Tuck Furco

Marty Turco is off the TLoGL Christmas Card list. It's one thing to play hard, to take advantage of available gray areas in the rules to throw an extra jab, take an extra step, or grab hold of a stick quickly to gain an advantage. But flopping in hockey should be punishable by a 10 game suspension the first time, 50 the next. I hate it, and it needs to be dealt with. Every time Holmstrom gets anywhere near a goalie, they flop around like trailer in a tornado. And the worst of them is Marty Turco. He should be suspended for this crap, as should everybody else.

Marty- we used to like you. Now you have joined the ranks of Cindy Crosby and Eli Manning as the least likeable players in sports. May you never win anything, ever.

One msu Goon Off Team, Other Gone for Season

I'm sure everybody has seen the pathetic display that is msu hockey, specifically the incident at Yost Saturday night, but if you haven't, here is the video.

The Lansing State Journal is now reporting that Conboy has left the team, and that Tropp, should he choose to stay in school, will be re-evaluated in the spring. There is also an investigation by the University of Michigan police into possible criminal charges against the two players.

Said msu head coach Rick Comley,

"I don't think the kids are bad kids. I don't think it was premeditated," Comley said. "But they made bad decisions in a critical time in the game, and it reflected badly on the program.''

First of all, maybe it wasn't premeditated, but just the fact that the kids did this shows that they ARE bad kids. Hockey is an emotional sport, and things can slide out of hand rather quickly. But to tackle a guy, and then slash him in the neck? Coach Comley, this pretty much says that yes, they are bad kids.

Secondly, it was NOT a critical time in the game. Michigan was up two with less than a minute to go, in a game absolutely dominated by Big Blue. This was not a back and forth game, where msu may have some shot of getting two quick ones, they were lucky to be in the game at all.

The Blog that Yost Built has a good writeup on the incident, including the possible criminal charges. As bad as this was, criminal charges are a stretch in a sporting event. If there is anything that would warrant it, this would be the line. If a baseball player uses his bat or a hockey player uses his stick in this fashion, this is the minimum where poor sportsmanship crosses into criminal activity.

Kampfer is OK, and expected to return this weekend, thankfully.

Open Letter to Jim Leyland

Last may, we made a decision to no longer wear our Tigers hat in public again until Jim Leyland was no longer the manager of the Detroit Tigers. It looks like that isn't going to happen any time soon, so the hat will head back into rotation on an interim basis. But in the meantime, we have a couple requests for the skipper:

- Keep moving guys around to find their comfort zone. You have a knack for solving personnel problems and getting the right guys in the right positions. Very much a positive aspect of your tenure here in Detroit. But. . .

- The Tigers at the plate have a top 10 if not a top 5 offense. Please do not hog-tie it by bunting while down a run in the 4th inning. Jim, you have no idea how many runs the other team will end up with, please do not prevent run scoring for the sake of a 4th inning tie.

- You have no closer. This is actually a good thing. Learn that a closer is not the only guy in the bull pen who can handle the "pressure" of the 9th inning. Sometimes, Jim, facing 3-4-5 in the 8th is more important, and worthy of your top reliever, than facing 6-7-8, just because it happens to be the 9th inning.

- Enough with the LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY). Your best reliever last season was Bobby Seay, but you refused to use him for more than the one lefty you had him warm up for. Here's a tip: when you did actually leave him in, he was better against rightys than leftys. And a 0.010 benefit from the RHP vs RHH does not overcome the 0.100 drop in talent when you go to someone else.

- Pitch counts. Use them. Know them. Live them. I realize this one will be the hardest to understand, but sending a guy out there to throw 130 pitches every five days does take a toll. It is documented. I know- they used to do it back in the day. But those pitchers, even from the 70's were not facing the batters 1 through 9 they see today. Every pitch is a big one, and it is also proven that pressure pitches take a larger toll than non-pressure pitches.

The Tigers entered play last season prohibitive favorites to win the Central, and finished last. This is directly attributable to the management of the team on the field, costing them countless runs in games that were winnable. The Central is very winnable this season, but they cannot be giving up runs at the plate, and making poor pitching decisions in the late innings.

Jim Schwartz, Welcome to Detroit

Jim Schwartz was introduced as the Detroit Lions head coach today. I like this for a couple reasons:

1. He was not a defensive line coach, a secondary coach, a wide receiver coach, or a quarterback coach. While he did not oversee an entire team, he did oversee an entire side of the ball as defensive coordinator. The only caveat to this is that he better be able to relinquish control of the defense to whomever he hires as his defensive coordinator.

2. He has a scouting background. He worked with Bill Belichick back in his Cleveland days on scouting college players, so he has a background on what he has looked at before, what has worked, what didn't, and what he can do about it.

3. He comes from a solid program, and his (defensive) teams have generally ranked well. Many say that this comes more from the players than his schemes. Even better. He is coming here to be a head coach, not a coordinator. He doesn't need to have a better defensive scheme than the other guy, he needs to be able to manage a game, and more importantly whom to bring into Detroit.

4. He is a stat guy. I am a stat guy. Nerds everywhere rejoice!

Spagnuolo is a better defensive coordinator, but only time will tell who will be the better head coach. But how can he go wrong? 1-15 is an improvement.

Yup- it's time again

April 25, 2009

NFL OT

Maybe it needs to be overhauled. Maybe it needs to be more like college.

But this is the worst reasoning I have ever heard for changing OT in the NFL. . .



Sporting News fail.

Tate Forcier speaks

Wanna feel better about Michigan football? Head over to MGoBlog and read the interview with Tate Forcier. (Sorry DP.) The money quotes:

TOM: I know everyone is expecting a lot out of you in your first year, how do you deal with the expectations and pressure that comes along with this experience?

TATE: I’ve watched a lot of freshman play, and Coach Smith talked to me about this. I’m not going to try to do too much. I’m going to manage the team, rather than try to make the big play and taking a sack. The seniors and juniors make the plays, and I’ll just keep moving the chains. Take it one week at a time.

TOM: What were your thoughts and initial feelings when you heard that Shavodrick Beaver had changed his commitment to Tulsa?

TATE: Shavodrick, I told Coach Smith I knew it was going to come. I almost felt like he was just trying to wait me out, to see what I would do. I think sometimes kids make their choice for the wrong reasons, and then this ends up happening. Decommitting happens though, but this is Michigan, we should have no problem filling those spots, and we haven’t. As much as we would like to have those guys, we have found great replacements for them that are as good, if not better.

Referencing Michigan as "we," is tremendous in and of itself. But the maturity this guy is showing as an incoming freshman who will be fighting for a job (um, yeah, right) is awesome. Be sure to read the whole interview over there. It will get you pumped for the spring game.

PILE ON!

The defending Eastern Conference champs sit at the halfway point of the 2008-09 season out of the playoffs. The Pittsburgh Penguins, this blogs least likeable team in sports, have dropped five in a row, six of their last seven, and seven of their last nine games. They were just blanked 4-0 by a goalie who was coming off the flu, and had no shutouts this season. The Pens had 1:59 of a 5 on 3 advantage, and managed only one shot.

Frustration is setting in in the Pens locker room, and it is starting to show now on the ice. After a great scoring chance was wasted by Hockey Jesus putting the shot right into the pads of Henrik Lundqvist, Crosby slammed into the boards and swung his stick into the glass. This can't happen. Fans get frustrated. We here at TLoGL get frustrated. Sports talk guys get frustrated. Hockey superstars get frustrated too, but they can't show it like this.

We saw this in the Finals last year. Pittsburgh rolled through the Eastern Conference playoffs. They went up 3-0 on every team in the East, and only when the Rangers and Philly won their respective Game 4's did Pittsburgh experience anything resembling adversity. Once the Red Wings took Games 1 and 2 in Detroit, all Michel Therrien could say is something to the effect of, "I hope my stars find a way." Therrien better regain control of his team, a very young team, and quickly. He cannot afford to have the NHL's brightest star (in their opinion, not this blogger's) getting frustrated and throwing punches instead of game winning goals. They cannot have one of their top defensemen losing it in front of his own net and wailing on a guy who hit him legally, while the opposition takes advantage of the gaping hole in the defense and scoring.

Unfortunately, they will come out of this, and they will be a stronger team for it. But this entire team has some growing up to do. And a head coach who actually has some coaching to do.

Happy New Year!

Or, Happy Greatest Sports Day of the Year. College football all day long, something about a hockey game at Wrigley, and more college football.

Love it.

Happy 2009!