It's a soggy, but happy Friday at my house. Here's what's happening....
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This is...uh, it's uhhhh....um, it's, ummmm, I can't remember what day it is.
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What an exciting game last night on Canada Day. In a rematch of the 2009 Grey Cup, the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Montreal Alouettes locked horns in a gigantic struggle to open the 2010 CFL season.
Montreal led 24-10 at halftime, then built the lead to 33-12, with about five minutes left in the third quarter, looking to be firmly in control and headed to a win. But the resilient Riders roared back with two long Darian Durant touchdown passes, a 43 yarder to Prechae Rodriguez and a beautiful scramble-pass to Rob Bagg, cutting the deficit to 33-26 after three. The Alouettes forged a 40-33 lead with 3:29 to go in regulation time, but Durant found Andy Fantuz just across the goal line, then Luca Congi converted :42 seconds left, tying the game 40-40 and forcing overtime.
Each team posted majors in the first mini-game(Teams scrimmage from the opponents' 35 to start). Saskatchewan got a 10 yard TD pass from Durant to Andy Fantuz and a two-point convert(Teams must go for two after a mini-game touchdown) from Durant to Ryan Getzlaf. Montreal appeared to fail on a third-down play on their second series of downs, but in a eerily similar instance to last year's Grey Cup game, the Riders were called for too many men on the field. On second-and-goal from the 1, S.J. Green caught an Anthony Calvillo pass in the right corner of the end zone. Green then made an incredibly awesome one-handed catch of a pass he had no right to get even close to at the back line of the end zone, tying the game 48-48, forcing the second mini-game(Teams play two mini-games in CFL overtime, with the game ending in a tie if there is no winner after the second mini-game). The Alouettes had to settle for a 42 yard Damon Duval field goal, which gave Saskatchewan the opening they needed. Durant came through, finding a diving Weston Dressler in the endzone on a post route. The sell-out crown of 30,945 went crazy, as the Riders, who appeared earlier in the evening to be doomed, pulled out the incredible 54-51 win, the second-highest scoring game in CFL history, and the most combined points posted in an opening game ever.
Darian Durant threw for 478 yards and 5 touchdowns to lead the Riders, with Andy Fantuz catching three scoring strikes. Dressler caught the game-winner, with Rob Bagg and Prechae Rodriguez hauling in scoring passes as well. Wes Cates was a spark plug on the ground, rushing 13 times for 112 yards and a touchdown. Anthony Calvillo had 368 yards passing and also threw for 4 touchdowns and Tim Maypray ran back 7 kicks for a combined total of 255 yards, including a 125 yard return for touchdown of a missed field goal.
Saskatchewan takes their 1-0 record to Vancouver next Saturday to play the BC Lions. Kickoff is at 10:00pm EDT. Listen links are to the right on this blog.
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Oh yeah, now I remember....It's I Forgot Day!
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Official 2010 NHL Free Agent list.
Track who goes where right here.
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July is:
National Blueberry Month
National Anti-Boredom Month
Unlucky Month for weddings
National Cell Phone Courtesy Month
National Hot Dog Month
National Ice Cream Month
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Today in Sports History:
1903 - Ed Delahanty (Washington) died from a fall from a railroad bridge at Niagara Falls.
1941 - Joe DiMaggio got a hit in his 45th consecutive game.
1994 - Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar was shot to death in Medellin. 10 days earlier he had accidentally scored a goal against his own team in World Cup competition.
1995 - Hideo Nomo became the first Japanese player to be selected for a major league baseball All-Star Game.
1996 - Alex Rodriguez became the third youngest player to be selected to the American League All Star team. Dwight Gooden and Ken Griffey Jr. were the two younger than Rodriguez.
2002 - A record 62 home runs were hit in 16 major league baseball games.
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The Wife Carrying World Championship begins today in Sonkajarvi, Finland.
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Marty St. Louis has signed a four-year contract extension with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The deal, reportedly worth $22.5m USD, takes St. Louis through the 2014-2015 season. St. Louis, a native of Laval, Quebec, signed a free-agent deal with the Lightning in 2000. Since, the 5'9", 177lb winger has played 703 games for Tampa Bay, scoring 263 goals, adding 396 assists, while spending just 206 minutes in the penalty box. He had 38 goals and 56 assists in 2003-2004, helping the Lightning win the Stanley Cup. That season, St. Louis won the Lester B. Pearson award as most valuable to his team(voted by the players), the Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP, the Bud Light plus/minus award and the Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading scorer. This past season, he was awarded the Lady Byng Trophy as the league's most gentlemanly player, after racking up 29 goals and 65 assists for 94 points, while spending just 12 minutes in the penalty box.
In other Lightning news from yesterday, defenseman Andrej Meszaros was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for a second-round pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. The team also announced a one-year, two-way deal with left wing Mitch Fritz, and a two-year deal with free agent goaltender Dan Ellis from Nashville. Goaltender Antero Niittymaki signed a free agent deal with San Jose, defenseman Kurtis Foster signed with Edmonton and winger Alex Tanguay signed with Calgary.
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Police in suburban Atlanta said they arrested a man who broke into a home to take a shower and identified himself to officers as "the Duke of Germany."
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The Tampa Bay Rays have won consecutive games for the first time since winning three straight June 6th through 9th, grabbing a 5-4 10-inning comeback win over the Minnesota Twins before 40,665 fans at Target Field in Minneapolis.
The Twins took the lead with 2 in the second. Justin Morneau scored on a Michael Cuddyer double, then Cuddyer scored on a Delmon Young single.
The Rays took the lead with single runs in the 4th(Carl Crawford on a John Jaso single), 5th(Ben Zobrist on an error) and 7th(Sean Rodriguez on Crawford's single). Young brought Minnesota even with a homer in the bottom of the 7th, then the Twins regained the lead in the 8th, when Joe Maurer scored on Jason Kubel's sacrifice fly. Crawford scored the tying run in the 9th on a two-out doble by Evan Longoria and the game headed to extra innings, tied 4-4.
In the top of the 10th, Tampa Bay's Willy Aybar singled to left. Reid Brignac scored on the play, with Aybar taking second when the Twins' Young attempted to throw out Kelly Shoppach at third, where it was ruled by umpire Alfonso Marquez that third baseman Cuddyer missed the tag(Replays clearly showed the call to be incorrect). Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire came out to argue the call and was subsequently ejected. The Rays couldn't capitalize though, and headed to the bottom of the 10th up by a run. Closer Rafael Soriano took over, shutting down the Twins in order for the 5-4 win.
Lance Cormier pitched the 9th for Tampa Bay, struck out 1 and got the win, improving to 3-1, thanks in part to Soriano's 19th save. Matt Guerrier took the loss for Minnesota, allowing a run on 2 hits with a walk in 2/3 of an inning. He's now 1-3.
The Rays are now 46-32 and are third in the A.L. East, 1/2 game behind Boston and 2 games in back the Yankees. Tampa Bay continues their six-game road swing tonight with the second of four games at Minnesota. First pitch at Target Field is at 8:10pm EDT. Coverage of the road swing is on 620AM WDAE, the Rays Radio Network and Sun Sports. After this road trip, the Rays come home for seven games, with three against Boston and four against Cleveland starting next Monday.
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Kate Gosselin wants to record a holiday album with her kids. (Please, NOOOOOOOO! Kate and eight will make things grating.)
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The Yankees lead the A.L. East by 1 1/2 games over Boston and 2 over Tampa Bay. Toronto is 9 back and Baltimore is 24 games behind.
In the A.L. Central, Minnesota is first by 1 game over Detroit. The White Sox are 2 games behind, Kansas City is 9 back and Cleveland is 11 1/2 games off the pace.
Out in the (not-so)wild A.L. West, Texas leads the Angels by 3 1/2 games, Oakland is 9 back and Seattle trails by 14.
In the N.L. East, Atlanta leads the Mets by 2 games, Philadelphia by 4, while Florida is 8 1/2 back and Washington is 11 behind.
In the N.L. Central, St. Louis leads leads Cincinnati by 1 1/2 games, Milwaukee is 8 1/2 back, the Cubs are 10 1/2 behind, Houston trails by 13, and Pittsburgh is 16 1/2 games behind.
San Diego leads the Dodgers by 2 1/2 games in the N.L. West, Colorado trails by 4, San Francisco is 5 1/2 behind and Arizona(with new manager Kirk Gibson) is still last, 15 games out of first.
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A Brooklyn, New York, woman has filed a lawsuit against General Mills, accusing the company of making misleading health claims about Fruit Roll-Ups. Payton McClure says the company lies when it says the rollups are naturally flavored, low fat, and "a good source of Vitamin C."
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Joe Macdonnell named USHL VP of Business Operations.
Gopher recruit becomes a Lancer.
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Jimmy just can't go a day without watching Elmo.
Jimmy hangs out with the Wa-Wa.
Snoopy stays out of the line-of-fire.
Mommy supervises.
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Today is the half-way point of 2010 and is also the anniversary of the disappearance of Emilia Earhart.
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Today in Elvis History:
1956 - Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog," "Don’t Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)."
1956 - Ed Sullivan called Elvis Presley's manager to see if Elvis would make an appearance on his show.
1958 - The Elvis Presley film "King Creole" opened.
2004 - Elvis Radio debuted from a specially designed studio in the plaza of Graceland. The satellite radio station features a continuous variety of Elvis Presley music.
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This is National Unassisted Homebirth Week.
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - USA Hockey will be well represented at the 2010 ESPY Awards on July 14 in Los Angeles. The 2010 U.S. Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Team, Steve Cash (Overland, Mo.), Blake Geoffrion (Brentwood, Tenn.) and Ryan Miller (East Lansing, Mich.) have all been nominated for ESPY Awards for the Best Game, Best Male Athlete with a Disability, Best Male College Athlete and Best NHL Player, respectively.
BEST GAME
The U.S. Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Team was nominated for its Olympic gold-medal showdown with Canada. Team USA's Zach Parise (Minneapolis, Minn.) scored with just 24 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the score, 2-2, and send the contest into overtime. Despite Team USA's eventual loss, the largest television audience for a hockey game in 30 years witnessed the U.S. capture its second silver medal in three Olympic Winter Games.
BEST MALE ATHLETE WITH A DISABILITY
During the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, Cash backstopped the U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey Team to its second-ever gold medal. He achieved what no other sled hockey goaltender has ever done by not allowing a single goal throughout the tournament. He turned aside all 33 shots faced in the five games of the Paralympics.
BEST MALE COLLEGE ATHLETE
Geoffrion won the 2010 Hobey Baker Memorial Award, men's college ice hockey's top individual honor, after helping lead the University of Wisconsin men's ice hockey team to an NCAA Division I championship game berth. He was also named USA Hockey's College Player of the Year.
BEST NHL PLAYER
Miller, a member of the 2010 U.S. Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Team and the most valuable player of the Olympic tournament, recently won the NHL's Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender in 2009-10. USA Hockey honored Miller with the 2010 Bob Johnson Award for outstanding performance in international play.
Begun by cable sports channel ESPN in 1993, the annual ESPY Awards allows sports fans worldwide to join in an online vote for their favorites in multiple categories. Fans can vote for the USA Hockey nominees here.
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Today is International Chicken Wing Day.
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Coming up:
Tonight --
Nascar Nationwide Series: Subway Jalapeno 250 powered by Coca-cola at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida 7:30pm EDT
Arena Football: Chicago Rush at Tampa Bay Storm 8:00pm EDT
Baseball: Tampa Bay Rays at Minnesota Twins 8:10pm EDT
Saturday --
Baseball: Tampa Bay Rays at Minnesota Twins 4:10pm EDT
Nascar Sprint Cup Series: Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola at Dayton International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida 7:30pm EDT
Sunday --
Baseball: Tampa Bay Rays at Minnesota Twins 2:10pm EDT
Indy Cars: Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen in Watkins Glen, New York 3:30pm EDT
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That's all for today. See you tomorrow!
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