You guys are too much!

Didn't realize I was disappointing the masses by altering my crazy travelling single life, but the craziness isn't over...not by a longshot!

E-Mailer suggests that I'll be watching Oprah with the new gf in no time...rather that than SYTYCDC...I feel shame just writing that acronym

The Sens make the smart move by sending Karlsson to Bingo...his development was over in Sweden...time to get used to the North American game

What's bad about players getting their team and the crowd excited by pumping their fists after a fight? Why am I wasting keystrokes on this?

The Leafs got their first win last night in Anaheim....still doesn't change the fact that they're in an embrassing position in the standings

Anyone else have a sour taste in their mouth based on the way Bettman and the NHL were able to get the Phoenix franchise off of Jerry Moyes?

NBA Season starts tonight and lots of excitement in Raptorland! Over/under 2 months on the media turning on the Raps and the offseason moves

Sports/Biblical Reference of the Day: Sun headline reading: "Hawks' Kane more than able"..Dusted off that ol' beauty and gave it another go!



Come on Vince! Make Another Commercial Already!

Watching the slap chop/graty ad for the 1000th time....still the only commercial in history that makes me stop what I'm doing....hail Vince!

Congrats to the Yanks for heading back to the World Series and spending their millions on the right players....something other teams fail at

Love Al Michaels, but saying Arizona beating the Giants was the biggest win in franchise history is wrong.... an NFC Championship is bigger!

I've been saying this for three years and it's finally coming true....the Kings talented youngsters are finding their stride....8-4 to start

Elliotte Friedman says on twitter: "Very possible Leafs could be 0-10-1 for their next HNIC game -- next Saturday in Montreal." Noooooo! :-)

Shogun got ROBBED Saturday against Machida...he deserves a rematch 'cause he got robbed, but I don't wanna see that fight again....BOOORING!








Skateboarding Dog Fail - Watch more Funny Videos

Lots of good videos today....

Didn't get to the blog earlier purely 'cause I was lazy, so I'm gonna get this done quickly as I produce the afternoon show at the same

Props to Kevin for e-mailing yesterday to pump up my traffic reports...glad I entertain as I read the same intersections day after day.. :-)

CJ's stat in the Sun today about the Sens' 1st/2nd lines having 29 pts-3rd/4th lines having 20 pts made me do a double-take..so long "Big 3"

Listening to Matt Carkner on the show makes me really happy for him that he got his one-way deal with the Sens....seems really down-to-earth

Phoenix/Colorado/Atlanta near the top of the NHL standings? DIdn't they get the memo to drop to the bottom of the standings as of Oct. 1st?

Can we now give the Denver Broncos full credit for being an elite NFL team or do they need to get 7-0/8-0 before we give them full respect?







I like this format!

I had so much fun with "twittering" all my sentences a couple days ago that I've decided that I'm gonna keep this as the format from now on!

Still not sure if the Sens are legit, despite being 5-2, or if they've had an early sked filled with teams not destined to make the playoffs

Overall record of 5 teams that the Sens have beat this year: 9-18-6...Overall record of 2 teams that the Sens have lost to this year: 14-2-0

Game 3 of Angels/Yanks at 4:15 today...love the attitude that Torii Hunter has for returning to Anaheim..."Now I can work on my tan again.."

Never mind Tom Brady...what the hell is happening with the Tennessee Titans? Has a team started 0-6 after starting the previous year at 6-0?

What's taking so long for Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to fire head coach Jim Zorn? They've played winless teams each week and are still 2-4

I doubt Phillies fan is thinking today about what would have been if GM Ruben Amaro had traded his farm system away to J.P. for Roy Halladay

"I wonder when they're gonna make a yellow first-down line that the players can see on the field" - Dan Fouts doing colour during Bills-Jets





Blogging in Twitter Form

Never thought I would be here, but I'm starting to dig twitter....not the posting cause I don't live an exciting life, but I love following!

So I decided to see how difficult it is to blog all my sentences today in twitter speak...meaning every paragraph will be 140 characters....


For Sens haters saying the sked is full of bottom feeders 2 start, give them credit for winning those games and not letting points get away!

Can't wait 2 see the reaction for Alexei Kovalev in Montreal tonight...I assume it's gonna be mixed, but I'll also assume it's gonna be loud

Memo to MLB: Stop dragging out your playoff sked into November...Almost as ridiculous as NHL dragging the Cup Finals into the middle of June

Can't wait to watch the Red River Shootout between Texas and Oklahoma in about 10 minutes...this game is what college football is all about!

Another sign that winter is here: Turned up the heat in the apartment for the first time since April...South Beach looks real nice right now

The Bears make a good deal with Tampa: Gaines Adams for a 2nd round pick...adds depth at the DE position and is a steal if he finds top form

Who would have thought that in Year 2 of the Brian Burke era, he could build a team poised 2 get off 2 the worst start in franchise history?

Honestly, it wasn't hard 2 stick to 140 characters...as I finish, here's a couple of videos that have me howling right now...enjoy your day!




Football Picks - Week 5

Should I even bother doing this after having such a terrible week last week? I was 0-4 on Sunday and needed a great performance by Jared Allen and the Vikings in order to avoid the donut....I can't remember the last time I had the donut when picking that many games in 1 day, but it's happened before and it's enough to make you never wager on anything ever again...

Interesting week for bettors because you have 4 games that are predicted to be blowouts....I've always found that these games can be more difficult to predict than games that are supposed to be competitive because there are a couple of other factors that you may get in these games that you wouldn't get in others...

For example, in the Eagles-Bucs game today, if the Eagles jump out to a huge lead at halftime, we could see Andy Reid take out Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook to save them from possibly hurting themselves again after coming back from injury....it wouldn't be a big deal at all if they only had to win by 3, but with the spread at 15.5, then that has to be considered....

A quick aside about big spreads....I still find it amazing how the oddsmakers in Vegas can put up a huge spread for a college football game and be pretty close a majority of the time....example: Baylor-Oklahoma yesterday has a spread of 25.5 for Oklahoma....final score: Oklahoma 33-Baylor 7 for a margin of 26! Incredible!

Alright, here's my picks for today:

Minnesota -10.5 over St. Louis

There are some people that are worried that there might be a hangover for the Vikings after such a big win last week at home against Green Bay, but luckily, they get one of the worst teams in the NFL to help them cure that hangover...the once mighty Rams have reverted back to being a running joke in the league....the Vikings should dispose of them easily....

Oakland +15.5 over New York Giants

I'm banking on a couple of things happening here....first off, I'm looking for the Giants to run, run and run again to save Eli from having to do too much on what is supposed to be a tender foot....therefore, we may have a quick game with the clock constantly running....the second thing I need is just a few points from the Raiders offense....I'm worried about that second thing....

Pittsburgh -11 over Detroit

With Matthew Stafford out or hobbling for the Lions, that leaves Daunte Culpepper to fend for himself against a talented Steelers defense....for whatever reason, the Steelers D has take off the fourth quarter and it's cost them a couple of games, but they held off the Chargers in the fourth last week and I think they'll be lights-out in the fourth this week and protect their big lead....

Jacksonville +1.5 over Seattle

I really like the Jags here....they got off to a slow start, but they've played really well the last couple of weeks including a destruction of the Titans a week ago....Seattle still has a lot of question marks even with the return of Matt Hasselbeck...I'll take the more consistent team any day of the week....

Indianapolis -4 over Tennessee

As I talked about on the football show on Friday afternoon, the loss of Albert Haynesworth has been way more detrimental to the Titans defense than anyone could have thought.....what was supposed to be a top 5 defense in the league has quickly become a defense that much closer to being in the bottom 5...Peyton will carve them and send the Titans to 0-5...

Alright, enjoy the games today and if you haven't done it already, enjoy turkey dinner....I get it tonight with my parents and then again on Monday night thanks to Rosalie....mmmm.....I'll just try and not fall asleep during the Sunday nighter from the heavy gravy, stuffing and the turkey...it sounds sooooo good!

Just some random thoughts....

Nothing huge really bugging me as I relax on the couch on a Saturday afternoon....but as I sit here trying to decide what sports I wanna watch, I'm actually stuck on a show called "Bully Beatdown" on MTV....At 27, I really shouldn't be watching something like MTV for hours at a time, but I can't get away from this show....

The premise is that a person who is being bullied gets his bully to come on the show to prove himself against an MMA fighter in 2 3-minute rounds....if the bully does well, he makes money, but if the MMA fighter can make him tap or knock him out, then the money goes to the bully's victim....however, the bully always get his ass handed to him in embarassing fashion....



Just watching a hotheaded bully getting owned by some of the top fighters in the world is just hilarious.....it's just so unfair....a fat guy vs. former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski or a bodybuilder vs. the EliteXC Welterweight Champion Jake Shields....I've actually just watched 3 hours of this in a row....just awesome!

Anyways, there are a couple of little things that are bugging me....first off, does anyone actually care about the Presidents Cup? I'm on tsn.ca right now and I see that they have the score for the tournament there, but I don't even have the time to look....and yet, NBC has 10 straight hours of coverage of golf today...

I guess enough people are watching this in order to warrant having so many hours in a row, but I question whether or not Americans really would care if their squad were to lose to the Internationals....maybe with time, the event can grow to get close to the status that the Ryder Cup enjoys, but for now, it's nowhere near that....

Another thing that's bugging me is how there is no playoff baseball on a Saturday afternoon....are you kidding me? I know that college football is huge on Saturday afternoons, but really, if baseball is as strong as MLB likes to suggest, it would not be afraid of putting one of their games on against a strong 3:30 college football matchup....

Speaking of baseball, we've had some great games in the first couple of days of the playoffs, including a huge one in New York last night with A-Rod coming up big on two seperate occassions and then Mark Teixeira hitting the walk-off in extras as the Yanks were able to take out the Twins for a second straight game....

A lot of people don't have any time in the world for Alex Rodriguez 'cause of his attitude and off-the-field persona and I get that, but at the same time, I feel so bad for him 'cause he has to deal with so much expectation with the contract that he signed so long ago...whatever he does, it will never be enough for Yankees fans....

But for at least one night, he had the chance to be the man in New York and get the full cheer from all Yankees fans....I'm curious to see how Yankees fans are looking at him today, but I still get the sense that some fans will still hate on him even with last night's effort and will never forgive him for his troubles in the playoffs in past years....

Well, I guess if I want to watch the Sens and Thrashers tonight, I'm gonna have to go down to Scotiabank Place since there's no TV coverage of the game at all....not even on the centre ice package....but I think I'll just chill at a bar somewhere and watch the Leafs/Pens instead....I'll put my NFL picks tomorrow....have fun tonight!

Paper Plates?!? Are you kidding me? LOL

I'm never going to pretend like I'm a food critic or someone that only accepts fine dining when it comes to choosing a restaurant....hell, I would follow up a 100 dollar steak with a little McFlurry action if necessary, but I just had to tell this restaurant experience 'cause it was just so ridiculous....

So, as most of you would know, I celebrate my birthday a little different than anyone else....most go out one night for their birthday, whether it's the day itself or on another one close to it....well, for those who don't know, I like to celebrate "Birthday Week"...a week full of partying and going out to different places....

My roommate, Paul, decided to take me out to a restaurant around where we live because he had heard good things about another location that is run by the same people in another part of the city....at this point, I just want to let you know that I will not name the restaurant 'cause I don't need any extra trouble in my life....I get into enough on my own!

Anyways, so we meet up and walk in....the first thing we see a spread of about 20 different choices in a buffet-style....for a smaller place, it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either....but there was no other people in the restaurant, which was a bad sign, but then again, it was in an office building and it's past 5 o'clock, so that could be why....

So, we sat down at a table....when I'm at a buffet, I like to just sit and settle for a couple of minutes with a drink before going to eat....maybe it's just me, but that's my style....but the waitress just lets us sit there....she finally comes over and I think she's gonna ask us what we want to drink, but nope, she says that we can get food if we want....LOL

Then my drink mystery is finally solved when she says, "For you food, we have all of our paper plates at the top here and if you want to get a drink, we have our fountain area of soft drinks with plastic cups with each drink costing 1.50...so whenever you're ready, gentlemen..." Did I hear that right? HAHAHA

Did she just say paper plates and plastic cups? I quickly turn to my roommate trying to hold in my laughter as I ask him, "Is this a f***ing joke? I thought you told me this was supposed to be a good place to go....if I want to eat off of paper plates and use plastic cups, I'll head back to Buffalo and hang out at the tailgate!"

But he was seriously embarrased about it, so I went along with it and got some food....the ironic part is that the food was actually pretty good and something I would pay to have again, but I just couldn't get past the paper plates....Paul even got soup and they had no spoons, so he had to use a plastic spoon....LOL

So, Paul and I finish off our first plate....at this point, I don't know what the paper plate protocol is here...do I keep my plate and re-use it or do I leave it to the side of the table? So, we put both of our plates to the side and get a second plate of food....we finish that off too, but the waitress hasn't picked up the first set of plates....

Honestly, I could understand not coming over if the place was packed, but there's no one else in the restaurant, but she was too busy reading the newspaper and having dinner herself, so we decided to make paper plate mountain....we got to a total of 6 plates before we didn't want any more food and she still didn't come over to clear our plates....

That's when we realized that there's trash cans at the entrance of the restaurant, which would explain why the waitress....wait, should I even call her a waitress at this point? What does she even do?....anyways, it explains why she never came around to pick up our plates....so, all in all, my roommate took me to a cafeteria for my birthday....LOL

I've been to a lot of bad restaurants in the past, but this one was the worst/funniest I've been to ever....Someone pointed out that the restaurant could simply be a front as a "legitimate" business in order to be used for other illegal activities, but my thought was that this restaurant was sooooo bad that they are making it really obvious if that was their plan....

Alright, just settling onto the couch....I'm playing a good poker session as I write this, so I'm happy about that, then I'll be watching some Isles/Sens tonight as John Tavares makes his Canadian debut in an NHL uniform....I really like how the Isles are starting to shape up and build a good core that could be good in a few years....

I also have a couple of other options tonight (thank you Super Sports Pack!) as I can watch a bunch of different hockey games...of course, there's baseball playoffs, but something that sitting under the radar that could be a good game is the Nebraska/Missouri game....Bo Pellini is slowly building Nebraska back into a powerhouse in college football...

I also have a huge craving to just veg on the couch and play hours and hours of XBOX tonight....everyone and their mother is suggesting that I pick up the new NHL 10....I played it once and it was awesome, but I'm worried that if I pick it up, I won't do anything else for the next 6 months....so I haven't got it yet....:-)

Since I was bored, I was looking up "video game hockey" on youtube and this is what I came up with....enjoy!









Running a pool = TEDIOUS!

Just at home bobbing my head to the newest Jay-Z single, "Run This Town" featuring Rihanna and Kanye West....soooo good and I'm assuming that you'll be hearing it on a good percentage of football or basketball games on TV pretty soon....it's gonna be like "Let It Rock" by Kevin Rudolf or Kanye West with "Stronger" a couple years ago...



Anyways, 24 of us drafted our teams for the Team 1200 Hockey Pool last night at Local Heroes, including myself....To be honest, I really didn't want to be in it and I had thought I had planned it out so that I could just be the commish, but of course, you have people drop out the day of for whatever reason and all of a sudden, I'm picking a garbage team since I didn't prep for it....

There's better things that I could have done with that money....buy a couple drinks, buy a drink for that girl you always wanna talk to at the coffee shop, bet black/red at the roulette wheel....hell, even burning the money would have been a better investment in entertainment than what I got for investing in the team I chose....

So, here's my team of 12....keep in mind that it's a 24-team league with 12 players each and all we do in this pool is count goals and assists....it's as simple of a pool as you can join.....there's also no player movement at all, so that the team that you draft on October 5th is the one that's gonna count when we get to April....in no particular order...

Mike Cammalleri
Henrik Sedin
Mark Streit
Matt Stajan
Alexander Frolov
Kimmo Timonen
Alex Kovalev
Steve Ott
Ryan Suter
Colby Armstrong
Clarke MacArthur
Paul Gaustad

Maybe I'm totally wrong about my team, but I usually have a pretty good sense of where my team should stack against other teams, barring major injuries....which seem to happen to my fantasy rosters no matter what sport I have a league in....I just don't get a good feeling about this team and it's all due to lack of preparation...

Ah well, despite the pressure of trying to get 24 guys to pick 300 players in less than 3 hours, there were still some good laughs....The first 4-5 rounds actually went pretty fast because everyone has a sense of what the Top 100 players should do for you, but the fun gets to when we get past those 100 players...

All of a sudden, you have guys searching frantically for the one guy that everyone might have missed....you also have guys throwing in the towel because they just don't know (or care) who to choose anymore....and then you get outbursts over a guy taking David Moss as others were hoping that he would be there when it came for their turn to pick....

And then there was Yorkie....classic scatterbrained Yorkie....As much as I want to give away some of the Yorkie moments from last night, I'm gonna leave that to my boy, Lloydie, for the show this afternoon....as he said last night, the show basically writes itself for today after that performance....

I should mention something about the title of the entry....it is damn tedious to enter 300 players and 24 teams into a pool manager online.....it took me just under 3 hours to do that....my eyes were shot from having stared at my laptop for so long....it's bad enough that I have to look at no less than 4 computer screens at work every day....

Battle of Ontario resumes tonight and for Leafs fans, it will be the first chance to see "the Monster" in the net as Jonas Gustavsson gets the start in goal....I don't think it was so much Toskala's fault for a lot of the goals in the first two games, but I like the move....it might be able to kickstart the team to victory tonight....enjoy the game!

Team 1200 Pool Goes Tonight!

First off, just had to get this off my chest....I'm sitting here watching lie detector tests on the Maury Povich show....some guy is trying to convince his girlfriend that he's not cheating on her with women that call him for midnight haircuts and he's also been caught in bed naked with another woman, but he claims that nothing was happening....REALLY?

I know that I shouldn't be expecting people with Einstein-level IQ's to be on the show, but come on.....it's just called common sense or some sort of intuition....but then again, why am I watching this? Does watching the show make me just as stupid as the people who are on it? I'm assuming most of you will say yes to that last question.... :-)

So, Team 1200 pool goes tonight....we have a full 25 guys in the pool, so I won't be picking tonight and I'm pretty glad about it....it's hard enough to worry about picking a team already, but then when you add the responsibility of keeping track of the picks of 24 other guys, that's just a little much....

The big debate of course is what is going to happen with the number one pick....so, would you take Ovechkin, Malkin or Crosby? This would have been an even bigger debate last week before the season started, but Ovechkin has been lights out for the first couple of games in defeats of Boston and Toronto....

Ovechkin has 3 goals and 3 assists so far in two games, while Crosby has netted 2 goals and an assist and Malkin has a goal and an assist....so I have to assume that Ovechkin will go number one....hard to question that decision considering how lights out the Caps have been this year....Backstrom and Semin should be going higher up people's lists as well...

But at the end of the day, if you're lucky enough to be in a draft and have one of the first three picks overall, you can't really go wrong with any of those big three players....at the end of the year, barring any major injury, the difference will be about 8-10 points between the three players....

I would be much more worried about the picks after number one....think about it, first overall won't be picking again until pick number 50 and 51, so a lot of very good players are going to be gone by the time it comes back to them....you just have to hope that some good players have been missed along the way....

By the way, I do realize that my picks for football were absolutely awful yesterday....nothing went right at all for me....the Lions were hanging in against the Bears after one half, but they forgot to bring back their offense for the second half...the Browns decided to wake up, but still do enough to lose....

Also, the Ravens defence didn't do enough against the Patriots yesterday....they disappeared during the middle of the game and left their offense to do too much at the end of the game....and the Bills....OH MY GOD! What kind of effort was that? Simply embarassing and that should make Dick Jauron's coaching seat that much hotter....

Hopefully I avoid the big donut tonight with my final pick of the Vikings over the Packers....but I do know one thing....there hasn't been this much anticipation for a Monday night game in a while....ever since NBC got Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football has been shunted as the premier timeslot, but at least for one week, Monday Night rules again....

Enjoy the game!

Sens Recap/Sunday Predictions

First off, I did want to get my thoughts out on the game last night....Like I wrote yesterday, the achilles heel of this team is going to be the defence and it showed last night....if this is a preview of things to come for this team, Pascal Leclaire better be ready to make a bunch of difficult stops each and every night....

Everyone is using the word "scrambly" to describe the effort last night and it was no more apparent than in those three power-play opportunities that the Rangers had in the opening period....it's a minor miracle that the Rangers weren't able to score in the first 'cause they did whatever they wanted with the puck and the Sens were falling all over the place...

However, as much as I harp on the defence, the offence really didn't show all that much either....there was a sense that the Sens might be in the game after Daniel Alfredsson scored to cut the lead to 2-1, but really, there was no life coming from the forwards, particularly the top 2 lines....

I'll give it a few games to see if the lines just need time to gel, but as a team that's destined to be a bubble team already, it will be interesting to see how patient coach Cory Clouston is with letting his lines find chemistry....points are essential in every game and he doesn't have the luxury of a guaranteed playoff spot like Pittsburgh or Washington do with their stacked rosters...

Alright, time for another football Sunday and for me, it will be extra special today because I actually get to stay home and take advantage of having NFL Sunday Ticket for a change...don't get me wrong, I would go to a Bills game over being home every time, but being at home once in a while isn't all that bad either...

Here are my picks for this week:

1) Detroit +10 against Chicago

I don't think the Lions will win this game, but I think they keep it close....as I said on the NFL Preview Show on Thursday, I've really been impressed with the way Matthew Stafford has played in the first three games of his young career....this will be a well-fought divisional matchup and those don't usually see double-digit margins of victory...

2) Cincinnati -5.5 against Cleveland

I also had a good two minute rant on Thursday about how god awful the Browns have been this season....if they continue to play like they have in the first three weeks of the year, the Bengals will win by default...let's not forget, this Bengals team would be 3-0 if it weren't for a miracle tipped pass in the final seconds against Denver

3) Baltimore +2 against New England

Everyone knows about the Baltimore defense and they're doing it again this year as they have the number one rush defense in the league, but Joe Flacco has made this team complete....they already had a great running tandem with Willis McGahee and Le'Ron McClain, but Flacco has been so good and has added that pass attack that they never really had in Baltimore before....

4) Buffalo -2 against Miami

You don't even have to really look at the X's and O's when you analyze this game....you can just look at the overall mood around each team and you should be able to pick the winner....the Bills are hungry to prove that they have a great offense, especially with Marshawn Lynch back....the Dolphins look at the season as a lost cause already with Pennington out for the season....

5) Minnesota -3 against Green Bay

You have two pretty-evenly matched teams....both defences are capable of playing lights-out, so that's a wash....both teams can effectively pass the football, now that Brett Favre is with the Vikes....The difference comes in the rushing attack as the Vikes with Adrian Peterson are much better than the Pack in this category....

Enjoy the games today!

Ottawa Senators Preview

Time for a little bit of "I Told You So"....Last year, when I was hosting Sunday Best with Angry Al, I took a lot of flack for even suggesting that this team may be a bubble team that has to work for a playoff spot....everyone else had them pencilled in the 4th-6th position...but no one could have predicted that they would drop all the way to 11th...

This year, I look at this team and I get the same sense, but I'm pretty confident in saying that a lot more people are on board with me this time around....after such a poor season a year go, expectations are lower, but there is still excitment with the additions of Michalek, Cheechoo, Kovalev and Leclaire and the depature of Dany Heatley....

The biggest thing I like about this team is the fact that they have more depth at the forward position....they can field two solid lines now with their Top 6 including Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza, Alex Kovalev, Milan Michalek, Johnathan Cheechoo and Mike Fisher....an injury to a big name Senator won't hurt so much as it would have last year....

But two names on this list worry me....Of course, there are worries about whether Johnathan Cheechoo can ever find the touch that allowed him to score 56 times back in 2005-2006 and Alex Kovalev also worries me....if he's known as a player that plays lights-out one night and floats around the next, why would his pattern change because he's coming to Ottawa?

Another thing that Bryan Murray was able to address was his goaltending as he brought in Pascal Leclaire in the trade for Antoine Vermette with Columbus towards the end of last season....He has the potential to finally take the number one spot that no one has been able to do in the history of the franchise, as long as he can stay healthy...

However, the achilles heel of this team is going to be their defence....Don't get me wrong, I love the Chris Phillips/Anton Volchenkov pairing as both guys can be shutdown guys in their own seperate ways, but they can only be on the ice for so long....it's the other 4 d-men that have me worried for this team's chances...

I just shake my head when I see the other pairings: Kuba-Karlsson/Picard and Campoli/Carkner....It's so frustrating to watch Kuba play 'cause he has size at 6-3 and 205 pounds, but he never uses it! Chris Campoli plays more like a d-man who would rather be a forward....his love for pushing forward always put his team in jeopardy for giving up a goal....

As much as Karlsson is going to eventually progress, I think if he's thrown into tough situations early on, he's gonna be exposed because of his lack of size and his inexperience....Some people have suggested that he might have a bit of an ego problem....well, a couple of good lessons from NHL-calibre forwards should fix his ego as he starts riding the bus in Bingo...

I think Matt Carkner is going to be in tough as well....it would be one thing to be paired up with a steady defencemen that can help you to look better, but with Campoli being so irresponsible defensively, there's no doubt that Carkner is going to be put into situations that will make him look bad....

Alright, time for a solid prediction.....god, it's one of those coin-flip situations....Like I said, I think they're gonna be a bubble team, but will they be in or not? Alright, I'm getting the coin out....heads: they make it in with the 8 spot, tails: they're out in 9th....the coin is flipped and it's HEADS! They make it in with the 8th spot....enjoy the game tonight!

Eastern Conference Succeed/Fail Predictions

Atlanta Thrashers

Will succeed if: Kari Lehtonen can finally live up to the expectations that have been put on him since being picked with the number two overall pick back in 2002...

Will fail if: They continue to have trouble finding scoring from anyone other than Ilya Kovalchuk...

Boston Bruins

Will succeed if: Tim Thomas can continue his Vezina trophy form in net...

Will fail if: The Bruins cannot find players to take over the production lost when Phil Kessel was traded to the Leafs...

Buffalo Sabres

Will succeed if: Ryan Miller can stay healthy and get back to top form....

Will fail if: The young core (Derek Roy, Thomas Vanek, Drew Stafford and others) that was talked about so highly only a couple of years ago continues to float along in their progression...

Carolina Hurricanes

Will succeed if: They can get off to a good start to the season instead of having to claw back from a sluggish start...

Will fail if: Cam Ward becomes complacent or loses his way after just signing a huge extension...

Florida Panthers

Will succeed if: David Booth can have another great season and Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss can finally live up to their full expectations...

Will fail if: The defense corps cannot step up to fill the shoes of the departing Jay Bouwmeester...

Montreal Canadiens

Will succeed if: Carey Price can return to the form that had everyone talking about him being the future Martin Brodeur and a possiblity as a goaltender for Team Canada in 2010...

Will fail if: All the new faces, including Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez and Mike Cammalleri, cannot find the chemistry to work together...

New Jersey Devils

Will succeed if: Jacques Lemaire can find the system to fit with a team that lacks a lot of natural talent...

Will fail if: Martin Brodeur runs into more injury problems or shows the same form he had in last year's playoffs...

New York Islanders

Will succeed if: John Tavares can live up to the hype and the other young guns (Kyle Okposo and Josh Bailey) can start to show off their potential as well....

Will fail if: They can't find a number one goaltender out of Rick Dipietro, Martin Biron or Dwayne Roloson...

New York Rangers

Will succeed if: The numerous changes pan out and Marian Gaborik can actually last a full season without injury...

Will fail if: Wade Redden and Michal Rozsival have yet another dismal season to go with a less talented defence corps than what they had a year ago...

Philadelphia Flyers

Will succeed if: Chris Pronger proves to be the big missing piece to the puzzle and gets them over the hump against their cross-state rivals...

Will fail if: Ray Emery cannot grab the number one spot or turns into the old Ray and disrupts the team's balance...

Pittsburgh Penguins

Will succeed if: The new defensemen on this team (Jay McKee and Alex Goligogski) can take over fully for departing defencemen Rob Scuderi and Hal Gill...

Will fail if: They rest on their success from a year ago and fail to find the intensity that allowed them to win the Cup a year ago...

Tampa Bay Lightning

Will succeed if: Vincent Lecavalier, Steve Stamkos and Ryan Malone can find their full form after sub-par seasons...

Will fail if: 2nd overall pick Victor Hedman and Mattias Ohlund cannot handle the defensive workload that will be thrust upon them...

Toronto Maple Leafs

Will succeed if: They can find a way to put the puck in the net in order to complement a much-improved defence corps....

Will fail if: The team cannot stay out of the box or cannot improve on their league-worst penalty killing unit...

Yes, I realize that I "forgot" to talk about the Ottawa Senators, but as a way to set up the opener tomorrow night, I've decided to save that for tomorrow afternoon....I'm just soooo glad that meaningful hockey is back again....off to celebrate Night #2 of Birthday week with a couple of brews with a hockey game on somewhere.... :-)

NHL Predictions in a different way....Western Conference

The season has started and the more things change, the more they stay the same....Ovechkin is scoring goals in bunches and the Leafs have already lost another game in overtime....I wanted to do this earlier today, but I got caught up with booking the show for this afternoon and tomorrow, then co-hosting the NFL Preview Show from 5-6 p.m.

Unlike most people or columns that just give their predictions in a boring and tired sort of way....I wanted to present my thoughts for the upcoming season differently....So, my thought is to give you what each team needs to do to succeed and what they have to avoid to fail....really, either one can go hand in hand, but we'll keep it this way for the sake of format....

We never really know what the future brings 'cause things happen that we have no control over throughout the season....a team can be decimated by injuries or different players may end up with problems off the ice or it could be something that no one could ever think of....that's why I've always thought prediciting wins and losses was kind of silly....

Enough talk, here's my thoughts for each team in the Western Conference:

Anaheim Ducks

Will succeed if: They find secondary scoring to go with the top line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan.....they need Saku Koivu, Teemu Selanne and Joffrey Lupul to be on top form...

Will fail if: None of the younger defensemen step up to try and fill the void left by Chris Pronger going to the Flyers and Francois Beauchemin going to the Leafs...

Calgary Flames

Will succeed if: Jay Bouwmeester can live up to the hype that he garnered by playing in Florida all those years and Dion Phaneuf can raise his game back to where it was a couple of years ago...

Will fail if: Secondary scorers like Rene Bourque and David Moss regress after having career years last season...

Chicago Blackhawks

Will succeed if: The young defense corps can continue to progress like they did a year ago by reaching the playoffs for the first time...

Will fail if: The whole organization can't get past what was a tumultuous off-season filled with negative stories invloving players and management...

Colorado Avalanche

Will succeed if: Everyone on the team has career years...

Will fail if: They step onto the ice.....this should be the worst team in the league.....it's hard to pinpoint one thing that they will fail at this season....

Columbus Blue Jackets

Will succeed if: The full team continues to progress after making the playoffs for the first time in franchise history...

Will fail if: Steve Mason proves to be a one-year wonder and/or Rick Nash becomes complacent after signing such a big extension...

Dallas Stars

Will succeed if: Marty Turco can return to form after a terrible season last year...

Will fail if: The injury bug hits them again as hard as it did a year ago...

Detroit Red Wings

Will succeed if: The younger players like Justin Abdelkader, Ville Leino, Darren Helm and Valteri Filppula can replace the production lost with players like Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson leaving...

Will fail if: The aging core of this team finally starts to show some of that age and more importantly, some wear and tear....

Edmonton Oilers

Will succeed if: They can get over the fact that no one wants to play there.....I'm kidding, the young core needs to step up to that next level....they have the talent, but have not shown the consistency...

Will fail if: Bringing in Nikolai Khabibulin turns out to be a worse move than keeping Dwayne Roloson...

Los Angeles Kings

Will succeed if: Johnathan Quick can prove to be a number one goaltender in this league...

Will fail if: They didn't learn from the mistakes they made a year ago when they were squeezed out of the playoffs by a small margin...

Minnesota Wild

Will succeed if: Martin Havlat can stay healthy for a full year as opposed to the Wild's former superstar player, Marian Gaborik, who is now with the New York Rangers...

Will fail if: The plan to open up the offense ends up backfiring on a team that is still built to play a defensive style...

Nashville Predators

Will succeed if: The Preds can find three defensemen to complement the big 3 of Shea Weber, Dan Hamhuis and Ryan Suter...

Will fail if: Pekka Rinne ends up being a one-year wonder...

Phoenix Coyotes

Will succeed if: People in Glendale and surrounding areas even show up to watch a team in the midst of so much turmoil....

Will fail if: They use all the relocation and ownership talk to make themselves feel unmotivated...

San Jose Sharks

Will succeed if: They don't give into the pressure of being the team known for having so much potential but having so little results...

Will fail if: No one is willing to take a leadership role on the team after the fiasco involving the captaincy during the summer...

St. Louis Blues

Will succeed if: Erik Johnson and Alex Pietrangelo can step up and become contributing members of the defense corps....

Will fail if: They can't live up to their great special teams play from a year ago...8th in the league on the power play and 3rd in penalty killing last season....

Vancouver Canucks

Will succeed if: The younger players such as Mason Raymond, Sergei Shirokov and Michael Grabner can add just a little more scoring to a team with a great defense and world-class goaltending...

Will fail if: The new additions of Christian Ehrhoff, Brad Lukowich and Matheiu Schneider fail to gel with their rest of the defense corps already in Vancouver...

Eastern Conference predictions tomorrow..... :-)

Don't believe the hype, Raps fans!

Much like the fabricated hype that surrounds the couple of weeks before the start of a Toronto Blue Jays season (except for this year when no one gave them a chance), the same kind of garbage spews from the news shows of our favourite Canadian sports channels in anticipation of another Toronto Raptors season...

But when I look at this team, I see basically the same problems as a year ago with the only difference being that a good number of players that were there last year have been replaced with different names for the upcoming season....it's like taking a lemon car, painting it a different colour and trying to sell it to me again....

Counting on the Raptors is like someone who downgrades themselves to internet dating and allows themselves to be fooled over and over again by people who spend all their time putting together a great profile and putting up just enough selected profile pictures in order to entice someone into believing that they've possibly found the man/woman of their dreams....

Inevitably, that person will eventually find out after enough time that the person they thought was so great is really nothing special, the "relationship" will fizzle out, time will pass, but then they will get sucked in again by another great profile with different pictures, but with the same characteristics....

The Raps come into the year with Chris Bosh as the undisputed leader, but the problem is that he's never had that running mate to create the dynamic 1-2 punch.....last year, they thought that they had it with Jermaine O'Neal and that turned into a complete disaster.....this year, they think they have it with Hedo Turkoglu....

Turkoglu is going to be a nice complimentary player, but he's not a gamebreaker....he'll get you 15-20 points a game and mostly shoot from the outside, but because of what people saw out of him in the last couple of rounds of the playoffs, I think he's unfairly being given expectations that he just can't deliver when he's supposed to be on the downside of his career....

The problem with this team is that the starting five last year didn't offer enough resistance on defense and except for the change with Turkoglu (who isn't a very good defender either), the starting five remains intact....they need much more defensive effort from guys like Calderon, Bargnani and Turkoglu...

I also have a sinking suspicion that Andrea Bargnani will stay status quo or even regress after making strides a year ago....we've seen glimpses of why he was chosen number one overall, but I've never believed in a centre who relied on a jump shot to be successful....NBA centres are supposed to be tough and pound in the trenches....Bargnani shows none of that to me...

Speaking of toughness and grit, Jose Calderon is a guy that screams of someone that loves the highlight reel passes and flashy basketball, but really doesn't want to do the dirty work in order to win ball games, especially if it came down to playoff time in April-June....he's gotta do a lot more this year to improve defensively and get his game more well-rounded....

Finally, it's up to Chris Bosh to take the reins of this team....enough with the videos on youtube and the other hijinxs that get you in front of a teleprompter as you read the weather report on a local Toronto TV station.....man up, lead your team to the playoffs and most importantly, show why you should be in the same league as other free agents come the end of the year....

I give all these suggestions and yet, I don't believe any of them will come to fruition.....to me, the Raps will either fall short of the playoffs yet again, or will squeak in only to be bounced by either Boston or Orlando in the first round (whoever comes in first in the conference)....I'll be more than happy to say I told you so in April.... :-)