The Sports Corner

Why Casey Printers is a bad quarterback

Casey Printers was involved in one of the most interesting seasons in the past 20 years of BC Lion football.

In his second season, I remember going to a pre-season game where he absolutely dominated Edmonton. I thought to myself “damn, it’s too bad this guy won’t even play this year.”

Then something happened that Lions fans would get used to for the next few seasons– Dave Dickenson went down with a concussion. BC Place went silent. I looked around at the distraught expressions on the faces around me in the 7-11 section (at least the ones who weren’t too drunk to pay attention). I tried to tell people that the guy they were bringing in might be even better than Dickenson. No one believed me.

Printers broke tackle after tackle, hooked up with Geroy Simon in the endzone time after time and won game after game. That season ended with Printers winning the league’s Most Oustanding Player award. What was more interesting about that season was that after he was given that award, he didn’t even play in the Grey Cup game he had lead his team to, as Dickenson was healthy enough for the start.

Then, something went wrong. After barely cracking the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs’ practice roster, he came back to the CFL with Hamilton, where everyone expected him to dominate. Maybe he thought he was too good for the league, maybe he got lazy, or maybe someone died, because he was never the same. Continue reading ‘Why Casey Printers is a bad quarterback’

Jordan: I wouldn’t call Bird, Magic

As the Miami Heat prepare for their most important season in franchise history with three of the best players in the NBA, LeBron James recieved a verbal shot to the mouth by his idol, the guy he’s changing his number out of respect for, Michael Jordan.

Jordan said that in his playing days, he wouldn’t have called up Larry Bird or Magic Johnson in order to bring together the three best players in the game to start a dynasty. And that’s exactly what LeBron did.

Now that we’re up to speed on that, Jordan’s analogy doesn’t exactly fit the situation.

When Bird and Magic were nearing the end of their careers, they were still dominating the NBA. Magic, for instance, was forced to end his career abruptly to deal with a life-threatening ailment. By this time, Jordan was just coming into his own.

At that time, Jordan, Bird and Magic were easily recognizable as the three best players in the league. Head and shoulders above anyone else.

The problem today? While LeBron is obviously among the top three players today, Bosh and Wade are not. Wade is probably in the top eight, while Bosh is in and around the top 12.

If the scenario were to have any similarity to Jordan’s situation, LeBron would have been calling up Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant to create a dynasty. But while LeBron and Kobe are as close as we’ll see to any player matching Jordan’s status, Bosh and Wade aren’t even close to Magic and Bird.

This, however, doesn’t mean that Miami won’t be favoured by almost everyone to win the whole thing next year. It just means that if Jordan were to team up with Magic and Bird, they would have won it in straight sets. 82-0 in the season, and 16-0 in the playoffs.

Miami might go 72-10.

Return of TSC

It’s been a while since this site has been updated. It went through its ups and downs– some days we’d get 10 hits, other days we’d get 800. It does help that American sports fans will view any and every blog on the internet that has to do with the NFL draft.

The Sports Corner started with four journalism students looking for a place to vent about college and professional sports, and provided a damn fine platform to carry that out.

As you can see below, when TSC stooped to levels of Cam Tucker’s AHL beat, well, it looked as though the site might be hitting its end. Each of us is either graduated from journalism school (or at least come close to it) or is working in the industry. Hosea can be seen regularly in the Canucks pressbox and dressing room as 24Hours’ sports reporter. Cam is up in the media room for the AHL’s Abbotsford Heat, Thomas will be spending the next six months in Vienna, and I’ll be sports reporting at the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times, along with being the Canucks writer for The Fourth Period’s website.

Continue reading ‘Return of TSC’

Heat will see how resilient they really are

The Abbotsford Heat will take on the Hamilton Bulldogs in Game 6 of the North Division final beginning at 4:30 p.m. PDT. The Heat trail 3-2 in the series and need to win tonight to force a Game 7.

John Lammers was the picture of despair at the end of Saturday night.

The Abbotsford Heat forward looked skyward then covered his head with both hands as he watched Ryan Russell slide the puck into a wide open net to put the Hamilton Bulldogs up 4-2 in the dying seconds of Game 5 of the North Division final.

Literally seconds before Russell sealed what would be an eventual 5-2 Dogs win to send the series back to Hamilton for Game 6 tonight and the Heat on the brink of elimination, Lammers missed a glorious opportunity to tie things at three goals apiece and send the game to overtime.

Lammers was sprung free on a breakaway from about 25 feet out against Dogs goalie Curtis Sanford thanks to a glorious pass from Mikael Backlund.

He deked Sanford nearly out of his pads and was starring down a wide-open 4×6 cage when the puck hopped over his stick and into the corner.

Continue reading ‘Heat will see how resilient they really are’

Penalty kill will be huge for Heat in Game 5

If there is one part of the Abbotsford Heat game that has needed the most improvement throughout the course of both the regular season and playoffs, it is, without question, the penalty kill.

Ranked towards the bottom of the American Hockey League since the first game of the season, it’s also the most crucial part of the Heat’s game plan because, well quite frankly, the team has never and still can’t run up the score like some of their potential post-season opponents in Chicago, Texas or Hershey.

Now, that’s definitely an optimistic view of things after just one game in which the penalty kill was flawless.

Hamilton, with characters of Brock Trotter and David Desharnais and despite the loss of P.K. Subban to the Montreal Canadiens, is still dangerous with the man advantage. Heck, they’re pretty darn good at even strength too.

Continue reading ‘Penalty kill will be huge for Heat in Game 5′

Heat don’t consider themselves underdogs against Bulldogs

There was a positive vibe and loud music surrounding the Abbotsford Heat following the team’s optional skate at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.

Less than 24 hours after they evened the North Division final at 2-2 with a resounding 4-1 win over the Hamilton Bulldogs, the Heat locker room was full of guys patting each other on the back while country music, a staple all season long post-practice, blared on the speakers.

Times are good.

And perhaps the time is up when people may have looked at the Heat as underdogs against the Bulldogs, the team that finished 24 points ahead of the next best team in the division, the Rochester Americans, in the regular season.

The reputation of underdog, said Heat forward Brett Sutter, never existed inside that dressing room.

“We respected our opponent but I don’t if we ever considered ourselves underdogs,” said Sutter, who leads the club in playoff scoring with 11 points in 11 games.

Continue reading ‘Heat don’t consider themselves underdogs against Bulldogs’

My night in the broadcast booth

Walking up the steps of the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, the last thing I expected on Friday was to step into the broadcast booth to do colour commentary for the Abbotsford Heat.

Sure, I had thought about it once or twice beforehand.

But lets get real here. Heat play-by-play man Dave Sheldon already had the savvy veteran experience of Sportsnet guru Craig MacEwen to help fill the airwaves on Country 107.1 FM and AHL Live.

If someone had asked me at 4:35 p.m. on Friday afternoon if I thought I’d be the colour analyst for Game 5 of the Heat versus Rochester Americans best-of-seven North Division semifinal, I would have laughed.

It’s not enough I’m a so-so sports writer as it is, flawed with a massive ego like everyone else in the print journalism world who claims to have the expertise and understanding of the game of hockey.

But then it happened.

My miraculous rise to super stardom. I won’t bore you with the ending. It didn’t last long, folks!

Sheldon, the voice of the Heat, approached me at around 5:35 p.m. on Friday, just under two hours before puck drop, and asked me to do the pre-game show with him.

“Sure,” I enthusiastically answered.

What the heck, right? This wasn’t my first guest appearance on the radio to offer my insight – or lack of – into the world of the Abbotsford Heat.

In fact, I had done the pre-game show before.

Continue reading ‘My night in the broadcast booth’

AHL Game Day: Jaffray in for Heat, need to win to force a Game 6

The Abbotsford Heat will look for a spark tonight with the insertion of Jason Jaffray into lineup in Game 5 of the AHL North Division semifinal against the Rochester Americans at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.

Jaffray, the Heat’s leading scorer this year with 25 goals and 54 points, missed with the last seven games of the regular season and the first four games of the playoffs with a groin injury, but he said he feels good enough to go tonight.

“I had two, three days of practice under my belt now,” he said.

“I feel strong out there and I mean hopefully I can create some energy for this team and get a big win tonight.”

Apart from his offensive and penalty killing capabilities, Jaffray also brings a wealth of post-season experience to the Heat.

Continue reading ‘AHL Game Day: Jaffray in for Heat, need to win to force a Game 6′