Dolphins - Jets

The last time the Dolphins had a game this big I couldn't legally drink. To recap if they win today against the Jets they win the AFC East and get to host a playoff game next week. Lets hope that the game today doesn't make me want to take advantage of the fact that I am now 21+.

On other news I am rooting hard for the Detroit Lions. They just tied the game 14-14. After watching the Dolphins last year I can honestly say that no team's fan should have to suffer through an 0-16 season.

There will be time to recap the Christmas in Jackson, but now I need to get BBQ and prep my place for the game.

Go Fins.

Miami Dolphins - inch by inch

Something to get you excited for the game today. Al Pacino - Inch by inch.

The Dolphins are one win away from a primetime game against the Jets for the AFC East. All that is in between them and that game being for the division is a win against the 2-12 Kansas City Chiefs. Hopefully Herman Edwards will remind his team that you play to improve your draft position.

Go Fins.

Thunder Bay vs. Duluth

Yesterday I had some people over for a small holiday party. During the party a discussion came up about the merits of vacationing in Duluth or Thunder Bay. For those of you who aren't from Minnesota let me try to explain the allure of the city of Duluth. For most Minnesotans Duluth is next to their cabin on the lake as the most exciting place in the world. It is as if they are cats and Duluth is cat nip. Anyway, the discussion turned to how I thought Thunder Bay was a better place to vacation. Lets just say that it was a poor decision on my part to even entertain the subject. I would have been better off arguing the merits of hell vs. heaven. (It is warmer? More interesting people? Lower expectations?)

Here is my try of breaking down the two cities:

Duluth

• Population - 89,916 in the city and the greater Duluth area is 184,000
• Location - 2 hours north of Minneapolis on Lake Superior
• Known for - Grandma's restaurant, Grandma's marathon, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Great Lakes Aquarium, Aerial Lift Bridge, and the Glensheen Mansion.

Thunder Bay

• Population - 109,140
• Location - 6-7 hours north of Minneapolis on Lake Superior
• Known for - Sleeping Giant (voted #1 on the list of the seven wonders of Canada), Kakabeka Falls (the Niagara of the North), Ouimet Canyon, Mount McKay, Eagle Canyon (the two longest suspension bridges in Canada) and Fort William Historical Park.

Anyway, I tried bringing up some of the points and even busted out some pictures of Thunder Bay to show everyone. Mind you I wasn't saying that Thunder Bay was a better place to vacation than the Greek Isles. The only comparison I was making was that Thunder Bay was better than Duluth. That prompted the response "It is hard to take you serious" and "I can't believe you would rather go to Thunder Bay than Duluth." My point I guess is that if you find yourself in the same situation as me it is best to just keep your mouth shut.

I have to go to work now, but I thought I would share my thoughts on that argument.

Sports Updates

It has been awhile since I have updated my thoughts on my favorite teams, so I thought I would use today to give my complete rundown

Miami Dolphins

M predicted 5 victories for the Fins this year and I thought she was being a little optimistic. As it stands right now the Dolphins have 8 victories with 3 games left. It is December 14th and the Dolphins still control their own destiny in winning the AFC East. The Dolphins season might last longer than my fantasy football leagues for the first time since I starting playing fantasy football. They have been helped by a really easy schedule (4 games against the AFC West and NFC West), but still the games aren't given to you. Chad Pennington has gone from somebody I despised because he played for a rival (the Jets), to someone who I am hoping will be the Dolphins starting QB for the next 5 years. In fact I just recently asked M what she thought about the name Pennington for a dog. We both agreed that the dog would have to go by Penn, but that wouldn't be too bad of a name. Today they play the 49ers in a game they should win. I am sitting here in my Marino jersey, humming the Dolphins fight song, and counting down to going to *Joe Senser's to watch the game.

*Joe Senser's is a bar in the suburbs of Minneapolis. My friend Brian and I have been there to see 3 games in the past two years. The Dolphins are 3-0 in those games, which includes the only victory the team had last year. In all the other games that we have seen together in the past two years the Dolphins have won twice. That means the record for Joe Sensor's is 3-0 and all the other bars are approximately 2-18. For an important game like today we are sticking with the streak.

Utah Jazz
The season so far has been filled with injuries and overall the record is disappointing. I am hoping that when everyone gets healthy the team will be able to live up to the expectations I have of them. Anything less than the conference finals will be a disappointing year. The team is extremely fun to watch (especially at home) and I am looking forward to the rest of the year and the playoffs.

Also, here are some pictures from the Jazz-Twolves game I went to on Wednesday.

Rashad McCants defense led to Ronnie Brewer scoring a career high of 25 points. Below is a picture of Brewer going up for a jump shot:

Memo must have told Deron to pass him the ball at the end of the game, so that he could make the game winner.

Kevin Ollie -Do you have something to tell us about your crush on Deron Williams?

Duke
The season has gone about as well as expected. Obviously it would be nice to be undefeated and after winning a tournament with UCLA in the field and winning at Purdue then that wouldn’t constitute a big surprise. Still having one loss at this time of the year is about what you might expect from this Duke team even if the game they lost was not the Big Ten road game I expected them to lose. The reason that a loss here and there isn’t shocking is because at the core the team is a 3 point shooting team. The game at Michigan highlighted that if they aren’t making even a reasonable amount of 3s then they will probably lose. My official expectations of this Duke team are to fall just short of the Final Four and make the Elite Eight. Also, I expect them to beat UNC once. The reason I think they can make the Elite Eight is that have a ton of talent that will be tournament ready thanks to a tough overall schedule that includes teams like Purdue, Michigan, Xavier, Davidson, Georgetown, and the normal ACC slate. The reason I think they will beat UNC once is because they are a better team than last year's team and last year's team beat UNC. Of course UNC is also better than last year, but I am sticking with my prediction of one victory over UNC this year. Still my expectations of the year are tempered because their 3 point shooting is inconsistent and all it takes is one bad day of shooting to be knocked out in the tournament. There will be more to come on the Duke team this year, but right now I am still in football season.

Miami University
The football team finished 2-10 and their coach (Shane Montgomery) ended up getting fired. I liked Montgomery when he was the offensive coordinator during Roethlisberger’s days and supported his promotion to head coach. Also, he was a very pleasant individual when he came to the Quiznos I worked at and got his raspberry sweet tea. It is too bad things didn’t work out and this year’s team bottomed out. Hopefully this will be the bottom point of the program because there is no reason why Miami shouldn’t be competing for the MAC title every year. Lets hope the next coach can bring continued success to Oxford .

On the flip side the Miami hockey team continues to be dominant. I don’t know much about hockey or even really where to look for news on hockey scores and analysis, but I am trying to get involved since Miami is so good. What I have found out is the team is ranked 3rd in the nation (behind Minnesota and Notre Dame) and has beat Michigan twice and Notre Dame twice. Now, I don’t know why Notre Dame is ranked 1st and Miami is ranked 3rd when both teams have the same amount of losses (3) and Miami beat Notre Dame at Notre Dame twice. Now, I know everyone is up in arms about the Texas-Oklahoma college football ranking issue, but I don’t know why nobody is more concerned about the rankings injustice that is going on between Notre Dame and Miami . This is almost as bad as how last year’s higher ranked Miami hockey team had to play in Massachusetts against Boston College in the Hockey Elite Eight.

(By the way that is me trying to be a hockey fan. How is it going? Probably not, so good so far since I can name exactly 0 Miami or Notre Dame hockey players and haven’t seen either team play for even a minute. Still I would like to see Miami succeed and if they made it to the Frozen Four I would definitely watch it.)

Minnesota Twins -
It is the off-season, so there isn’t much to get excited about. M should be happy because the reports are that the Twins resigned Nick Punto. I am lukewarm about that signing, since Punto is at best an average player and based on his 2007 number he has a pretty low floor. You know how they always talk about players in the Nba draft as having tremendous potential based on certain measurables (height, weight, speed, jumping ability) and basketball skills (shooting form, court vision, etc), but they don’t know if they will be a great player because of lack of experience. Well Nick Punto has potential, but not in the same way that most people think of potential. Nick Punto has potential to be a terrible starting shortstop. Nick Punto has potential to a have line (average, OBP %, and Slugging %) of 210/291/271 like he did back in 2007. Nick Punto has a reverse of the normal potential you want from players. I would consider the type of potential where you have a possibility of being truly terrible as Puntoability.

Off to Joe Senser's to see the Dolphins.

Jazz - Twolves

Last night I went to go see my favorite team in the Nba (the Utah Jazz) play against my current hometown and 2nd favorite team (the Minnesota Timberwolves) at the Target Center. You might have heard about the game if you followed the Nba because it was the first game since Randy Whitman was fired and Kevin McHale took over as the Twolves coach. Also, yesterday marked the 20th year anniversary of Jerry Sloan taking over as the Jazz coach.

Anyway, it didn't look like many people in Minnesota had heard about the game since from my estimate there was *three to six thousand people at the game. There was almost no one in the upper deck and the lower deck definitely had more empty seats than seats that were filled. The bad news for the Twolves was good news for me since I was able to get a cheap scalped ticket. Also, randomly enough I ran into a coworker and even more random he also happened to be a Jazz fan. More good luck came my way because he knew some people who worked for the Twolves, so in the 2nd half we moved up to watch the game from the 3rd row behind the Jazz bench. I will post pictures once I get them uploaded.

*Of those 3,000-6,000 there were about 20 Jazz fans in the arena. And of course those 20 Jazz fans (myself included) ended up talking to each other and in the end celebrating the Jazz victory. It was weird explaining to people from Utah that even though I grew up in Mississippi and had never even been to Utah I was still a Jazz fan. Still all the Jazz fans I met were very nice and exactly what I would imagine people from Utah would be like.

Just in case you couldn't wait for the pictures though you can check out the highlights by clicking on this link from nba.com. The cool thing from the highlights is that you can see myself and the guys I was sitting next to in a few clips. It might be hard to see me, but I am wearing a Jazz sweatshirt and my friend next to me is wearing a dark blue Jazz (Okur) jersey. We are in the 3rd row to the right of the bench from the camera's point of view. There is one clear shot of my friend when the camera shows an up close shot of Coach Sloan. Also, you can see us cheering on the Jazz when Korver hits his 3 and Okur hits the game winner at the end.

I don't know why I (or other people) get so excited about seeing themselves on TV. Maybe this is more of a comment on how our facebook/myspace society is very egotistical? Honestly though I don't really care. I like seeing myself on TV especially when I am celebrating a favorite team of mine.

Go Jazz.