Today In Sport

Today is my father’s birthday, so Happy Birthday dad.  My love of sport comes from him.  He introduced me to so many different sports and helped give me a overall enjoyment of all sports.

He came from a big family and all of them loved their footy, especially growing up not far from the Footscray football club ground.  Sure, he took me to a few Footscray games but he never pressured me to follow them and I ended up choosing my own team, St Kilda.  As long as the Bulldogs aren’t playing the Saints, he will enjoy them as well just for me.

Dad got me into two other sports in a big way when I was little, Ice Hockey and Soccer.  My dad had played Hockey for a while and I learned to skate soon after I could walk.  I ended up playing in the Ice Mice and because my dad was a goalie, I guess they thought I should be one too.  Turns out I wasn’t very good.  Oh well.

I started playing Soccer in my first year in Primary School.  I loved it and it was the one sport I was pretty good at.  I also loved watching it, either on the telly or going to see Adelaide City play at Hindmarsh Stadium.  We now both go and watch our Adelaide United in the A-League.

We both support Aston Villa but our other teams are pretty different.  I like Inter Milan and he is a Juventus man for one.  I’m Rangers and he is Celtic, now that’s a toughy.  He doesn’t really have an NHL team but I’m a devoted Pittsburgh Penguins fan.

We do differ on some sports.  I really like Basketball but dad is a little noncommittal on it.  We have many a great conversation on different events happening around the world, whether it be Casey Stoner winning another MotoGP race or how much of a prat Ronaldo is.

All I’m really trying to say is thanks dad for introducing me to the wonderful world of sport and all it has to offer.  Happy Birthday.

I was going to do a Top 10 rundown but I wasn’t sure whether I would go over ten and also how do you rank them in any kind of order?  So here we have a randomly arranged non-list of the biggest sports stories of this year.  Well the ones that interested me anyway…

SERENA WILLIAMS THROWS A TANTRUM AT THE US OPEN

American tennis superstar Serena Williams had one of those moments that you try and forget…and she succeeded apparently after claiming only seconds after she threatened to shove a tennis ball down a lineswoman’s throat and kill her that she would never say something like that.

Then in the press conference afterwards she continued to play the victim, stating that no-one should be scared of her because she has never been in a fight in her life.  Have you seen the size of you, Serena?  Now look at the little Asian woman you screamed at for doing her job.  I am pretty sure she was genuinely threatened. (continue reading…)

Carrying on from Part 1 of this list, comes Part 2.  Once again these are not the worst ever umpiring mistakes, just the ones that affected me the most.  So on with the second part of this cavalcade of failure.

5 - THE GREAT ESCAPE - ITALIAN WORLD CUP 2006 EDITION

The knockout stage of the 2006 World Cup was a place that the Australian team never thought they would reach but due to some amazing results in the group stage they achieved.  There they faced the might of Italy in a David and Goliath battle.

The match was a dour and defensive affair for most of the match with few real scoring chances.  The first real bad decision by the referee was the decision to send off Marco Materazzi early in the second half for a foul on Mark Bresciano.  This forced Italy into an even more defensive and counter attacking posture. (continue reading…)

The boys are halfway through the first week of the Tour de France and what a grand waste of time it’s been so far.  Seriously, the most exciting thing to happen so far was when two members of the Silence-Lotto team were kicked out before the race started for being drug cheats.

For the first week except for the time trials, it is basically a sedate start followed by a pedestrian middle with a madcap dash to the finish every single day.  They should think about scrapping the first week and go straight to the mountains because that’s where it starts getting interesting.

But at the moment it looks like which ever member of the Astana Team the Astana Team owner has his money on is going to win.  That means either Alberto Contador or Mr America Lance Armstrong.  So the rest of the riders may as well just pack it in or go for one of the other less meaningful jerseys…..I always like the red checkered one.

So until the weekend I don’t think I will be watching….unless there is some kind of natural disaster that creates a sinkhole into which all the riders fall.  Now that would be something to watch.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes recently went to an Aussie Rules game between Collingwood and Essendon.  Here is a pictorial of their night out.

I hope they had a great night out at the footy and tell all their friends…but not their Scientology friends because they are just crazy.

Original pics from news.com.au

A look back at the week that was.

Original photos courtesy of nbcsports.com

I was going to call this post “Oh My God, did you just see that?” but thought better of it. The past week has seen a few pieces of skill that just makes you sit back and say “Well that just happened.”

First off here is Pittsburgh Penguin Evgeni Malkin in game 2 of the NHL Eastern Conference finals against Carolina. This is the 3rd goal of his hat trick in the game.

Crazy skill with just a hint of luck. (continue reading…)

The Indian Premier League Twenty/20 Cricket tournament has been going for a couple of weeks now in South Africa and it has provided a lot of exciting cricket but no real substance so far.  The tournament that was hastily reorganized for South Africa after India became a potentially unsafe place to play has missed out on the crazy Indian fans that make this league something to watch.

With a bunch of current day stars like Duminy, Gayle and Pietersen mixed with retired legends of the calibre of Warne, Gilchrist and Hayden to the wannabe Indian future stars it is a really weird mess of players in teams together.  There are some really inventive team names around as well with the Punjab Kings XI and the Chennai Super Kings closely followed by the Rajasthan Royals and the Bangalore Royal Challengers.  But the best of the lot is the aptly named Mumbai Indians. (continue reading…)

The past weekend has been full of massive fights and fightbacks.  Also a few one sided shellackings for good measure.  In the NBA, Boston and Chicago decided that a normal 7 game series just wasn’t enough.  They had more overtime than the people in charge of fixing the financial crisis.  Chicago played like they thought they had a chance in the series due to the unavailability of Celtics star Kevin Garnett and Boston played like they didn’t have Kevin Garnett.

Boston advanced to the second round 4-3 but not without revealing their fragile side to the world.  Former French tennis star Yannick Noah watched his son Joakim not win a championship.  He must be so disappointed in him.  All those tennis lessons wasted when he should have been learning how to dunk a basketball properly. (continue reading…)