The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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It’s All Yours, Drozz

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Drozz is a fellow blogger who is deeply involved in hockey, from playing it to supporting his favorite NHL team, the Philadelphia Flyers. I hereby concede the first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Flyers to him.

The Pens were everybody’s favorite to go all the way to the Stanley Cup finals once they regained the services of Sidney Crosby, who was out with a concussion most of the year. After all, without much assistance from Crosby, they wound up with 108 points, just one behind the first-seeded Rangers and three behind the President’s Trophy winning Vancouver Canucks.

(The Canucks are also sadly losing their series 3-0 to the L.A. Kings, but I digress.)

I have to say that even though the Flyers had the Pens’ number during the regular season, I felt the series would go no more than six games, with the Pens on the winning end. Boy, was I wrong! I did not expect the meltdown on the ice in three consecutive games, two of which were at home.

In a way, yesterday’s 8-4 loss summed up the postseason for the Pens, demonstrating all the issues the snakebit Penguins have encountered. There were 74 penalty minutes plus two game misconducts in the first period alone!  There were 78 in the third. For the game, 160, thanks to a relatively quiet second period. The Flyers play rough, but the Pens lost their discipline, nullifying their juggernaut offense and incapacitating their defense. Kris Letang and Craig Adams were handed game misconduct penalties, and Arron Asham got a match penalty for deliberately hurting Brayden Schenn. Even Sidney Crosby, the team captain, got into the mix, incurring his first ever postseason penalty. ???? ????? ??? ???? Instead of leading his team away from the unnecessary violence, Crosby exacerbated it.

Adams’ match penalty got him suspended for one game, which might just mean his season is through, for if the Pens can’t snap out of the chippy crap, they will kiss their season goodbye on Wednesday night in the City of Brotherly Booing of Santa Claus. Adams’ big mistake that netted him the matcher was pulling Scott Hartnell off Crosby and then pulling his hair during the ensuing “discussion”. The NHL doesn’t look kindly upon fighting like a girl. (Give Artificially Sweetened credit for coming up with that one.)

Penguins coach Dan Bylsma was fined $10,000 for Adams’ actions. Further sanctions are expected to be levied against Asham for his hit on Schenn, which he followed by beating Schenn’s head into the ice, and Neal, whose feet left the ice in drop-kicking Claude Giroux. This was not hockey, it was WWE, or close to it. The big difference was that nothing was scripted or faked.

Should we question the leadership of Byelsma and Crosby? Apparently, no one’s listening to Byelsma. In an interview between periods of yesterday’s game Byelsma said that he told his players to concentrate on what happens before the whistle, and not get involved in activities after the whistle. Given the 160 minutes of penalties as proof positive, his point must have gone in one collective ear and out the other. As for Crosby, he’s not showing any leadership at all when he gets into a playground scuffle with Giroux, which Crosby started by sweeping Giroux’s glove away when Giroux was about to pick it up. After the game he said he didn’t like Giroux and he didn’t like any of the Flyers. This is leadership? To me, it’s pouting and behavior unworthy of a “C” on the front of his sweater.

Meanwhile, the Flyers have been taking care of business, playing their game without distraction. When the aforementioned offensive juggernaut went up on them in all three games thus far, the Flyers did not alter their plan, did not get out of control, and did not show frustration. They just went on to come back and win. ???? ?????

They have the potential to win the Cup, given their talent and discipline, a credit to coach Peter Laviolette. It is hard to believe that 19 year-old Sean Couturier has virtually shut down the Pens’ big gun, 50 goal scoring Evgeni Malkin. Danny Briere and Claude Giroux are two of the best centers in the game. And given that the defense has been missing the veteran Chris Pronger for just about the whole season, they have obviously more than held their own against the so-called juggernaut.

Last year, the Flyers played musical goalies in the playoffs. This time, they settled on 23 year-old Ilya Bryzgalov. His goaltending has been pretty shabby, but the Pens have been shabbier. The “scoring juggernaut” should have been able to take advantage, but hasn’t.

Before the season started, we had the drama of the Jaromir Jagr sweepstakes. Jagr, a former star with the Pens who played in Europe for several years afterward, visited both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Philly won because Mario Lemieux would not part with the bundle of cash Jagr was looking for. No great loss, we Pens fans said. It gave us the opportunity to boo the Czech every time he controlled the puck, and besides, he was approaching 40 years old so how much could he have contributed, anyhow? But Jagr has been a key figure in the Flyers’ domination of the Pens in this series, as has former Pen Max Talbot.

Yes, I have to believe that the Flyers have the talent to go to the finals. ??? ???? ?????? I have to think that they’ll sweep the discombobulated Penguins in the first round, but if the Pens somehow win Game 4, it means only that the Flyers will come back in Game 5 to humiliate the Pens on home ice.

What a disappointment!

What if basketball were played like hockey?

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I’m completely bored with basketball, but I often read this article to keep my interest fresh. The way the NBA game is played today, there are too many play stoppages, too many TV time-outs, too much scoring, and too much reliance on the same people doing the same things all the time.

For me, it has become an annoying collection of whining multi-millionaire crybabies who work for a bunch of billionaire owners whose only concern is generating revenue. I don’t know how the league keeps on generating the money to make these big-shots happy. There must be enough people who are willing to pay the hefty freight to watch NBA basketball, but I’m sure as hell not one of them. I gave up my season tickets for the Orlando Magic seven years ago and have had no desire to watch more than a couple of games per season on TV ever since.

Watching on TV is even worse than attending a live game. For example, at least the Magic have the dancing babes to distract us during the innumerable stoppages in play there at the O-Rena. ??? 1xbet Watching TV, there is even less continuity. Instead of staring at gyrating female bodies in sequined sausage casings prancing around the hardwood while making certain that the players were being suitably coached, we get to watch commercials for beer, cars, and erectile dysfunction cures. Sure as hell disrupts any focus we had on the damn game but at the same time we learnt a lot about mens health products, so it was a win-win situation. But if I ever had to choose between the TV and the Arena, I’m sure my answer is going to be the ” Arena” every single time.

But if basketball adopted rules like hockey, maybe I’d become interested again. Just stop and think: when was the last time you saw a good fight in a basketball game? If you’re scratching your head and thinking it was probably the Kermit Washington vs Rudy Tomjanovich fight in 1977, you see where I’m going with this. There’s a decent fight in just about any NHL hockey game, and the refs let them go at it just as long as it remains one-on-one, until someone hits the frozen deck. And in hockey, they have weapons other than their body parts. Sticks are used all the time to beat on people.

I’m tired of basketball games being scorefests. What the hell kind of score is 130-122? This is a ridiculous amount of scoring. If the position of goalie were added to a basketball team, we could cut down the damn scoring and make each point exciting, just like in hockey. The goalie would be at least 7’2″ tall and would stay within 10 feet of the net at each end of the court, and would play no offense, just defense. Thus, the goalie could be built like a gorilla, as he wouldn’t have to run 94 feet every 30 seconds. Guards would play mostly defense and forwards would play mostly offense. The center would just be another forward, but would have superior passing skills, so as to dish off the ball to his attacking wingmen.

How about limiting the time-outs? Instead of seven per half, make it just one. No TV time-outs. If the TV has to cut away for a stupid Miller Lite commercial just to piss me off, then so be it. Chances are, given that the goalie stays by the basket, I didn’t miss any scoring, anyway.

And fouls…what’s up wit dat? The damn whistle blows too often. Let’s have real penalties for real fouls. The universal equalizer will be two minutes in the sin bin and the team plays a man short for the duration of the offending player’s sentence. That’ll make a player think twice about that stupid shove. Of course, there will be special penalty rules about goalies, just to make sure the scoring is kept low. The only time an offensive player will get a free shot at the basket will be when a penalty shot is awarded for a defensive foul from behind on a break-away play. This will happen no more than a few times per team per season. Again, keep the scoring low.

With fewer time-outs, these guys are going to get tired, but in the NBA they’re a bunch of lazy bums, anyway. They’ll like the new rules, under which they will be able to “change on the fly.”

With the new time-out rules and without all the stupid tactical fouling at the end of a game, usually effected to prolong someone’s misery, we won’t be forced to spend 20 minutes watching the final minute of a game. Hell, most NBA games are so boring up until the last five minutes or so that we can generally skip the first 43 minutes and pick up the game in the waning minutes. Alas, tight games tend to slow to a snail’s pace for the final minute, so we’re stuck with an infinite series of staccato, two-second plays, quick fouls, whistles, commercials, missed free throws by Shaq, etc. Borrring!

That crap will go right out the window under the new rules. Games that are tight will be full, balls to the wall frenzy for the final two minutes. The goalie will come out so the losing team will be able to insert an extra forward. ???? ??????? The refs will let them go at each other and will stop play only for egregious fouls, such as a defender pulling a gun. Instead of sinking into our seats for that interminable end-game strategy, we’ll be on the edge of our chairs.

So, David Stern, if you’re listening, whyncha have lunch with Gary Bettman and try to figure out how you can get this thing going. Maybe, just maybe, you can get me back. ???? ????? ???????