Some Blog Site

Inspired by Jeff Daniels’ “Tiger Fan Blues Revisited“, I thought the Red Wings need a song that includes a bunch of the players’ names. Since I am not the singer/songwriter type, I am shamelessly spoofing an existing song.

Here goes… ahem…

Franzen, raises his hands after scoring at the goal crease, again
Oh, Fleury, maybe he’ll see a little better set of days (yeah)
Oh, slap shot, Abdelkader’s name said again ain’t that familiar (oh yeah)
Oh, Datsyuk, he can’t help, but we’d like to have him play (oh yeah)

(Penguins) Need a goal, can’t beat Osgood’s butterflies
Oh, in the zone, Lidstrom chases them away.
Someday soon, Wings will win the cup again, cup again, cup again

Holmstrom, standing by the goalie so he doesn’t see a thing (oh yeah)
Oh, Hossa, faster than the players that are on his former team
Oh, feelin’, Kronwall hit the Penguin player into yesterday
Oh, Cleary, a game-winning goal again will bring you fame (yeah)

Need a goal, getting rough as tempers rise
Oh, in the zone, Draper chases them away
Zetterberg, he’ll be in a fight again
Referees gently lead him away, him away, him awayyy

Yeah!

Even strength, Stuart killed the penalties
Oh, Hudler’s there, and he checks guys on his wayyyy
Breakaway, and a score by Filppula
Red Wings fans, octopus on the ice, on the ice, on the iiiice

Editor’s notes:

• I know “goal crease” is somewhat redundant. I didn’t have “goal” in there originally, but I needed to extra syllable to get that line to flow well. If not well, then at least better.
• The phrase “Penguins need a goal” implies that the Penguins are losing, not that the songwriter is cheering for the Penguins.
• The phrase about Datsyuk’s not helping was written while he was out with his injury and does not imply that he not helpful when he’s on the ice.
• I know Draper hasn’t played yet, but I put him in after it was announced that he should play in Game 4 at Pittsburgh.
• Cleary could have a better line (to the song, not his teammates). The alternate had something to do with “going to bring Stanley to Newfoundland again.”
• Why “Even Flow”? I was inspired by Tim Hawkins‘ “Kids’ Rock” commercial. Go watch it.
• If you’re going to look up the actual lyrics to “Even Flow”, be warned that many of the lyrics sites contain the CD version, not the radio version. Use Last FM’s lyrics for a clean set.

“Sing to Him a new song; Play skillfully with a shout of joy.”
– Psalm 33:3

I see that some people are complaining that the Oakland Raiders drafted Haywood Banks as wide receiver in the first round.

I can understand why they are complaining.  He is not that fast, nor is he all that strong.  Why use a first-round pick on him?  Plus he’s old.  Not old old, but definitely nowhere near the ages of the other draftees.  He’s old enough to be their father, possibly even grandfather.

I should add that he is usually funny.  I am not a fan of “Toast”, but I do like “The Music’s Too Loud“.  That one is much better than the toast bit.

What?  They drafted Heyward-Bey?

Never mind.

“Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,Older than your father.”
– Job 15:10

I enjoy reading whatever’s on the cereal box during breakfast.  One side panel, on a chocolatey crispy rice cereal, was encouraging children to be active – probably because it is a sugary cereal and they need this public service announcement to make up for the unhealthiness of the cereal.

Part of the panel showed various sports and how many calories the average child would burn during 30 minutes of each sport.  It listed

• baseball: 60 calories
• soccer: 90 calories
• basketball: 90 calories
• football: 120 calories

So not only is baseball the most boring sport to watch, it is the most boring to play – it burns the fewest calories.

But don’t take the word a a cereal box for it – go look up calorie burn rates by sport. Beware though – baseball isn’t even on that list. It must not have qualified. Here are some excerpts, using the general non-game category for 130-lb person:

• basketball: 354 calories per hour
• soccer: 413
• football: 472
• swimming laps: also 472

And soccer? Don’t let your kids play soccer. Not only is it average at best for exercise, it is dangerous for high school kids to play (especially for girls) (and more dangerous than football). The combination of moderate exercise and high risk means that soccer should not be an option.

But football? The combination of good exercise and average risk factor means that football is a good option for your child. I suppose swimming might be even better, with the combination of good exercise and low risk factor.

Football players are more likely to be injured, but fractures and sprains usually heal with no lasting problems. Concussions are where you want to be concerned about your child. Football helmets are being improved to reduce concussions. What is being done in soccer to reduce concussions? And yes, even though soccer is supposed to be non-contact, soccer players are more prone to concussions than are football players.

Football is a contact sport, but the uniform and gear are setup to protect the players from damage. In soccer, only your shins are safe (even though shins heal fairly easily compared to concussions or ACL tears). You could try this article, which states “The injury rates, calculated per 100 athlete exposures during total events (games plus practices), were: baseball, 1.7; softball, 1.0; soccer, 2.1; and football, 1.5.”

“Those who seek my life lay snares {for me;} And those who seek to injure me have threatened destruction, And they devise treachery all day long.”
– Psalm 38:12

Like many other people I know, I was hoping that the Cardinals would win but expecting that the Steelers would win. I was not cheering against Pittsburgh, as I have nothing against them. But I did want Kurt Warner to win. So I cheered for Arizona but was not depressed when they didn’t win. Disappointed, yes, but not so much that I had trouble sleeping.

I find that with college football, I cheer for (or against) teams because they are those teams. For the NFL, I cheer for or against teams based on certain players. If Kurt Warner were not with Arizona, I don’t know that I would have been cheering for them.

My take on the game, not that my take matters much (and why is it called a take when really I am giving my opinion? I am not taking anything…) is that the Steelers didn’t win the game as much as the Cardinals lost it.

Certainly, the Steelers played well enough to win, and win they did. The Cardinals also played well enough to win, but they helped the Steelers a lot whereas the Steelers didn’t help the Cardinals much. The Cardinals made so many mistakes that’s it is easy to think that they should have won. The infamous “They were the better team.” They were the better team, but they didn’t play as well. It all matter how you play during that one game. Of course, after a game is over you can always say “If this had gone differently” or “If this hadn’t happened” and anyone can concoct a scenario where the loser would have won.

How many yards did the Steelers get as a result of Cardinal personal fouls? Is it legal for an offensive lineman to pull his own quarterback into the end zone? Did they really let a linebacker run 100 yards? Could nobody catch him before the 2-yard line? Is it possible for Clark to use his limbs to tackle someone instead of using only his helmet?

I was just glad that the Cardinals played well enough to almost win. It wasn’t looking too good at the half, and I was worried that Arizona would be lumped into the same category as Oklahoma and Ohio State – the team that gets put through to the championship game and then gets blown out by a real team.

“{A man of} great anger will bear the penalty, For if you rescue {him,} you will only have to do it again.”
– Proverbs 19:19

The NFL seems more interested in the Super Bowl halftime show than the game. I have heard numerous ads about the show, and they are over-hyped. Not just hyped, but over-hyped. They are ads about just the halftime show, with no mention of the actual game.

So they got Rick Springfield to perform. “Watch as history is made!” Just because he has never performed in a Super Bowl show before, that makes it history? I’ve never performed in a Super Bowl halftime show either. If I performed, that would make history also. There are billions of people who fall into that group. I am not as impressed as the NFL would like me to be.

I think the reason they promote the show more than the game is that people who are going to watch the game are already going to watch the game. The NFL has them captive, so they don’t need to market it so much. They already know who is going to be playing the football game.  But there are probably people, fans of Bruce Dickinson or whoever he is, who would not normally watch the game but would tune in for the music.

Last year (Superbowl 42) there were 97 millions viewers for the game and 148 million for the halftime show. The show doesn’t need to be promoted – the game does. And the game lasts longer than the halftime show, so there are more ads to be sold for the game than for the show.

I, as usual, plan on skipping the halftime show. Not that I want to protest the music – just that it’s not football and therefore not as entertaining to me. I have other things I would rather do. Maybe I’ll check it occasionally to see if there are any good commercials.

“So I will silence the sound of your songs, and the sound of your harps will be heard no more. ”
– Ezekiel 26:13

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.

The numbers in parentheses are the CBS Sportsline 120 rankings, which is supposed to show where a team ranks in all of Division 1 (formerly known as FBS).  In theory, a team with a higher ranking (lower number) should beat a team with a lower ranking.  These rankings were gathered before the bowl games started; they are slightly different now.  I decided to check CBS’ accuracy also, so those numbers are included.

I also wanted to check a couple of methods mentioned by TMQ: Home Team Wins (HTW) and Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP – the team with the better record wins; if records are equal, home team wins).  So an ‘H’ is listed after the team that was the official home team for the game.  However, the official home team was not always the real home team, as the bowl game was sometimes closer to the visitor.  For example, Oklahoma was the official home team for the BCS championship game, but the game was held in Florida, so the Gators were the home team by location.

Here is the list (Some Blog Site’s prediction first – actual result second):

Navy (56)H over Wake Forest (51) – WF beat Navy
BYU (16) over Arizona (48)H – AZ beat BYU
South Florida (50)H over Memphis (79) – USF beat Memphis
Fresno State (58)H over Colorado State (68) – CSU beat FSU
Troy (59)H over Southern Miss (72) – So Miss beat Troy
Boise State (9) over Texas Christian (11)H – TCU beat Boise
Hawaii (67) over Notre Dame (65)H – ND beat Hawaii
Central Michigan (53)H over Florida Atlantic (85) – FAU beat CMU
California (30)H over Miami (49) – Cal beat Miami
Florida State (28)H over Wisconsin (41) – FSU beat Wisc
West Virginia (31) over North Carolina (32)H – WVU beat UNC
Northern Illinois (82) over Louisiana Tech (57)H – LTU beat NIU
Northwestern (22)H over Missouri (25) – Missouri beat NW
Rutgers (40)H over NC State (52) – Rutgers beat NC State
Oklahoma State (14) over Oregon (15)H – Oregon beat OK State
Western Michigan (35)H over Rice (34) – Rice beat WMU
Maryland (37) over Nevada (46)H – Maryland beat Nevada
Georgia Tech (13)H over LSU (54) – LSU beat GT
Kansas (44) over Minnesota (55)H – Kansas beat Minn
Boston College (24) over Vanderbilt (60)H – Vandy beat BC
Oregon State (27) over Pittsburgh (18)H – OS beat Pitt
Air Force (42)H over Houston (47) – Houston beat AF
Nebraska (29)H over Clemson (38) – Nebraska beat Clemson
Georgia (17) over Michigan State (20)H – UGA beat MSU
Iowa (26)H over South Carolina (39) – Iowa beat USC
Virginia Tech (19) over Cincinnati (12)H – VT beat Cincy
Penn State (7) over USC (5)H – USC beat PSU
East Carolina (33)H over Kentucky (62) – Kentucky beat ECU
Texas Tech (6)H over Mississippi (23) – Miss beat TT
Utah (8) over Alabama (4)H – Utah beat Bama
Buffalo (43) over Connecticut (45)H – UConn beat Buffalo
Texas (3)H over Ohio State (10) – UT beat OSU
Ball State (21)H over Tulsa (36) – Tulsa beat Ball State
Florida (1) over Oklahoma (2)H – UF beat OU

And here are the results:

• Some Blog Site picks were 14-20
• CBS picks were 16-18
• HTW was 13-21 for the official home team
• HTW was 19-15 for the actual distance home team
• ITP was 11-23 if using the official home team
• ITP was 15-19 if using the actual distance home team

What does this mean to you? It means that you should pick bowl game winners based on whose campus is closer to the bowl’s stadium. That was the only method that had a winning record.  That is, if you don’t want to research much.

Why don’t the other methods work?  Well, anything based on the official, listed home team is going to be off because the home team advantage has to do with the fans at the game, familiarity with the area, and travel fatigue.  So Oklahoma had no advantage being listed as the home team, and Florida had all the advantages.

Why was ITP worse than the straight-up rankings?  Because ITP was designed for the NFL, where conferences don’t mean as much and there are more cross-division games.  Yes, the NFL has some conferences that are tougher than others.  But they won’t be totally insulated from the other conferences as can happen in college.  So a team with a better record (the heart of ITP) in a weaker college conference can be much worse than another team with a worse record.  The difference is still there in the NFL, but the severity is much less.

Plus, the bowl selection committees want good games, in general.  So they pick teams that will match well with each other.  The bowls are, in effect, handling the parity for you.  So you know that an 8-5 Troy isn’t that much better than a 6-6 So. Miss.

Since the strength of the conference has something to do with the results, I thought I would tally each conference’s bowl game record for the 2008 (and the first bit of 2009) season.

Conferences

• ACC: 4-6
• Big 10: 1-6
• Big 12: 4-3
• Big East: 4-2
• Independent: 1-1
• MAC: 0-5
• MW: 3-2
• PAC10: 5-0
• SEC: 6-2
• Sun Belt: 1-1
• USA: 4-2
• WAC: 1-4

So the best conference was the PAC-10 and the worst was the MAC.  Perhaps you could say that the ACC was the best because they had ten teams go to bowls.  Or you could say the SEC was the best because they won the most bowls.

My two cents: have the best teams from the best conferences play each other in a +1 playoff.  That would mean having the PAC-10 winner (USC) face the Big East winner (Cincinnati) and the SEC winner (Florida) face the Conference USA winner (East Carolina), and then the winners of those two games would play for the championship.  Of course, that is based on after-the-fact bowl results to know which conferences were the strongest.  Plus it doesn’t get Utah in there, which they should be somehow.  How do you know which conferences are the strongest before the bowl games?  Good question.

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part;”
– 1 Corinthians 13:9

Congratulations to the Detroit Lions for their perfect season.  Yes, they went all season without winning a game.  Enough people have given their theories as to what the problem is and what needs to change that I won’t go into that here.

But I will say that the Lions are doing their part for the league.  In order for teams to win, other teams must lose.  The Lions, by going 0-and-16, are selflessly helping the other teams in the NFL by making more wins available.  The Lions already had good draft choices in previous years, so I doubt they were going for that.  So it must be that they just wanted to help.

Contrast that with my college: Cedarville University.  They have not lost a football game since 1953.  I even recall seeing T-shirts with that fact: “Undefeated since 1953”.  As you may have guessed, 1952 was the last time they played a football game.

In case you thought the Lions looked bad, you should look at Cedarville’s 1932 season.  Of particular note are two losses: 89-0 and 137-0.

“I know his fury,” declares the LORD, “But it is futile; His idle boasts have accomplished nothing.”
– Jeremiah 48:30