (!) making 26 saves for the shutout.

Ideally, Vitale nets a hat trick while the Kings win 4-3. The game is on the NHL network starting at 4:00 Pacific.

Murray, what the hell are you doing?

2011-01-21T01:08:00.002-05:00

If you have a guy who you play less than 5 minutes a game, maybe you should bench him for someone who, you know, might SCORE A FUCKING GOAL.

Yes, the spinorama is bullshit

2011-01-15T00:19:00.002-05:00

Two good posts: One from Fanhouse and another from Jewels From The Crown , both talking about goalies growing a pair and ending the awesome, very successful, and essentially unfair spinorama move in the shootout.

For those of you unacquainted with this move, see the video below (Facebook readers, you'll need to visit my actual blog by clicking on "View Original Post" to see it:

I chose Gerbe of BC over the NHL because college hockey rocks. BC still sucks though.

Cool, right?

The problem is that, as far as I'm concerned, it's a borderline play that is usually poorly executed and thus illegal. The puck needs to be moving forward at all times during a shootout. Often, when executing a spinorama, the puck stops.

Meanwhile, the save percentage on this move is low. Take a typical .500-.750 save percentage for most goalies and cut it in half. This is a virtually indefensible move-unless, of course, goalies start throwing their weight around.

Back at Northeastern, I was playing my second to last game on ice. At this point, I still wasn't very good, but I was feeling a lot more confident than I had during my first game, so when this guy skated into my crease to screen me [Dude. It's INTRAMURAL hockey and you're waving your stick in my face and bumping me?], I shoved my glove into his back. He didn't move. I provided some additional motivation with a forceful application of my stick to the back of his knees.

This was more effective.

After falling down and watching my teammates skate away with the puck, the guy pushed me hard enough to skate me back into the net and knock it off its moorings. Regardless, the message was received. He stayed away from the crease the rest of the game.

All it's going to take to end the spinorama and force players to think of more innovative techniques during the shootout is a modern day Hextall* (Carey Price, anyone?) dropping the hammer on a shooter. And I can't wait.

*If you've never watched Hextall flip a shit on Chris Chelios, this is a video you need to watch.

Why the Kings are losing

2011-01-14T01:03:00.002-05:00

Wanna know why the Kings are losing?

Because they're playing like shit. I have never seen a team put so many shots from the point into the legs of defenders. Never have I seen so many passes bounce off the boards or slide to the backhand. Never have I seen a goalie flop around on his back behind the net every game for two weeks. And, for the love of god, Quick needs to start stopping at least 90% of the shots he sees.

I'm not sure what they need to do to start winning, but they definitely need to stop doing what they're doing right now.

Maddening.

Blaming the goalie

2011-01-07T01:10:00.002-05:00

L, 3-6
L, 4-7
L, 0-1
L, 3-4
L, 2-5

GAA: 2.09
GAA: 3.09

Hockey is similar to baseball in one key way. The season strings together wins and losses in bunches, with a team rarely containing the talent it displays during a long win streak and rarely missing the talent it seems to lack during a losing streak. Perception is a funny thing. If the Kings were winning 2 games and losing 1, losing 2 and winning 1, you wouldn't see the kind of wholesale panic out of the fan base. But the maddening inconsistency, the stops and starts, wear on fans and players much like LA traffic.

Unfortunately, I now have to do something I generally dislike doing. I have to blame the goalie.

The scores you see at the top of the post are not particularly outrageous. Despite being perceived as an inherently low scoring game, hockey usually produces between 3 and 4 goals for the winning team. When compared with the goals against averages below, however, an immediate problem crops up. Goalies with near league-leading GAA's and save percentages should not allow 12 goals in 4.5 games. Backup goalies with crappy GAA's and save percentages shouldn't allow 11 goals in 2 games. Both of the Kings' Jonathans need to step back and reevaluate what has made each of them successful in the past and move back towards those mechanics and mindsets.

Goalies don't usually lose games. They can frequently singlehandedly win games, but it takes a rare combination of poor goalie play combined with good defense to start pinning losses on a netminder. And sadly, this is where Quick and Bernier have found themselves over the last few games. Quick is often faulted for making spectacular saves while struggling with simpler shots. His soft goals allowed are excused when he routinely makes one or two impossible saves a game.

But he hasn't. He's been out of position, slow to react, and blind to soft wrist shots. Bernier has been in position but even slower, susceptible to weak shots five-hole and top shelf. Watching Bernier move side to side tonight was painful, reminiscent of my own pathetic lateral movement, and Nashville exploited it for two of their five goals, and perhaps a third if you count a lazy leg extension.

The frustrating part of all of this is that the Kings really are a fundamentally good team. But they're last in the Pacific division and falling out of the playoff picture once again.

This is not a good time for the Kings to turn back in to the Kings.

Apples, meet oranges

2010-12-30T14:26:00.004-05:00

I was browsing through my list of sports-related websites this morning during an unbelievably slow day at work when I found this article over at ESPN. I decided I'd dust off the ol' sports blog to make a few points.

First of all, I don't view the UConn women's basketball team's streak of 89 wins as a particularly good thing for women's basketball. When you look at the scores of their games and the talent they have on their roster, it makes a very obvious point about the lack of competition in the sport. The best women in the world play for UConn. Their bench players would start anywhere else, as would the ladies they leave in the stands for games. Much like the oft-publicized brain drain in the IT world, all the top talent flows to UConn and then into the WNBA. They have no competition.

And we're lauding this as a good thing?

If anything, the winning streak should prove that the sport is nonviable. When a single team dominates opponents for this long in professional sports, leagues start implementing salary caps and revenue sharing. I have a hard time imagining anything more boring than attending a UConn game. The team is up 45-9 at halftime and wins by over 40 points. Where's the competition? Where's the suspense, the drama, the interest? How can anyone possibly claim that UConn is good for women's basketball?

Then, of course, we have the inevitable comparisons between the men's and women's game. Make no mistake: most men's high school teams would crush UConn. That's not a knock on their talent, but the sport they play is fundamentally different from men's basketball. The ball is smaller, the three-point line is closer, the players are often well below 6 feet tall, and the talent pool is minuscule. While comparing the UConn team to a men's team is a thought-provoking exercise, it diminishes the achievements of both sexes while damaging women's athletics as a whole. Much like a great college football team draws interest in a matchup with a bad NFL team, there is no question that the Bengals would maul USC while playing practice squad players.

All of this rambling boils down to my desire to stop hearing UConn coach Geno Auriemma stop complaining about how his team's accomplishments are incomparable while simultaneously making comparisons to the UCLA teams of the 1980's. It is not the same sport.

Angels

Interestingly enough, I do have a couple comments about the Angels despite an overly quiet offeseason:

From HH, this article shows that fans of the Phillies are willing to spend more to put a winning team on the field. While I agree in principle, I think the Angels have struck a good balance. If they can consistently make the ~~crapshoot~~ playoffs while keeping ticket prices low, I'd prefer that to turning into the Yankees. The major problem with sports, and perhaps life, is that a win never feels as good as a loss feels bad. Drawing that line is up to Arte Moreno, but he keeps spouting off about wanting a championship. Maybe he needs to spend some more money. Or, better yet, hire a GM who will spend the money he has wisely.
Adrian Beltre has no other options. Don't do anything stupid.

"Big market" team

2010-12-10T01:33:00.000-05:00

As Boston signs yet another multimillion dollar contract, the Angels lose out on a premier free agent once again.

The repeated failures to acquire top free agents despite constant promises to improve the team by all means possible are just as demoralizing as losses on the field. You expect the Nationals to have to overpay talent to get players to Washington - you don't expect the same from the Angels. Figuring out why players don't want to play in Anaheim or learning to overpay for elite talent* must be top priorities for the Angels front office.

I'm also convinced that MLB needs a salary cap, but that's a discussion for another day.

*Elite talent is not the same as good talent. Overpaying good (Hunter) and mediocre (Matthews Jr.) talent is not smart business practice, but overpaying for Teixeira or Alex Rodriguez or Cliff Lee might be. I don't think Crawford is elite, and I think overpaying for Crawford would've been a mistake. But there is a time and place for an above-market contract.

How not to play goalie: lesson 15

2010-10-28T22:53:00.004-04:00

Jon Quick is usually pretty reliable, but his greatest weakness has always been a propensity to be out of position as a result of committing too early. Dallas' second goal tonight came on a very wide, very delayed play from a sharp angle. Brandon Segal skated around the net, held the puck, and then shot it off Quick and into the top of the net from just past the goal line. How?

Red circle is puck, green is open net as a result of bad positioning.

Quick went for a poke check. The problem with a poke check is that goalie sticks are heavy. It's easy to pull your hand to the back of the stick and push it forward, but not as easy to pull it back and into position. Quick got caught when Segal didn't shoot right away and moved out of poke check range. He had already committed to a poke check and decided to stay down, when what he needed to do was pop out of the butterfly and take away the left side of the net.

Ultimately, it didn't matter, as the Kings won 5-2. But I'm just sayin'.

World Series

The Rangers are proof that the division and championship series' are too short. Just a fundamentally bad team out of an awful division with a terrible bullpen.

I'm so over you, Norv

2010-10-25T01:59:00.002-04:00

When you can't coach multimillionaire football players to dive on loose footballs or finish tackles, you can't coach.

Phil Rivers would be better off duct taping the ball to his receivers' hands. If you can't make a catch 10 yards out, standing still, while facing the quarterback, you can't catch.

I chose one hell of a year to start caring about the Chargers.

Stream of Consciousness Hockey

2010-10-23T01:34:00.011-04:00

Photo taken by Mark, liberally damaged in Photoshop by me.

I realize that nobody who reads this blog ever bothers to read my hockey posts. Unfortunately, they're also the most fun to write. Just another Blogger's Dilemma, I suppose.

The Kings opened their season in Vancouver while I was in Florida. Being on the east coast meant the game didn't start until 10 PM, I would have to watch the game over a Slingbox through a terrible free WiFi connection on a 12" laptop, and I'd have to leave the sound off to avoid disturbing a sleeping girlfriend.

Please don't sue me for fair use of your photo.

The game was mediocre, but the Kings looked resplendent. Jon Quick was wearing faux-vintage brown pads and a Rogie Vahon tribute mask, the team was wearing purple and gold as they had in the pre-Gretzky years, and Bob Miller was undoubtedly calming a hyperactive Jim Fox on commentary. Anze Kopitar took an inadvertent stick to the mouth and needed 15 stitches halfway through the first, then returned to play the entire second, third, and overtime periods before scoring a goal in the shootout. There's no sport quite like hockey.

With the end of my unemployment rapidly approaching but the promise of a paycheck beckoning me to the ice, I set out in search of new pads to replace that which I had left at Northeastern. Faith in your equipment is one of the pillars of goaltending, so I set out to find reaonably priced upgrades to my old pads.

Craigslist yielded a brand new Reebok Premier Series 2 glove and a freakishly light stick for hundreds below retail, while a visit to the local hockey shop netted some Bauer Reflex RX6 pads and CCM skates. The pads are fairly entry level in the grand scheme of hockey, but 20 years more advanced than the ol' Reactors, offering things like knee padding and five-hole closure.

One of the most inexplicable and frustrating things about living in the city of Boston was a complete lack of in-city hockey shops and rinks. This limited my ice time to my intramural games and my purchases to secondhand vendors. Oddly enough, the greater Los Angeles area offers substantially more value to a hockey player than the metropolitan Boston area, with all three major online hockey retailers calling Southern California their home and two rinks within 7 miles of Venice. This, of course, allowed me to break in my new pads within a day of their purchase at the Toyota Sports Center.

Stepping onto the ice for the first time in months was less difficult than expected. Unfortunately, goaltending after avoiding the gym for months is an intensely painful activity, making conditioning my greatest obstacle. Regardless, I stopped some pucks and made it out to two days of stick time, seeing lots of pucks and doing incalculable damage to my knees and groin.

Making a predictable rookie mistake, I removed the thigh boards from the new pads thinking that they'd be more trouble than they were worth.

This is how it looked yesterday. It now looks like one of those blue potato chips they give you on JetBlue.

Wrong. It's incredible how a puck seeks the least protected areas of your body and finds them within five minutes of stepping into the net. Thighs, collar bones, arms, and necks all make saves you'd rather make with your forehead. Ken Dryden wrote in "The Game" that despite all the protection, goalie was still a fundamentally painful position, and despite decades of equipment improvements, I still manage to block a shot with nothing but bone at least once every game. I find it silly that shooters always apologize for hitting me in the mask. Shots to the mask don't hurt. Shots to the thigh do.

Somehow, after barely managing to drive my heavy-clutched car home, staring at bruises and cuts, and struggling to stand up, something drives me, and presumably all real athletes, to get up and do the same thing the next day. Maybe that's why Northeastern hockey has season ticket holders from the '50s. The team is rarely good, but the game is more important than the results.

On the topic of Northeastern hockey, I am confused by optimism. A team which drastically underperformed last year and has neither gained nor lost anyone truly critical is likely to drastically underperform this year. A loss in an exhibition match to a miserable Canadian team, a loss to miserable Providence, a loss to excellent Boston College, a tie with bad RPI, and a tie with a mediocre UNH squad spells "BAD TEAM" in bold letters. Perhaps not as bad as the 3-24-7 team of my freshman year, but likely worse than last year's 16-16-2. Let's remember that this team has yet to win a game despite having played an exhibition, an out of conference game, a game against Providence, and two home games against Hockey East Opponents. The team that made the NCAA tournament started 5-0-1 against better competition.

Thank goodness for the Kings, because the Huskies are beginning what will amount to one very long season. I do miss them, though. Every day.

Look, I'm just saying

2010-10-18T15:15:00.003-04:00

I considered a picture of a dude choking, but if you go to Google image search and query "Nate Kaeding," this comes up, so somebody already thought of it:

Go Chargers.

Football is stuck in the 20th century

2010-10-17T14:23:00.002-04:00

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As I watch the Chargers flail helplessly against the Rams, a week after watching them flail helplessly against the Raiders, I am reminded that the brightest minds seldom choose football. Norv Turner makes error after error, the coordinators struggle with obvious play selection, and the players seem intent on losing.

The first two problems should be easy to fix.

I've been thinking about what I'd change if I were an NFL coach with complete control over roster construction and play calling. Here's what I've come up with, with my reasoning in italics:

Roster construction:

Focus exclusively on pass rush. This means looking for superb cornerbacks and pass rushing linebackers while essentially ignoring run defense. Truly good backs make mincemeat of even brilliant run defense. There are very few good backs. Defend the modern NFL, defend the pass.
Concentrate on acquiring good tight ends and a good low-volume running back corps. They'll average one carry per set of downs and really only need to avoid fumbling while picking up between 2-3 yards per carry. In simple terms, any mediocre college back. Once you see my offensive strategy, you'll understand. Again, there are few elite backs. Save the roster space for more important positions.
Offensive lineman are more important than the quarterback. You can have Ryan Leaf at quarterback if you're running a good o-line and multiple tight end sets. Seriously. Every time a quarterback gets sacked, he's less likely to give himself enough time to complete the pass on the next series. Bad quarterbacks look great with a great offensive line. In the Chargers' case, great quarterbacks look bad with a bad offensive line.
Get the best kicker available. You're going to need a lot of points from 50+ yards, and if I can kick a 35 yard field goal in the dark with an injured ankle, a professional football player should be able to kick 60 yard field goals all day, especially indoors.

Offense:

Run on first down. Run on first down when the other team expects it. Run on first down when there's nobody in the backfield to defend the pass. Run on first down when your best back is in a wheelchair on the field. The Chargers depend on first down passing, and when they suffer an incomplete pass, they try to run the ball on second down with no success. Every third down is a third and long for Phil Rivers.
Any time you don't feel confident, throw a screen to a tight end. It works so frequently in short yardage situations that it's amazing anyone tries anything else.
Almost never punt. The only acceptable punts occur when the kicking team is inside its own 30 yard line. In other words, if the opposing team is out of field goal range, you shouldn't be punting. 2.5 yards per possession should be (and is) an achievable goal as compared to 3.3 yards per possession.

Defense:

Defend the pass well enough that the other team is forced to rely on the run. This might require giving up some points, but there are few running corps in the league that can consistently put up 300 yards a game.
Demolish the quarterback. Every play needs to apply pressure to the QB. The modern NFL leans heavily on quarterbacks. Make your defense eliminate them. This means you should be picking up a roughing the passer penalty every game. Make it count.

Special teams:

Frankly, every team in the NFL would be better by taking a new approach to special teams. I understand there are problems with the solutions I've outlined above, but these changes should be universally understood.

Every kickoff should be a touchback. I've always wondered why teams don't do this, and assumed it must be impossible. Then Stephen Gostkowski had 5 touchbacks in a game and I realized that not only is it possible, but it's brilliant. Every time a team is allowed to return a kick, the chance of a return touchdown or excellent field position exists. The best any kicking team can do with an inbounds kickoff is get the ball downed at the 1 for a -19 yard differential. The best any receiving team can do with an inbounds kickoff is 7 points and a +80 yard differential. This seems like a no-brainer.
Field goals of 50+ yards should be makeable and commonplace. It is ridiculous that field goals are missed with such frequency. Teams need to start looking outside football for kicking talent.
When defending a kickoff or punt, don't run to the spot the ball is landing. Run to where the receiver is going. This seems elementary, but every kickoff features at least one player from the kicking team shooting past the receiver and into the backfield. Stay in front of the receiver and force him to make his move while you still have position. If you're going to be able to hit him the second he gets the ball, he's going to fair-catch the thing, and you still have the advantage if he fumbles.

Your beard is weird

2010-10-16T22:29:00.002-04:00

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Season Post-Mortem: Your Los Angeles Angels

2010-10-13T12:47:00.003-04:00

There are many things I miss about college, but two effects have become particularly clear. The first is my inability to find anything at a real grocery store after five years of Wollaston's, Your On-Campus Grocer, and the second is my surprising lack of motivation to write when I find myself sans-homework.

The Angels season ended in earnest only 10 days ago, but the team had been out of contention for seemingly the entire season. An embarrassing season-long performance from the bullpen, a disturbingly bad offense, aging outfield defense, and frustrating injuries sealed the Angels' first sub-.500 season since 2003. Considering my first season as a fan commenced in the waning days of 2006, this was unknown territory for me, although par for the franchise.

From the first game of the season, a win over Texas, the problems were already evident. I wrote, "The bullpen was pretty poor[...]Rodney managed to throw more than twice as many balls as strikes." From that game forward, the Angels would struggle to get to and stay above .500, allowing a weak Texas team to emerge from the West and subsequently punch their ticket to the ALCS.

The failure of the team is directly attributable to the failure of the front office. I have whined ad nauseam about the constant misjudgments and stupid ideas put forth by the front office, and many of them seemed to coalesce into a terrible season this year.

The completely screwed up development of Brandon Wood. Last season, Wood had a fantastic spring training and looked primed to make the team. He needed to make the team. He was sent down and has failed to live up to even the most pessimistic expectations. I think it's important to note that he had a terrible spring training this year.
The completely screwed up approach to bullpen construction. Brian Fuentes was replaced as Colorado's closer when he started blowing saves. The Angels looked at his save totals and signed him to a bloated contract. Fernando Rodney was nearly replaced as Detroit's closer when he started blowing saves. The Angels looked at his save totals and signed him to a bloated contract. Darren Oliver had a great couple seasons and showed no signs of regression. The Angels released him. Bullpen construction needs to be kept simple: cheap veterans derived from and combined with cheap young farm players. Importing bullpen talent at above-market rates is a recipe for disaster.
The love affair with old outfielders. The Torii Hunter signing was mediocre. He's been great thus far, and his contributions in the clubhouse and the community ensure he's still worth the money when he's hitting .250. But signing Abreu was foolish, signing Rivera was and Matsui doubly. That the Angels looked at a player who had needed several knee surgeries in the previous season, had a single good postseason series after a season of mediocrity, and was going to be 36, and thought "Hey, we should sign this guy!" is a great microcosm of the small-mindedness in the Angels front office.

There are a few positives to take from this season, however.

The emergence of rookies Bourjos, Kohn, and Walden, and the introduction of Conger and Trumbo. Bourjos, in particular, has been an exciting player to watch, and if he's able to fully adjust to major league hitting in the next 300 at-bats or so, he'll be a mainstay in center field for the foreseeable future.
The trade for Dan Haren and the precision of Jered Weaver. This year's starting pitching, outside Scott Kazmir, is the best rotation in baseball. Replacing Kazmir with a league average starter gives the Angels the best 1-5 in either league.
Kendry Morales is coming back.

As the winter rolls back into focus, the Kings will occupy most of the space here, but I'll try and squeeze in some Northeastern, NFL, and Lakers coverage.

Every Sports Fan's Critical Mistake

2010-09-15T14:52:00.003-04:00

You've seen the story. A reporter enters a team's locker room, offensive comments are made, an investigation follows, an unrelated player makes a statement, the statement is deemed offensive, the player apologizes, civil rights groups get angry, lawyers are hired. It's a weekly occurrence in a society which places undue emphasis on sports. As sports coverage has gone from newspapers and magazines to individual bloggers in the locker room and FavreCam on ESPN, athletes are scrutinized on and off the field to a degree that is incomprehensible to all except celebrities.

America's insatiable appetite for additional and increasingly in-depth reporting on its favorite athletes is easy to see. On my basic DirecTV package, I have more than 40 channels devoted entirely to sports. This past Sunday, I had a free preview of NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows me to watch every single NFL game in progress, plus a RedZone channel which shows every game, plus a channel called GameMix which shows, simultaneously, every game in progress, and allows me to navigate a cursor and select one, or merely watch them all at the same time.

This is sports overload. And what it has done is turn friendly little league games into the World Series. It's forced high school freshmen to start practicing 7 days a week at 5 in the morning to try and get into college-not for academics, but so they might be able to play for a good program and progress to the NFL. It's forced every news conference with an athlete to turn into a bland repetition of clichés that offers nothing interesting or personal.

So when Dan Wetzel starts calling Clinton Portis' comments exemplary of an "ugly" NFL culture, he needs to turn around and consider the role of media in the affair: A female reporter was granted access to a locker room for an all male team immediately following a game. Players make misogynistic comments.

Um, duh?

Look. We glorify sports. I'm as guilty as anyone else. But we've turned humans into athletes, into freaks. Portis has spent nearly all of his 29 years playing football. He has been coached, encouraged, and brainwashed into a football-only mentality. Since his days in high school, he has been scrutinized by the media, NFL scouts, coaches, fans, and fellow players. We can't expect him, or any other professional athlete, to be a social role model. We, the fans, have been teaching him that all we want to see is another game in the Win column. When all we've emphasized for the last 15 years has been "Win," how can we expect a well-balanced individual?

Critics claim that Portis was wrong. And, perhaps, his words were poorly chosen and imply unsavory morals. But I'm beginning to think it's unreasonable to expect normalcy from athletes. Because we want to see the Redskins win games, we never asked Portis to be an actual human being. We asked him to be a freak, an arm and two legs, pushing through a mass of defenders to bring 6 points to the team. We've given him well over 100 times the average salary of a teacher to play 16 games a year. And now we expect him to be normal? To be sane? To be compassionate?

The actions of the Jets in their locker room, and the words of Clinton Portis are indefensible as actions of human beings. But we have turned athletes from humans to freaks. What can we truly expect?

When Randy Moss finally leaves the book of clichés at home for a post-game interview, asks for a contract extension, and essentially says "I want to be here. I will play as hard as I can no matter what," the Boston media and fans call for his head. It's a ridiculous situation. Because athletes are used to media scrutiny, they lock up in press conferences. When they finally decide to break their usual routine, they get hammered in the press. What's the benefit? Why even have press conferences? If all anyone cares about is the game, the results, the wins, then why do we need to demand so much coverage when all we're going to do is bash another athlete for speaking his mind?

We cannot expect the freaks that we've raised to be caring, compassionate, and level-headed individuals. It's irresponsible to expect that, in addition to an entire life devoted to a single game, athletes can be suitable role models for our children and society. We've made that impossible.

Of course, a vast majority of athletes seem like perfectly capable human beings. But this is not through any actions of our own. I am impressed with conscientious, open-minded, and intelligent athletes, but they have maintained their humanity despite the sports public, and are far more likely to pull a Mel Gibson than your average person. For every pre-2009 Tiger Woods, there is a post-2009 Tiger Woods waiting in the shadows.

As a whole, changes need to be made. We must deemphasize the importance of sports or allow athletes greater leeway in their pursuit of greatness. We can take away wins and losses, or we can take away media locker room access. We can take away world championships, or we can stop deifying athletes. We can take away pro sports leagues, or we can stop slamming every athlete for every stupid thing they say on Twitter.

The choice is ours.

Are the Kings playing yet?

2010-09-06T23:54:00.002-04:00

The truly aggravating thing about the Angels this season, particularly in the second half, is the way they lose. It's not the quantity of losses, but the quality, in which good starting pitching is consistently derailed by predictable bullpen implosions and noodle bats.

I remember watching the Rangers lose with some consistency over the last few years, and despite their ugly W-L records, the Rangers were fun to watch. They couldn't pitch, but they could hit, and would thus lose games 17-15. Yeah, I imagine it's frustrating to need 7+ runs to win every game, but at least offense is interesting. No-hitters, despite the fanfare that accompany them, are boring, and the shutout is a stern kick to the face of fans that are miraculously able to spend $40 on two hot dogs and a beer at the stadium. If the Angels are going to miss the playoffs, I'd prefer that they do so while scoring more than 1.5 runs a game, their average over an 8 game stretch ending with a victory last night over Oakland. Of course, they are moments from losing their 72nd game, having scored two runs in nine innings.

The team doesn't need an impact bat so much as a new lineup. Abreu, Matsui, Rivera, Aybar, Kendrick, and Mathis are all having decidedly subpar years, and with only Torii Hunter producing at a reasonable clip, there is no reason to keep the kids on the bench. Scioscia has been unusually patient with Bourjos, at least compared to his treatment of Wood, but there's really no reason both of them (and none of Rivera and Mathis) shouldn't be in the lineup every day.

Hockey, please.

So, the Angels are bad

2010-08-31T01:48:00.002-04:00

The Angels won a game tonight, but just got swept by Baltimore.

Nevertheless, Peter Bourjos, the aborted trade of Napoli to the Red Sox, Jered Weaver, and the return of Kendry make me cautiously optimistic for 2011.

Jered Weaver's transformation

2010-08-06T23:56:00.003-04:00

Back in the dark days of 2006, when the Angels had both Weaver brothers on the team, I noticed two things from the younger brother: brilliance and passion. But behind the passion lurked the same loathing that derailed Jeff's career for several years, with dirt-kicking, glove-yelling, and generally bad behavior on the mound in troublesome situations. It concerned me.

It continued to bother me throughout the 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons. Despite pitching very well, Jered would have moments where you could see he was losing it, and it turned a "runners on first and third" situation into a "3 runs in, no men on" situation more than once. It reeked of Jeff Weaver. And it was reminiscent of John Lackey, who routinely stared down infielders after errors, or audibly cursed loud enough to require a bleep on the FSN cameras. Lackey and Jeff both loved to throw other players under the bus, and Jered was acquiring this undesirable trait.

Then Lackey left, his brother already gone for three seasons, and Jered found himself as the undisputed king of a deep-but-not-exceptional pitching staff, a staff of #3's. Something changed. The passion turned from unproductive yelling to fiery pitching, demanding another inning as he did tonight, nipping the corner with a fastball after a bad call, congratulating teammates when making tough plays, and shaking it off when they make bad ones. Weaver knows he's become a world class pitcher, and he knows that he can always get a strikeout when he absolutely needs one.

He's become a real pleasure to watch, and another reason to keep watching the Angels during this otherwise miserable season.

Well, duh

2010-07-30T01:17:00.004-04:00

Yes, that is Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings, "liking" ice hockey on Facebook.

Of course, the real reason my readers (hah!) come here is to read about the Angels. And the Angels have managed to fail as pundits have predicted for the last five years, sitting 9 games back of the first place Texas Rangers. They have a pitching rotation of Weaver, Haren, Santana, Kazmir, and Somebody, with Piniero injured and Saunders traded for Haren. They have a lineup which does not feature a single batter hitting over .280. They have outfielders who can't catch, a designated hitter who can't hit, and a bullpen that can't pitch.

This, clearly, is suboptimal.

At the same time, I'm seeing a lot of positives from this subpar season. The Angels will, finally, be sellers at the deadline, allowing them to start recouping the talent they've lost at the deadline every year since 2003, their last truly uncompetitive season. They should be able to move Matsui, Abreu, Rivera, one of Kendrick/Izturis, and possibly a catcher. The sum return of those parts might be limited, but getting rid of an old outfield and making room for useful prospects (Bourjos) and soon to be worthwhile free agents (Carl Crawford). Trading Mike Napoli would be tremendously foolish, but with the way Scioscia refuses to use his best asset, he might be traded for something of value.

With those things considered, my Angels lineup for 2011 looks markedly better than the current lineup:

SS -Aybar
OF - Crawford
1B - Morales
C - Napoli
DH - anyone who can swing a bat that isn't old
OF - Hunter
3B - Callaspo
2B - Kendrick
OF - Bourjos

In addition to sucking less than the current players, the median roster age will be substantially lower. Bourjos can actually play outfield, and should play center with Hunter moving to left, although we all know that won't happen. There's tremendous speed in the top two and last three spots of the order, with the DH spot open for league average batting that any worthwhile farm system can produce easily.

The starting rotation:

Weaver
Haren
Santana
Piniero
Kazmir

Frankly, not bad, aside from Scott Kazmir.

The bullpen should, with any luck, lose Fuentes and Rodney to other teams. Replaced with league average arms, this is a definite upgrade. Thompson, Kohn, Rodriguez, most of these players will be better than Fuentes and Rodney while charging the league minimum for their services.

I said before the season that this looked like the last year for the Angels to contend in the immediate future. I did not foresee the Haren trade, and I did not foresee the opportunity for the Angels to trade age for potential the way they now can.

So, Angels, thanks for ending this season quickly. I prefer a clean break to something drawn out every time.

How Tony Reagins screwed up my next blog post

2010-07-26T14:04:00.004-04:00

Here's the thing: Tony Reagins has been an awful GM.

I had this long essay about how he's done nothing but make the team worse through bad trades (Kazmir), bad management of talent (Oliver, O'Day), lateral moves (Callaspo, Bulger) and bad acquisitions (Matsui, Fuentes). And it's true, he's made a mess of an organization which, while slow and unexciting with Stoneman at the helm, nevertheless stockpiled talent and seemed poised to rule the weak AL West for the next couple decades.

When Reagins signed Torii Hunter to an enormous contract out of nowhere, I knew that there were going to be serious changes in the organization. What I did not forsee, however, were the myriad negative changes accompanying the small beneficial ones, ultimately leading for my to call for Reagins' firing as early as January this year. When Guerrero was let go in favor of another aging slugger, I was concerned. When Fernando Rodney, previously billed as "the worst closer in baseball" by Detroit fans signed a multiyear contract, I knew the Angels were in trouble.

Yesterday's trade of Saunders + minor leaguers to Arizona for Dan Haren might be the trade that keeps Regains his job. This is what the Kazmir trade was supposed to be: buy low on major league talent, sell high on minor league talent. As long as the PTBNL isn't Mike Trout, and it won't be, it'll be a lopsided trade in the Angels' favor for a great pitcher with a favorable contract that pays him less than he's worth. And it gets rid of Joe Saunders, who was a great man and a great Angel, but not a particularly good pitcher, and one who's performance this season illustrates his mediocrity.

For the record, I have no faith that the Angels will make the playoffs this season. A 7 game deficit with ~60 games remaining is a deep hole, especially when the Rangers are able to take 3 of 4 games. Texas and LA have 10 games remaining, but the Angels will now need to exceed the Rangers' pace through the nondivisional schedule as well.

But I'm feeling much more optimistic about next season than I was at the beginning of this one, so while I wait for Haren to start with the Angels, I'll give Reagins a reprieve. But only for a minute.

Scot says "'Sup?"

2010-07-22T15:48:00.001-04:00

As if to mock me, Shields pitched yesterday:

1 IP, 4 R, 4 H, 2 HR, 1 K.

Of course.

Beating the Yankees

2010-07-21T00:37:00.003-04:00

As boredom truly sets in, I've been watching a reasonable amount of Angels baseball over the last few weeks. My frustrations with the team remain the same, but a thorough dismantling of the Yankees always brightens my spirits.

But I'm more curious as to what, exactly, has been going on with Scot Shields.

Scot "Only one T, Please" Shields was the eighth-inning rock in the bullpen during Francisco Rodriguez's run as Angels closer. He was never truly dominant, but had dominant stretches and was generally reliable enough to be trusted in close game situations even in back to back, or several consecutive, games. His two-seam fastball was listed, at one point, as the #1 swing and miss pitch in Major League Baseball. He led the league in holds. He pitched at least 77 innings (and a max of 148) in every season from 2003-2007.

Then something happened. That something was a rash of injuries, including a major surgery and trip to the disabled list in 2009 that ended his season. Since returning, and even before his departure, Shields has been...bad. Bad is the best word to describe his performance. Bad BB/9, bad IP totals, bad WAR, bad ERA, bad tRA, bad everything.

Tonight, Shields threw an inning, allowing a walk, a hit, and earning a pair of strikeouts. He looked much like the pitcher he was from '03-'06, seasons during which he posted impressive WAR's of 2.6, 2.4, 2.7, and 2.0 Looking at his successful seasons, we see a couple major differences in some peripheral stats that indicate Scot's true problems. With a career average BB/9 of 3.50, he has rates of 7.64 and 6.37 in the last two seasons. This season, his BABIP has climbed from a career average of .286 to .319, despite lowering his HR/9 to .61 from a career average of .67.

So, with those numbers in mind, what's Scottie's problem? Well, he's walking too many people and he's getting unlucky, with hits falling in at a higher than expected rate. This means, of course, that his walked batters are turning into runs courtesy of an unlucky hit rate. Where hits used to merely put a man on base, they're now driving in walked batters.

To be fair, Shields is turning 35 in two days, and some natural reduction in performance is expected with age. But with a change in mechanics, or preparation, or voodoo, or whatever it is that allows pitchers to regain control, there's nothing separating Shields from a fourth 2.0+ WAR season.

Team with noodle bats still in contention

2010-07-07T23:28:00.003-04:00

As I watch Hideki Matsui ground yet another ball for an easy out, I grow increasingly sad while Vlad cranks out home runs for Texas. And while the gap is likely to be 5.5 games tonight, with the Rangers holding three games in hand, I'm still relatively unconcerned. In a ridiculous bit of schedule-making insanity, the Angels and Rangers still have 14 games together.

Anything that's less than a 14 game lead, isn't.

Uruguay/Ghana musings

2010-07-03T00:51:00.004-04:00

My dad, after the US lost to Ghana, adopted Ghana as his team, along with the rest of Africa. He believed that Ghana's advancement to the final would vindicate yet another poor showing from the United States.

I, personally, didn't really care much about the result of the game, but was kinda hoping that a Ghana loss would mean fewer vuvuzelas through the rest of the Cup.

As a former defender, I can confidently state that Suarez's handball at the goal line with no time remaining was a brilliant, gutsy play. I have had the opportunity to stop a sure goal with my hands to save my team, and I tried. I missed the ball by inches, my team was eliminated from the tournament, and I still regret not being able to get a hand on the ball before it crossed the goal line. To say that Suarez was wrong in saving a sure goal by breaking the fundamental rule of soccer is a foolish argument. There is a time and place for sportsmanship, but the final shot of an elimination game in the world's grandest tournament is not the time to surrender a stoppable goal.

Much as with basketball and free throws, missing penalty kicks is a cardinal sin. Gyan's miss on the subsequent penalty shot with zero time remaining, and Ghana's later pair of misses during the shootout are the equivalent of the Lakers missing 6 consecutive free throws in a tie, overtime game. It's unacceptable, and although Ghana certainly deserved to win the game, execution is the only critical part of soccer, and Ghana was simply unable to execute properly.

Divisional Games

2010-06-29T03:16:00.003-04:00

The In Play, No Outs philosophy on baseball is simple. Beat teams in your division two times out of three, and you'll make the playoffs. With the Angels opening a short series with the Rangers tomorrow, it is exceedingly important that they win at least two games to start narrowing the gap between themselves and division leaders Texas.

Texas has been playing Houston, Floria, and Pittsburgh, parlaying an easy schedule into a 16-2 record over their last 18 games. Despite an Angels team that has had a surprising string of solid play following the loss of Kendry Morales, the Rangers have turned a half game deficit to a 4.5 game lead in the West, and can lead by as many as 7.5 games if they sweep the series.

Ordinarily, a 7.5 game lead is borderline insurmountable over the remainder of the season, but the Angels have 14 games remaining with the Rangers, not including the upcoming three game series. With 17 games left to be played, the idiot schedule makers have made for an interesting, albeit compressed, race for the division crown.

Fire Bob Bradley

2010-06-27T13:27:00.003-04:00

A few years ago, I was speaking with one of my friends at Northeastern. This friend happened to play on the NU women's soccer team, and I consider her to be a pretty reliable mind when it comes to soccer. We both agreed that Bob Bradley was a good interim coach, but not a reasonable long term solution for the United States, His penchant for leaving better players on the bench to start games and his inability to run a cohesive offensive strategy meant that the US would improve defensively but tend to struggle, particularly in the first half.

Then the World Cup happened. In every game, the US was outplayed during the first half. During the knockout Ghana game, the team was lucky to have escaped down 1-0, rather than 2- or 3-nil. During the first half, Bradley was forced to make a sub after a terrible lineup decision (starting Clark over Edu) led directly to a turnover and Ghanaian goal. Then, at halftime, he made another switch. That's two of the allotted three subs before the game was 51% complete.

Of course, during the second half, the US looked like a worthwhile team. They applied ball pressure, abandoned their first half policy of kicking the ball the whole way down the field on every possession, and scored a goal on a penalty kick from Landon Donovan. They also missed quality chances, including two one-on-one situations with the Ghana goalie, from Findley and Bradley, both of which would've been US goals with Davies or Buddle.

Jozy Altidore played like crap the whole game, but was left in for the entire 120 minutes because Bradley found himself rather low on substitutes thanks to his terrible lineup decisions. Frankly, I would have replaced Altidore with Buddle after the first 60, maybe after the first half.

The extra time was marked with poor play from the US reminiscent of their usual first half performances, and disgraceful time wasting from the Ghanaians. I have tried to explain the lack of clock stoppage in soccer for years, but I think it's time I'm stopped from having to make bad arguments: the clock needs to stop in soccer, when the ball is out of bounds, when a free kick is being taken, any time a whistle is blown.

Some folks have grown tired of referee bashing over the last few months. It's understandable on both sides, really, as bad calls have become omnipresent in sports media. But it's important to recognize that bad calls are nothing new. What's new is the amount of time and money devoted to sports by fans. When ticket prices are in the thousands of dollars for playoff games, fans have earned the right to see the game called fairly, through use of any supplemental information, including instant replay and RFID-enhanced referee accuracy. It's not that bad calls are ruining every game, because they're not. But if the USA had missed the knockout stage because referees had called back good goals in two of the three games they played, how does that accurately represent the overall skill level of the team? When the Tigers have a fan-supported payroll of $122 million, does it really seem fair that they're denied an obvious perfect game. High payrolls, television contracts, and $125 soccer balls exist for the entertainment of fans, and when bad calls diminish that entertainment, something has to change.

The NBA, and why it sucks

2010-06-18T00:53:00.003-04:00

Note: This post was composed after game 2 of the Finals. I wrote it then and avoided publishing it to avoid having to talk about the godforsaken NBA while it was still in season. I'll have a new post up soon talking about the Finals soon.

I've seen enough NBA basketball to recognize how bad it is. Millionaire players missing free throws, games coming down to missed free throws, decidedly unbalanced officiating, and a hilarious lack of understanding of the game of basketball make the NBA, well, the NBA.

There are a couple different things in the sporting world that are influenced too heavily by officiating. Only one is a sport. Basketball, much like gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and figure skating, relies on officials to make decisions which fundamentally alter the game. In hockey, the biggest call a referee can make is the awarding of a penalty shot. In basketball, a ref can change possession of the ball, award free throws, and remove a player from a game in a single play. In a tight game, as the NBA playoffs tend to be, a one point swing can end a game. But calls are routinely made which allow a team to go from having scored a three pointer to being called for a charge and technical foul, sometimes allowing as much as a 5 point swing on a single play. In a slightly wider time frame, a three pointer called back can turn into a three pointer plus a foul shot on the other end. That's 7 points. That's the margin of victory in many games.

In gymnastics, in sync-swimming, and in many other competitions, the judges (officials) have time to observe the "athlete" and make a judgment. In basketball, the decisions are split-second, based on an oblique view from across the court, with ever-expanding impact. NBA instant replay rules only compound a bad situation, restricting what can and can't be reviewed, allowing officials to comfortably make the "right call" even when other factors make the "right call" the wrong call. NBA refs are old, they are getting older, and they are far, far too chummy with the players and coaches. Kobe Bryant frequently puts his arm around the refs and talks to them; players all over the league are able to talk to referees with abandon. This does not portray an image of a league in which consistent officiating can be expected. In baseball, a player touches an umpire and he's ejected. If he whines about balls and strikes, he's ejected. The first step to legitimizing officiating in the NBA is elevating the officials above in-game trash talk and whining. Technical fouls and ejections need to be used to keep the players from interacting with the referees.

Free throw shooting is boring. Unfortunately, many games in the NBA come down to free throw shooting. There's a few reasons for this:

the players are no longer playing basketball, but streetball
multimillionaire basketball players inexplicably suck at free throws
inconsistent, or worse, consistently poor, officiating

Either basketball is a contact game or it isn't. 20 years ago, it wasn't. Then Michael Jordan arrived, and now every jump shooter in the world tries to lean into his defender to draw contact in the hopes of getting a foul, and every defender clobbers anybody in the paint. Basketball is not a contact sport. Assign technical fouls for physical defense and physical offense. Separate the players and let the game flow like it used to, because streetball sucks. And for the love of god, I haven't the faintest idea how PROFESSIONAL basketball players miss free throws, sometimes more than 50% of them. Games are regularly won and lost by free throw margins. Most teams would win far more games by simply making all of their free throws, rather than signing a new player or adopting a new coach.

Finally, the players kinda suck. The on-court screaming, the trash-talking, the goose-necking, it's all stupid. Yes, the players are passionate. But slamming your head into the padding on the basket or pounding your fist on your chest, or yelling "motherfucker!" at your defender, those things are not passion, they're stupid. If I never see Nate Robinson jump off the bench yelling obscenities at opposing players again, it'll be too soon.

The NBA is broken. When the NHL is a more forward thinking league than yours, something foul is afoot. When the college game has better officiated games, more interesting players, and a more compelling background, why does the NBA even exist?

World Cup Thoughts

2010-06-16T16:23:00.002-04:00

In no particular order.

The only time the incessant drone of the vuvuzela stops is when somebody scores on South Africa. Unfortunately, this means I have to root against South Africa.
The diving is still out of control, despite FIFA's "attempts" to fix the problem. What we need is a four day yellow card binge that puts lots of players in jeopardy of missing future games. I would rather watch a World Cup with no star players, a lower level of play, and no diving, than one with Ronaldo and Drogba rolling around on the turf every 3 minutes.
Clint Dempsey's gift goal to give the US a 1-1 draw with England was a perfect example of bad luck combined with poor technique from the goalie. Dropping to a single knee to make a low save is dangerous because it severely limits your post save mobility without positively impacting your overall size in net. Either come down with both knees and legs splayed, almost a soccer version of butterfly, or stand up so you can move if you need to. A happy medium is a losing medium in goaltending.
Diving is particularly deplorable to American fans because we're used to watching hockey. During the Stanley Cup finals, players from Chicago and Philadelphia played with serious injuries, including a pair of broken feet and countless broken hands. The sport encourages physical behavior that lends itself to injury, but when a player loses 7 teeth, he's back on the ice in 11 minutes. When a player falls to the turf clutching his knee after the slightest of taps, nobody is impressed. Fix the diving.
The low scoring group stage is doing nothing to improve the viability of soccer to the American public. People complain about hockey, where the score is frequently 3 or 4 to 1 or 2. Soccer is way worse. I'm not sure how to fix it without fundamentally changing the game, but I've watched enough 1-0 and 1-1 games already to last me a lifetime. I spent three hours in a bar in Italy watching 3 simultaneous games and saw 0 goals. Maybe make the nets bigger?
I don't care what anyone says, a plastic horn is not "culture." It's irritating.

Yes, there is content coming

2010-06-16T03:48:00.003-04:00

I've already written a post about the NBA Finals, and the NBA overall, but I'm waiting to see what happens in game 7 before I post it.

And yes, I realize the Angels have been playing well, this Milwaukee series notwithstanding. I have content on baseball too.

And yes, I've been watching the World Cup, and with all sorts of interesting happenings with goalies, you'll see something on that soon, as well.

Soon.

2010-06-03T04:54:00.002-04:00

Unbelievably, I'm having some spam comment issues, so comment moderation is now on for the time being.

The positive side of the Galarraga/Joyce debacle

2010-06-02T23:19:00.002-04:00

"You win, let's get some robot umpires." -Kyle

For those of you who don't know who Kyle is, Kyle is one of the few people whose baseball opinions I actually trust. Please note that I trust Kyle, and not Bud Selig, but regardless, if a horribly blown call is what it takes to remove the awful, awful human element from the game of baseball and bring it to a fair competition, devoid of avoidable officiating errors, then this was a great day in baseball, indeed.

An important sidenote, by the way, is the officiating at tonight's Stanley Cup Finals game between Chicago and Philadelphia. In overtime, a puck appeared to have crossed the goal line, giving the Flyers the win. The goal light came on, the fans started dancing, and the horn blared. But, because of the NHL's good (not great) instant replay rules, the play was reviewed and the puck never did cross the line. The Flyers would go on to win regardless, but losing a game because you lost the game is much better than losing a game because the officials blew a call. Go NHL.

Let's do this thing:

Ron Ron goes for a jog

2010-05-28T06:24:00.002-04:00

Ignoring another near-complete meltdown from the Lakers, let's look at the distance Artest covered to get Kobe's airball:

Click for bigger picture.

Wow.

Only half-joking* idea for Angels bullpen

2010-05-26T22:37:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the Angels have a bullpen that gives up a run an inning on a good night. The starters, on the other hand, have been pretty solid. So, instead of having one starter a night, try two! Each starter gets a 60 pitch limit, and the rotation expands to include Trevor Bell. So now we have a rotation of:

Weaver/Kazmir
Saunders/Santana
Piniero/Bell

This gives a nifty L/R split for days one and two, while accepting mediocre performance on the third day. This should, hopefully, limit the bullpen to less than an inning per game, while essentially replacing the standard 5 day rotation with bullpen sessions into a 3 day rotation with no bullpen sessions. The total amount of pitches thrown per pitcher per week shouldn't be much higher than it is now, with the added advantage of total bullpen pitches thrown per week falling to near zero.

Should starter 1 throw 7 innings on 60 pitches, or even 6 innings, well, that's great, because now he gets to be starter 2 on his next turn in the rotation. The goal, really, is to get at least 5 out of the first starter so the second can go 5 on his next turn, if he's economical.

*Yes, this is a joke, but I wonder if something like this has ever been tried during the regular season.

The Gulf Oil Spill

2010-05-23T23:24:00.002-04:00

As most of you know, I'm an avid sports fan. I'm also a recently graduated engineer, and although you won't find passionate engineering diatribes here often, I feel much the same way about technology and my profession as I do about pucks, baseballs, and hoops.

As with all major man-made catastrophes, no single point of failure can be blamed for the Deepwater Horizon well blowout. Although the circumstances behind the events in the Gulf are much different than those of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, both events share a similar background and will likely result in the same effects on American industry.

Chernobyl, though widely known, is not widely understood by most. In condensed form, the story is simple: A test needed to be performed to determine the reactor's ability to cool itself down if there were an external power failure. Like the human heart, the energy produced within the reactor does not power the reactor itself, so external electricity (or, in the heart's case, blood vessels) must power the critical safety and environmental systems. However, the test was delayed due to unexpected power loads, and was moved onto the schedule for a skeleton night shift with a substantially reduced crew of competent engineers. When the reactor was put in an unstable, low-power state to begin the test, problems occurred, pushing the test out of the safety envelope. Seeing this, the engineers demanded an abort, but were pushed, by managers under extreme cost pressures. to continue by removing nearly every fail safe available. This included disabling no less than 10 devices which would have otherwise stopped the meltdown.

Then, the rest is history. The test began, a "power excursion" occurred, and then the poorly engineered RBMK reactor failed. The meltdown happened because the rector was poorly built, poorly shielded, and poorly operated. The meltdown happened because a schedule had to be met, because there were external cost pressures, and because the test was controlled by unqualified engineers. The meltdown happened because, along the line, wrong decisions after wrong decisions, over the course of years, conglomerated. The entire situation was compounded by awful post-incident decision making, allowing national pride to stand in the way of citizen safety.

My point is that there is no single failure locus, as engineers so often say.

The Deepwater Horizon blowout is eerily similar, in this regard. An accelerated schedule, businesspeople exerting financial pressure on engineers, engineers exerting pressure on workers, and a disregard for safety at every level produced a perfect environment for disaster. The catastrophe could have been averted had Transocean and BP discussed their differing methods for capping the well over the course of weeks, not hours. It could have been averted had the lead engineer on the rig forced work to stop after pieces of the blowout preventer came up the drill pipe. It could have been averted had industry best practices been followed, if proper tests and analysis had been performed, and if more careful monitoring had been implemented.

The response has, of course, been contentious. BP, while appearing to be fully engaged in the recovery effort, nevertheless clearly lacked a real contingency for such an event. The two tested options for a well blowout were a functioning BOP cutting off the well, and a relief well. The first option takes 30 minutes, the second three months. The containment dome, the top hat, and the "top kill" procedure have never been tested at such depths, and thus have taken weeks to implement. The government, on the other hand, lacks the resources to suitably manage such an event, and is such at the mercy of BP for mitigation and cleanup.

Much as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island placed a nearly 30-year moratorium on new reactor construction in the United States, the Deepwater Horizon blowout is likely to end offshore drilling in the US for the foreseeable future. However, the correct response demands that drillers have enough safety devices in place to generate more than a single pair of contingency plans. If nothing else, they should be forced to have enough containment boom to PROPERLY boom the coastline which might be affected by a blowout within a couple days, not weeks.

This was easily preventable, despite the great scientific uncertainty that surrounds deep offshore drilling. As an engineer, I find it frustrating that otherwise good technology has, again, been sold out by a string of human errors.

How to improperly run a team with a huge payroll

2010-05-20T23:23:00.002-04:00

The Angels, so far this season, have been underwhelming. And while much of the blame can be placed with the tepid offense, the bullpen has been shockingly unreliable. The bullpen, this year, is making these salaries:

Brian Fuentes: $9,000,000
Fernando Rodney: $5,500,000
Scot Shields: $5,350,000
Kevin Jepsen: $415,000
Jason Bulger: $418,000
Brian Stokes: $435,000
Trevor Bell: $400,000
Bobby Cassevah: $400,000

That's $21,918,000 committed to a bullpen which has been decidedly below league average this year. Fuentes and Shields, in particular, have combined for some of the worst relief appearances in recent memory, neither having a 2010 season where they should be getting paid for their services. Fuentes has been worth an astonishing NEGATIVE 1.9 million dollars thus far, and Shields should have paid the Angels 1.1 million dollars for his 11.1 innings this season. Two guys, combining for over 14 million dollars in salary, are providing less value than your typical AAA relief pitcher.

The real problem, though, is that there's no real options to fix the problem. You can't just throw away $14,000,000 because the players aren't (nor have they ever been) worth their salaries. And apparently, the farm system can't provide even semi-reliable arms, with Stokes showing off a -0.3 WAR this season, and Bell is sitting on a goose egg for his WAR, which, frankly, is better than most of his peers.

Again, I'm calling for front office leadership changes. Reagins has consistently shown an inability to adequately assess talent, and his problems are made worse by Scioscia's unwillingness to move around arms in his bullpen to suit their strengths. The Angels need to stop with oversized contracts to mediocre players and concentrate on utilizing trades and the farm system to acquire low-priced talent in the next two years. Otherwise, it's going to look a whole lot like the early '90's.

Hockey and brain injuries

2010-05-14T16:30:00.002-04:00

The quote below is from BoC, sourced from a person discussing traumatic brain injuries and the game of hockey. I thought it was interesting, and it appeals to my sports injury-prevention interests, so I figured I'd let my reader(s?) take a look at it.

Author Bio: Chelsea Travers is an outreach representative for CareMeridian, a subacute care facility located throughout the Western United States for patients suffering from traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury or medical complexities, such as neuromuscular or congenital anomalies.

Hockey and TBI

Hockey is arguably one of the most physical professional sports. Hockey players are constantly getting body checked, slammed into boards, falling to the ice, slapped by a stick, hit by a dense, speeding puck or getting punched during a fight. If that isn’t bad enough, hockey players take part in one of the longest regular seasons of any sport, effectively taking on harsher pain for a longer amount of time throughout the year. Risk of injury couldn’t be clearer as you all too commonly see hockey players missing their front two teeth. With all of the injuries that can occur, one of the most dangerous is a traumatic brain injury (TBI). A TBI is a silent injury that can cause harm to the mind and body of an individual. An injury to the head or brain can alter someone’s life and can even require long-term rehabilitation and care from a skilled nursing facility. These injuries are often far too common in the sport of hockey and if not properly treated can permanently leave a hockey player's life challenging than the game they play.

TBI is an injury that Philadelphia Flyers player Ian Laperriere knows all too well. In game 5 of an NHL playoff game with the New Jersey Devils, Laperriere took a slap shot to the face that immediately caused him to bleed excessively from the wound above his eye and lose sight. Laperriere was diagnosed with a brain contusion after having a MRI a few days later. While Laperriere may have originally thought that losing sight in one of his eyes was the worst of the two injuries, in reality the bigger concern could wind up being the long-term effects of the brain injury.

A concussions have been dismissed as minor injuries because the physical nature of most sports causes them to occur regularly, but, frequently occurring or not, they are still head injuries where the brain is forced to move violently within the skull and the way it functions could change permanently. When the brain moves in such a manner, it can bruise, bleed, and even tear, which can cause irreversible damage to the victim. For a sport like hockey, this type of injury is very common and unfortunately at times ignored. Many hockey players don't take into account the possible effects of the injury and because it might not seem like a serious problem exists at first, they keep on skating as if nothing occurred. Their unawareness of the injury makes the it so much more dangerous because a mild brain injury can turn into a life threatening injury in a very short period of time without seeking immediate medical treatment.

Studies by the National Academy of Neuropsychology's Sports Concussion Symposium in New York have shown that since 1997, 759 NHL players have been diagnosed with a concussion. Broken down, that averages out to 76 players per season and 31 concussions per 1,000 games of hockey. That is far too frequent of an occurrence for such a serious injury. It's a frightening statistic that should send up a red flag to hockey officials that actions need to be taken to further prevent this type of injury from occurring.

The best, and sometimes only, treatment for TBI is prevention. For the National Hockey League new rules are being considered that preserve the game but also help protect the players. Rule changes concerning blindside hits, rink size (which affects players' space from each other and their proximity to walls), and stronger helmet requirements all have been considered to help curb TBI and its effects. This demonstrates that the NHL is aware of the seriousness of the injury and is taking proactive steps to help prevent it from happening.

Hockey is one of the most popular sports in North America and has millions of people participating in it every year. Unfortunately, the sport comes with the risk of a TBI. With the right awareness of the injury and the necessary precautions in place, the game should be able to continue with players excited to lace up their skates and enjoy it.

Yes, that was long. If you didn't read it, here's the crux of the issue: Hockey players sustain a lot of concussions, concussions are really bad, and they are preventable.

There's a few ways of reducing the risk of injury, most of which would require fundamentally altering the game of hockey. One of those ways is removing hits, another is a rules change that slows the game, and another is playing with a marshmallow for a puck inside a rink of pillows. None of those options are realistic for a professional sports league that draws at least limited support because of its violence. The only viable solution, in my mind, is technology.

Looking back at Wayne Gretzky, it's now well known that his helmet wasn't really a hockey helmet. It was a broomball helmet, designed to keep the noggins of drunk college students safe while they lumber around an ice rink with brooms and a soccer ball while wearing sneakers. Ryan Smyth wears a slightly upgraded helmet today. Most players wear their chin straps so loose that their helmets fall off when they fall down, or rotate backward onto their necks when they throw their heads backward. Moreover, many players choose to play with absolutely no facial protection of any type, eschewing even the small clear visor that offers some protection to the forehead and eye region.

This is ridiculous.

If the NHL is serious about reducing injury, it doesn't need to focus on blind side hits. Fixing bad hits is one thing, but what if you could limit injury from blind side hits and nearly every other injurious action on the ice?

Improving helmets, and forcing proper usage, is a simple way to drastically reduce hockey head and facial injuries at every level of the game without requiring a fundamental change in the way the game is played. The NCAA mandates that the players wear cages, and play is halted if a helmet is lost, encouraging proper equipment fitment. The NHL loses nothing by forcing players to wear modern, carbon fiber/kevlar helmets with full face shields, except for a half second for the equipment to be removed before a fight.

Purists will, as they always do, whine about losing some "important" aspect of the game by adding a level of safety. But I disagree. Losing Kopitar, Crosby, Ovechkin, or Briere for a season because they got an errant high stick to the eye is far worse for hockey than requiring face shields. Having former players relegated to wheelchairs because they've severely damaged their brains in '70's-era equipment is far worse for hockey than requiring good helmets.

It's up to the NHL to do the right thing, or do nothing. But, like the NFL, the league risks creating a generation of brain damaged alumni if it continues to ignore the blatantly wrong safety practices it espouses.

Better options than Brian Fuentes:

2010-05-11T01:16:00.000-04:00

1.) Fernando Rodney
2.) The Aflac duck (or Gilbert Gottfried)
3.) John Lackey's wife
4.) My 16 year old cat
5.) Jerry Orbach (yes, he is dead)

Inning summary:

- R. Willits at designated hitter

- B. Fuentes relieved F. Rodney

- G. Kapler struck out swinging

- W. Aybar homered to deep left

- J. Bartlett singled to right center

- C. Crawford flied out to shallow right

- B. Zobrist walked, J. Bartlett to second

- E. Longoria doubled to left center, J. Bartlett and B. Zobrist scored

- C. Pena hit by pitch

- E. Longoria to third, C. Pena to second on wild pitch

- J. Jaso lined out to right center

- End of Inning (3 Runs, 3 Hits, 0 Errors)

And thus, Fuentes surrenders a 4-1 lead in the ninth. This team will not win 1-run games as they usually do while Fuentes is still on the roster.

Fenway failure

2010-05-05T10:29:00.003-04:00

With my graduation from Northeastern approaching at an alarming pace, my visit to Fenway Park last night to watch the Angels was likely my last trek to that godforsaken park for a major league baseball game. Aside from the potholed concourse with no view of the field, the $8.50 beer, the minuscule $5.00 hot dogs, and the hordes of unwashed Connecticutians, watching the Angels in Fenway Park has rarely been a positive experience. This game was no different, with the Angels failing to capitalize on a 2nd and 3rd, 1 out situation in the eighth inning of a tie game, followed by a miserable Juan Rivera drop of a routine fly ball to give the Red Sox the go-ahead runs.

Meanwhile, of course, Boston "fans" were threatening myself and the rest of the small Angels contingent with violence and general hooliganism. Well after the Angels had lost and the crowd was attempting to file out of the minuscule bleacher stairway, I was talking with a guy who seemed civil, yet ten seconds later told me he was "going to kick my ass." I left the field and found a shockingly large pool of congealing blood next to the famous Ted Williams statue. As the Doghouse says in Merrimack's arena, "this place sucks!"

As far as the game was concerned, the game turned on two plays: Abreu's double play groundout in the top of the 8th, and Rivera's inability to catch a popup in the bottom of the inning. Abreu, in my mind, needed to be able to hit the ball in the air, both for the sake of the game and as a professional baseball player. How many warning track flies does he produce in a season? Lengthen your swing and accept a strikeout over a ground ball. Rivera, on the other hand, earned praise for his defense last season. Don't believe it. He ran 30 yards to move 15 linear yards, slowed down before he needed to, and watched a ball hi the ground in front of him and bounce off the wall. This is unacceptable, and for all of Reggie Willits' faults, he would've made that catch.

I would write about Kevin Jepsen's "relief" effort, but talking about anyone who walks three batters in an inning is wasting words.

It is important to remember that it's May. The Angels, despite a 5-game losing streak (soon to be 6, with Lackey facing Piniero tonight), are only 2.5 (maybe 3.5) games out of first in the AL West with over 130 games remaining.

Finally, I take comfort in the Lakers. Despite my massively reduced interest in the NBA this season, mostly because the NBA sucks, I still love the Lakers for the worry-free entertainment they bring. Rarely am I concerned about them losing a game, I have faith that one of Bryant or Gasol will show up in any given game, usually both, and the regular season remains irrelevant for the team. It's a calming sense of security.

When does hockey season start?

Push bunt: Best play in baseball?

2010-04-29T14:32:00.003-04:00

These 7PM Eastern start times confuse me. I flipped on the Slingbox just in time for the bottom of the ninth, only to watch Morales neatly bounce into a double play. Kendrick's bunt for a game winning single, moments later, was a pleasant gift before I had to start studying for my last final.

Miscellany:

I keep talking about how I'm migrating to Chargers fandom, but the Patriots keep pulling me back with things like this. Maybe I'll need to learn how to handle dual-citizenship.
About half of my goalie equipment went away today, generating sadness and excitement. Once I get a job, I'll need new leg pads, skates, sticks, and a glove

Season Post-Mortem: Your Los Angeles Kings

2010-04-26T23:19:00.002-04:00

Viewed in a long-term lens, defining this season as anything but a success is a wild miscalculation. For the first time since 2002, the Kings made the playoffs. They earned a 2-1 series lead, and were, arguably, one second and one period away from sweeping a superior opponent*. Their best players were also their youngest, and Drew Doughty, Wayne Simmonds, and Anze Kopitar all had a relatively good playoff series, Doughty and Simmonds in particular. Jonathan Bernier had a taste of the NHL and exceeded expectations, while Quick was able to carry the team for stretches while proving to be an exceptional shootout asset.

Viewed from a short-term perspective, this season was a disappointment. The team was in first place in the Western Conference for some time but nearly missed the playoffs with an extended cold streak. They were unable to follow a double-digit unbeaten streak with post-Olympics consistency. Jon Quick was unable to match his effort from the previous year, particularly as the season drew to an end.Veterans such as Ryan Smyth and Justin Williams failed to produce in the second half after a stellar start.

Quick has drawn crticism for his postseason play, but it's somewhat undeserved. He deserved to win game 1, losing because Luongo had a fortuitous glove-swipe in overtime, and undoubtedly was the reason the game went to overtime. He earned the game 2 win as well, and played well enough in game 3 to win the game. However, I noticed his mechanical faults as early as game 2, and they became a liability in game 4. He stopped looking for the puck and spent too much time dropping into a blocking butterfly without actively seeking the shooter. He would drop into the butterfly and crouch far too low, inviting high shots and minimizing his ability to move. He insisted on using godforsaken paddle-down as a constant crutch for his poor positioning and vision.

Despite all those things, the Kings were very close to winning this series. Quick is being labelled as the goat, but Ryan Smyth was invisible, Matt Greene and Sean O'Donnell were routinely victimized by Vancouver forwards, and an effective penalty kill faltered in the final three games.

The season, as a whole, occurred during a sort of hockey renaissance for me. I played two semesters of ice hockey goalie, two semesters of broomball goalie, a semester of floor hockey goalie, and countless pickup roller hockey games, all while watching more NHL and college hockey than I have at any point in my life. What was once a mere distraction until baseball season began has become the central focus of my sports passion. Hockey, a game, both beautiful and misunderstood, which combines grace and physicality, speed and precision, and minimal interference from officials, has become my favorite sport to watch, to play, and to write. The Huskies winning, well, anything, or the Kings winning the Stanley Cup, would be as close to a religious experience as I am likely to have. An Angels World Series is a close second, but baseball and its interminable 162 game season and awful postseason format, can't compete with the elegance of the NHL.

With all that said, the Kings were a wonderful team to watch this season. My first experience with the Kings was Game 2 of the '93 Cup Finals, and my first extended taste came not until last season, so I have avoided much of the associated Kings misery that so many fans equate with the franchise. But the future of this team is so bright, so incredibly promising, that I am already delighted at the prospect of the season resuming this fall.

Thank you, Kings. Thank you Lombardi, Murray, Brown, Kopitar, Doughty, Simmonds, Scuderi, and Quick. Thank you Bernier, Greene, Handzus, Richardson, Johnson, and Stoll. Thank you Miller, Fox, and, of course, Bailey. It's been wonderful, and it's only getting better.

For those of you who come here for Angels coverage, here it comes. Baseball season is fully upon us, and the Angels are playing more like the Angels and less like the Bizarro AngelOrioles, hockey's over, and I'm finally able to watch games on a daily basis. Maybe you might even find occasional Lakers coverage, if they avoid losing to Seattle.

*Luongo's save on the goal line in game 1, the third period in game 4.

Why blaming a league conspiracy makes you look like a jackass

2010-04-20T13:08:00.004-04:00

The Kings beat the Canucks last night to take a 2-1 lead in the series. It was the first home playoff game for the Kings since 2002, and I was fully expecting them to come out flat and go down early. They did.

Once they were down 1-0, everything changed. The Kings started to match Vancouver's physicality, they started generating some offense, and they earned a power play. They scored, tying the game before the first intermission.

During the second period, they scored on another two power plays. They also scored an ugly, ugly goal that went five hole on Luongo while he was, presumably, checking out Bailey dumping popcorn on Canucks fans. That marked the end of Luongo's night and a 4-1 lead for the Kings.

The lead would get shaved a goal on some complacent defense, leaving the score 4-2 Kings at the second break. Already, Vancouver fans were saying things like "the fix is in!" and "Bettman has ruled: no Canadian teams to the second round."

These morons were further convinced of a massive NHL conspiracy against their team when an apparent goal was called back after the officials in Toronto determined that it had been kicked in. It was a bad call, but not a terrible one, and the Canucks would go on to score seconds later anyway. Regardless, the score was 4-3, and even if it had been 4-4, it would've been irrelevant to the final outcome, as Smyth scored on a knucklepuck to give the Kings their fifth goal.
So now, the bellyaching continues.

Direct quotes from Vancouver fan message boards:

This entire series is bull.
The Kings have gotten almost every call and bounce. The Canucks have been bad too, but they're not even being given a ****ing chance here!
Who cares about integrity, its profit thats important. **** this corrupt league.
This is bull****! Why do I keep on watching this joke of a league? I honestly am starting to believe the conspiracy theories.
Bettman paid off the refs to generate first round upsets.
I am livid right now. WHY do we need to go into every single playoffs KNOWING the refs will screw us for Bettman's darling teams. There is NO way its just coincidence or bad luck at this point. It happens every single year.

I wish these were joking, or ironic, or self-deprecating, but they're not. Canucks fans are serious when they say that the NHL is trying to screw them.

With that in mind, here are the statistics that matter:

Kings: 3/3 power play, 4/4 penalty kill
Canucks: 0/4 power play, 0/3 penalty kill

Jon Quick: 25 saves, 28 shots, 3 GA (3 even strength)
Luongo/Raycroft: 18 saves, 23 shots, 5 GA (3 PP, 2 even strength)

If a team cannot score with an extra skater despite getting more power plays, cannot prevent the other team from scoring on the power play, cannot muster an .800 save percentage, goes several power plays without a shot, misses empty nets, allows several odd-man rushes, can't clear the zone, and turns the puck directly over to opposing forwards tens of times in a game, the problem lies with the team, not the league.

Vancouver drew more penalties than Los Angeles, had a disallowed goal replaced with a counted goal, had a substantial amount of 6 on 4 time at the end of the game, and still couldn't win.

The Canucks lost this game because they played like crap. I find it important to emphasize that the only reason the Canucks won a game this series is because they got an incredibly lucky save on the goal line in overtime in game 1. The puck bounces both ways, and ignoring fortune and focusing exclusively on unluckiness is a trademark of baseball, not hockey. I heartily encourage Vancouver fans to look at their team's road record, their depleted defense, and shoddy goalie before blaming the NHL for their playoff woes.

Raccoon scores in OT, Kings tie series

2010-04-18T20:30:00.003-04:00

Let's get real, here. Anze looks like a raccoon. Not a little bit, but a lot. While this has inspired nicknames over at BoC and Jewels from the Crown, nicknames like "Raccoon Jesus," but I don't imagine Jesus was a particularly proficient hockey player, so maybe the name is a bit of a misnomer.

Kira was sleeping while I was watching the game last night, so I found myself having to silently cheer. Not for the first period, mind you, as she was awake, and the Kings weren't. But she was out before the second, and I don't think I've ever come closer to punching a hole through my ceiling when I jumped out of my chair, silently, with my hands raised, when Simmonds converted the 3-on-1 to tie the game.

Roberto Luongo, who earned some playoff mystique with an unbelievable (but extremely lucky) save in overtime in game 1, countered his good fortune with a bad bounce in game 2. After Rob Scuderi forced a too-many-men penalty on the Canucks in overtime by astutely playing the puck towards their bench, Kopitar was able to shoot, get his own rebound, and shoot again. The puck hit Luongo, got beside him, and then got knocked in by the oversized knob on his stick. I play with a relatively small tape ball on the end, but Luongo seems to prefer the larger variety, and that likely cost him the game last night. Well, that, and having 7 men on the ice in an overtime period during the second game of a playoff series.

If the NHL wanted parity after the '04-'05 lockout, that's what they've found. Every playoff series with two games played was tied at 1-1. Of the teams that found themselves ahead 1-0 in the series, all built a lead of at least 1-0 in the second game, and all subsequently lost the game. The Bruins, Kings, and Capitals were all down 2-0 in the first period before winning game 2 to tie their respective series'.

I love playoff hockey.

In the glove, apparently

2010-04-14T01:14:00.003-04:00

"Where is it?!"

Mark with my glove and the result of his shot.

After getting thoroughly shellacked in a game where I played some of the best (and some of the worst) goalie of my life, a few of my team members hung around for a while to take some extra shots.

Mark took a slapshot from about 100 feet away. I felt like I got my glove on it, but there was no rebound, and my glove was empty. I felt some weird pressure on the top of my hand, turned it over, and found it. What's most impressive is the orientation of the thing...it must have been moving rather quickly.

How can you not love hockey?

2010-04-12T18:20:00.002-04:00

Facebook users, there's an embedded video in this post. Click here to view.

Goosebumps!

2-5, Kings Playoff Preview

2010-04-12T13:53:00.002-04:00

I don't really know the historical significance of giving up 47 runs in 7 games, but I'm sure it approaches, if not sets, an ignominious record. On this pace, the Angels will allow 1087 runs this season, sure to be another near-record.

It's unlikely, of course, but I'm more frustrated with the inability of the offense to produce runs. 24 runs over 7 games is poor, but it's the way that the Angels find themselves unable to score runs through their trademark small ball that's particularly disconcerting. I'm glad to see them on the road, something I think will help Brandon Wood, but wish it weren't against the Yankees.

#6 Los Angeles Kings vs. #3 Vancouver Canucks

I didn't really want to see the Kings play Vancouver, but it's important to remember that Phoenix has Vezina-candidate Ilya Bryzgalov and perennial King-killer Shane Doan, so perhaps the Vancouver matchup is a better option. I think I would have preferred San Jose to any other team in the top half of the standings, but it's better that the Kings didn't make the playoffs for the first time since 2002 as an 8 seed.

This series has a lot of potential. Both teams are relying on shaky Olympic goalies, which promises to generate a good deal of groaning from the west coast of North America. Obviously, the goaltending edge belongs to the Canucks with Roberto Luongo, but he's begun to show some inconsistency in his game. He allowed 8 goals to the Kings in the teams' most recent meeting, including a couple which I believe I would have stopped. He's been remarkably average this month.

Jon Quick, on the other hand, has been suffering from a mixture of poor play and bad luck. In every game he's played well over the last month, he's been victimized by defensive breakdowns or an unfortunate deflection of the puck off a defenseman's skates. In the game's he's played poorly, the Kings haven't scored. It's a tough spot, but nothing he's doing has changed since the early season, when he was much more successful. Quick is not, nor has he ever been, a positionally sound goalie. He relies on reaction and athleticism, which leads to amazing saves and soft goals. I don't believe either strategy to be better, but most fans view a positionally sound goalie as more consistent, when in reality, both types of goaltender output similar results. If Quick sees the puck, he makes the stop. He gets into trouble on longer shots where the puck has enough time to dip or rise, and in goalmouth scrums where he has to move laterally while already on his chest.

The series, though, will be decided by scoring. If Raitis Ivanans plays, if Simmonds doesn't score, and if Doughty can't hit the net on his point shots, the Kings will lose. I believe that Kopitar can, at least, shut down Vancouver's top scorers, while perhaps being shut down himself. That puts the responsibility for goals on Stoll, on Simmonds, and on Handzus, and their production is the difference between Kings in 6 and Vancouver in 5.

1-4

2010-04-10T00:54:00.002-04:00

During the first five games of the season, the Angels have scored 16 runs. Take away their only win, and they've managed just 10 runs in 4 games.

During that same stretch, they've allowed 35 runs. Yes, 35. 20 of those runs came in two games, each 10-run affairs, against two mediocre offenses in Minnesota and Oakland.

They have one sacrifice fly. They have five errors. They have one stolen base and have attempted to steal a base only twice.

What the hell team am I watching? The Pirates? The Orioles?

Advice to some Angels:

Wood: Stop trying so hard to hit the ball and hit the ball. You're guessing. Stop guessing. Stop deciding to swing at the first pitch, not swing at the second, and swing at the third. I know what you're doing, and it's stupid.
Abreu: Stop striking out. Start walking. You've done it your whole career, figure it out. You'd have an improved OBP this season if you never bothered to swing the bat at all.
Scioscia: If Mathis plays another damn game while Napoli sits on the bench, I'm going to put you on a diet.

We still miss you, Nick

2010-04-09T00:44:00.001-04:00

1986-2009

162-0

2010-04-06T16:41:00.003-04:00

With last night's win, the Angels move one game closer to the 162-0 game perfect season. Of course, a loss tonight drops them to 81-81, likely good enough for third in the AL West. No pressure, guys!

It's interesting how some small sample sizes seem traumatically ridiculous, but a single night of Brandon Wood at-bats is enough to convince his detractors that he isn't ready to be in the big leagues. He went 0-4 with 3 swinging strikeouts and a popup to third, not really an ideal show of force for the new starting third baseman. Regardless, if Scioscia panics and takes him out of the lineup, he won't ever start hitting the ball, and then the Angels will find themselves suddenly very thin in the infield. The sight of Tony Reagins in a luxury box on a Thinkpad was oddly reassuring.

Jered Weaver was pretty average. His success this year will be determined by home runs. Prevent them, and he's staring a great season in the face. Allow too many, and he'll become weirdly reminiscent of his brother, and the Halosphere will start the march for Reagins' head. Weaver did manage 6 strikeouts in 6 innings while moving the ball around pretty well, but the two-run homer to Young was a bad pitch in a situation where any number of better choices were available.

The bullpen looked pretty poor, with Jepsen loading the bases and escaping by the web of Kendry's glove, the sharp line drive saved from right field in the hands of our Cuban hero. Rodney managed to throw more than twice as many balls and strikes while getting three outs. I would have liked to have seen Shields for the first time in a year, but I suppose I can wait. Fuentes was uncharacteristically solid.

The offense has been discussed elsewhere, but I'd like to make two points:

1.) Erick Aybar looked like a brilliant facsimile of Chone Figgins last night, seeing 24 pitches overall, including 10 in his first at bat before walking to first. He went 2 for 3 otherwise.
2.) Bobby Abreu, despite having a terrible night in the batter's box, made two nice running catches in the outfield to end the game. Mark your schedules with a little happy face - it's not often Abreu will get accolades for his defense.

Kings

Baseball makes me appreciate hockey much the way hockey makes me appreciate baseball. It's a pleasant combination of sports, but their intermingling period is much too short. My personal choice for extending said intermingling? A Kings Stanley Cup.

Los Angeles plays the Ducks tonight at 7 Pacific. There are three games remaining after this, plus a minimum of four playoff games.

Opening Day

2010-04-04T20:47:00.002-04:00

F-15 flyovers, fireworks, Dustin Pedroia striking out swinging...life's simple pleasures.

The baseball season has begun, and begins in earnest tomorrow night with 26 teams more interesting than the Yankees and Red Sox. When sports rivalries are discussed, Boston/New York is always high on the list, but with the preponderance of divisional play in modern Major League Baseball, the rivalry grows stale. I've started leaning toward a ~120 game regular season, with all 7 game playoff series', as a superior format for baseball. I mean, the Twins have an outdoor stadium now, how can a November World Series possibly be justified?

The Angels play the Twins tomorrow in Anaheim, pushing Minnesota's home opener to April 14th against the Red Sox. LA will start Jered Weaver, while Minnesota counters with Scott Baker, a mediocre pitcher of the type that seems to frequently befuddle the Angels lineup. Scott Kazmir makes the first trip regular season to the disabled list with a strained hamstring.

I'll probably manage to get most of the game in tomorrow night, at which point I'll make blanket, knee-jerk statements about the overall quality of the Angels based on a sample size of one game.

Kings advance to playoffs for first time since, like, forever ago

In 2002, I was 15. I was anticipating my first driving lessons while attending North Hollywood High and struggling through freshman French and Art History. The Subaru Impreza WRX was barely a year old. I had not watched a baseball game which carried any real significance to me for nearly a decade. My only recollection of hockey was the McSorley game from 1993, and that memory was fuzzy, at best. I had never heard of Northeastern, Nickelback was on top of the charts, and people were still talking about hanging chads. The Red Sox were 84 years removed from a World Series, 2 years away.

The starting goalie for the Kings was Felix Potvin.

This was the last time the Kings made the playoffs.

Since then, they have started 17(!) other goalies, including three who have seen time this season. Goaltending for the Kings has always been a problem, sometimes the problem, but never the only problem.

They'll be playing San Jose, Chicago, or Vancouver. San Jose is ideal, Chicago is mediocre, Vancouver is Luongo, so probably bad for the Kings.

A 5-on-3 proposal

2010-03-30T14:25:00.003-04:00

The Kings managed to lose 3-2 last night to, of all teams, Minnesota. They earned a 5 on 3 power play on consecutive penalties during a single play, allowing them 2 minutes of time with a sizable advantage to score the go-ahead goal. Instead, the penalty was successfully killed and the Wild would go on to score and win the game.

The problem with the Kings power play is, in my mind, their inability to generate quality shots from the points. Doughty is the only player with a reliable shot from the point, but he tends not to get the opportunities his teammates get because his skills are widely recognized. This leaves guys like Stoll and Johnson, both of whom have displayed good shots in the past, but who have been struggling for quite some time this season.

With that in mind, I wanted to create a cycle that plays to the Kings' strength...that is, good puck control (Frolov) and an accurate shot (Kopitar).

The first image in the sequence is a typical umbrella formation for a 5 on 3 power play. The second shows how the defense adjusts when a player on the overloaded side has the puck. Defenders try to guard the player with the puck and either post. With my play, the goal is to lure a defender off a post and allow Frolov to make a wraparound attempt or get an easy pass to Kopitar, open in the slot.

Click for a version you can actually see.

Essentially, once the right pointman gets the puck, he can fling it down the boards or make a good pass to the player at the near post. This forces the slot defender to slide across to guard against a pass while the defender already over there is tasked with getting the puck. Meanwhile, the defender at the back post must now move up into the slot to guard the player already there. Once the player has the puck down low, he should have three options: pass back to the left point, pass to a covered player in the slot, or attempt an open wraparound. The key, as with all power plays, is repetition. The defenders forced to move across post to post also have to drop to a knee to prevent the pass. This gets tiring quickly, and the defender responsible for covering the man in the slot is liable to make a mistake, leaving Frolov with the option of the wraparound or passing to an open Kopitar.

Mid afternoon mind dump

2010-03-29T14:42:00.002-04:00

Miscellany:

My team won its most recent floor hockey game 8-3. Considering that I only stopped 3 shots, you should be able to determine my team's talent level pretty easily. From my perspective, this game was a disappointing step backward in my development. I say very few shots, and seemed to be out of position with alarming frequency. I had one good scramble that included a Hasek roll, but I wasn't square to the puck (ball), and I allowed two terrible goals, one five hole, and one under my left arm. It's frustrating, particularly since I know the problem is that I don't really see the puck, so my reaction is always based on fiction and physics, not reality. The next step, aside from more playing time, is learning to stare at the puck as it's being shot. Easier said than done.
The Kings are struggling, but missing the playoffs is still a difficult task. I'll feel better if they win tonight, and much better once they clinch a spot. It will be the first time since high school that the Kings will be playing meaningful hockey come my birthday. Jon Quick is, lamentably, poor. He needs a rest, and Bernier is the answer. Unfortunately, the Kings are all too willing to sacrifice this season for the next, something I don't think is particularly reasonable.
I just finished Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch," after seeing Ben read it in Italy, and found it depressingly accurate. It is surprisingly difficult to explain the feelings associated with being a devoted fan of any team, particularly when said team is bad, or worse, merely underachieving. Go Huskies.
I'd be more confident about the upcoming Angels season if not for their terrible spring training. Yeah yeah, spring training stats don't mean anything, but the Angels were great last year, and had a great spring training. I love small sample sizes, even though they're wrong, because they're comforting and scary.
If it ever stops raining in Boston, tennis season is just around the corner.

Some more Capstone, goalie analysis

2010-03-24T23:35:00.003-04:00

This interview was filmed, like, weeks ago. Boston local news...

Goalie analysis by a terrible goalie:

It's no secret than Jon Quick is the best goalie the Kings have had in years. It's also no secret that he's not a very good goalie. He is, certainly, capable of playing in the NHL, and he is, certainly, capable of singlehandedly winning games.

But Quick's biggest strength, his athleticism, is often his biggest weakness. His style is unorthodox, he doesn't favor positioning over movement, and he spends a lot of time in the splits. Like, way too much time. I tried the splits during a game once and could barely walk home.

With that said, Quick could improve his overall play with a simple adjustment: stop with the damn paddle down. Paddle down is when a goalie gets the paddle of his stick down on the ice as a way to block the lower area of the net. Generally, goalies will do this when play is behind the net or at a very sharp angle, essentially completely filling the available angle and guaranteeing a save. This is all well and good, but Quick likes to use paddle down when play is in front of the net. He uses it in a way that takes him out of position because paddle down requires that you be in the butterfly, and Quick's movement is not as good when he's down. This leads to lots of rebound opportunities, as the paddle of the stick reflects pucks with gusto, and since he's already down, he can't move quickly enough to make the save. He also gets beat five-hole when he's trying to snatch the puck with his glove because his blocker is already on the ice. This forces him to dive forward, and opens the five-hole long enough to allow for some ugly goals off skates.

Interestingly, this strategy works really well in shootouts. Quick has superb reactions, and when he doesn't have to worry about rebounds, he's capable of impressive first-shot saves that then take him well out of position. Great during a shootout, poor during a game.

Miscellany

2010-03-19T11:06:00.005-04:00

Thiess, you looked better in red and black, but congrats on hoisting your team back in to the playoff hunt. (see final bullet)

Miscellany:

Jake Newton signs with, sigh, the Ducks. What really disappoints me is the attached picture, because that's a shot ringing off the post against BU in the Beanpot.
The Kings lost 3-0 to the Blackhawks last night, doing nothing to ease my fears of yet another late season collapse. I think they only need to go 5-8 or so to make the playoffs, but when they can't get up for a home game against Chicago (outshot 37-17), something dangerous is lurking in the locker room. Of course, when you don't get to go on a single power play, something's wrong.
Brendan pointed out that I made it onto Uniwatch, one of my all-time favorite blogs. Check the second item on the news ticker.
The Angels are 3-9 this spring training. Ruh-roh.
Brad Thiessen, despite the awful St. Paddy's day jersey, is besting John Curry's numbers with the baby Pens, posting a 2.66 GAA and a .907 save percentage while improving his record to 8-11-1. But seriously though, that jersey is awful. Meanwhile, Joe Vitale is racking up the assists (and the PIM totals), and is supposedly close to a first taste of the NHL.

Angels Season Preview

2010-03-18T10:29:00.002-04:00

It's approaching 70 degrees in Boston, and while I'm dreading the inevitable snowfall before spring truly springs, sunlight has reminded me about baseball. It's also reminded me that proofreading takes too long, so don't mind the errors.

The Pitching Staff - Starters

The Angels will, out of necessity, lean on Jered Weaver this season to justify his signing bonus and terrible choice in agent. With John Lackey wearing B for "bandwagon," the staff will look to Weaver as a team ace, whatever the hell that means these days. Santana has looked solid thus far in spring training, so I'm hoping he's able to find an attainable middle ground between his 2008 and 2009 seasons. I say "attainable" because I don't want him throwing 75% sliders again and destroying his elbow. For all the sabermetric claims that velocity isn't as important as coaches believe, Ervin Santana is not Ervin Santana with a 90 mph fastball.

Joe Saunders will likely be Joe Saunders-that is, surprisingly effective for his skill level. It's unlikely, in my mind, that we see a sub-4 ERA from Saunders again over the course of a season, as we did in 2007, but I don't think he'll creep beyond 4.50 either. Saunders has a funny way of avoiding prolonged stretches of crappy pitching, and he tends to sandwich them around relatively stellar weeks. Yes, In Play, No Outs, home of non-statistical, gut-feeling analysis.

Scott Kazmir is probably the second biggest question mark behind Santana, and either he's become a completely new pitcher, one who doesn't spend 40 pitches an inning trying to strike out the side, or he's Scott Kazmir. The latter case suggests league average pitching, the former, a return to glory. Hey, Scott? Stop nibbling.

Joel Piniero was a stupid signing and represents another mitake in the same vein as Gary Matthews, Jr. A career year does not a bright future make. The Angels will only have to deal with his likely sub-league average production for two years.

The Pitching Staff - Relief

You know how sometimes you can be watching a game and something just feels off? That's how I felt all season, and I couldn't really figure out why until I saw Scot Shields' name in the box score for a recent spring training game. Shields is the anchor of the bullpen, and if he's able to get back to his healthy, pre-2009 numbers, he's a major contributor for the relief staff. I also like Scot because he signed a multimillion dollar contract and continues to drink Bud Light, although he's more fond of bottles than cans. Shields would make a great college student.

Fuentes and Rodney are both mediocre, and that's why I expect from both of them. Mediocrity. Mediocrity, of course, is better than Jusin Speier/Rafael Rodriguez, so perhaps that's a good thing. Losing Darren Oliver felt like a bad decision, but the guy's old, so I struggle to see him maintain his high level of performance. Bulger probably makes it, but who knows.

Kevin Jepsen is the difference between the Angels having an average bullpen and the Angels having a good bullpen. Jepsen seemed to improve throughout the season and into the playoffs, so barring a sophomore slump, he'll me the 7th inning guy, building the bridge to Shields and then Fuentes/Rodney, depending on who sucks less.

The Lineup

The popular discussion right now is about the left side of the Angels infield. Erick Aybar is likely going to pair with Brandon Wood, and while Aybar had a good season, pundits point to his lack of experience as a leadoff man as proof the Angels will have an inept offense this year. Sure, Chone Figgins was a superb leadoff hitter, but honestly, I don't buy into the philosophy that places high levels of importance on batting orders. Having your first guy get on base is pointless if your 2, 3, and 4 batters can't hit, no matter how many times he successfully steals second. Batting order doesn't mater if your lineup sucks anyway, so a relatively inconsequential change with OBP at the top of the lineup (.353 last season to Chone's career average of .363) shouldn't make a huge difference in run production. Yes, two of the last three years, Chone had OBP's upwards of .390, but Aybar has a similar skillset, so it's not unreasonable to suggest that Erick could move that direction as well.

Brandon Wood. His time is now. He will, if there is any justice in this world, get at least 300 PA's before they even consider benching him. I make no guesses as to his final numbers,but I'd wager he's going to spend a couple weeks wallowing in a sub-.200 average before figuring it out.

And while the popular discussion is on the left side of the infield, I'm more interested in the right side. Kendry Morales had a monster season (4.2 WAR), something I don't think he'll be able to replicate. What I expect is that Howie Kendrick picks up the slack, as Kendrick's been on the verge of truly breaking out for a season and a half now, and really put a hurt on the ball in the second half last year. My heart says he hits .325 with 15 homers and an OBP just south of .400, because come on, Kendrick doesn't walk.

The outfield is frustratingly old, but Rivera, Abreu, and Hunter all had good seasons last year. Defensively, it'll be a mess out there, although some defensive metrics thought very favorably of Rivera last season...I have no idea why. Torii will continue to be the leader of the clubhouse, the closest thing to a team captain the Angels have had since Orlando Cabrera left.

Hideki Matsui is likely to hit well, get hurt a couple times, and generally look a lot like a less-deadlocked version of Vlad. Except that Matsui tends to avoid the double play. So, a net positive, perhaps, depending on how Vlad looks this season with Texas.

The Division

Texas, Seattle, and Oakland have all improved. Oakland is perennially two years away, while Texas is probably still a year away from peaking. Seattle is...strange. It's a team constructed primarily on preventing runs, but with lots of offensive potential. Signing Ken Griffey, Jr. for a second run at his farewell tour was stupid, but maybe he keeps Ichiro from punching Milton Bradley in the face after a spirited game of Go, so that could be helpful. I don't think the Mariners or Rangers catch the Angels this season, but with the direction of each franchise fairly well-defined, it's going to be a miserable half-decade for Angels fans, starting as soon as this season, but likely next year.

Division players to watch: Figgins (SEA), Bradley (SEA), Hernandez (SEA), Guerrero (TEX), Kinsler (TEX), Felix (TEX), Duchscherer (OAK), Suzuki (OAK).

An alternate universe

2010-03-10T10:17:00.001-05:00

An alternate universe where the Kings are...good?

The problem for Dallas: Their schedule the rest of the way is murderous, with seven games against the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks. That includes a four-game road swing from Nashville through California near the end of the month.

Getting weirder every day, my friends.

How to tell you're watching an ESPN stream from the UK

2010-03-08T23:23:00.004-05:00

There's your problem right there. Or is it probleme?

The Angels earned their first win of spring training this season, beating the Rangers 13-9.

Encouraging: Santana's velocity, Napoli's homer, Wood's homer, Morales' presence, Bulger's scoreless inning.

Discouraging: Santana's 0 K's over 2 innings, Wood's average, Palmer's ERA, winning by only 4 after scoring 13 runs, Bobby Mosebach. Also, Bobby Mosebach. Bobby Mosebach should be mentioned as well.

Neither here nor there: Playful banter between Santana and Vlad, Japanese media videotaping lineup cards without Matsui on them, another season of comments on the name of the team.

If the Kings weren't still good, I'd be hard pressed to resist the lure of baseball. It's coming.

Capstone Project

2010-02-26T17:23:00.002-05:00

Check out this link for a summary of my senior Capstone project at Northeastern.

Pitching an idea - Northeastern University

Goalies and goalie equipment

2010-02-26T15:51:00.009-05:00

Picture-heavy post.

Goalies get saddled with a lot of unfair assumptions. It's a position which heavily relies on equipment, and as a result, most people see skill as secondary to equipment. It's unfortunate, because the strategy behind goaltending is fascinating, particularly as you watch the progression from standup to butterfly to profly over the last 100 years. While watching the women's Beanpot over at Harvard, it was interesting watching the equipment progress as well, from the original dark leather pads to modern flat-face box pads. The fact is, though, that Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, and Ryan Miller are all good goalies because they are positionally sound and extremely fast, not because they wear enormous pads. But that's a discussion for a later date, because I just wanna catalog my equipment.

Items arranged in reverse order of personal preference...if I don't like it, you see it first.

Mission Boss Glove (2008, new)

It's hard to describe how bad this glove is. When I first bought it, it wouldn't open, so I would keep it open with a 15 pound weight in the pocket whenever I wasn't using it. 6 months and 25+ games later, it still doesn't open fully, but now it won't close properly either. Splendid. Purchased largely because it was cheap, it's a great example of "get what you pay for." It's the second thing I plan on replacing behind the leg pads, only because it's new.

Bauer Reactor 6 Leg Pads (1999?, used)

These pads are actually perfect for a learning goalie. They have intrinsic faults which demand added attention to technique, including their inability to seal properly to the ice. This means that your stick needs to be in position in front of the pads if you want to make a five-hole save. There is no knee landing gear of any sort (although I added some, check for duct tape in this image), so there's nothing to stop the puck there either, and before adding that foam, dropping down was discouraged unless absolutely required. These faults, of course, are some of the reasons I'm buying new pads as soon as I have the required income. Other reasons: really heavy, too many straps, about an inch too short.

These pads, incredibly, were worn by a couple NHL goalies in the late '90s. Similar pads were worn by a couple others, as these were made immediately after Nike bought Bauer, and were essentially re-branded Cooper Reactor pads. Found for $50 on Craigslist.

Unidentified CCM Pants (19??, used)

I mean, they're pants. They're hard to screw up, but who ever has pants they really like? Their best feature is that I don't notice them when playing, making them better than my glove and leg pads. And for $15 on eBay, it's hard to complain.

Bauer Vapor XIX Skates (2006, used)

These skates have been better than expected. Purchased at the last second when I realized that playing goal in player skates would lead to broken feet, I was forced to settle for skates about a half size too large and with about a year less of blade than I wanted. I added Overdrive blades, which helped a lot in my first few games, and changed the insoles after getting massive foot cramps during my first game. The cowlings are great, I can take pucks off the foot without getting hurt, and they aren't a constant burden, which is nice. They'll need replacement soon.

Sherwood 9950 Stick (2007, used)

This stick, along with my preferred but falling apart Montreal stick, was a $20 throw-in with the skates. It's definitely better than the skates, though. I discovered why you don't tape a goalie stick handle while screwing around with the stick during a roller game, and have subsequently learned that I prefer a little tape above the paddle and just a knob at the top, no handle. There's probably a little too much curve (Lalime, I think) on this stick since I rarely play the puck, but it's perfectly sized and in good shape, unlike most of my equipment. The black/white tape on the bottom is mostly aesthetic, although it reminds me to keep the stick centered.

Bauer Supreme One55 Chest/Arm Protector (2008, used)

Another cheap ($70) eBay purchase, this C/A has been a lifesaver. I've seen some pretty hard shots into the solar plexus and off the elbow, none of which have hurt. It's not huge, either, and the protection is definitely a class above the entry-level TPS and RBK pads I was looking at. Again, its best feature is that I don't notice it when I'm playing.

TPS Summit Blocker (2008, new)

Most of the time, a blocker is a lot like goalie pants. Nobody ever really gets excited about a blocker, because they're generally all the same. This one, though, is particularly nice. This isn't actually the blocker I purchased for $30, this is the blocker they sent me, and it costs closer to $130. It features player glove-like finger protection, relatively uncommon in blockers, and has a little bevel on the end that makes it easy to go paddle-down or scoop up a dropped stick. The hardest shots I've seen have hit me in the blocker, and I feel nothing except a little pressure as the puck gets directed into the corner. I will own this blocker until the palm gets completely worn out.

Hackva 2608 Mask (2009, new)

This mask is a thing of wonder. Forwards, during warmups, generally try to avoid hitting goalies in the head. I don't really mind it. I've gotten hit with ice pucks, roller pucks, roller balls, sticks, and skates, and nothing ever makes my ears ring or my head hurt. It is an advanced mask, the best that can be bought at its $300 price point, and should be a replacement mask for every single goalie wearing an Itech 1200, the mask known as the "Widowmaker" to many goalies.

I added, obviously, the bricks with electrical tape, something I've discussed before, and the back plate has a California decal. I also added the Vauhgn throat guard after getting hit with a roller ball almost immediately.

Nectar of Victory

2010-02-25T17:43:00.002-05:00

Yeah, the title is a Northeastern football reference. Expect those to seriously date my writing as I graduate and incoming freshmen attend a college devoid of a football program.

I had my first, and likely last, victory as an ice hockey goalie at Northeastern last night, beating Eishunde 8-5. Of course, the fifth of those five goals came off the stick of Jeff, so it's unlikely that I ever hear the end of it.

Certainly not my best game, but not my worst, either. I had a clean first period but only saw maybe 4 or 5 shots, mostly from bad angles or from relatively far away. The only save worth writing home about was a blocker save that only kinda hit my blocker and mostly hit my arm in a place with surprisingly minimal padding. We scored thrice in the period, courtesy of the Noble Trifecta of good shooting, porous defense, and mediocre goaltending.

The second moved me to the away side net, a net which always seems to give me trouble. I don't know if it's mental, if I'm a little tired in the second, or if it's all the engative karma and "sieve!" chants directed to that side of the ice, but I never play well over there. Regardless, I let in a terrible five-hole goal, but I'm blaming my pads*. Modern pads explicitly designed for modern goalies don't have any gap between the top of the pads and the ice surface when down on the ice. My pads, however, are vintage 1997, and have an irritating and unfortunate puck-sized hole right where they should be stopping pucks, so if my stick ends up out of position, I'm screwed. In other words, if I play a puck perfectly, but don't have my stick down as I drop, the shot turns into a goal. It's aggravating, and why I'm replacing those pads once I leave Boston.

I think I gave up three in the second, but we scored three, so no harm, no foul. Plus, I made my first legitimate glove save of the semester, so that was nice.

The third started with the clock stopped for probably 90 seconds, during which I grew increasingly frustrated. A 3 goal lead isn't really enough for me, and giving a team with a huge bench that much extra time leads to scoring chances. Regardless, I would only give up 2 that period while we scored a pair of our own, so the team earned its first W, moving to 1-8-0 over the last two semesters. Progress.

I had an opportunity to play the puck with some degree of success, although I imagine the opposing forward would argue I was more of a hindrance than a real threat. After shoving the puck down the boards, I got back in net just in time to make a mask save off my forehead. Immediately after that, one of our forwards took the puck all the way up ice only to get hooked and sent shoulder first into the net. I was pretty sure he was dead, but he got up and played the last 1:29, scoring a goal on the ensuing power play. Hockey players are weirdly tough.

I've got one game left, two games of broomball, and five games of floor hockey.

*I have yet to catalog all my equipment here, but it'll happen. Goalies are vain.

Perfect Hockey

2010-02-21T21:59:00.002-05:00

Hockey has a limited following in the United States. I mean, yeah, there's lots of NHL fans, but most people in America would rather watch basketball than hockey, far more would prefer baseball, and nearly everyone would rather watch football.

People give all sorts of reasons for not liking hockey. They say it's too physical, that it isn't physical enough, that there's not enough scoring*, and that the rules are too complicated. They don't like how the play gets caught in the corners, the interminable whistles, and the stupid term "power play."

If any of those people watched tonight's USA/Canada game, they have become hockey fans. It was a perfect game, with relatively few whistles, physical, fast play, and plenty of scoring. The United States, again led by unlikely hero Brian Rafalski, scored less than a minute into the game and never trailed, despite being heavily outshot. The game itself was pretty even, with lots of end-to-end action, including one sequence where the Americans earned a breakaway, followed by a Canadian breakaway, followed by an American breakaway. This is beautiful, beautiful hockey.

There was plenty of physicality, with hits on both sides of the ice, including a weird collision between two Canadians that wrapped up a third. There was finesse, with players batting passes out of the air and back onto their sticks. There was flow, particularly in the first and third, with lots of point shots and transition offense.

The Candians were victimized by, in my opinion, a poor choice in starting goaltender. Look, I respect Brodeur, but when you're playing in Luongo's home rink against your best competition thus far, you might as well use your best goalie. Luongo doesn't allow the goals Brodeur did, particularly the ugly five-hole goal that hit Marty's stick between his legs as it deflected in. Ryan Miller, however, was brilliant, making some saves in the third period that looked, well, Brodeur-ish.

It was nice to see Drew Doughty representing his country with style and grace. Where Canadians were unlikely to comment on Doughty before, I suspect we'll start to see some #8 Team Canada jerseys before these Olympics are over. He was really, really good, and almost scored late in the third on a brilliant deke and skate into the crease. He was, however, spun around by Kings teammate Dustin Brown before diving to poke away the puck before Brown could put a shot on net.

Soccer is often called "the beautiful game," but hockey looked pretty damn gorgeous tonight.

*For those of you who like football, and think hockey is low-scoring, make touchdowns worth a single point and goals worth 7. Tonight's game was won by the United States 35-21. The Saints won the Super Bowl 5-3, rounding up each team's actual scores of 4.4 and 2.4 to whole numbers. Hockey is not low-scoring.

Oh yeah, I have a blog

2010-02-18T17:18:00.004-05:00

I've discovered that I have substantially less to blog about when the teams I follow are playing well. If the Angels win the Series, the Kings win the Cup, and the Huskies win anything, I'll probably spend months away from here.

Regardless, after watching the US demolish Norway 6-1 despite playing about 20 minutes of good hockey and 40 minutes of crap, I figured I'd talk about sports.

Angels

I promise to have a season preview up before the season actually begins. With most projections showing the Angels to be an 85-win team, I'm fairly confident they can win 90, but it's going to take repeat or better performances from Morales and Kendrick, along with some degree of recovery from Kazmir and Santana. Santana is probably the most important player on the Angels. If he can return to his 2008 performance, he becomes a cheaper, younger, and better John Lackey. Kazmir as well, although I expect less from him, largely because he hasn't showed the solid peripherals he maintained during his first couple seasons for the last three seasons.

Joel Piniero was a waste of money. But that will become clear shortly enough. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tony Reagins is not a top-tier GM.

Huskies

This is a big weekend for Northeastern. The hockey team opens at Matthews against BC tomorrow in a surprisingly crucial game. I say "surprisingly" because the Huskies were clinging to the final playoff spot three weeks ago, giving games in hand to powerhouses like Merrimack, and with the distinct possibility of missing the playoffs for the second time during Cronin's tenure. However, they've since won 6 of 7, with the lone loss coming in the Beanpot, and sit a single point out of fourth place. Fourth is where the home ice is, and that would be wonderful. I'm missing the final home hockey game of the season, so if I want to see more than two hockey games at Matthews before I graduate, the Huskies will have to make a valiant run to 4th.

Saturday brings Louisiana Tech to Matthews for a Bracket Buster battle between* NCAA tournament hopefuls. The Huskies can and should win this game, in front of what will likely be the largest home basketball crowd since Reggie Lewis called Huntington Avenue home. If Northeastern can win its final two CAA games, it wins the CAA regular season title and guarantees itself a spot in the NIT. Win three more in Richmond, and the Huskies dance, forcing me to scramble to find tickets to the regionals on short notice, ensuring the flight will cost more than my annual hockey budget.

Sunday, the hockey team plays BC at BC in a weird 3:00 game, a game I'd like to go to but probably can't make. Later, the US plays Canada in the closest thing we'll have to an NHL All Star game this season.

Marcus

So I updated the Ice Sports Schedules on the right side of the page. My hockey team is an expected 0-3, although my idiot teammates (and I say that in the most loving way possible) decided not to show up to a game on the 14th, so we lost by forfeit, instead of the usual "give up way more goals than you score" method. My next game comes, thankfully, after an Aerodynamics test, and we'll be playing Jeff's team, so our first W might be in sight.

My broomball team, on the other hand, has no losses and two wins, something that's never happened before. I've allowed a single goal on the season, and have posted consecutive shutouts for the first time in my career. It's a weak league this year, but if we can win our next two games we'll make the playoffs for the first time.

Coming up later this semester: floor hockey.

USA Hockey Schedule

2010-02-13T11:21:00.002-05:00

Tues., Feb. 16: Switzerland 3:00 p.m.
Thurs., Feb. 18: Norway 3:00 p.m.
Sun., Feb. 21: Canada 7:40 p.m.

All times Eastern. The Canada game's gonna be a doozy.

The 2010 Winter Olympics Have Arrived

2010-02-12T21:32:00.001-05:00

Hence the new title block which, I know, is kinda unreadable.

Stay tuned for USA hockey coverage.

The Beanpot?

2010-02-08T22:23:00.004-05:00

In the time it took for me to clean the deep fryer and take a shower (29 minutes), this video got 89 views and 4 comments, 6 re-tweets, 7 Facebook shares, 2 "likes," and a comment. More stats here.

I cut the video because it's a beautiful goal, as beautiful as you'll see in the college game, and a testament to the overall strength of the game at the college level. Plus, watching Millan desperately flail as his d-man gets spun around like a top is a beautiful thing.

Also, if Greg Cronin does this, he gets suspended.

Jack Parker: Classy since 36 years ago. Yeah, he's been coaching for 36 years.

Oh Bailey

2010-02-05T01:10:00.002-05:00

You're such a jokester. Kings beat Ducks 6-4, win their 8th in a row, move back into 4th in the Western Conference.

*I promise this is still a primarily baseball blog, even if all I've done for months is talk about hockey. The offseason is boring.

Jack Parker must tip the refs quite well

2010-02-02T02:32:00.004-05:00

Facebook users, there's a video here. Click on "View Original Post" to check it out.

This is a five minute major and a game misconduct if anyone on Northeastern tries it. Against BU, the refs make the call that's less likely to result in Jack Parker losing it. This is gross, gross favoritism in Hockey East.

Aside from that, the game was pretty good. I'll recap it tomorrow, most likely.

I thought this was weird

2010-02-01T18:09:00.003-05:00

Hey Muse, you're supposed to be blocking the front of the net, not the back.

He went back to play the puck and it took a weird hop, so he just kinda dropped into the butterfly and pushed it away. Don't think I've ever seen that before.

Quick, Kings beat Devils with 2 goals in final 1:46

2010-01-31T19:30:00.006-05:00

Click for larger version of Quick's glove.

At the time Quick made the save of the game, the Kings were down 2-1 late in the third period. Somehow, Quick managed to get his glove in front of a puck he couldn't see, stopping a sure goal and keeping the Kings within one. This is the type of save I want to make once in my life. It's not a save you make from being in position, it's not a save you make from having good reactions, it's a save you make because you got really lucky. Really, incredibly lucky. Which makes it a save I'm capable of. Maybe.

The tying goal made Brodeur look Marcus-esque, as Simmonds slipped a shot from a tough angle between Brodeur's leg and the post. The winning goal, with 28 seconds left, came on a center point shot from Doughty that made it through traffic and deflected off Brodeur to go in five-hole.

Let's recap this weekend:

Huskies beat Old Dominion 74-64.
Kings beat Bruins 3-2 in a shootout. (watch Anze in the shootout, recap video here)
Lakers beat Celtics 90-89. (video)
Kings beat Devils 3-2 after being down 2-1 as late as 18:13 in the third period.

Talk about some fortuitous bounces of the puck. The Kings are now 4th in the Western Conference, with a chance at home ice in the playoffs if they can stay there.

Playoffs? Playoffs?! Unbelievably, yes. The Kings missing the playoffs would be a tremendous disappointment.

The Huskies sit at 9-2 in the CAA, tied for second place, with the likelihood of a first-round bye in the CAA tournament growing weekly. If this team fails to win the CAA tournament, and thus misses the NCAA tournament, they will have squandered the best team this school has had since the Reggie years. It's important to note that they live and die by the three pointer, so they're likely to be very streaky. A good streak would take them well into the NCAA's.

The Lakers, despite some late struggles, are still up 4 games over Denver for first in the West. They're 9.5 games in front of Phoenix in the Pacific, code for "rest Kobe for the playoffs, please."

Beanpot tomorrow.

Beanpot Preview

2010-01-30T18:50:00.006-05:00

Ah yes, the Beanpot. It's the time of year when it's so cold that it almost seems like a good idea to stay indoors and watch college hockey despite knowing the tremendous odds against any non-BU team. The only pair of games that matter to BU's fans, and the only opportunity for BC fans to really rub it in. The only chance Harvard has at regional exposure.

These are boring, boring times.

Let's start with Harvard vs BC.

Harvard Crimson - 5-11-3 (5-6-3 ECAC, 7th place)

Remember that time Harvard beat Northeastern in the opening round of the Beanpot, and almost beat BU in the final? Not going to happen this year. Harvard opens against Boston College, the only good team in this tournament this year, and is looking to get shellacked in the way that only a bunch of nerds on skates can. The Crimson have fallen victim to untimely combinations of weak goaltending from Ryan Carroll or nonexistent offense. They managed three wins in a row against Yale, Dartmouth, and Union before tying RPI and losing to Princeton. That was the only time this season they strung together wins, and was the only 2+ game non-losing streak they put together. They avoided winning from November 6th through December 28th, notching a win (just their second of the season) over Qunnipiac on the 29th.

This team is bad. Their peripheral stats aren't awful (18% PP, 79% PK), but they aren't great, and they're getting hurt in 1 goal games at 1-5. Their best player is Louis LeBlanc, with 16 points in 16 games, and their goaltending tandem has become a one-horse race with Carroll putting up substantially better numbers than Richter.

Their mascot is also a color.

Boston College Eagles - 12-8-2 (10-6-2 Hockey East, 2nd place)

BC is the only team in the tournament that has bigger fish to fry than the Beanpot this season. They've cooled down from their torrid pace to start the season, but they've got a resurgent John Muse and the power of Jesus. Actually, Muse has been fairly mediocre, but the Eagles know how to score goals. They're got the second best goals for/against ratio behind UMass Lowell, and they've scored more goals than anyone but Maine.

Their best player is Ryan Gibbons, who's posted 28 points in 23 games, but Cam Atkinson is their best scorer, with 16 goals on the season thus far. 9 of the 22 non-goalies on the roster are NHL draft picks, and they're coached by the lovable Jerry York, the perfect foil to Jack Parker's general air of asshole.

Prediction: BC wins 5-2, and it's not that close.

Boston University - 9-11-3 (7-9-2 Hockey East, 6th place)

BU was having a terrible season coming into the holiday break. Jack Paker, in his annual address to the Friends of BU Hockey, called out several of his players, including the goalie Kieran Millan, and literally mentioned "the Red Sox signed John Lackey" as one of the positives of the season. The man knows how to grind my gears. They've picked it up recently though, winning 5 of their last 7, including the most boring college hockey game ever played outdoors (a 3-2 win over BC). They're getting production from Nick Bonino (21 points in 18 games) and a cluster of players with 17-19 points in a similar number of games. Millan has a season save percentage of .881, which is Dan Cloutier territory. Even recently, the games they've been winning have been 6-4, not 2-2.

BU has time to salvage their season courtesy of some games in hand and the general partiy between teams 2-6 in Hockey East. Of course, if they win the Beanpot, which they likely will, the fans on Comm Ave will see the season as a victory overall.

Northeastern Huskies - 11-11-1 (7-10-1 Hockey East, 7th place)

If you ask me the #1 reason why the Huskies are in danger of missing the playoffs, my answer won't be goaltending. Chris Rawlings has been solid, with a SV% of .907 despite a borderline-bad 2.87 GAA. In fact, the team has allowed the third-fewest goals in Hockey East.

The problem is the offense. With the loss of IPNO favorites Ryan Ginand and Joe Vitale, the offense has produced a meager 59 goals this season, second worst in Hockey East, and has gotten obscenely lucky in one goal games, going 6-2. They've gotten mauled at Vermont 9-2* and lost a winnable game versus Lowell in Matthews Arena 6-5 in overtime. You'll notice only the single tie, something rather uncommon for Northeastern, so some points have been lost there as well.

The Huskies, when they do score goals, are doing it by committee. Kyle Kraemer and Wade MacLeod lead the team with 17 points apiece, but 7 players have 5-9 goals each. Interestingly, the Huskies have allowed only a single empty net goal this season, despite pulling the goalie in 13 games.

The last time expectations were this low for a Beanpot title on Huntington Avenue was my freshman year '05-'06 season when the Huskies entered the first Monday night with a single win to their names. They entered the second Monday having doubled their season win total, only to get shut out 5-0 by Harvard. This is Northeastern's enduring legacy in this godforsaken tournament. Winning this tournament would do a couple things: it would make this season something other than a total loss, it would get my aerodynamics class canceled on Tuesday, and it would lead to substantial amounts of Bud Light finding its way to the stomachs of several hockey players by way of my wallet.

*This was a weird game, because Rawlings got pulled for the second period, and then Mountain got pulled for the third, so Rawlings came back to sleep in the bed he made and Mountain subsequently crapped in.

Prediction: BU wins 4-1, the game is closer than the score indicates.

The championship game results in a 3-2 OT victory for the Eagles, and the Northeastern Invitational ends in an embarrassing 4-2 loss for the host team.

Other possibly Beanpot-related miscellany:

Puck Daddy Beanpot Preview - "And it is the single worst tournament in sports. [...] So what, exactly, is so awful about it? BU wins it half the time."
Puck Prospectus - Shot Quality - I just think these plots are cool. Lots of neat shit on that site. You'd be surprised at how closely baseball and hockey mirror each other, statistically speaking.
The Hockey News - Lecavalier a King? Looking likely, but if they get rid of Wayne Simmonds, I'm going to have to punch someone in the stomach.

Northeastern 74, Old Dominion 64

I could talk about the game, but that's not that interesting. So instead, we're going to talk about Joel Hines.
This is Joel Hines. He is the Director of Basketball Operations for Old Dominion. He is in his second season as the DBO, and he was hired because ""He will bring good work ethic, ambition and knowledge of our setting."

All I know about Joel Hines is that he is a class act. When I was yelling at their bench with lame comments about how they were fat and losing by 15 points, some players laughed. Some ignored me. When I called their head coach Ron Jeremy, some players laughed, some ignored me. But not Joel. Joel decided I needed to be taught a lesson. That I needed to be taught the rules of fan-player interaction.

So he told me to "shut the fuck up, bitch." A few times. He pointed and yelled at me when ODU scored to get within 10. I was flattered, frankly, that I was able to help his team to a closer game by providing the motivation they so clearly needed. I advised him that perhaps they should invite me to all their games, so perhaps I could improve their record. He told me to "keep talking, bitch." His players laughed, smiled at me, and I waved back. These players were clearly out of line. They were supporting a rambunctious fan without informing him that he was being rude and/or inappropriate. They weren't defusing the situation. And all those other players, just ignoring me? Well, that's not very proactive, is it?

The world would be a terrible place without people like Joel Hines, people who understand that you should always break the fan/team barrier. People like Ron Artest. People like Glen Davis. These people understand that their interaction with fans is an important part of encouraging responsible fan behavior.

Good on Joel Hines. Even if his language is a bit rough around the edges.

In other news, the Huskies are unbeatable when they make threes, and Paws appropriately awarded Mark the fan of the game bumper sticker for putting up with my yelling and a possible Atest situation with Mr. Hines.

Apple Releases iPad Nano

2010-01-27T18:20:00.003-05:00

Link here. Specs include phone capabilities and camera function, as well as a reduced price when purchased with AT&T data/voice contract. iPad Nano also fits in a pocket.

Actual sports commentary later.

Sam Cassell Says Hi

2010-01-23T21:47:00.002-05:00

Northeastern basketball records its 11th straight win with a demolishing of VCU.

The Kings beat Detroit 3-2.

Joel Piniero and the game of hockey

2010-01-22T20:11:00.003-05:00

For some reason, the quotation mark speaks to me today.

The Angels added a pair of moves to their offseason bottom line, signing Joel Piniero to a 2 year, $16 million dollar deal, and ~~trading~~ offloading Gary Matthews Jr. to the Mets in exchange for reliever Brian Stokes.

The Piniero move ranks from expensive to mind-bogglingly stupid, depending on what sort of performance the Angels get this season. Piniero is, for all intents and purposes, a replacement-level pitcher. Replacement level players are worth $3-4 million in salary, and can usually be had for the $400,000 major-league minimum. That's if Piniero is as "good" as he was last year.

If he plays like he did before last year, he'll have a tRA above 5, which means he'll either be really lucky and have an ERA below 5 or play to his skills and have an ERA over 5. This means he'll owe the Angels about half his salary...assuming he can stay at about replacement-level.

Getting rid of Gary Matthews was another "meh" move. Sure, you're getting rid of him, but the problem with Junior is the dollars invested in his contract, not his physical presence. So by sending him to the Mets and acquiring a mediocre-to-awful 30-year old relief pitcher, the Angels save $2 million over the next two seasons. That's not worth it, frankly, and I wish they'd have taken a better player in an exchange of bad contracts. Zito for GMJ?

These moves, in combination with the Matsui signing, the GMJ signing, the Teixeira and Lackey debacles, and even "positives" like the Hunter signing, have led me to believe that the front office is incompetent. Not godawful (Royals), not terrible (Mets), but definitely incompetent. Tony Reagins has not shown any evidence that he understands the concept of advanced baseball statistics, and his continued reliance on things like RBI and average as accurate metrics of a player's value has severely damaged the Angels' ability to contend in the AL West for the foreseeable future. It's time for him to go.

All hope is not lost. The Mariners, just two years removed from Bill Bavasi single handedly destroying the franchise, have assembled a team on a smaller payroll which projects to win 85 games to the Angels' projected 86. They have signed a young, star pitcher to a long-term deal, avoided expensive, backloaded contracts assigned to aging veterans, and managed to maintain their draft picks and improve an already strong farm system. The Mariners are what the Angels will need to become to continue their success in the division and league.

Fire Tony Reagins. You heard it here first.

High Glove Side 2, Reptar on Ice 8

I think my High Glove Side is one of the better names in Northeastern intramural ice hockey, but Reptar on Ice is pretty solid.

This game wasn't really as uneven as the score suggests. I really didn't play that poorly, either, outside of the last seconds of the second and third periods. We were playing with a short bench, and the other team was composed partially of club players, so the result was largely expected.

I saved the first shot of the night off my right arm, the first time in 6 games I've managed to keep the first shot from becoming the first goal. They would, however, score on a relatively simply five-hole shot that would've been stopped had I put my stick in the proper location. One problem with my current leg pads is that they don't seal the five-hole when in the butterfly, so even though I've really improved my dropdown, pucks still sneak through if I'm perfectly square to the shooter. Yes, I realize it's ridiculous that my being positionally sound leads to goals, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Their second goal was a fluke. I came down to stop a low shot, but a defenseman got a stick on it and it flew right into the top of the net. It happens, and goals like that are something that NHL goalies don't stop, so I can live with that. We finished the first period down 2-1, unusually close, as my first period is usually my weakest.

Not so this night.

The second period was brutal. I was making lots of saves, but I gave up 4 goals on various shots, 2 of which were decidedly soft. I had a deflection off a skate in front of me go five-hole, which is fine, and a nice shot over my left shoulder (hence the name High Glove Side), but the other was a trickler from a bad angle and the last was a shot I never saw.

The third was tiring, particularly since our short bench meant most of the players had been on the ice most of the game. Without much defense, I saw a few most shots, almost made a brilliant glove save before the puck bounced out and back into play, and allowed a breakaway goal with like 5 seconds left. Maybe it wasn't a breakaway. Whatever it was, it didn't matter.

So that was the first hockey game of the season. I'm going to miss one, but my next game is Sunday at 5:00, so if anyone's interested in watching me/UStreaming the event, it's at Matthews Arena.

Also, I thought this was pretty funny. Not the part where Carey Price gets run over, that scares me, but the part where he drops the gloves as if he's actually going to fight the enforcer. And the part where Conklin skates over like he's actually going to enter a goalie fight.

Facebook users, there's a video here, so click on "View Original Post" if you wanna watch it.

Miscellany

2010-01-14T11:22:00.004-05:00

Just some quick notes today, mostly off-topic:

My previous post was rehashed and published as an editorial over at the Huntington News. The only real difference is that I nominate myself as Northeastern's next athletic director.
The Lakers beat Jose Juan Barea and the Mavericks 100-95 last night despite DJ Mbenga and Luke Walton each playing more than 10 minutes. Oh, and Pau Gasol didn't play.
The Kings followed up an awesome streak of like 10 or 11 games without a pair of losses with a 4? 5? -game losing streak. Welcome to fandom in the Kings' fiefdom.
I'm playing on two, possibly three, hockey teams this semester, plus broomball. I'll be goaltending for one, backing up for another (and possible taking the ice as a forward), and backing up a third. Schedules will be up on this blog once they're finalized.

Fire Peter Roby

2010-01-11T20:57:00.003-05:00

When Northeastern announced that it would be cutting its football program, I greeted the news with cautious optimism. I knew the harsh realities of college football, particularly at the D-I AA level, and I knew that the program had been playing on borrowed time since the 80's.

With that in mind, I imagined a greater future for Husky athletics. Here were my assumptions:

The annual $3 million would be recycled back into the athletic program.
The money would be used to fulfill scholarship debts for all sports, particularly successful sports such as baseball and women's soccer.
The money might not be available immediately, as the players are guaranteed their scholarships, but 20+ seniors, transfers, and equipment savings would allow for a substantial sum to enter use by the end of the Fall '09 semester.
The school would offer transparent, timely, and fair reasoning for funds reallocation in a public forum.

For weeks after the announcement, nothing happened. And every moment that passed reinforced the distinct possibility that the school was royally screwing this up.

They did.

Ed Matz, women's soccer coach, is leaving Northeastern for UMass. It seems strange, because he's brought in two All-Americans, made the NCAA tournament, and made two CAA tournaments, winning one, and winning the regular season CAA title, in the last two years. This is a level of success which has not been attained at Northeastern since the women's ice hockey and field hockey teams were fixtures in the top-10 nationally over ten years ago.

This is the "sustained excellence" Peter Roby, NU's esteemed athletic director, always speaks of.

And yet, Matz is leaving for a program which, by most accounts, lacks the potential of the Northeastern squad. He does not have Veronica Napoli, Devin Petta, or Steph Gordon. It's a move forward in overall stature, but a decided step down in quality. Northeastern would handily beat UMass if the teams played today. All of this makes it very difficult to understand why, exactly, Matz would leave.

Luckily, journalism isn't dead at Northeastern, and WRBB recorded a fantastic interview with Matz. It's about 20 minutes long.

I will preface what I'm about to say by stating that I am not an Ed Matz fan. I spent a substantial amount of time with one of his players, and I believe his player management and perception of player value is severely skewed. I don't think he is an irreplaceable coach, and I don't think he's a Bill Coen or a Greg Cronin.

But Matz won. He won a lot. He won tournament games that Cronin has yet to win. He took teams to a tournament Coen has yet to make. He did this all despite having four fewer scholarships than his opponents. He did this despite having virtually no fan support, a salary most DI coaches would scoff at, and absolutely no support from the athletic department or the NU administration at large.

When you listen to the interview, you realize the sad state of affairs in the administrative office in Cabot Gym. That an organization would reward its best-performing employee by giving him nothing speaks to Roby's severe disconnect with reality. Of all the sports in the school, how do you give women's soccer nothing? Northeastern gets more exposure from an NCAA women's game than it does from a season of ice hockey, and it doesn't think it needs to fully fund the sport?

Fire Peter Roby. Fire him now. He was hired following a "national"search and has done nothing to prove he is a capable AD. He has not offered contract extensions to Coen or Cronin. He allowed Matz to leave a meeting and leave the school. He cut football without following through on a single promise of additional funding. He repeatedly lied to the student body about funding sources for a mythical on-campus football stadium and the Matthews Arena renovation. He allowed the university administration to discount the importance of athletics.

He needs to be replaced. He needs to be replaced with an athletic director who sees the value in winning teams, who respects the needs of coaches and student-athletes, and who lives and dies with Husky athletics.

Hi everybody!

2010-01-10T22:25:00.005-05:00

I'll start with this picture.

I don't typically take out my iPhone in bathrooms, but hey.

That reads, in case you can't see, "Shea Hillenbrand once stole a laptop from Snell Library." This is probably the strangest thing ever written on the wall at Conor Larkin's pub on Northeastern's campus. Although I doubt the veracity of this particular claim, there is no doubt that Hillenbrand stole millions from the Angels in 2006.

Second,

Northeastern 5, University of Massachusetts - Lowell 6 (OT)
Northeastern 1, University of Massachusetts 4

Northeastern used to be a fun team. I'm not talking about last year, when they were actually good, but the three years before that, when the team was mediocre to godawful. The games were usually pretty close, but the physicality and passion sometimes made up for the losing. The real fights at the end of games, the running of goalies, the jawing at opposing coaches...those were the things that the Huskies were good at, even as they were losing hockey games.

That's gone. It's been replaced with boring, predictable hockey and a complete lack of team cohesion. I don't place much stock in "leadership," because winning teams never have leadership problems despite (sometimes) obviously poor leadership. Intangibles are intangible because they have negligible impact as compared to injuries or player skill, so blaming a collapse on lack of leadership or lack of identity or any of that crap is poor analysis.

Teams lose because of poor execution. Whether that manifests as awful passing, stupid penalties, fanned shots, or a combination of the above and more, is irrelevant. Northeastern is not executing their game plan, and they are losing to good and bad opponents alike.

The game against UML was nearly an inspiring win, with the Huskies coming from three down to tie the game at 5-5 and send it into overtime. But a goal from former Husky recruit Mike Scheu iced the game for the Riverhawks with just over 25 seconds remaining. Chris Rawlings looked awful, but wasn't helped by a porous defense and a steady stream of turnovers directly in front of him. The team played poorly, but at least they showed up.

Tonight, of course, was a different story. With former Kings coach and current ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose* doing the color for ESPNU, the Huskies decided that they weren't even going to bother playing hockey. Let's look at shot totals:

1st period: 3
2nd period: 4
3rd period: 6
Number of players with more than one shot: 1 (Vermeersch, 3)
Number of forwards with zero shots: 4 (J. Daniels, D. Daniels, Costa, Tuckerman)

A game total of 13 shots means something has gone hideously wrong. I've been relatively easy on Cronin after his yearly improvements from my freshman year 3-win season, but if there's one thing to point to as a fault, it's his lack of ability to properly generate offense. He has admitted to being, primarily, a defensive coach, but shot totals of 13 reinforce the need to come up with a consistent offensive strategy. Every power play results in the loss of the puck before a shot, forwards routinely carry the puck into the zone only to pass it to an opponent behind the net, and Northeastern seems incapable of running the same backdoor play which so frequently nets goals for the opposition.

Something has to change.

*A Doghouse member shouted "Hey Barry, see you never!" at the end of the game. That game must have been torturous for his mullet.

Melrose (R) thinks to himself, "There is no god-damned way I do another Northeastern game."

Vacation

2009-12-18T16:58:00.002-05:00

I'm leaving for Italy on Monday, so there will be no IPNO until, at least, January 7th.

While I'm gone, please entertain yourself with Halos Heaven, 6-4-2, Let's Go Kings, Silver Screen and Roll, and, of course, Battle of California, which happens to be featuring an awesome story about hockey (and why we love hockey) on the front page.

While I'm abroad, incoming texts are free, so feel free to send me amusing tidbits, sports-related or not. I'll have email access once a day or so, since I've only got 50 megs of iPhone data transfer before AT&T starts charging me $20 (yes, twenty dollars) per megabyte.

Lackey loses a number, a fanbase

2009-12-16T20:27:00.003-05:00

John Lackey has gone from #41 to #40, from the west coast to the east coast, and from rich to very rich.

I've always been a Lackey fan. From my faint memories of 2002 to his 7.1 shutout innings to start the 2009 ALDS, he's been one of the few players on the Angels with the competitive spirit we, as fans, always seek from our players.

So it's without much surprise that I've watched Angels fans turn on John Lackey like he just burned down the stadium and danced on the rubble. I understand their opposition to his signing with Boston, and I understand that his game 7 in 2002 was nearly 8 years ago. Already, you can find countless Lackey Angels jerseys on eBay (though not mine, yet), and there's lots of "traitor" and other name calling going on.

I have to agree with Seitz, who claims, "I think he was a warrior who happened to pitch for the Angels, but I don't think he had much, if any, loyalty towards the franchise." That's probably true. But I've given up on hating athletes for being athletes. Lackey's accomplishments with the franchise are not diminished by his being an asshole, much like Tiger Woods doesn't lose a Major for every mistress he's had. I don't believe that John ever, ever quit on the team, or that he didn't go out there and give it his best effort every night. His last pitch as an Angel was followed by him yelling at his manager to keep him out there, saying "This is mine." Thus, I don't think it's fair to hate John Lackey just because the Red Sox gave him an overpriced spite contract.*

Maybe the man didn't didn't leak Angels spirit all over the mound, but that's not his job. His job was to pitch brilliantly, as he did throughout his Angels career. I do believe there will come a day when the fans forgive him and recognize his immense contributions to the team.

*Spite contract - the awarding of an above market-value contract to a player to prevent him from signing with a rival team. Generally adds time, rather than money, to the contract.

Do. Not. Panic.

2009-12-14T16:59:00.005-05:00

With Halladay likely heading to Philadelphia in a trade that will send Lee to Seattle, and with news from Boston suggesting that John Lackey is likely to sign with the Red Sox on some massively overpriced deal, the Angels front office is in their "danger zone."

This "danger zone" is where they start throwing money at aging, mediocre players in the hopes that this somehow gets them over the hump and back into the playoffs. Hideki Matsui is one of these aging, mediocre players. So is Jason Bay. So is Joel Piniero.

Instead of freaking out because everyone else seems to be improving, the Angels need to look at WHY everyone else is improving, and how they can parlay a year of missing the playoffs into another 5 years of contention.

Seattle brought in new management and offloaded terrible contracts, signed top-notch defensive players, and converted a couple players who had seen only part time duty into major league regulars. They succeeded with this approach.

Texas has been bringing up young talent acquired through years of losing following the A-Rod contract debacle that destroyed a once-proud franchise. They slowed down or ceased their terrible contract signings and allowed some of their talented kids to earn regular playing time. They are succeeding with this approach.

The Red Sox have a lot of money, and spend it on players who are usually worth it. They have succeeded with this approach.

My point is that the Angels are better off sitting on their hands if they can't get Halladay or Lackey. Bay is not a great player, and he's very average if forced to play the field. This sounds a lot like another old outfielder on the Angels, Abreu, and it's incredibly dumb to lock up a DH spot with an old Matsui when Abreu should be sitting in the dugout when the Angels are on defense.

The fans will forgive a bad year if it means the team has the payroll flexibility to pick up WORTHWHILE free agents at the end of next season, combined with solid performances from graduates of a relatively weak farm system.

Put down the phone, Reagins, and relax. If you can't get Lackey or Halladay, then your winter is over. Concentrate on scouting and let some of our miserable contracts expire. You'll have your turn to pick up legitimate stars next year.

At least former Huskies know how to win

2009-12-14T00:04:00.002-05:00

...since the current ones are having huge parties the night after losing to Maine. That's right, guys, I can hear you downstairs. Maybe you should consider spending some of your social time learning how to score goals.

If I were coaching this team, they'd be skating suicides until their blades went dull. And the goalies would be wearing their masks to bed every night.

Anyways, here's Jose:

Click to make Jose slightly taller.

Memo to Roby: Retire his damn number, already.

Whatever parallel universe I'm living in, I love it

2009-12-13T11:22:00.004-05:00

Click for a larger version of the source of my wonderment.

The Kings are in first place. Not just in the Pacific division, which is impressive enough in its own right, but in the Western Conference, which is something that feels like it hasn't happened since before I was born, or at least since Gretzky left.

After losing like a million consecutive shootouts, Los Angeles has managed six straight shootout wins, largely courtesy of a stellar Jon Quick, who has played well after having sucked for large portions of the early season.

I just want them to make the playoffs, but I'll be okay with a first place finish.

This is my nightmare

2009-12-10T23:05:00.003-05:00

Click for bigger version.

While my hockey career has been short, I've watched enough to know where I should, generally, be. That is, I know that my goal is to try and stay in or near the blue area, and though I'm an incompetent skater, I know where I should be, even if I can't get there.

My biggest fear is what happened to Jon Quick during tonight's game against Phoenix. He had to slide to his left to make a save, and as he slid out of the crease, Kings defenseman Matt Greene slid into him and sent the poor guy into the boards. For the next 3 or 4 seconds, Quick was trying to get up and make it back into the crease as the puck made its way around the back of the net and into dangerous territory.

I know this will happen to me someday.

Scary.

Northeastern continues to annihilate its history

2009-12-09T19:50:00.005-05:00

I generally try to keep this blog sports-related for a number of reasons. Most of them boil down to my reactions towards political blogs, mainly, as I find myself constantly enraged by the idiocy of the masses. Even sports blogs, like the ones on Yahoo! Sports, tend to bother me because they're filled with legions of "morans," most of whom can't name their own team's 25-man roster, much less the Angels'.

But every once in a while, something happens that I need to write about, and since I have a readership of at least 4 on this blog, it's more people than I can reach while sitting around in my dorm and whining a lot. So here we go.

First, read this: NU Coops Offered 4-Year Degrees

Northeastern is not a big name school. When I first applied to NU, it wasn't because I loved hockey. It wasn't because I wanted to live in the eighth floor of a building with a spectacular view of Fenway Park. It wasn't because of its academics. Hell, I didn't even know about the girls, or the ever-important male/female ratio, something I knew for almost every other college to which I applied.

Northeastern was not my first choice. Or my second. Or my third. It wasn't even in the top three of the schools I actually got into. Yet a startling scholarship offer kept Northeastern alive as I narrowed down my list of schools to UC San Diego, Northeastern, and another NU, Northwestern. And with the final three assembled, I visited San Diego, Evanston, and Boston.

I will admit that while visiting Northwestern, I purchased a purple shirt. I had a future just west of Chicago. I loved the campus, I loved that all my engineering classes would be in Tech, and I loved that everyone I met was unusually nice, or so it seemed, after growing up in Los Angeles. If you had asked me, on the flight from O'Hare to Logan, where I'd be walking across a stage in 4 years, the answer would have been Ryan Field.

When I arrived at Northeastern, the feeling hadn't left. Although I purchased a Northeastern shirt almost immediately, it was only to give me something to wear that wasn't a purple Northwestern shirt, a shirt I believed to be mocking the school I'd applied to on a whim, and whose student body undoubtedly desired the option to attend Northwestern. And that feeling continued past my first meetings with George, a student, and Rich Harris, an administrator, and George's roommates, and their girlfriends. I was a Northwestern man, and it was going to take something spectacular and wonderful to keep me from Chicago.

That thing was the prospect of 5 years of college with 1.5 years of work experience by the time I graduated. I had heard the term "co-op" thrown around when reading through my scholarship offer, but it wasn't really clear what the deal was, and besides, I'd gotten into Northwestern, something nobody else at North Hollywood High had achieved, despite the five or six kids who got into Stanford. But I didn't come to appreciate the value of coop until my second day at NU during my campus tour.

Coop is the only thing that Northeastern has that ranks ahead of every other Boston-area school. Harvard, Boston College, BU, Tufts, Brandeis...all of these schools have better academics. If you're interested in arts, there's Berklee, the New England Conservatory, MassArt. Even the engineering program at Northeastern can't compete with MIT, Harvard, or either of the Comm Ave schools. What NU has, and all those schools don't, and what Northwestern doesn't have, is a five year undergraduate program where I graduate 1.5 years ahead of every other kid with a BS in mechanical engineering. Those kids can get a job the second they graduate, and I'm still 6 months ahead of them when I graduate.

You want to talk about value? That's value. That's a strength at a school which has no others.

So when I hear our president start talking about how students want a 4-year coop program, I start to think about the Athletic Training program. I think about the College of Criminal Justice. Hell, I think about the football program. Northeastern, for the last 10 years, has not stood for its core values. Even the changing of the brand standard from the jovial, block font with the torch symbol to the typical academic font and seal, is another example of the changes Northeastern is undergoing at the expense of its greatest strengths.

Northeastern, until very recently, has never been the first choice for any students coming to Boston. To clarify, I mean that nobody comes to Northeastern over BU for the sake of academics. Nobody decides on Northeastern over BC for athletics. People who come to Northeastern come for coop and for Boston. Despite the jokes and realities about acceptance rates and all that nonsense, BU has never been Boston's least favorite safety school. It's been NU. Always has been.

And yet, when you ask current students how they feel about their Northeastern education, you get a wide range of opinions about class, but only one opinion about coop: it is the most important part of their education. Personally, I have learned more about engineering and business from the 1.5 years I spent working mediocre jobs than I have in 3.5 years being taught by Nobel laureates. The concept of having graduated last year from Northwestern with zero work experience scares me to death in a job market that sucks for anyone with anything less than a doctorate.

When I hear Northeastern wants to move from a standard 5-year to a 4-year coop program, this is what I hear:

We are beginning to realize that we don't have the academics of Harvard. But we think that we can attract more typical rich suburban white kids if we try to act a little more normal. We changed our logo to look more like BU's, and we think that'll help too. We haven't been able to beat these guys for the last 100 years, so we're gonna emulate them, and then we'll catch up and pass them once we get some better students. We're going to slowly, quietly phase out the five-year program and start to extinguish coop altogether because it makes it hard to compete with other schools whose students get summers off.

Northeastern, particularly under the Aoun administration, has an enormous inferiority complex. But they all fail to realize that NU's quirks are its greatest asset. You can get a crappy summer internship at any university, but with precious few exceptions, there is no other place where you can get a six month job that happens during the winter. There is no other place where you can potentially work at a single company for 1.5 years before you even graduate. So many third-term coop students get offered jobs that it seems like the entire Boston workforce is composed of NU graduates.

This is not a "can't beat 'em, so let's join 'em" scenario, as Mark so eloquently said. Northeastern has been handily destroying its competition ever since the first coop student paid off his student loans with the money he made from his job.

Getting rid of the 5-year program is the ultimate goal of this move. Students who currently want to get 4-year degrees can still complete two coops without any changes from the administration. But with the deemphasis of the 5-year program, I can guarantee that it will soon be impossible to complete a 5-year education at NU.

This is not a transition. This is an elimination. If you don't think so, ask the football team.

A quick note on Figgy

2009-12-06T18:30:00.003-05:00

No, I haven't been writing a whole lot about baseball lately, and that's mostly because I've been watching a lot of hockey. But I figured this was worth a couple minutes.

Chone Figgins is headed to Seattle for, supposedly, 4 years and $36 million, with a PA-based vesting option for a fifth year. It's sad to see Chone go, particularly as the only remaining Angel from 2002 is Scot Shields, assuming Lackey leaves.

That said, I don't think it was a particularly bad move by the Angels front office to let him go. Figgy, until two years ago, was a plus defender with a decent batting average, no power, and lots of speed. He then discovered the value of a walk, and increased his OBP to second best in the AL last season. With that said, though, Figgins had a career year defensively last year, and his SB/CS ratio is worsening yearly. There's lots of folks speculating that his skillset ages gracefully, but that's only if you look at the OBP skills. His speed, batting average, and defense are all likely on the decline, as he will be 32 come spring training.

I mean, in 2005, he stole 62 bags and got caught 17 times. Last year, he stole 20 fewer while still getting caught 17 times. I have a hard time believing he's going to get any speed back, and a harder time believing he's actually +15 at third base. +5, maybe, but not double digits.

Of course, Figgins is a good fit for Seattle, although certainly not the only player they need to contend for the AL West in 2010. But he'll likely provide the same sort of exciting baseball we've seen for quite a few seasons in Anaheim, and I'm sure the fans will love him, just as they did in Southern California.

This, of course, means good things for Brandon Wood, who will finally have the chance to show his skills. He'll prove someone right, be it his critics or his proponents, but either way, the front office will be criticized, for delaying his promotion or refusing to trade him. My gut-meter thinks he gets about 600 AB's and pulls together a .265/.300/.510 campaign, but that OBP estimate is probably unreasonably high.

This also means it's time for the Angels to make a very serious bid for Lackey, Halladay, or both. Pitching, please.

Chaisson Allen's buzzer beater owns Wright State

2009-11-28T18:44:00.002-05:00

Wow.