Notes from a weekend

Around the world in a post, even if I haven't had much time to link anywhere but the most nearby places:

The Raptors are invisible no more. This may or may not be good news, depending on how you view preseason games on triple-digit TV - or if you view them or that region of the binary universe at all. The Raptors added yesterday's preseason game (boxscore), while advertising their final two home preseason games -- against Maccabi on Thursday, and against the Cleveland LeBron's on Sunday night. It's the scoreboard feed, mind you, but it is the local team, Chuck and Jack and Norma and the rest. An improvement, that, on the dark screens in the offing last week.

LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR

Bosh, Nesterovic: Just add Bargnani and serve hot, Sam.

As for yesterday, a couple of little items from said broadcast. Anthony Parker looks like a poor (and slightly smaller) man's Shane Battier. And Andrea Bargnani does have a lovely shooting stroke, as Jack Armstrong noted between fouls, and wasn't shy to go down in the post and demand the ball - this kid just oozes hoops class. Otherwise, no real surprises, to me, anyway. One thing I'd love to see before this exhibition season is out, as a preview to what we should be seeing later on: Mitchell to give a frontline of Nesterovic, Bosh and Bargnani some minutes together.

Other stuff:

Mats Sundin's tour de force Saturday night was the latest display of shoot-first, ask-later excellence from the revitalized captain. But correct me if I'm wrong here - I didn't see a single hat on the ice after Sundin's game-winner. If any hat trick deserved it, this one was it. Are we too cool for that, too, Toronto? Best pressure performance of the night, though, may have been the relief pitching of Cassie Campbell, stepping in for snowbound Harry Neale on Hockey Night in Canada and handling it pretty smoothly.

Argos DB Byron Parker had another superb afternoon on Saturday and is putting together a pretty remarkable stretch of football -- seven interceptions in nine games, and four of them returned for TDs, since signing on Aug. 6.

Petr Cech is still in hospital after that awful collision Saturday, with a fractured skull. The accident, and an ensuing injury to backup Carlo Cudicini, has touched off a debate about goalkeepers' vulnerability.

Blog fave Neate Sager weighs in on How Detroit Built their Miracle Team. Not even knowing who they're going to play in the World Series, the books already have them favoured pretty handily.

Comments

[Carla]

'Best pressure performance of the night, though, may have been the relief pitching of Cassie Campbell, stepping in for snowbound Harry Neale on Hockey Night in Canada and handling it pretty smoothly.'

Glad (although hardly surprised!) to see you say that, cy. I was disgusted (although hardly surprised!) to read the anti-Campbell comments by all the sexist asshats at the Leafs’ website’s discussion board on Saturday night--because, of course, [sarcasm]women can't possibly know anything about hockey[/sarcasm]. I thought she did a pretty good job—especially, as you say, when she’d had no time to mentally prepare for it! I am definitely a “traditionalist” when it comes to hockey broadcasts, but I certainly didn’t have a problem listening to a female voice. As much as I love Harry Neale's goofy jokes (and I do!), I didnt mind *not* hearing them repeated yet again this week. ;-) I thought that Bob Cole made a perfect match for her first play-by-play man because he is always so gracious to his partners.

Incidentally, Well Done, Mats! :-D

[coach]

bargnani has a sweet stroke alright but he plays too much away from the basket . where is his post up play ?

[cy]

Granted, Coach, Bargs looks best facing the basket. But he also went down there twice and asked for the ball. Now all they need is a PG who can make an entry pass.

[Dan]

Are we too cool to throw hats on the ice?

Well, perhaps no hats actually made it onto the ice, but I was at the game, and from my vantage point way back in the purples I can tell you for sure that a bunch of people at least attempted to get their hats onto the ice, with most falling short.

I would guess that all those in hat-throwing range of the ice are probably 'too cool', though, since hats don't usually go well with suits.

[Sean]

I, too, like the look of Anthony Parker's game from what I have seen thus far. He will definitely get untracked on the offensive end as he gets more comfortable figuring out where he fits into the grand scheme of things. He is thinking too much right now instead of reacting.