What do LeBron James, Sidney Crosby and Peyton Manning all have in common?

For one, they’re all high-end athletes that are fairly dominant in their respective sports, but there’s something else that ties these three together. Any guesses?

LeBron, Sidney and Peyton have all been accused of being ‘poor sports’ for not shaking hands after a big game, whether it's a win or a loss.

James was the first of the three to come under the microscope back in late May when his Cleveland Cavaliers lost in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Final to the Orlando Magic and he stormed off the court without congratulating the victors.

In mid-June, it was Crosby's turn – after his Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings in seven games to take home the Stanley Cup, Crosby was accused of snubbing Wings captain Nick Lidstrom in the post-game handshake, though he did shake some hands.

What a great Super Bowl between the Saints and the Colts on Sunday!

I had picked the Saints to win and honestly wasn’t sure they had it in them after their first couple of drives, but they must have just been nervous early on. All in all it was a pretty solid game – both teams had goal-line stands and big plays at key times, but that Tracy Porter interception in the fourth quarter was probably the biggest of them all.

 

Here are the highlights, incase you missed the game (oh, and for the record, I finished the season at 142-68):

Pardon the cheesy headline, but a week that saw Dion Phaneuf, JS Giguere and Olli Jokinen change teams wrapped up with an even bigger trade.

Last Thursday, former Atlanta Thrashers captain Ilya Kovalchuk was dealt to the New Jersey Devils, with Nik Bergfors, ...

The Oilers finally broke out of that long winless streak with wins over the Hurricanes and the Flyers, before opening up a five-game road trip with back-to-back losses against Minnesota and Colorado.

In Monday’s win over the ‘Canes, Marc Pouliot potted the game-winner in a 4-2 victory over Carolina and Ryan Potulny scored with 17 seconds left to secure a 1-0 win over Philadelphia. The fun ended there though – the Wild scored a pair of late goals in a 4-2 win and the Oilers were outshot 42-20 in a 3-0 loss to the Avalanche.

It’s another busy week for the Oil – they continue their road trip with games in Phoenix, Anaheim and LA, before returning home to take on the Ducks again, a game that will take them into the two-week Olympic break.

While Edmonton did manage to bring that 13-game winless skid to ...

Maybe the NDP is onto something after all…

Just kidding, but seriously – things are starting to get a little out of hand out east where yet another indefinite suspension has been handed out in the QMJHL for another vicious blow to the head.

This time around, the culprit is 19-year-old Val d’Or Foreurs defenseman Marco Scandella; the second member of Team Canada to cross that line in the last few weeks.

Here’s what happened: Rimouski Oceanic forward Alexandre Durette got caught with his head down as he tried to poke a loose puck past Scandella, the six-foot-two, 190-pound Minnesota Wild prospect, who was cutting across the ice with his head up.

It’s being widely reported as an elbow to the head, but the footage isn’t quite conclusive on that front. Either way, it is a shot to the head, but Durette does make himself a bit vulnerable by reaching ...

After sixteen regular season games and three weeks of playoff action, it all comes down to this Sunday's match up between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV.

Both of these clubs spent most of the season riding unbeaten streaks and that's not where the comparisons end - both ended up losing games in the final few weeks before putting up impressive wins in the postseason that erased any doubts about the skill or drive of either side. In the Divisional round of the playoffs, the Saints thumped the Arizona Cardinals 45-14 and it was the Colts shutting down the Baltimore Ravens 20-3. The following week in the Championship round, New Orleans won a tight one over Minnesota 31-28 and Indie sent the New York Jets packing with a 30-17 win.

Are the NFL's two best teams playing for the championship? I don't think you'll ...

In the latest fallout from that Patrice Cormier cheap shot that sent a fellow QMJHLer to hospital, some members of the federal NDP are calling for a royal commission (major government public inquiry) into "violence in sports."

The call comes two days after the first meeting between Cormier's Rouyn-Noranda Huskies and Mikael Tam's Quebec Remparts since the vicious elbow, which landed the Team Canada captain a season-long suspension, including the playoffs (a decision his team is appealing ), and left the 18-year-old Tam convulsing on the ice.

According to a Canadian Press report, NDP sports critic Glenn Thibeault and deputy leader Thomas Mulcair say violence in hockey has "reached such a peak" that only a royal commission can deal with it. In a 20-minute news conference, the two politicians singled out the Cormier hit as a "case of things going very wrong in the sport," and they vowed to ...

Before the New Orleans Saints take on the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV (which is 44, incase you’re wondering), Saints fans are taking on the NFL itself.

What’s the issue? Who owns "Who Dat?"

At least, that’s what certain people are trying to make you think is the issue.

Before we go any further, here’s the background: Since the team was first founded in the mid-1960s, Saints fans have been known for a chant that goes “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints.” At some point, fans got lazy and shortened the chant to “Who Dat?”

Now, to the issue:

The Saints are very popular with the people of New Orleans…like very popular. From what I can gather, if you took the Oilers during the ’06 Cup run and multiplied Edmonton’s excitement by two, you might be even with the level of popularity of the Saints in New ...

A recent Battle of the Dynamos in the KHL produced what would have been another solid highlight in the career of an Edmonton Oilers draft pick known for his slick shootout moves.

A few weeks after Detroit Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk successfully employed a move Linus Omark made famous (at least on the internet) last April, he was back it – this time in a KHL game between his Dynamo Moscow and Dynamo Minsk (hat tip to RussianHockeyFans for this find).

Omark comes in on goalie Andrei Mezin and tries to confuse by him sliding on his belly, grabbing the puck with his left hand and trying to bank it in off of the stick in his right hand – a move first tried (as far as I know) by Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Tampa Bay’s Steve Stamkos in the 2009 NHL Skills Competition.

Thankfully for Omark, his ...

Another week has come and gone without an Oilers win – this time around they fell to Chicago and St. Louis at Rexall Place before getting their butts kicked by the Flames in Calgary on Saturday night.

In Tuesday’s loss to Chicago, the Blackhawks scored on their first shot of the game and built up a 4-0 lead before the Oilers even got on the board. On Thursday, the Oilers held the Blues to just one shot in the third period, but that was all they needed in a 2-1 win.

Saturday night’s loss to Calgary may have been the toughest to swallow as the Flames were winless in nine prior to that game but came out and dominated the Oilers in a 6-1 game.

Edmonton’s winless streak now stands at 13 games and they are still without a win in 2010, but they get right ...

Does the name Darcy Verot ring a bell?

The 33-year-old veteran of 37 NHL games, who is averaging about 10 penalty minutes per night (and about nine minutes of ice time) on the last-place team in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League is having one heck of a January.

First, the Vityaz Chekhov enforcer (I call him an enforcer, but I’m pretty sure they’re all enforcers) played key part in a huge series of brawls that forced the suspension of a January 9th game between his club and Jaromir Jagr’s Avangard Omsk – a game that featured a world record 840 penalty minutes (25 for Verot) in just 3:39.

Once he served his stiff, but deserved one game suspension (/sarcasm), something crazy happened – Darcy Verot went an entire five games without taking so much as a minor penalty, even doubling his point total to four during that span!

Old habits die ...

Calling it a Career

 

Arizona Cardinals QB Kurt Warner has decided to retire following a pretty good season that ended with a loss to the New Orleans Saints in the Divisional round of the playoffs.

Warner's career is a remarkable story - he started professional career playing Arena Football, after stocking shelves at an Iowa grocery store for $5.50 an hour. He was a two-time Arena Football All-Star before getting a shot with the St. Louis Rams, where he won a Super Bowl, Super Bowl MVP and league MVP in 1999.

That was his first of three Super Bowl appearances and first of two MVP awards and he was also a five-time Pro Bowler.

Warner retires as the top passer in Super Bowl history and completed an NFL record 92 per cent of passes during one game this season - not bad for an old guy!

Here's a video ...

Have you ever had a prank totally backfire on you?

At one time or another it seems to happen to everyone, and it happened to students at a Kansas City high school during a pep rally this past week.

Olathe Northwest High School bio teacher and basketball coach Joel Branstrom was promised tickets to the Final Four tournament in Indianapolis in April if he could do what probably seemed impossible at the time - hit a blindfolded half-court shot.

Imagine the students surprise when the former walk-on at the University of Kansas hit the shot with ease, since they didn't actually have any tickets!

As you'll see in the video below, a kid with clear height issues delivers the blindfold, Branstrom gets warmed up, DRAINS it like a pro and is then swarmed by students as "We Are the Champions" blasts through the speakers.

The best part of the story ...

It’s no secret that big-name players in every sport seem to get “special treatment” from the refs from time to time, but have you ever wondered just how deep it goes?

Zachariah Blott with Empty The Bench has, and so he decided to take a long, hard look at the face of the NBA: LeBron James.

James is no doubt an amazing athlete – the 25-year-old leads the league in scoring, averaging just shy of 30 points per game after 46 outings to go along with seven rebounds and eight assists. But what’s even more impressive is that he has been putting up numbers close to that for his entire six-year career.

The most interesting part of his stat line, as Blott points out, can be found in the “personal fouls” column.

In just over 1,700 minutes on the court this season, King James has racked up 77 fouls – ...

If Sidney and the rest of Team Canada bring home the gold at the upcoming Winter Olympics, they’ll be treated just like any other Canadian Olympians.

That is to say, they’ll each be $20,000 richer (That’s Canadian dollars, but still!).

The Canadian Olympic Committee says there was some debate as to whether or not Canada’s hockey team should be eligible for the “Own the Podium” bonuses provides to athletes who win a medal at the Games.

The COC started the bonus program for the 2008 Beijing Games: Canadians who win gold will earn the $20,000 prize; it’ll be $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for a bronze medal win.

Ultimately, they decided the players should be treated like every other athlete and given the opportunity to receive the money. Really, the only difference between Canada’s hockey team and the rest of the athletes is the millions of dollars they earn on ...

If you thought Allen Iverson making the NBA All-Star team as a starter despite playing in less than half of his team’s games this season was a bit silly, wait ‘til you get a load of this:

According to RussianHockeyFans.com, Chris Simon (yes that Chris Simon) has been added to the Kontinental Hockey League’s All-Star roster.

The KHL uses a similar format to the American Hockey League’s Canada vs. PlanetUSA format – Team Yashin is made up of Russian stars, while the “international stars” will suit up for Team Jagr.

Yes, KHL journalists have done something no one else ever has – they’ve labeled Chris Simon an international star. Wow. Not only that, but the soon-to-be 38-year-old who was suspended for a total of 70 games during his 15-year NHL career will be on Team Jagr’s second line!

I never thought I would hear Simon mentioned in the same breath ...

Last week:

The Oilers started the week with a 6-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche and lost all three games they played, despite getting progressively better after the blowout loss on Monday.

The team was treated to a bag skate after the loss in Denver and responded with a strong game against the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, where a phantom penalty in overtime cost them in a 3-2 loss. The Oil held a one-goal lead from early in the second period all the way into the final five minutes of the game where the Canucks tied it up and then won it in the extra frame. The one point was just their fourth in 17 games.

On Friday night, the Oilers lost a heartbreaker to the visiting Dallas Stars - they battled back from a 3-1 deficit, scoring the game-tying goal with just 1:02 left on the clock; however, with ...

Stiff Enough?

The Windsor Spitfires will have to wait 20 more games to see newly acquired forward Zack Kassian (attempt to) play his first full game with the team, following an announcement from the Ontario Hockey League on Thursday.

Kassian got himself in trouble when he drilled Matt Kennedy of the Barrie Colts last week in a game between the two OHL heavyweights. The puck was in the air and Kennedy was looking up at the time of the impact, which left the Colts forward needing stitches on his face and staples in the back of his head.

So after sending a player and two draft picks to the Peterborough Petes for Kassian earlier this month, the Spitfires will get a total of two and a half games out of the Buffalo Sabres prospect. Is 20 games enough though?

Personally, I think a ban of that length definitely sends a ...

Four teams remain in the battle for the Super Bowl as the NFL playoffs continue with the conference championships this weekend.

There weren't too many surprises last weekend in the divisional round, with Indianapolis, New Orleans and Minnesota advancing. The only one I didn't get right was the upstart New York Jets getting past the San Diego Chargers, who did not look good on Sunday.

It's a pure sin that I won't actually be able to watch the two biggest football games of the year to date as I'll be falling all over a mountain in BC trying to stand up on a snowboard. I'll be sure to catch the highlights though. Here are my picks:

My pick: Indianapolis

-To get to this game, the Jets had to win a pair of playoff road games - but I think this is where it'll all ...

The issue of headshots in hockey is on the minds of people all across the scope of the sport after two vicious hits in the CHL over the past week (which you can see here and here).

In international hockey they’ve been taking headshots seriously for years now and I’m sure we’ll see evidence of that at least once or twice during the upcoming Olympics. In Canadian major junior hockey, one player has already been sent packing for the season and two others should be seeing season-long bans shortly.

In the NHL…well, they’re working on it. Sort of.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said on Wednesday that the league would be taking a “serious look” at hits to the head during the general managers meetings in March, but they won’t be looking for a “quick fix” to the problem.

From CP: Bettman cautioned that finding a solution could take ...

Cleveland Cavaliers center Shaquille O’Neal hit a pretty significant milestone on Tuesday night, but his mind was elsewhere afterwards.

With a lay-up in the opening minute of the Cavs 108-100 win over the Toronto Raptors, O’Neal became just the fifth player in NBA history to score 28,000 points, joining the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain in that exclusive club.

So what was he talking about afterwards? Saving the NBA all-star dunk contest, of course!

The Big Aristotle had this to say when he was asked if he would like to see teammate LeBron James participate in this year’s festivities:

• 1
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
•  x 

  Page: 
• …
  11
• Next »