Super (Chili) Bowl (and chip dip) worth a Couple of Million Dollars!!!

This coming Sunday February 4th will be the 41st contest for the Vince Lombardi Trophy...also known as the Super Bowl XLI!!!
This is the time of year where even border-line football fans watch the game!!! Super Bowl parties are held at homes globally with a plentiful supply of chili, chips, dips, and copious amounts of beer!!! One of my favourite times of the year!!! There are also more pools than you can imagine...big grids that go from $1.00 to $10.00 per square...there will be a winner for the end of the first and third quarter...a bigger winner at the end of the half and the biggest winner at the end of the game!!! These house parties can get quite expensive but the pools actually make the game a bit more interesting when you have some potential money on the line!!! Speaking of money, that brings up another tradition of the Super Bowl...ADVERTISING!!!!
Advertising is huge for this game...for example a 30-second spot will cost US advertisers up to $2.6 Million...Canadian advertisers will pay about $100,000 for the same spot...why is that? US advertisers will reach about 90 Million people. Their commercials are only aired on a US feed...the Canadian advertisers reach an audience of about 4 Million...they get piped into CBS and Global feeds during the US commercials. Makes sense now I guess!!! The major Canadian Advertisers are McCain, Labatt's, GM and Rogers. In the US??? Anheuser- Busch is the biggest dollar donator. You may not like Bud but most of you love their commercials!!!!
So where does the power of the internet play in all of this??? Quite simply, websites have been charging these companies extra to show their ads online after the game. Can you smell the cash being generated here? First they pay the networks to show their ads to a US only audience then they pay a website (YouTube, AOL, iFilm) to show them to the world. Unfortunately, I can't find any info on how much the websites are getting...I would imagine this info will become available in the near future!!! Suffice to say...the Super Bowl and the NFL is a money-generating machine that stays on top of technology!!! And who says sports is for neanderthals!?!?!?

Anyway, on with the sports side of things...this epic battle features a little bit of history right of the top. For the first time there will be an African-American coach with a Super Bowl ring. Both coaches, Lovey Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts, are African-American so history will be made.
The tale of the tape shows that this will be a very entertaining game...Super Bowls of the past have boasted the same but rarely lived up to the hype!!! Keep one thing in mind...the Super Bowl is all about the hype...inside the numbers...who's best in the red zone...the best record of getting a 1st down when they're 3rd and long...it's all crazy stuff but the fans eat it up!!!!
When all is said and done everyone hopes for a very tight game that is decided on the last play. Unfortunately, I'd bet that this game will be decided by the end of the first half!!! Most Super Bowl's of the past have been lopsided victories that were decided by the end of the half and I think this one will as well.

My Prediction
The Colts offence was ranked 3rd in the regualr season and the Bears defence was ranked 5th. They say that defence wins championships (see the Ravens in 2001) but I can't see the Bears working the magic on this one!!! Peyton Manning has alot to prove...he just got the Tom Brady monkey off his back and his time is now to win the championship. You have to score some points to win this game and if you just look at the quarterbacks it becomes quite clear that this will be a walk-away win for the Colts. In the last 5 games Peyton Manning threw 178 footballs and completed 118 of them for 1433 yards...in that same span Rex Grossman threw 134 and completed 70 of them for 803 yards...PATHETIC numbers!!! If it wasn't for their defence the Bears wouldn't even be here!!! And they'll need more than that to beat the Colts!!!

My pick is the Colts over the Bears by a score of 30-13!!!!

As usual, any comments would be appreciated!!!

CHEERS!!!
Rokpig

NHL All Star Game

G'day folks,

As the NHL All Star week kicks off tonight I thought it would be a good time to send out another blog. Tonight's festivites include the YoungStars Game. This game will boast the NHL's very impressive rookie class. This game is played as a 4-on-4 format and the All Star skills competition will follow...that is usually quite entertaining as well.

This year's rookie class includes some of the best players in the game...some surprising and some not so surprising. Names like Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Phil Kessel, and Jussi Jokinen were almost expected to be chosen but pleasant surprises like Kari Lehtonen, Andrej Meszaros, Patrick Eaves, Peter Budaj, Ryan Getzlaf, and Lee Stempniak should make this game a pretty good show!!! Call me biased but I'm going with the East on this one...between Malkin, Kessel, and Eaves I think the goals will come fast and furious!!!!

The Skills Competition is quite entertaining...you see alot of the comradery between the players even if they're from the opposing teams. Here's a run-down on the some of the skills:

Puck Control Relay The last winner of this event was Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets. It's impossible to say who will win it because you don't know who signs up for what event but I'd guess if Alexander Ovechkin enters this one then he gets it hands-down!!!

Fastest Skater Scott Niedermayer won this last and I wouldn't put it past him to get it again however there are some younger legs out there though and my guess is Martin Havlat might blow the doors off everyone this year!!!

Hardest Shot Al MacInnis used to own this one!!! Last time there was a tie...Sheldon Souray and Adrian Aucoin at 102.2 mph...that's fast!!!! Hate to be a goalie in this league!!! That being said, I saw Zdeno Chara crank out a slapshot at the Sens Skills competition that was at least 102 mph...I'm going with Chara to do it again at the skills competition!!!

Accuracy Shooting My man Ray Bourque used to be the man to beat at this one...believe it or not Jeremy Roenick has owned it the last 2 years!!! Well, he's not there this time so the torch will be passed...judging by the dryer in his parent's house I think Sydney Crosby will get this one!!!

Goaltender's Competition The winning goalie will be decided by the best record in both the In the Zone and Shootout competitions...Roberto Luongo won it last time...the popular choice will be Martin Brodeur but I'm going to buck the trend on this one and go with Ryan Miller...hey, call me crazy!!!!

As for the actual All Star Game it's a no-brainer...the fire-power and the goaltending is so lopsided this year...it will be the East by at least 5 goals!!!!

Enjoy the fun folks!!!!
We'll see how close I get!!!!

Check out NHL.com to get the line-up and more info on the festivities!!!!

CHEERS!!!!
Rokpig!!!!

What a Weekend!!!!!

Happy Monday sport's fans!!!! What a weekend!!! CBC had Hockey Day in Canada and all 6 Canadian teams played each other!!! Not to mention all but 2 teams in the NHL played at some point during that day!!! Not sure if everyone is familiar with the concept of Hockey Day in Canada...so I'll try and capture it in a nutshell. Basically, CBC holds a contest to see who will be the host city for the main show. This contest is based on the best feel-good story as well as funds raised for charities plus the level of volunteerism. Many cities across Canada will submit their own stories for consideration and CBC will choose one rfrom all of them. The others will still have some degree of exposure as well. CBC will plant a reporter in each of these small towns across Canada and will spend air-time showcasing each and every one...kind of gives you the warm fuzzies about the state of hockey in our great land!!!!

So in case you missed it...here's a general re-cap of the Canadian teams...
Ottawa 8 - Montreal 3 (in Ottawa)
Vancouver 6 - Toronto 1 (in Toronto)
Calgary 3 - Edmonton 1 (in Calgary)

I'm not going to go through all the other teams...suffice to say my Bruins lost to the Rangers 3-1...and that's all I'm going to say about that!!!!

Also, if that wasn't enough, the NFL play-offs were on this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday. AFC and NFC semi-finals were played and they were extremely entertaining games. On Saturday we watched the storied New Orleans Saints run past the Philadelphia Eagles for a 27-24 win!!! That rookie Reggie Bush is something to watch...always finding a way through the line!!! Then the Indianapolis Colts kicked their way past the Baltimore Ravens for a 15-6 win. The Ravens held Peyton Manning off the scoresheet but couldn't contain Adam Vinatieri's foot...probably the most prolific kicker in the NFL when needed.

On Sunday we witnessed The Chicago Bears beat the Seattle Seahawks 27-24 in overtime. Thanks to kicker Robbie Gould who kicked the tying field goal with 4:28 left in regulation from 41 yards out and then kicked the game-winner at 4:58 in OT from 49 yards out. Hard to believe this guy was a walk-on during training camp...he was a construction worker before he got this job!!!! Also on Sunday, The New England Patriots demonstrated why they've won 3 of the past 5 Super Bowls by coming from behind and scoring 11 points in 3:26 to beat the heavily favoured San Diego Chargers 24-21. What a game!!! Hell, the whole weekend was a great game after another great game!!! The remote sure got a workout!!!!

So after all this excitement on the weekend I still found a bunch of issues. There was a confrontation between Tomlinson and "someone" from the New England team...there was no footage and none can be found. The NFL has more cameras in so many locations than any other sport yet they have no footage of the incident. It happened so fast last night that you knew something happened but you weren't sure. And the networks didn't go back and try to find anything on it...if they did it wasn't shown on the channel I was watching!!!

No post-game news conferences for any of the Hockey Day in Canada games...very little post-game coverage for the NFL games. I just want to hear what's going on in their heads!!!

Well...that's it for now...I will blog again next week!!! Till then enjoy your sports!!!

CHEERS!!!
Rokpig...

Opening Face-Off

HELLO SPORTS FANS!!!!
Well...let's see if this blog site works better than the others I've tried!!! Hopefully you won't have to register here in order to give your opinions and/or feedback to my blog. You should be able to reply anonymously if you don't feel like registering.

Let me introduce myself...I'm a huge sports nut who suffers annually due to his favourite teams' inability to rise to the occassion year in and year out!!! I'm a Boston Bruins fan...an Oakland Raiders fan, and a Boston Red Sox fan!!!! I must be crazy but that's the life of a fan. But enough about me...I want to know about what drives other sports' fans crazy.

I'm hoping use this forum to solicit opinions on sports information. What sports information is available as compared to what you want. Do you feel slighted because you missed a highlight on TSN because you were brushing your teeth...now you have to wait for it to be replayed which is basically in another hour. Do you want to hear what coaches say after the game...whether it's the winning coach or the losing coach? Why can't I pick the 3 stars of the game...or the turning point of the game? What makes Molson's, TSN, or NBC the judge of something that should be fan-based?

Basically, I'd like to know what other sports fans want to have as part of their daily info fix!!! Any comments would be appreciated!!!

My fingers are crossed that this blog works...

CHEERS!!!!
Rokpig!!!!