Video of the Day:Best Goals of All-Time

Wow! It's hard to argue about any of these goals being on the list.

Friday's Fives

This is a new feature I'll be doing every Friday. The top and bottom five sports related things of the week. Let's get it going!

Top Five

1.The hype for Sunday's game between the Patriots and Colts: Most things in sports get over hyped. This is not one of those things. In 88 NFL seasons two teams with records of 7-0 or better have never played. This should be a fun one to watch.
2.The Red Sox win the World Series: Wait a minute. There was a World Series this year? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Even though this years World Series had about as much excitement as a fat guy has going on a diet, the Sox deserve to be acknowledged for their dominating performance.
3.The start of the NBA season: New faces in new places, rookies to get excited about, players demanding trades. You got to love the drama that is the NBA. It should be a fun season.
4.New MLB managers: Joe Torre has moved on to LA, while Joe Girardi will fill his shoes in New York. Both seem like great moves. Wouldn't it be great if these two teams met in the World Series next year?
5.Henrik Lundqvist: In four games the Rangers goalie has allowed only four goals and has two shut outs. He'll have to keep it up if the Rangers offense continues playing poorly.

Bottom Five

5. Montreal's Media: Shame on them for heavily criticizing Canadians captain Saku Koivu for not being able to speak French. Just because he's the teams captain doesn't mean he has to speak the city's official language. That's like saying the captain of the Florida Panthers has to be a mildly racist senior citizen.
4. Opening night of the NBA season: Is it just me or did opening night in the NBA barely even make a glitch on the radar. Opening night of the NFL season is built up for weeks, and it's marketed to be a major event. The NBA should do something similar.
3. The Philadelphia Flyers: Apparently when the Flyers said they were gonna try to 'kill' their competition this season they weren't lying. Add two more incidents this week to the Flyers dirty hit list. And no, it's not a coincidence that the Flyers have been the only team to receive suspensions for illegal hits this year.
2. The NFL game in London: What a poor display of what's suppose to be America's most popular sport to our friends in the UK. A very sloppy game that will go down as one of the worst of the season.
1. A-Rod's announcement: What a bone head. Why couldn't he and his agent wait to announce he'll become a free agent. Doing it during the final game of the World Series showed no respect for the game. A-Rod has about as much class as a high school drop out.

Somewhere in the middle: Apparently Lance Armstrong is dating Ashley Olsen of the Olsen twins. Don't believe me? Check this out- http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20156021,00.html. On one hand you want to give the guy a high five, but when you really think about it, it seems creepy. Either way, Lance is a PLAYA!

Enjoy your weekend, and have fun watching the Colts and Pats!
-Joe Osborne

Video of the Day: Ali G & The NBA

One word: Halarious

Is the UFC a Fad?

Since it began airing on Spike TV over two years ago the UFC has been like a non stop locomotive headed straight to the top of mainstream sports. In the past few months however, it seems like that locomotive has been slowing down, and it now appears to be at a standstill. With so much negativity surrounding it as of late, is the UFC a fad? Let's take a look at three reasons why the UFC could be in decline.

1. Way to many upsets: Upsets make sports fun. They make betting fun and they give us a reason to watch. But the UFC has seen a wild amount of upsets in the past year. GSP's loss to Serra, Liddell's losses to Rampage and Keith Jardine, Cro Cop and Shogun getting beat, the list goes on. It's hard for the UFC to promote its best fighters when their losing. Too many upsets also keep us fans from seeing the fights we want to see. Unpredictability is good, but when there's too much of it how do you determine who fights who, and more importantly how do you determine who gets a title shot? Just look at the light heavyweight division. How are you supposed to figure out whose next in line for a shot at Rampage after all the recent upsets?

2. Championships are in Limbo: Three out of the five weight classes have major problems. Heavyweight champ Randy Couture retired, and it doesn't look like he'll come back. This looks really bad on the UFC for many reasons, but more importantly how will they determine who fights for the belt, and will the eventual winner even be worthy? The Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva is arguably the best fighter in the UFC and in a league of his own. No one else in that weight class is even worthy of fighting him, and no fight with any current fighter in that division makes sense. And finally onto the Lightweight Championship. Since winning the belt well over a year ago Champion Sean Sherk has only defended his title once. Because of two reasons- an injury, and a failed steroid test that's being disputed. The Lightweight division is the opposite of the Middleweight division. There's probably 4 or 5 guys out there that would be worthy of a title shot, but things are really getting held up. The bottom line is that there needs to be some stability in the championship ranks.

3. Is too much of a good thing bad?: it seems to me that there's way too many live fight cards now. There's a Pay-Per View pretty much every month and a few live events on Spike every few months as well. And rumor has it that the UFC is trying to negotiate a deal with ESPN after their deal with HBO fell through. There just isn't enough talent to go around. What's the point of broadcasting fights between below average fighters? I know every fight can't be a championship bout, but there are way too many lackluster fights as it is. Too many fights will make the UFC watered down. Rashad Evans vs. Michael Bisping in the main event of this months PPV? I think that proves my point. There's no way they should be headlining a PPV event. Seven or eight PPV’s a year would be great! The fight cards would be more stacked, which in the long run would draw in more viewers.

Every sport has its ups and downs and the UFC will be no different. They’ve learned to deal with ignorant people in the media who look at their sport as human cockfighting and they’ll learn to deal with this. Randy Couture’s resignation seems to be their biggest issue at this time, but the recent signing of Brock Lesnar will help fill his void. I’m a fan of the UFC; I just don’t want to see them make mistakes that will costs them current and potential fans. Is the UFC a fad? I hope not, but it still has a long way to go.
-Joe Osborne

As always, tell me what you think. Am I out of line to even bring up such a subject, or do you think the UFC will be gone in a few years?

Video of the Day: Top 10 Teamwork Dunks

Which one do you think was the hardest to do?

Video of the Day: Crazy Play

What do you think? Horrible defense or great athleticism by the offense?

Is the NHL Serious or Delirious?

It's impossible to be a sports fan and not hear all the negative things the media has to say about the NHL. For all the bad stuff there's also some good, so I'll analyze the serious (good) and delirious (bad) about the NHL and give you my final verdict

Serious
-Much like the NBA, the NHL has an amazing group of young talent who are exciting to watch, and will help carry the league into the next decade.
-Following the strike the NHL got it right with its vasts amount of rule changes. The game has opened up a bit, and the shootout at the end of overtime adds an excitement that no other league has.
-The league's top starts don't seem as greedy as their counterparts in other leagues. Players like Sydney Crosby and Danny Heatley could have easily signed max contracts, but decided to take a few million less a season so their teams can sign more talent. This puts the NHL at a different level when you compare it to guys like A-Rod who's pursuing over 30$ million a year.
-Hockey Night in Canada is easily America's answer to Monday Night Football. Saturday nights watching the NHL on CBC still ranks among the top activities for a Canadian to do on a weekend. Plus the broadcast is pretty good too.
-Much like in Major League Baseball, it seems as long as you can make the playoffs, you have a great chance to win it all. In the past few years small market teams such as Edmonton, Carolina, Calgary, and Buffalo have all had some major playoff success.

Delirious

-Sure, the league has a ton of young talent, but the NHL still doesn't know how to market it's players. It seems like the average sports fan can name every mediocre player in the NBA, but ask them to name two players of the Phoenix Coyotes and their stumped.
-Speaking of the Coyotes, the NHL has way to many teams. There shouldn't be hockey teams in places where people actually don't play ice hockey, with the exception of LA. Having 32 teams in the league makes it way to watered down. It also makes it uncompetitive and boring.
-It seems like every week someone is taking an extremely violent blow to the head. Hockey is violent by nature, but it must come up with something to stop this before some has serious brain damage or even dies.
-Big market teams aren't getting it done. Having teams like Carolina and Anaheim win the Stanley Cup isn't good for business in the NHL, because when teams like that are playing in the finals no one cares, which means low TV ratings, which mean no money.
-A year after the league went on strike the salary cap got bumped up a few extra million. Isn't money the reason they went on strike in the first place?
-The people who run the NHL are flat out greedy. They're actually considering adding more teams in Kansas City and Las Vegas. More teams equal more players which will probably mean less true fans.

The Verdict

It's obvious that off the ice, the people running the NHL don't know what the hell their doing. But the bottom line is, hockey is a great game to watch, depending on what teams are playing. Players now are doing things that players 15 years ago could never do. They're faster, stronger and more athletic, which makes for more excitement. Hockey doesn't need the NHL, but the NHL needs hockey so hopefully ten years from now they'll have it together. FINAL VERDICT: Very close, but the NHL is serious.

So what do you think? Leave your comments about your comments whether you agree or disagree.
-Joe Osborne