Carolina Hurricane Scott Walker Will Have No Part of an All-Boston Championship Party

Back when the Frozen Four was going strong, I made the not-impossible suggestion that Boston-area teams could sweep the four major professional sports championships this year, and even throw in a college-trophy trinket with a Boston University championship. Well, BU went on to win their championship, and the rest, as they don't really say, could've been history.

With the best-regular-season-record San Jose Sharks bowing out in the first round of the NHL playoffs, the Boston Bruins, perennial first-round choke artists, were left as the team to beat, the number one seed in the east. Their opponent: an always under-estimated Carolina Hurricane hockey club that lost the series-opening tilt, yet strung together three straight wins before allowing the Bruins to force a game seven.

Tonight's tilt was the third of three consecutive game sevens for the round, the first being Pittsburgh's domination of Washington last night. Detroit and Anaheim kicked off the game-seven action this evening, a contest in which the Ducks were shot down late in the third after tying things up at three halfway through the period. The Boston-Carolina contest went beyond regulation, however, and the first-and-only overtime period was mostly spent in the Boston attack zone. As the period dwindled, however, Carolina found a spark and put together the extra frame's best scoring chance moments before Scott Walker put the rubber in the twine, absolutely stunning the Boston crowd. Thus, Carolina will face Pittsburgh in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Now, what once looked like a potential Bostkkake, has seen some serious wind taken out of its sails. The Celtics, with chances to put away Orlando, fell to the Magic this evening, 83-75. They'll still have two more opportunities to advance, but if there's something in the Boston sports water today, it comes as no surprise, especially considering that the Red Sox, having generated 15 hits against Los Anaheim this afternoon, also stranded 17 men, and lost 5-4 in 12 innings. Obviously, it's early in the MLB season, but if the Red Stockings not winning a Series sets up the ultimate, a Dictator Belichick non-championship, than I'm all for it.

So now, we'll look at a battle of two Central Division foes in the west, while the Atlantic faces the Southeast. Scott Walker has spoken, and his anti-Boston vibe has been felt.
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Our Second And Last NBA Post Of The Year

I may have miscounted, it's very possible this is the third. Regardless, we need to extend hearty congratulations to the Celtics and the citizens of Boston, who finally, finally broke through and won a title last week. No longer will you be affiliated with the likes of Cleveland in terms of championship droughts.

I kid, of course, everyone hates Boston. Even me. And I'm a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation. That allegiance was hatched out of family history and the lack of an MLB team in Colorado during my youth, however. I've never lived in New England, so fack those pricks. Fack the Pats and the Celts to boot. No matter what, if you bogart that much hardware you come off as an asshole. Share the wealth, fellas.

None of this has anything to do with anything, though. It's just an excuse to link to the fantastic Shaq video making the rounds (you can find it here, TMZ is a bunch of bitches for not enabling the embed feature). Now I don't know where you come off on Shaq--some hate him for being big and buffoonish, others appreciate his skill and place in basketball history, as well as his wit. Count me among the latter, I've always liked the big dope.

Likewise, I've never liked Kobe. I respect his talents, and he is right now unquestionably the finest player alive. But he's a prick, and he'll sell out a teammate in a second, and those teammates hold grudges. Thus Shaq's bit of eloquence here. Enjoy.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Foreplay/Long Time"

Greetings, and welcome to the newest House of Georges feature entitled "My Sports Life is a Rock Song." The deal is this: every Friday (Editor's Note: Fat Chance.), we're gonna break down our tiny little world of sports, and, with the help of the selected song/our unmatchable journalistic prowess, compare the two.

The rules are simple; we'll make them up as we go, and, before Cecil feels his sac shrivel and crawl up into his manly core, rule #1 is that it doesn't have to be a rock song. It just gave the feature's title a little more proverbial punch. So, Cecil, if you ever choose to take part in this, or any other feature, (Note: See above note.), feel free to do a Screeching Weasel or a Chris Gaines song. Or whatever the hell it is you listen to.

Anyhoo. Find the goods after the jump.

I'm not gonna pull any punches, especially with tipoff under three hours away. Thus, I'm going to assume that, with the YouSpaces and eSeeds, and even the old-fangled radio frequencies out there, that everyone knows the jam. And, midwestern/redneck/fat-chick lover/drunken/sophomoric as it sounds, it is in fact a rockin' good song. Well, at least it was the first 6000 times I heard it. Now, what with the ridiculous number of pharmaceuticals I've consumed, and radio stations from which I've been banned, I couldn't distinguish between it and something from the new Jay-Z album.

My sports world, nevertheless, looks a bit like this in the summer:



this in the fall:



this in the winter:



and this in the spring:



Pretty rough. Or, as Old No. 7 would say, "That's uh, that's a lot of third place teams, dude." I, of course, am left with nothing to do but kick him in the shins out of sheer agreement.

The Blues, in case you don't know, dear reader, are a tiny handful of seasons removed from the longest playoff-appearance streak in all of professional sports. They of course reached the Conference Finals in the last year of said streak, not to even sniff the playoffs since. I like Andy Kitchen. I remain confident he's got the club headed in the right direction. But, Christ. Only a team I root for would make the cup finals the first three years of their existence (Note: Prior to mine own.), and never make it again.

And the Crimson and Blue, while on the verge of an Elite Eight appearance, have won a championship in my life -- 20 years ago, but nonetheless, they won -- have managed to get knocked off in ultra-disappointing fashion year after year since I entered high school. Seven, of course, has made a game out of tabbing their annual March Madness elimination, and he, of course, can duct tape himself to any ship's anchor.

Back to the song, though. The Foreplay portion of "Foreplay/Long Time" may as well be an audio advertisement for the Kansas City Royals. Last year the theme was "True. Blue. Tradition.", and I liked it. This year, it's "New. Blue. Tradition.", and I like that even better. Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman have this club headed in the right direction. Problem is, once you're on the path, it's the potholes ahead that keep the championship so far out of reach. Like, you know, the fact that there's a ton of good clubs in the American League, or the fact that the Royals have so little cash flow, or the fact that, according to my new favorite sports blogger, who happens to be right, they have no power at the plate. But the pipe-organ wizardry of Tom Scholz, man genius, begins as a delicate trickle, and builds into, surprise, a rocketesque explosion of tickled ivories plastics. It embodies the potential of the Kansas City Royals. They could explode from barely below-mediocre pitching to pretty okay, and they could -- could, I tell ya', could -- continue to show offensive improvement. If they could grasp these two things, they'll be on par to fulfill my prediction of .500 ball this year and an AL Central title the next.

This sentiment, of course, whirs us right in to the Long Time of the song. And that, if you haven't already figured it out, is the Kansas City Chiefs. It's not as if those two words don't speak a thousand verses, because they do. Brad Delp belts out a lot of lyrics that could summarize my life as a Chiefs fan, but we'll allow it to summarize the last 14 years of it. Which takes us back to the 1994 AFC Conference Championship Game, the only time in my life that the Chiefs were a tomahawk chop away from a Super Bowl berth. They of course, haven't won a post-season contest since, but us fools keep coming back for more, regardless of Delp's repeated phrase "Guess I should be goin', yeah."

No. Time didn't wait for him, and it doesn't wait for Chiefs fans either. It keeps on rollin'. (Note: If at any point you tire of the depressing theme of non-winning sports franchises, feel free to e-mail Old No. 7. He can tell you a bible's worth about championships. And soap on a rope, too, I hear.) So just when Scholz, Delp, Goodreau, and company have you convinced to bolt, and leave your headdress afire, they rock out. Which, to make a contemporary comparison, is kind of like the Chiefs defense under Herm Edwards and Gunther Cunningham, and you're tempted to stick around. Then Delp comes back with some less profound lyrics, and the taste of the Chiefs offense sets up camp on your tongue. (Note: This guy, who is by far the best editor I've ever worked with and/or for, would kill me for using the word "you" so often in this ramblage, but damn it, YOU know what I be sayin', precious readers.)

Like all songs, "Foreplay/Long Time" fades out, and the album ends, or the DJ follows it up with some Steely Dan, or a 2Pac track comes up next on your eSeeds in shuffle mode. And that blasted, confounded time, keeps on rollin', leaving us uneducated, drunken, fat-toofless-girlfriend-havin' hicks with the same old tired hardware on the shelf. And this hillbilly is tired of it, emotionally spent, and running on the fumes of the ideal. Never you fear, though, I'll be there, dumb as ever, for the next season. And the one after that. And the one after that. And one day, my son, will tell the same story that I shared with you today about some teams, and a song that came from an MIT grad that formed a band named after a city. A good Irish-Catholic city, no less.

Oh, and in the random thoughts department, words cannot describe how disappointed I am that the MyTubers removed the embed option from this (lyrics NSFW), although I'd probably get a whiny phone call from Seven about the kids, etc. being exposed to blah, blah, blah. But honestly, what hard-working American man doesn't have his car washed just like this. With this soundtrack, of course. Read more