Worlds Apart

Maybe it would have been too much for all of us to digest.

Arizona Cardinals; Super Bowl champions.

We've dealt with the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup, and the Florida Marlins capturing the World Series. The NBA's equivalent? Maybe Golden State under Al Attles taking the title back in 1975.

But the former St. Louis Cardinals winning it all, well, that wouldn't have been Cinderella getting the glass slipper and the prince. It would've been one of the ugly stepsisters ending up ahead in the fairy tale.

The Cardinals didn't quite pull it off, ending a terrific Sunday that began with the Aussie Open men's final in Melbourne, included the Bruins-Canadiens and the Boss in the middle, and ended up with the Steelers getting No. 6 late in the evening.

What a day to be a couch potato.

Other thoughts from the weekend that was:

Santonio Holmes might have been credited with the greatest catch in Super Bowl history if not for the still unsurpassed grab of David Tyree of the Giants last year.

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To me, it was Ben Roethlisberger's ability to avoid the rush and scramble for extra time that ultimately made the difference. Roethlisberger is Fran Tarkenton in a big man's body.

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It was the second straight terrific Super Bowl, particularly the conclusion and third in a decade, if you count the 2000 heartstopper between Kurt Warner's St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans. That's a better rate of recent success than the Grey Cup, which last had an outstanding game in 2005 (Edmonton-Montreal) and only one other (2000, B.C-Montreal) in the past decade.

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LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR

Crosby and Malkin make a tough equation for the Penguins.

I'm thinking it was honest of Roger Federer to break down after losing to Rafa Nadal yesterday in a grinding Aussie Open final, but not great strategy. If Nadal didn't know he was deep inside Federer's head before, he surely does now. With six Grand Slam titles to his name, do we start wondering now how many Nadal will win?

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Given that every team sport now seems to produce different finalists every year, it's pretty clear Federer-Nadal is the greatest rivalry, individual or otherwise, in sports today. Nadal seems to own Federer now, but just in 2009 we have possible clashes at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open ahead.

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It's pretty apparent that a big part of the pro-fighting agenda in hockey is to take hitting out of the sport, a dangerous agenda indeed. We saw it again on Saturday when Luke Schenn, after a great hit on Evgeni Malkin, then had to drop 'em with Tyler Kennedy of the Penguins. The equation is simple: more fighting, less hitting; less fighting, more hitting. Frankly, I vastly prefer the latter.

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Doubt Brian Burke is going to go out and spend huge dollars on the free agent market this summer. But for a reasonable sum he might be able to bring in his entire checking line from the 2007 Anaheim team that won the Cup as Samuel Pahlsson, Rob Niedermayer and Travis Moen are all unrestricted free agents. Ditto for Ducks rearguards Francois Beauchemin and Kent Huskins. Bring in those five and suddenly you have a Leaf team with a lot more bite to it.

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It's pretty clear that the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to have to decide between keeping Malkin or Jordan Staal. They can't keep those two and Sidney Crosby and hope to be able to fill out the rest of the lineup with enough quality. Unless the cap goes up in the next few years - and there are those in hockey who believe it will go up, not down - having Malkin and Crosby at a combined salary cap hit of $17.4 million is going to make it tough for the Pens.

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Tracy McGrady was tough. Having Vince Carter force his way out of town was ugly, But if Chris Bosh were to bolt the Raptors in 2010 it would be darn near catastrophic in terms of public relations, and doesn't it seem as if the love-in between Bosh and the city is fading? He's getting booed just a little and doesn't like it.

Comments

[jboy]

And what makes Tennis boring? - Federer-Nadal in every final.

Or Williams/Williams in women's tennis.

Is there a reason why tennis even plays the first 4 rounds of any tournament? Who watches Ivanka KetchyketchyKova play Martina Hipswannadoya?

[chris]

This year's Super Bowl was a far more entertaining game than the one last year, where the lazy media (hello Mike Lupica) tried to brainwash people into thinking 1/8th of an exciting part of a game could overtrump 7/8th of an absolutly unwatchable excuse of football.

[Philly_Canuck]

Damien, glad to see you making the case for the relationship between hitting and fighting. I am getting tired of the so-called "stars" having hands-off stamped on their foreheads. I know this will sound sacreligious, but I wonder how successful The Great One would have been if he didn't have all those guys around to pound on anyone that hit him. Let's be honest, Gretzky played the equivalent of non-contact hockey, and if all these people advocating tough (read: fighting allowed) hockey would advocate toughness being required for ALL the players on the ice, their argument would be a little more palatable. I like the old approach of "you hit our best player (cleanly), we hit yours (cleanly)" and let players be tough.

[David Bacque]

Yahoo, I finally disagree, bigtime, with two of your points. First, Big Ben is Fran Tarkenton in a big body. Time to get out the films young fella - fully half the reason Ben is succesful slipping pass rushers IS the big, strong body. Tarkenton could simply make people miss - no comparisson. I'll take Fran any time any where. When Big Ben's feet lose a small step (in 2-3 years or less)he lasts a few weeks as a starter.

Second, fighting equals no hitting - according to your logic. That's pretty poor logic my friend. I have, after long deliberation, decided that fighting isn't a long term viable option. It has to and will go. The big issue is protection of the players and the integrity of the game. At this point the NHL, it's executives and on-ice officials seem unable to understand that player protection is very important. No liberties with the skilled players (clean hits good, head shot bad or some similar guideline), none of the what used to be called one of "European/Russian/no fighting" type of cowardly stickwork, kicking and headhunting. Until the powers that be can manage a game that keeps the face washing style of 'agitator' crap out we have a problem. Hitting is and should be part of the game but the league is terribly incompetant at protecting all it's players.....I'd rather watch Gretzky than Semenko any day, but you can't let guys deliberately injure a top player. Take a bow Fred Shero.....the worst thing to happen to hockey...ever.

[Guelphdad]

Interesting that the Super Bowl announcers were completely aghast when James Harrison bowled over the Cardinals defender and got an un-sportsman like penalty for it. Madden suggested he be thrown out of the game for it. And that for leaning on the guy's back and then shoving him to the ground when he got to his feet.

Hockey just doesn't get it with their views fighting.

[Buck16]

Schenn's hit was completely clean, Malkin wasn't injured and yet he had to fight, because that's the code. It's ridiculous.

In fact, a clean hit has only resulted in a guaranteed fight over the past couple of years, and I don't know why. Yes, Gretzky had protectors, but he was also impossible to hit.

There's a difference between fighting a guy for a dirty play and fighting a guy just because he hit your player (and it doesn't even have to be your best player anymore).

[PDS]

Damien: I'm interested to hear the rationale of those who believe the salary cap will go up. In light of rising umemployment (aka declining single game ticket sales and/or limited ability to raise prices) and corporate cost controls (aka lower rates of luxury box renewals and reworking of sponsorship agreements), the only way I could imagine the cap increases is through a significant fall in the value of US dollar (certainly possible), which would increase the contribution of the six Canadian teams. Is this what those people are implying? If not, any colour would be appreciated. Thanks.

[DamienCox]

Damien here. . .an answer to PDS. . .the explanation I received was from a high-ranking NHL exec who believes the Canadian teams will remain rock-solid no matter what, as will the Rangers, Flyers, Sharks, Wild and other successful teams. Pittsburgh is getting a new building, which means more revenue, while Boston, Chicago and Washington are on the upswing. Basically, his belief is that the NHL economy will withstand whatever damage is caused by a recession and problems in markets like Phoenix, Florida and Nashville.
His thought was that while the cap might go down slightly in 2010-11, he believes in five years its likely to be up around $65 million from the current level of $57 million.