Borderline Fantastic Sports

The Flyers finally notched a win this week. They liked it so much, they did it again. Sweeping the Devils in a home and home.

I added some items to Ice Cream Helmet Hockey. First, on the schedule, picks, and standings pages you can click on the blue info icon and you will see a pop-up with the team’s record along with the last 5 and next 5 games on the schedule.

Also, you can now check out the NHL Standings.

Here are the Top 10 games for this week …

Make picks on Ice Cream Helmet

I finally got to watch some hockey this weekend. With all the baseball and college football hockey has fallen behind. Saturday night I thought I was all done with sports, the Cal/Arizona game wasn’t especially close. The Flyers were playing in San Jose. I was able to catch most of the 3rd period, the Flyers went up on a goal by Briere, making it 4-3. A few minutes later, the Sharks tied it on a goal by Setoguchi. In OT Boyle scored for the Sharks and the Flyers remained winless. Was last season a fluke? The Flyers were very streaky last season. They were at the top of the conference and then fell apart needing a few wins at the end of the season just to make the playoffs.

Here are the Top 10 games for this week …

Make picks on Ice Cream Helmet

I’m not so sure about the NHL schedulers. The Flyers are currently 8 points back in the division after playing only 1 game. I realize the Rangers played in Europe to start the year, so they should be 2 games up. Still, its just looks ridiculous. I hope they get evened up quickly.

Make picks on Ice Cream Helmet

I’m not sure how much hockey coverage you’ll find on here this season. I love the Flyers but I don’t have a ton of time to keep on top of the entire NHL during the regular season. As a start, each week I’ll post the top 10 games according to Ice Cream Helmet. ICH picks are made on the top 10 games each week. You can join in and make picks, or create your own group and pick up to 25 games per week.

Make picks on Ice Cream Helmet

This year, for the first time, Ice Cream Helmet will feature Hockey Picks. The standard ICH game will feature 10 games per week to pick from. They are the top 10 rated games as rated by ICH. Each correct pick is worth 1 point. Your rank will go toward your Overall ICH Score.

You can choose to create your own group and have up to 25 games per week available to be picked. Custom groups also feature the option to use wager points as in most other Ice Cream Helmet games. Wager points allow you to get extra points if you are correct on your most confident selections but subtract from your total if you are incorrect.

You can get started now, games for Week 1 are all set to pick.

The first four games of the season take place on Oct. 4th and 5th in Europe. The rest of the league gets started on Oct. 9th. The deadline to make ICH picks is before each individual game, the first being the Flames/Canucks game on Oct. 9th. Custom gropus have the option of having a similar deadline of before each game or having a single weekly deadline before the first game of the week (weeks start on Monday).

Ice Cream Helmet Hockey Picks

Can I pull off a themed links day?

LEGO’s 50th Anniversary was this week. Gizmodo posted a bunch of the most popular ones. I was able to find all that made up my LEGO town. Yes, I had a LEGO town, with streets and all. Not many real towns were as lucky as mine to have an airport and shuttle launch pad. The tradeoff? Alien attacks.

Hershey has some candy and apparently its packaging is similar to drugs. Crack, cocaine, and heroin are all mentioned. They are actually Ice Breakers, which I wouldn’t call candy. Anyway, I didn’t think they looked like drugs from looking at them. I don’t think any kids would thought so either, before now. If there was some sort of mixup between this candy and drugs, I think you are buying your candy from the wrong store …

Like perhaps this Pizza Place at Penn State where the most popular pizza was the Marijuana Lovers.He may be 21, but I think he grabbed the drugs instead of the candy. I don’t know where Brian Callaway (the writer of the story) is hoping to get in the newspaper business if he isn’t going to mention whether or not those slippers growled with each step.

Shaun White is how old now? Says here he’s 21. I think he’s won about 300 X Games Golds. Here he is pulling off a 1260. If he wasn’t so good at everything, then I’d hate him less.

Most hockey players are kids these days, at least the good ones. Here are some Penguins doing an ad for a car dealership. I respect the dealership for using artistic license and going with the non-English speaking players.

Sick of these kids yet? How many can you beat up?

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I’ve been slacking on the List posts the past few weeks. This one deserves its own: Versus.

It made The List previously (when it was called Bandwagon Jumping) thanks to a couple of Pac-10 upsets that were on the channel. I also appreciate the channel because ESPN did a terrible job at hockey and really didn’t care about it. The NHL is Versus’ #1 priority. The only thing better would be to have The NHL Network.

This week on Tuesday I happened to flip on Versus and found two shows that I think I’ll be back for next week.

Hockey Central
Sorry, a few minutes of Barry Melrose on SportsCenter does not satisfy my hockey needs. I also usually miss it because I’ve changed the channel because they are talking about the NFL or something else that I really don’t care to hear any more about. Now Hockey Central is no NHL2Night with John Buccigross. Still its a lot of hockey highlights and hockey talk that I could definitely use more of. Besides the big name players and the Flyers I don’t know all that much. Out of the professional leagues the NHL is only behind baseball in my order of preference. I just know more about the NFL and NBA because you can’t avoid seeing all the news stories about them. They also do live look-ins.

Now I only got to see the last few minutes, but I think I will at the very least add it to my DVR for next week. I can’t really be sure because the Versus site is terrible but it looks like Hockey Central is on Mondays and Tuesdays at 9:30 or 10, depending on the game on before it.

Sports Unfiltered with Dennis Miller
This show got some press when it was announced. I didn’t really care. Dennis Miller? What was his last show on, CNBC? Whatever it was I tried to watch it once or twice, but couldn’t. I did enjoy Dennis Miller Live, when I did get to see it. I thought he was a good choice for Monday Night Football. I turned out to be wrong.

The show was on after Hockey Central. He opened with an AJ Feeley joke, so I gave him a shot. Turns out he does a whole monologue of sports related jokes. A lot of them are even funny, who knew. He doesn’t go too crazy with his historical references. Well, for me at least. He might go with more sports history, which I don’t really notice. The real history stuff I notice because I will not understand about half of what he is saying.

Its a lot like Dennis Miller Live, he does the monologue and then goes into his rant, which was about all the sports figures getting into trouble. His guests were Michael Irvin and Denny McClain, pretty solid for a show I wasn’t even aware was airing yet and related to the topic very well. After that he does the week in pictures, also right from his old show and still solid. He had on Bob Costas, who wasn’t terrible. He had some guy go try bull riding, seems like he’s going to try stupid things each week. We’ll see about that segment. He ends talking to some guy in Vegas about his picks for the week. Drop that segment right away.

I was at least able to find a half decent show schedule for this one on the site. Tuesdays at 10 or 10:30 are new episodes and the replays run throughout the week. They might be on to something with this show. I can’t think of anything else like it.

This week the Stanley Cup Finals are wrapping up (unless it goes 7), the NBA Finals are getting started. There is no horse going for the Triple Crown but I’ll still be looking forward to the race. French Open finals are also coming up on the weekend.

Besides sports there isn’t much to look forward to until Sunday with the Sopranos finale and John From Cincinnati premiere. Plus, Brian Regan has a Comedy Central Special.

Sports

Belmont Stakes (5, ABC) - No one going for the Triple Crown this year. Still, I’m hooked on this horse racing thing. Just watching, I’m not at the point of betting on it. You can make picks for fun at Ice Cream Helmet.

Stanley Cup Finals
Ducks vs Senators
Game 4 @ Ottawa: Monday (8, NBC)
Game 5 @ Anaheim: Wednesday (8, NBC)
Game 6 @ Ottawa: Saturday (8, NBC)

NBA Finals
Spurs vs Cavaliers
Game 1 @ San Antonio: Thursday (9, ABC)
Game 2 @ San Antonio: Sunday (9, ABC)

French Open
Women’s Final: Saturday (9am, NBC)
Men’s Final: Sunday (9am, NBC)

Check out the week … (more…)

To save myself from Summer TV withdraw I’ve decided to plan my week’s in advance. I’m going to do some research to make sure I don’t miss any specials that tend to sneak by in the Summer. Oh, and Sports.

This week will be especially difficult with all the talk shows on break.

Sports

Stanley Cup Finals: Monday (Versus), Wednesday (Versus), Saturday (NBC)

French Open: ESPN2 and The Tennis Channel - Comcast is giving us The Tennis Channel for free for this. Trying to tempt me into purchasing the Sports Package. Little do they know I’m planning on getting it when the college football season starts. That is, if I can hold old during the college baseball regionals.

Now that the important stuff is out of the way, check out the whole week … (more…)

Welcome to the Gil Meche Era. This Royals team could be a lot of fun. At least offensively, their 5th starter is Brandon Duckworth.

Do the Phillies ever win on Opening Day? We’re done. Season’s over. Pack it up.

The Rangers changed the name of their stadium to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Apparently for the past three years its been called Ameriquest Field in Arlington. I love the name Ballpark in Arlington, probably why I apparently ignored the sponsor. I guess I can live with having Rangers in the front of it, people get confused.

Everywhere I’m reading how Devils GM Lou Lamoriello is some sort of genius, firing his coach and taking over the team. Last year he did it midseason. This year with three games left in the season. I think he’s some sort of genius too. Not because he makes these ‘bold’ moves. He’s a genius because he gets to coach the Devils in the playoffs each year without going through a whole season then getting to coach at the best time of the year. If it doesn’t work out? Not the coaches fault, he just started. Blame the GM, but everyone is fooled.

Billy Packer doesn’t think players should foul out in basketball because it doesn’t happen in any other sport. Imagine if Billy would have found football all those years ago, I think he’d be a lot happier.

Ok Gators, time for someone else to have some fun.