In front of 12,178 fans at the Prudential Center on Wednesday night, Martin Brodeur tied Patrick Roy’s NHL record for regular season appearances by a goalie. In 16 seasons – all with the Devils – Brodeur has played 1,030 games as of this writing. For the record, it took Roy 18 seasons to reach the mark. Brodeur was playing when I became interested in hockey back in the early 90s during the Lemieux/Jagr regime. Not only is he still playing, he’s dominating – just as he did back then, making him, possibly, the quietest-dominant player in the sport. Read more
Public relations strategists can debate the proper and most effective ways to escape a crisis. Before giving their guidance, they look at the basic information and prior examples. Then they make a judgment on how to best approach the situation: How can they best achieve positive results? When is silence best? What’s the best route to victory?
I question the judgment of a public relations professional’s suggestions for how Tiger Woods can save face in his current, still exploding, scandal. Based on his advice, Woods would come up on the losing end. The PR guy’s list includes:
1. Woods and his wife need to meet authorities and explain what happened after his car crash; 2. Woods needs to make a statement disclosing the real story and the basic facts; and 3. Woods needs to go forward with his charity tournament this week and get back to his public schedule.
I’m beginning to think this Vince Young character can play football. Prevailing logic dictates that what a good quarterback makes are not monster numbers but rather a list of Ws in the only column that actually matters. And those Ws are precisely what VY continues to chalk up as he stumbles and toddles his way through a spectacularly strange NFL career. Read more
We often come across sports pundits who disagree about a given player’s play. Analyst A lauds his speed and agility. Analyst B labels him mediocre, a role player at best. Rarely, however, do we come across a debate where Analyst A praises a player as the second coming (or a younger Raimy Rubin) while Analyst B calls for his head. Congratulations, Michael Oher, the seemingly ambiguous quality of your play has completely divided two of the biggest football analysts in the media. Read more
The latest Allen Iverson experiment is off to a disastrous start. After playing just three games with the Grizzlies, the point guard expressed dismay over his role as a bench player. Leading up to the season, Iverson said that he didn’t want to be a sub:
Bench came into the play when I came to Detroit. You never heard about Allen Iverson coming off the bench ever in my whole career. It was never something people even thought in their head until I came to Detroit. Now, it’s the big topic. I’d be crazy to just out of my mouth say, ‘I’d be comfortable with being a guy coming off the bench.’ That’s never a role I ever had.”
It’s not surprising then that he abruptly left his team Saturday after a meeting with the team owner. It’s unknown whether Iverson will rejoin the team for what would be his home debut against Portland on Tuesday. Read more
For only the second time ever, all four major league sports were in regular- or post-season session on the same day. I staggered my sports-viewing schedule in order to catch portions of games from all of the sports. I decided to key in on one star player in each game and to look at his contributions to his team.
First up was a hockey game pitting the New York Rangers against the Boston Bruins. Today marked the 50th anniversary of goalies wearing protective masks. Montreal goaltender Jacques Plante was playing in New York in 1959 when he took a wrist shot to the face that would go on to revolutionize goalie protection. A half a century later, a masked Henrik Lundqvist was in goal against the Bruins. Read more
