This past weekend was a chance for two sports to shine.

The NHL was in the midst of the inaugural 4 Nations tournament, while the NBA was having their All-Star Weekend festivities. Both would offer opportunities for two leagues to gain much needed fan support.

NHL swings but misses

The NHL has been trying to grow their game for decades. Hockey is a tough game to understand in terms of rules, and many have always complained about the difficulties of following the puck. The league has done well to expand to new cities and draw in more fans. The problem is they don’t really emphasize the right things.

With a larger than normal audience —and the U.S. taking on Canada— this is how they chose to begin the game.

 

Three fights in nine seconds. Wonderful. Great way to showcase the stars of your game. The powers that be heard the crowd go nuts for the fights. I am sure they loved it. Passion and grit. Their mindset will never change. If the crowd craves violence, then why not give it to them. Except that isn’t what your sport is about. Fighting is low hanging fruit, and humans love low hanging fruit. 95% of the fans cheering have never thrown a punch in their life. 100% of the fans cheering have never come close to doing what the NHL stars can do on skates. So, why not spotlight that?

In this instance, the American players were apparently upset because the Canadian fans booed the National Anthem. Of course they booed. Another guy who likes low hanging fruit keeps telling Canada they are going to become something they want nothing to do with, the 51st state. Here is a perfect explanation from a Canadian.

 

It seemed to motivate the Americans, as they went on to win and end Sidney Crosby’s 26 game win streak with team Canada. Surely motivation can come some other way.

The league has allowed fighting to continue and, quite frankly, be encouraged. Goons can cheap shot players left and right and get minimal punishment.

Players like Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Austin Matthews, Nathan McKinnon, and many more can do amazing things with the puck, while skating circles around opponents. That is what you should want new fans coming for and old fans staying to cheer. That is what is great about hockey, not fighting. And nobody is suggesting to lose the physicality. A great(and legal) check into the boards can energize a team and the fans. Why can’t the legal hits be enough?

Not surprisingly, hockey failed Saturday night.

I really don’t understand the need to interrupt the regular season to hold this event in the first place. It is bad enough we now send professionals to the Olympics, which interrupts the season every four years. I know the players love playing for their country, and that is a commendable attitude. But these guys are professionals now, and they get paid a ton of money to play for their NHL team vying for a Stanley Cup. Allow amateurs to play in these events.

Hockey took an unnecessary event, threw in a ridiculous nine seconds of staged fighting —after the first fight Tkachuk and Bennett planned the second fight— and accepted the cheers from the blood thirsty, red meat loving fans.

Wake me up when the NHL playoffs start.

NBA All-Star air ball 

Meanwhile, the NBA was busy tweaking, re-tweaking, and re-tweaking the re-tweaks of the All-Star Weekend events.

The NBA is bleeding fans because their product flat out sucks. It is a three point shooting contest with guys that are lousy three point shooters. Defense is still optional. So, maybe a fun All-Star Weekend with some fan friendly events would help put the sport in a brighter light.

 

Okay, maybe not.

Well, at least the dunk contest would be exciting. 

The good news is Mac McClung is one helluva dunker. Here is the show he put on to win his third straight crown as best dunker.

 

The bad news is the guy nobody can beat in the dunk contest has played 5 games in his 4 year NBA career. Remember when Jordan, Wilkins, Dr. J were some of the best in the game AND won the dunk contest?

The all star game itself has been a lost cause for well over a decade. This year they split players into four teams, including guys who weren’t selected to be an all star. Okay, so the answer to “they can’t possibly make the all star game worse” is a resounding “yes they can possibly make the game worse”.

Here is a statistic that won’t win the NBA any points with fans.

 

They drew a good crowd again, but the NBA certainly didn’t showcase much of anything, minus a guy not good enough to play in the league but who dunks like a madman.

The NHL and NBA want to maintain their fanbase and hopefully expand that base. The NHL has been trying for years to get more fans. The NBA is trying not to bleed out. Neither sport took advantage of a marquee showcase for their respective sports.

Instead both leagues showcased the stupidity that seems to rule the day.

The NHL took an event that began with two of the greats, Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby, being cheered wildly by hockey fans in Canada and proceeded to reduce themselves to the lowest hanging fruit, fighting.

The NBA had stars try to cheat during a silly skills competition, had a fan beat Damien Lillard in a three point contest, and allowed non all stars to play in a commercial filled all star game.

What a lousy weekend from two sports that couldn't afford to waste the opportunity. 

Two Cent Takes

MLB

~The Pittsburgh Pirates continue to amaze. Each week brings a bigger example of incompetence from the previous week. This week it was reported that newly acquired first baseman Spencer Horowitz would miss at least 6-8 weeks due to having wrist surgery. The incompetent part is Cherington admitted they knew Horowitz had a wrist issue but felt it wasn’t a deal breaker. Hmm, a wrist injury for an alleged power hitter doesn’t seem ideal. The Pirates traded Luis Ortiz, an above average pitcher plus two prospects for a guy who could potentially never play. The Pirates have become a parody of themselves.

Golf

~Another week, another foreign winner. Ludvig Aberg came from behind on Sunday to claim victory. Aberg is a star in the making, and yet another foreign player who will torture American players for years to come.

~Amid rumors of Trump getting involved with the golf negotiations between LIV and the PGA, LIV officials tried to claim their tour has the bulk of the top 50 players in the world. As usual, LIV never allowing facts to get in the way of their narrative. Their debut on FOX was greeted with horrible ratings. 

College Hoops

~My pick to win it all was Kansas. The Jayhawks are sinking fast, alternating wins and losses ever since finding a way to lose to Houston in double overtime after having the game won about five times. It turns out Hunter Dickinson is a team wrecker. It isn’t all his fault, as some of the other transfers haven’t panned out. But Dickerson seemed to screw things up at Michigan and now he is bleeding Kansas.

~ESPN spent most of Gameday, which is a terrible product right now, touting Duke as the team to beat come March. Big surprise. There are 15 teams with more quad 1 wins than the Blue Devils. Look, Duke was one of my Final Four picks but it seems premature to anoint them the best team. Of course it is ESPN.

~Nobody thrives on being the heel more than Danny Hurley. Creighton did dollar beer night and the crowd was relentlessly on Hurley all night. After winning, Hurley played the heel to a tee.

 

~Later in the week, Hurley was after the officials again. This video of a late game “steal” that led to the winning bucket for Seton Hall shows why Hurley was hot.

 

Folks, that is a takedown. Cost his team the game. I get why he yells at officials. 

~Officiating has been really bad this year, including the fact officials want to review every play in the last two minutes. Usually the review is to adjust the clock by two tenths of a second. It is ridiculous. In the USC/Minnesota game I saw a new one. USC up one and had inbounded the ball. After three dribbles up court with 25 seconds left in the game the official blew his whistle because the Minnesota coach claimed he called timeout. Not only did he stop the play, the official granted the timeout. Now forced to have a side inbounds, USC turned it over and Minnesota went on to win. There is no excuse for the poor officiating, other than the same officials referee night after night after night. They need more breaks, both their mind and body.

~USC coach Eric Musselman can dream of one day having the atmosphere in the Galen Center that the USC/UCLA game created last week.

 

~Women’s basketball just refuses to maximize what they have. Caitlin Clark(and Angel Reese, of course) brought back the fans and excitement to the women’s game. Then they left her off the Olympic team and allowed her to get bludgeoned most of her rookie season in the WNBA. USC was ranked 6 and have the new must watch player in JuJu Watkins. The Trojans were hosting crosstown rival and number 1 ranked UCLA. It was a marquee matchup. So, where could I watch the game? On a Thursday night streaming on Peacock. Idiotic. This game should always be scheduled for Saturday. Then when it is this type of matchup you put it on national TV.

~In my season preview I said Penn State would struggle to be .500. I thought I was going to be very wrong a month ago. Now, it looks like I will be exactly right about the Nittany Lions. Not only will Mike Rhodes have to win next season, but he will have to win over the fans like he’s starting from scratch.

~I said Micah Shrewsberry may be sorry he left Penn State for Notre Dame. Notre Dame is not an easy place to win in basketball. The Irish have never been to a Final Four, though Digger Phelps and Mike Brey got them to the Dance somewhat consistently. Shrewsberry also has the difficult task of coaching his son, who is a bit overrated. I don’t know if Shrewsberry is feeling the heat, but he may be after this tantrum.

 

The Weekly Shiny Penny

I have never been a big fan of Tom Izzo, but there is no denying he is one of the best to ever walk the sidelines in college basketball history. Izzo broke Bobby Knight’s wins record last weekend, and this tribute shows the respect and love Izzo has garnered over his long, successful career.

 

A Penny For My Final Thought…

I am both a college football and college hoops junkie. I will pretty much watch games every night of the week when available.

There has always been something special about a college football Saturday, but college basketball has a scheduling advantage to make their Saturdays(and other days) even better.

Most teams in college football are dumbing down their out of conference schedules, leaving a handful of primo conference matchups for fans to wait for anxiously. That may change if this week’s talks go somewhere. The Big Ten and SEC sound like they want playoff expansion and with that would come an agreement to play games against one another in the regular season.

Until that happens we will continue to get one really good Saturday of games every now and then. 

College basketball is also talking about expanding their tournament, which seems like a mistake. That decision aside, almost every Saturday is loaded with great matchups from noon to midnight. It also helps that hoops is played during miserable winter months that leaves people longing for good television.

This past Saturday included a number 1 vs number 2 game between Auburn and Alabama, Houston/Arizona, Tennessee/Vanderbilt, Wisconsin/Purdue, Texas A&M/Arkansas, Michigan St/Illinois, Kentucky/Texas, Mississippi St/Ole Miss. That list doesn’t include Seton Hall’s upset of UConn, Utah’s upset of Kansas, and a bubble busting game between Wake Forest and SMU.

Since 65 teams make the tournament, there are way more teams playing important games late in the season. And every Saturday is similar. The next day, on Sunday, we got Ohio State/Michigan, St. John’s/Creighton, and more. So many good games that matter.

Don’t get me wrong, college football Saturdays are still must see TV, but college basketball features all day action on Saturdays while owning all the other days of the week.

I don’t want to see college football expand the playoffs, but if it brings us more great regular season matchups it will be worth it.

For now, college hoops has mastered scheduling and trumps anything college football can do.

Just my two cents…