Why The Olympics are Good for the NHL

At 10:00 AM, I turned on SportsCenter. Yesterday was an exceptionally dramatic day in the sports world, consisting of the face of baseball announcing he will call it quits this season, the Richie Incognito/Jonathan Martin fiasco publicly reaching a new low, a wild buzzer beater in Pittsburgh, and of course ESPN's bread and butter LeBron James hitting a game winning 3-pointer in the late hours of the evening.

All these booming stories and the headline of the morning is...HOCKEY?!?!?!

I must be dreaming. Today's episode began with coverage of Team USA's 7-1 rout of the Slovaks in the opening game for both teams. ESPN will go full shows without even mentioning the sport during the NHL Regular Season. They give Barry Melrose (their only TV hockey analyst) anywhere from 2-3 segments a week to review a couple games and what's going on in the hockey world. Nowhere near the time they spend talking about other major professional and college sports.

The National Hockey League does not receive the nation-wide following other sports get and only becomes the top story on SportsCenter during the playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final. Champions in other major leagues are dedicated most, if not all of the showtime, while last year the Blackhawks got about five minutes. And it only gets a few minutes to be covered because it competes with the attention the NBA Playoffs are getting, and to ESPN that is no contest.

Thank God the NHL doesn't run the Olympics. They are the only way the sport of hockey can attract attention to itself. People love it, get excited, and the sport becomes more popular. The Super Bowl, World Cup, and Olympics are in a class by themselves. That is inarguable.

I am not naive. I know the NHL, in areas in the South is not even considered a major sport. But the NHL is to the South as NASCAR is to the North, and plenty of national attention is given to auto racing.

We all know why the NHL is singled out. ESPN promotes the events it covers more than others simply because they are a business and want to make money. The more people that watch their broadcasts, the more valuable their network is. The statement that defends this argument the most is the fact that Women's College Basketball is a more important story than the hotter than hot battles for playoff spots in the NHL. With all due respect to the great female athletes of the NCAA, you cannot seriously tell me they produce a more popular game than men's professional hockey. Gary Bettman and the NHL thought it would be better to not to stick with ESPN and their overwhelming control of the sports world. And since then began an outcast of not the sport of hockey, but the just NHL.

The Harris Poll recently released a study showing football and baseball with the majority popularity, 60 percent of fans saying one of them (NFL, NCAA football, and MLB) being their favorite sport. Auto Racing, the NBA, NHL, and College Basketball all being within four percent of each other, another argument to ask why the NHL is treated differently.

Something that will be very interesting to see is how ESPN will treat NASCAR when it no longer covers it and will hand over its broadcasts to NBC Sports.

A perfect scenario would be Team USA bringing home the gold and giving the most possible attention to a sport that could use it. We can only hope. The dream continues Saturday 7:30AM EST against the Russians.

Clearwater or...Bust.

We have all heard the nickname given to Ruben Amaro (Ruin Tomorrow) Jr. after another questionable free agency from the Phillies General Manager, entering his 6th season after replacing Pat Gillick, who brought the City of Philadelphia its first major championship in 25 years.

Pat, we miss you.

Gillick built a home-grown team that we all showed Brotherly Love like we had never shown before. The 2008 Phillies once again came back against the Mets in September to clinch another NL East title followed by the fat lady singing. Nobody showed the Phillies any sort of challenge that year as they lost no more than 1 game in each Postseason Series. 2008 acquisitions consisted of Pedro Feliz, Joe Blanton; the only two starters who were in their first year in Philadelphia. Pat made great decisions and simply knew what he was doing.

Nov. 3, 2008: Ruben Amaro officially succeeds Pat Gillick as Phillies GM.

The past five Phillies seasons have gone a little something like this:
2009: Win NLDS vs Rockies, Win NLCS vs Dodgers, Lose World Series vs Yankees
2010: Win NLDS vs Reds, Lose NLCS vs Giants
2011: Lose NLDS vs Cardinals
2012: Miss Postseason (81-81)
2013: Miss Postseason (73-89)

The Phillies have steadily declined in every year since they were crowned World F***ing Champions. Usually that doesn't bold well for any professional sports franchise. Let alone one in Philadelphia. The only defense I give Ruben is that the moves he made in his early tenure as GM were defended by many Phillies fans, including some I defended myself.

The reason Gillick was arguably the best GM the Phillies have ever had was he not only assembled a Championship team but built a farm system with unprecedented depth. As Cole Hamels described the future of the team, the Phillies were going to "Parade down Broad Street, again, and again, and again."

So much for that.

Amaro had decisions to make as to resign either Ryan Howard or Jayson Werth with a max contract. He chose to show Howard the money. Werth would not take a paycut and signed with division rival Washington Nationals. Since his 2011 departure, Werth batted .277. Howard a .231, and let's not even bring up his strikeouts.

Amaro has made plenty of trades in his tenure, diminishing the minor league system Pat Gillick worked to put together. Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt all proved to be great players that were key to the success they had until 2011, but was it really worth it when the Phillies will struggle to win 50% of their games this season and have no legitimate young core to build around.

At least those moves had their positives. The moves Amaro has made the past couple years all consist of old guys who did their part, but their part was contribute to team that is one loss of a player away from collapsing for good. This year we get to analyze how close Marlon Byrd and Bobby Abreu are to the end of their careers.

Even after all this negativity, I would still say there is a chance. The job of a baseball team in the regular season is not to be the best team it can be. It's to be better than the four other teams in their division. The NL East is full of teams who could be great, and could be not great. The Braves were an exceptionally tough team last year, making the playoffs with a starting 8 who had only 2 bat over .263. If their pitching doesn't show up like it did last year, you can count them out. I do not think the Nationals are going to underachieve like they did last year but in baseball, you never know. The Mets were going in no direction whatsoever for years, but Matt Harvey seemed to be a glimmer of hope for New York. The loss of their All-Star starting pitcher hurts them dearly. And then there's the Marlins. Some young promising talent, but still years away from actually competing.

I can't predict the Phillies to win the NL East with a straight face, but I will still love and support this team the whole way. They gave me and so many others our first championship. We owe it to them just like they owe it to us, and we each do our part. Hoping for an exciting Summer, led by the brilliant mind of Ryne Sandberg entering his first full year as manager.

Finally, I would like to offer my condolences to former Phillie Curt Schilling and his family. Schilling was diagnosed with cancer and announced it yesterday. I will keep him in my prayers.

Are You Ready For Some Offseason?

The most depressing time of the year for football fans is upon us. Once again having to stomach not watching a football game until August. But people say "The NFL has no offseason"? Those people are kidding themselves because not only are we not able to watch Sunday spectacles for 7 months but I would say from now until at least free agency begins (and really until the Draft [which is now in May {yes, May}]) there is quite a long 'offseason'. But if there is one good thing about the offseason we have plenty of time to discuss what needs to be fixed that the NFL may think is fine, and what needs to stay the same that the NFL believes should change.

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE:

1. The NFL Draft needs to be before Free Agency.

I loathe whenever a season in any professional sports concludes, but after the NBA and NHL seasons crown their champions, their drafts are only days-weeks away which gets the fans excited for something else and allows them to ease their way into extreme boredom. The MLB Draft is in the middle of their regular season but their offseason has football so it's okay they have no big event. Also, how do you expect teams to rebuild if the first crack they have at new players are Michael Vick, Peyton Hillis, and Dallas Clark (all old guys, all UFAs this year). The NFL would have less teams who don't compete, year after year if more teams would rebuild around a young foundation.

2. The Regular Season should be 18 games

Yes the NFL is trying to make this actually happen and I am here to defend it. The reason the NFL is a distant first of the major sports leagues in the world is because of the importance of each game. You only have one day a week for a couple months to watch your team get that all important win or suffer a tough loss but what would be so bad to add another two? It definitely would not tarnish the prestige of an NFL game and hey its more football. However with that being said, the Preseason could be cut short a game to sort of meet in the middle with players. Most teams sit their starters in the 4th game anyway.

3. The NFL Honors should be...live?

I actually flipped on the NFL Honors the night before the Super Bowl, which is a great idea for the NFL. It gives the individual accomplishments the spotlight they deserve. But I didn't make it my job to watch since ESPN had alerted me of every award the hour before, when the awards were actually presented.

4. Playoff overtime should require equal possessions.

Although I like the current overtime rules, they can be improved. If a team gets the ball in the beginning of overtime and scores, that still means the coin flip determined the winner. And if that team scores 3 possessions later while the opposing team has had only 2, the coin flip still technically affected the winner. It doesn't need to happen in the regular season, games would never end. But let's make sure at least in the playoffs, games are completely fair.

5. NO MORE TIES.

Football games can change so quickly. You never know what is going to happen on the very next play. For all we know, the Packers and Vikings game could have been over if there was another 40 seconds on the clock. Teams plan a whole week to play one game and one team has to come out the winner. And I cannot believe the NFL has not abolished ties yet.


WHAT SHOULD NOT CHANGE:

1. The Playoffs are fine.

Jerry Jones and the Cowgirls lose the SNF finale and their chance to clinch the NFC East for 3 years in a row to 3 different opponents, and finish 8-8 every year. Of course Jerry can't get to the playoffs so let's bring the Playoffs to Jerry, right? If any other owner suggested something sore-loserish it would have been ignored but not the Sultan of the South, Emperor Jerry. The NFL season is too important to allow more teams in the playoffs. Those teams that make it earn it over the others. Also adding a 7th would give only 1 team a bye, too much of an advantage (or disadvantage) for one team. You can add "Listening to Jerry Jones" to something the NFL should change.

2. Extra Points should stay.

I do my best to have an open mind in every aspect of life. But what in the world could this possibly accomplish. Nobody other than infamous kicker Bill Gramatica celebrating has ever gotten hurt on a field goal attempt or an extra point, so what is No Fun League Commissioner trying to say? People don't realize, there were no extra points until they figured out teams who actually score a touchdown deserve more points than teams who don't and kick two field goals.

3. The Pro Bowl is actually getting better.

I began to appreciate the low-scoring, competitive game between well-coached teams by Leon Sandcastle and Jerry Ricecake. There is no way to adopt something like MLB to make the game actually mean something for teams, but if you need a reminder of how bad the Pro Bowl was, search highlights from the 2012 game.

4. Kickoffs are still the most exciting play in the game.

Roger Goodell is on a mission to make sure kickoffs are taken away. Not only are they perfect to start a game, kick returns are the most exciting play in the game. Just ask Chris Davis.

5. The Super Bowl worked out pretty well.

All the haters can say the NFL cut it too close with the horrible weather, but this Winter has been a catastrophe. This type of weather won't happen too often. What is so bad about Northern Super Bowls? The South gets their chance, we should get ours. I will say Green Bay/Chicago/Buffalo would be a little more of a risk.