End of Decade Sports Chowdah Update- Whack A Bowl; Pats Rout Bills, Secure 1st Round Bison; C's Winning Streak Snapped? Must be Magic; B's Head South

NEW POLL UP: What a decade, huh? For those of you so inclined, I'm wondering what your thoughts are regarding the defining moment in New England sports between 2000 and the end of 2010. The best part is that there's just so much to choose from (I'm even leaving a few out for the sake of brevity). C'mon people! Celebrate diversity!

But with that said, I have some catching up to do. Between my shuttling around between Cape Cod and the southern tier of New York state as well as waiting out the blizzard this week, I was able to follow some of the NFL action on the radio (not so much the NHL, NBA or many of the Bowl games).

NFL: To hardly anybody's surprise, the Patriots came into Sunday's game at Orchard Park and routed the Buffalo Bills. The 34-3 win came thanks in part to two TD receptions by Buffalo native son and Pats TE Ron Gronkowski. New England was helped considerably by seven Bills turnovers, including five from QB Ryan Fitzpatrick. Brady was 15 for 27 with 3 TDs on the day while Gronkowski had 54 yards on 4 receptions, including two TDs.

New England will close out the regular season with a home game against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday at 1PM ET.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NFL: The NFL commissioner decided to postpone Sunday night's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings at Philly's Lincoln Financial Field as the region was in the teeth of a massive snowstorm.

The game was rescheduled to Tuesday night as many cities across the Northeast were digging themselves out from the global warming blizzard [OK...what is it about the Vikings- an indoor team, no less- and snowfall this season? You know those cartoon characters that are sometimes walking around with a rain cloud over their head? Substitute the solitary cloud for a blizzard dumping 3 feet of snow overnight and that would be the 2010 Vikings- NANESB!].

Last week's Sunday night game featured the nationally televised Sunday Night debut of one surprising NFC North QB in Green Bay's Matt Flynn. But there would be no Sunday Night game. There would be no Brett Favre on Tuesday.....or Tavares Jackson for that matter. Instead, the Vikings 6th round draft pick from the University of Alabama-Birmingham- Joe Webb- got the start for the beleaguered and depleted Vikings on Tuesday.

You'd think that even with most of their starters healthy, the Vikings wouldn't have stood a chance against the NFC East leading Eagles. Lord knows I did, but I watched anyways. As it turns out, I was glad I did as Minnesota staged a stunning come-from behind rally thanks to RB Adrian Peterson and the rookie Joe Webb.

The Eagles got out to the early 7-0 lead, but with less than a minute to go before halftime, Philly QB Micheal Vick fumbled as he was sacked by Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield. Winifield then scooped up the loose ball and returned it 45 yards to paydirt to tie the game at 7-7. The Vikings would then score on their first 2 posessions of the 2nd half, getting a FG off the foot of Ryan Longwell and a rushing TD from Joe Webb to take a 17-7 lead. The Eagles would take about five minutes to march down from their own 47 to score a TD of their own and close the gap to 14-17. But that would be it for the Eagles while the Vikings got another TD from Adrian Peterson to put them up 24-14, in what could only be described as a stunning upset given the way how easily the Eagles handled other (and better) NFC teams this season.

That would be the final from a snowy Philadelphia, and as the Brett Favre era no doubt comes to an end in Minnesota, I'm sure the Vikings fans had to have liked what they saw in QB Joe Webb who went 17-26 with 195 yards (as well as 6 rushes for 31 yards and a TD)



NCAA HOOPS: I normally leave the NCAA Basketball coverage to others, but I couldn't let the UConn Women's Basketball team breaking the all-time NCAA Hoops record for regular consecutive wins (either men's or women's) set by the late John Wooden's UCLA Bruins Men's Basketball between 1971-74 pass without mention. The Huskies 89th straight win came against #22 Florida State on December 21st at Hartford's XL Center, with UConn downing the Gators by a 93-62 final to break the 88 straight win mark set by Wooden's Bruins (Wooden's Grandson was present at the game).

The Huskies women's team is in the midst of a west coast road trip where they handled the University of the Pacific Tigers for win #90 by an 85-42 margin in Stockton, CA. Their next game will be a rematch of the 2010 NCAA Women's Championship between UConn and the #8 Stanford Cardinals on Thursday night. Stanford's lady Cardinals currently have a streak of their own going- 51 straight home wins- and was actually the last team to defeat UConn- an 82-73 win in the NCAA semifinals in April 2008.

NHL: Well, while I was away the Boston Bruins clawed their way back to the top of the Northeast Division and are working on a win streak of their own. Apparently getting out of town ahead of blizzard and heading to Florida was just what the B's needed (although they have been burned by Southeast Division opponents before).


One night after Blake Wheeler scored the only shootout goal (and a flukey one at that) to beat the Florida Panthers by a 3-2 final, the B's travelled to Tampa to take on the Lightning. Tim Thomas turned aside 31 shots and the venerable Mark Recchi got the game-winning goal on a power play with 20 seconds remaining in the 3rd. Micheal Ryder, Brad Marchand and Steve Kampfer also tallied goals for Boston in Tuesday night's 4-3 win (Ryder's also coming on the power play).

The Bruins trip through the Southeast will continue Thursday night as they travel to Atlanta to play the Thrashers for the second time in a week- Boston beat Atlanta 4-1 on Dec 23rd at the TD Banknorth Garden.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NHL: Preparations have been well underway for the 2011 NHL Winter Classic at Pittsburgh's Heinz Field on New Year's Day. There are some concerns about the integrity of the ice surface as the weather forecast for the Pittsburgh area is calling for temperatures in the high 40s/low 50s and rain showers for New Years Day.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are scheduled to take on the Washington Capitals on Saturday at 1PM ET, although both the league and NBC has said they'd be willing to delay the start of the game.

NCAA FOOTBALL: I have some catching up to do as far as this is concerned. As I'm writing this, it looks as though the Army Black Knights are going to hold off a 2nd half rally by the Southern Methodist Mustangs to win by a 16-14 final for their first Bowl win since I was in the Army.

As disappointing as the first trio of Bowl games were, there were some good ones to follow those up. Interestingly, this included some of the bowl games whose corporate names lent themselves to easy ridicule and derision (i.e the Beef O'Brady Bowl, Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl).

Here are some of the finals:

12/21- Beef O'Brady Bowl:
Southern Mississippi 28- Louisville 31

12/22- MAACO Bowl:
#20 Utah 3- #10 Boise State 26

12/23- SD County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl:
Navy 14- San Diego State 35

12/24- Hawaii Bowl
#24 Hawaii 35- Tulsa 62

12/26- Little Cesar's Pizza Bowl
Florida International 34- Toledo 32

12/27 Independence Bowl
Air Force 14- Georgia Tech 7

12/28 Champs Sports Bowl
#22 West Virginia 7- North Carolina State 23

Insight Bowl
#14 Missouri 24- Iowa 27

12/29 Military Bowl
East Carolina 20- Maryland 51

Texas Bowl
Illinois 31- Baylor 14

Alamo Bowl
#16 Oklahoma State 36- Arizona 10

12/30 Armed Forces Bowl
Army 16- Southern Methodist 14.

Pinstripe Bowl
Kansas State 34- Syracuse 36

A couple of random notes- Thursday's win for the Black Knights was their first bowl appearence since 1996.

The Little Cesar Bowl was the first ever appearance (and win!) for Florida International.

The SDSU Aztecs appeared in their first bowl game since 1998 and the win over Navy was their first Bowl win since the 1969 Pasadena Bowl (against Boston University).

The rest of the games for Thursday include the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl (Kansas State vs Syracuse), the Music City Bowl (North Carolina vs Tennessee) and the Holiday Bowl (#17 Nebraska vs Washington).

Friday's slate of games include the Meineke Bowl (South Florida vs Clemson), the Sun Bowl (Notre Dame vs Miami-FL), the Liberty Bowl (Central Florida vs Georgia) and the Chick Fil-A Bowl (#19 South Carolina vs #23 Florida State).

NBA: Humbug! The Celtic's winning streak was snapped on Christmas day at Orlando by an 86-78 final. The C's then swung through the Midwest where they beat the Pacers 95-83 before losing to the Detroit Pistons by a 104-92 final.

OTHER CELTICS NEWS: GM Danny Ainge announced Thursday that Kevin Garnett could be out for up to two weeks with a strained right calf after undergoing an MRI.

Shaquille O'Neal was fined $35,000 by the NBA this week after comments questioning NBA officiating and calling the referees 'control freaks'.

Point Guard Rajon Rondo is listed as day-to-day with a sprained ankle and has been out since the December 15 game against the NY Knicks. Doc Rivers said there was some swelling on the ankle that would make his return to Friday night's home game against the New Orleans Hornets questionable.

Weeknight Sports Chowdah Helping- 8 Is Enough For B's; Blocked Kicks Be-Devil #23 Arizona; Cubs Legend Santo Passes Away; Mind in the Qatar

NHL: He's baaaaaack!

A day after blanking the Philadelphia Flyers 3-0 on the road, the Bruins returned to the TD Banknorth Garden to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning. And on Thursday night, they had Marc Savard back in the lineup for the first time in 23 games.

But Savard's return was almost an afterthought as the Bruins simply demolished the Lightning by an 8-1 final. Lightning netminder Mike Smith was pulled after allowing five goals on 21 shots faced and replaced with Dan Ellis- who allowed 3 goals in 10 shots faced.

Victor Headman got the only goal of the night from Tampa and Tampa's Steven Stamkos- tied with Sidney Crosby for the most NHL goals- was scoreless in his 4th straight game.

David Krejci opened the scoring at about the 11 minute mark of the first and had two goals and an assist on the night. Perhaps surprisingly given the high score, there were no hat tricks on the night. Dennis Seidenberg, Milan Lucic, Shawn Thornton, Blake Wheeler, Mark Recchi and Michael Ryder also had goals in Thursday night's rout. Tim Thomas even notched an assist while turning away 37 of the 38 shots he faced.

The Bruins will head north next to take on the last-place Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

OTHER NHL NEWS: Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano is reportedly in talks with Pennsylvania businessman Terry Pegula regarding the sale of the team. Golisano founded payroll processing company Paychex [NASDAQ: PAYX] in the early 1970s and acquired the Sabres in 2003. In May of 2009, Golisano announced that he would be moving to Florida to escape New York's high taxes.

NFL: Love or hate him, the revival of Michael Vick's NFL career continued on Thursday night's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans.

Vick went 22 for 33 in passing with two TD's, along with a rushing TD and another 40 yards rushing in Philly's 34-24 home win over the Houston Texans. Although they trailed at halftime by a 20-10 margin, the Texans would pick up some momentum and take a 24-20 lead in the 4th before Vick rushed for one TD and found Owen Schmitt for an insurance TD with just over 4 minutes left in the 4th.

The win gives the Eagles an 8-4 record and puts Philly in sole possession of 1st place in the NFC East at the moment.

NCAA FOOTBALL: I did manage to tune in for this one, believe it or not. Although leading for awhile, the Arizona State Sun Devils were kept out of the end zone until well into the 4th quarter.

After taking a 6-0 lead into halftime, the Sun Devils trailed on the Arizona Wildcats first touchdown of the game and the 3rd quarter would close out with Arizona up 14-6 although the Sun Devils would cap off another drive with a FG to open up the 4th. Taking advantage of a Wildcats turnover mid field, the Sun Devils marched down the shortened field on a five and a half minute drive for their first TD of the game- and a successful 2 point conversion made it a 17-14 Sun Devils lead.

With 7 minutes left in the 4th, the Wildcats would turn it over again, this time failing to convert on a 4th and 1 at their own 29 yard line. However, they did manage to keep the Sun Devils out of the end zone. Arizona State had to settle for yet another Thomas Weber FG to put them up 20-14. The Wildcats would get the ball back with just under 3 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter and start off in good field position thanks to a 43 yard return from Travis Cobb. Arizona QB Nick Foles would then make a series of quick passes for gains of anywhere from five to 15 yards before scoring the game-tying TD with 33 seconds remaining in regulation, but Wildcats kicker Alex Zendejas missed the point after attempt, leaving the game tied at 20-20 and forcing overtime.

For the first overtime, the Wildcats and Sun Devils would trade field goals. Arizona State would lead off the 2nd OT with only their 2nd touchdown of the night, and while the Wildcats would respond in kind, Zendejas would miss the point after attempt for the 2nd time. Sun Devils win in double OT by the final of 30-29 and Airzona State is now bowl-eligible.

All in all, not bad for a Thursday night game. Slow start, but very interesting 4th quarter that I was able to catch thanks in large part to XM radio and ESPN3.

ELSEWHERE IN NCAA FOOTBALL: The first official Bowl matchup of the 2010-2011 Bowl season has been announced, with the Navy Midshipmen taking on the San Diego State University Aztecs in the 2010 Poinsettia Bowl on December 23rd 2010. Since Qualcomm stadium is not even a few miles from the SDSU Campus and there are several Naval bases in and around the city of San Diego, this would almost be like having TWO home teams going head-to-head.

NBA: Ray Allen went 1-6 from 3 point territory on Wednesday night, but nailed one with 10 seconds left in regulation as the Celtics nearly squandered a 96-80 lead in the 4th quarter against the Trailblazers and hung on to win 99-95. Basically, that was a third of Allen's scoring on the night, since he went 3-12 and was held to just 9 points- still, timing is everything.

Paul Pierce led the scoring on the night with 28 points- including going 4 for 5 from 3 point range- for Boston's 5th win in a row.

The C's will play host to the Chicago Bulls next on Friday night.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NBA: Well....so much for LeBron James' much ballyhooed return to Cleveland. The flagging Miami Heat rebounded big time in their stopover at Quicken Loans arena on Thursday night, with ex-Cav James getting 38 points on the night. This one wasn't even close, with the Heat running away with it by a final of 118-90.


MLB: WGN Radio in Chicago is reporting that former Cubs 3rd baseman and current broadcaster Ron Santo has passed away at the age of 70. Starting in 1960, Santo played 14 seasons in Chicago and had a career .277 batting average with 342 home runs.

He began his broadcast career with the Cubs in 1990 and was an unabashed homer who would draw a following because of his emotion and enthusiasm rather than a polished or matter-of-fact broadcast style. In 1971, Santo revaled that he suffered from type 1 diabetes and by 2002, he had to have both legs amputated

WORLD CUP SOCCER: The small Persian Gulf state of Qatar was announced as the surprise winner for hosting the 2022 World Cup Tournament by FIFA- the sport's governing body- beating out the USA, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

Qatar would be the first Muslim country to host a World Cup tournament and the tiny emirate has pledged to undertake around $50 billion in infrastructure improvements leading up to the tournament.

OK....a couple of things. What exactly are the laws in Qatar regarding alcohol consumption? Also- Do you see these young women?
Are they going to have to cover up in accordance with Islamic law in some countries? Because if so, FIFA might as well have just shot themselves in the foot (both feet if Qatar plans on being 'dry' through 2022). It literally has taken alluring and sultry Latinas to coax me to even feign an interest in soccer long enough to humor them, and if the female fans are now required by the host country to dress up like Bedouin tents, then what exactly is the point? If I were so inclined, I might as well take in a 2022 World Cup game in front a jumbo public TV screen in Buenos Aires, rubbing elbows with Porteñas clad in powder blue and white paint and not much else. And I suspect there will be more than a few actual fans of the game asking themselves the same question and coming to the same conclusion.

I know not every country in the Gulf reigon is as strict as Saudi Arabia, but this still begs the question regarding exactly how strict the rules are in Qatar.

[Hat tip to Marty McFly and Centaur of C2 for the updates of the Sabres and Ron Santo, respectively]

NY GIANTS.... ENOUGH ALREADY!

Ratings for this weeks GIANTS vs Eagles game 11/1/09

QB- D
C/ATT YDS AVG TD INT RATING
E. Manning 20/39 222 5.7 1 2 55.7

Giants quarterback Eli Manning was intercepted twice in this game AGAIN. Both of these turnovers led to Eagles' touchdowns. Eli Manning was intercepted twice in the first five games and now he's been intercepted six times in the last three games. ENOUGH ALREADY!


RB- C-
The duo of Bradshaw and Jacobs had a combo of 29 carries for 107 yds. Jacobs had 20 carries for 86 yds. Bradshaw had 9 carries for 21 yds and a TD. Brandon Jacobs was held under 100 yards for the 12th consecutive game.

WR- C+
Hakeem Nicks had four receptions for 53 yards and another "Awesome Grabs" game. Manningham was out for this game as a precaution with a shoulder injury. Steve Smith had eight catches for 68 yards. Moss should just be let go as he has contributed squat. Hixon coughed up a fumble on a kick off return.

TE- B+
Kevin Boss had 3 receptions for 70 yds and a TD.


OL- C
Only allowed 2 sacks but was not opening the gaps for the running backs. Manning was pressured and Blitzed heavily forcing arrhythmia with the offensive timing.


DL- C-
Who the heck lets a fullback scamper 41 yds for a TD? Osi Umenyiora had a sack after not having any in the last three games. Fred Robbins had a good play and was playing it smart to lateral it to Osi however it was overturned. Allowed 24 carries for 180 yds by the Eagles offense.


LB- C


CB/DB/Secondary- F
The secondary for the Giants was exposed in more ways than Candice Michelle in Playboy. WAY TOO MUCH separation.

Not converting third downs.