Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

It’s not easy being a dad. One of my rules was that my 14 year old daughter could not start dating until she’s 30. Yesterday, after she finished a kickball tournament, she was walking off in the sunset, with a boy. I’m not ready for this shit yet. Are there any fathers out there that can give me some advise?

Never in my existence have I ever allowed myself to wish the White Sox well, until last weekend. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and this years version of the Cubs are about as bad as it gets. I was hoping for a sweep against the Brewers, and was genuinely pissed with the loss on Friday. The Cubs can ill afford to lose any more ground to the teams ahead of them in the division. Did any of you feel the same way as myself?

At least with the start of the Crosstown Classic series on Tuesday, I can resume my rightful position of hating the White Sox and Cardinals. If you think I was stricken with “temporary insanity”, I apologize.

The Cubs have played like shit for much of this season, but still find themselves only 2-1/2 games out of first place. Last year this division got a bad rap, but when you add up all the numbers, it was tops in the NL in total wins.

This year is a different story though. At this time, not only the Cubs, but the rest of the division has collectively sucked. No team has been able to put a good string of wins together and start to pull away from the rest of the pack.

It’s there for the taking, but the Cubs have to start getting their shit together. It’s not early anymore.

Watching golf on tv is about as painful as stabbing yourself in the neck with pencils. It is the most boring sport on tv to watch. Playing a golf video game however is not.

In the last couple of years, I have got into playing Tiger Woods for Playstation 3. It is a game that is fun to play and very addictive. There have been times where I said I would only play for maybe a half hour or so then find myself on my ass still playing about an hour later. It is that fun. If you are looking for a new game to buy and you haven’t tried this series, you should consider giving it a shot.

There are two ways to hit the ball: With the analog stick or the 3-click meter which is hitting the X button three straight times for power and accuracy. I have had a lot of trouble hitting the ball with the analog so I have pretty much stuck with the 3-click meter since I started playing. When the ball is hit, you can direct the ball to land where you want it. The newer games are much more realistic as far as creating your own character and golf course. You can play online and throughout the game if you are playing alone, other players make challenges on how far the ball is hit and you can try to beat it for points.

For myself, I am a Playstation guy. You can play online for free and surf the net on the Playstation 3 unlike XBOX where you have to pay a fee just to get connected to play online. Plus, the Playstation has a built wi-fi and the system has a lower failure rate than XBOX. For people who are thinking about buying an XBOX, Microsoft was sued several months back because they knowingly sold systems that would burn out after a short period of time. But I digress.

Go rent Tiger Woods 2009 or 2010 and if you like it, buy it.  It is definetly worth it.

The Cubs are sitting at .500 after the first 50 games of the season. That’s about the best that I expected from them coming out of spring training. This is not a playoff caliber team. They don’t scare anybody, not even the Reds or Pirates, or even the Nationals for that matter.

I not only blame Hendry, but also Piniella for the debacle that took place in the offseason. Lou was given way too much influence as to how the roster would be assembled, and that’s not right. It was Lou’s bright idea to balance out the batting order and get more lefthanded. How good has that worked out? There was not one off-season move that I was in favor of. This was a 97 win team a year ago, and they should have just left well enough alone. The bullpen is a complete disaster, Soto has become fat and lazy following his ROY season, and Hendry failed to land a suitable backup for Ramirez in the event that he might miss significant playing time.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago in a thread that it wouldn’t surprise me if Piniella packs his bags and quits on the team. If the players don’t get their heads out of their asses and start playing winning baseball, Lou will be gone by the end of June. But to tell you the truth, I think the players have quit on Piniella already. Lou acts like he just doesn’t give a fuck anymore.

Well, the season for the Chicago Blackhawks ended by no one’s surprise losing the series 4-1 to possibly the best team in the league the Detroit Red Wings. While it looks like the Red Wings took it to this team, the series was closer than it showed.

I can’t sit here and say that I expected the Blackhawks to win the series. However, I did think they would take it at least six or seven games making it very close. I think Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet are two players to be looked at very closely in reflecting on this series.

If Nikolai Khabibulin could have just stayed healthy one last time instead of injuring his groin for about the third time this season, this team still may be playing. We will never know. Cristobal Huet sucked pretty much all season. He was put in net for game four and he showed why this team needed Khabibulin. In game five, he pulled a miracle out of his ass and saved about 45 shots. I think everyone can admit they were shocked. It wasn’t enough however.

Brian Campbell. He was awful all series long. And he wasn’t the only one. A few players lost the puck off the stick and Detroit scored goals right off of those turnovers. For other players such as Ben Eager in particular game four, it was just embarassing seeing him and other players just start fights after every stoppage of play. It doesn’t get your teammates fired up. It doesn’t do anything to make your team better.

The Blackhawks will be very good next season. They can certaintley get back to the conference finals. The only way I see the Blackhawks getting past the Red Wings for next year is to sign or make a big trade or the Red Wings just get old and slow. Khabibulin will be missed. I wish he could come back. Unfortunately, there is a shitty goalie signed for a few more years in Huet that has pretty much took his spot. I would like to see Corey Crawford get a shot.

So in a nutshell, it was fun following the Blackhawks all season. It did not end the way I wanted it though and I do not think anyone else feels differently. I went to my first hockey game this year. It was nice seeing more than 41 games on TV. I was  a fan of this team and hockey since playing NHL ’95 on Sega Genesis constantly. I was nine at the time. Roenick/Chelios/The Suters/Amonte/Belfour. You couldn’t stop that line. I still love that game.

I was a fan when Eric Daze was suppose to be the next best thing. I was a fan when Trent Yawney was the fucking coach. I remember listening to a game at work when the Blackhawks blew another lead for about the third straight game in 2006 and Yawney went off in a press conference. I think he got fired a few days later. Oh well. The times are much better now.

Til next time.

Yes. You. Go fuck yourself. You have had maybe two good games all year long. The team had a chance to tie the series up before Khabi went down. Thanks to you being on the team, the Blackhawks need a miracle to win this series against Detroit. You are the second coming of Jocelyn Thibault. My mom who is 4’11 can stand in front of the net and have more saves than you.

You are a useless turd. I will be praying to God that Corey Crawford will be the goalie next season. Unfortunately for us fans, that won’t happen. Why? Because you were signed for five years. Everytime you take the net, you are almost guaranteed to give up at least three goals.  Other than Brian Campbell, you are the only other person I hate the most on the team. There can be a pile of horse shit in front of the net and it could get more saves than you. Thanks for ruining whatever chance we had to get back into this series. Cristobal Huet you suck.

The picture below is something we have never seen in our lives as Bears fans: A quarterback on our team. This is what they look like. Weird huh? Now take a second to take it in. Now pray to God he doesn’t get hurt. For the best coverage of all things Bears, you all should check out the guys over at Fire Ron Turner. I also have their website link on the right side of the home page. Along with GenreBuster’s music site. Good stuff.

No “experts” are picking the Chicago Blackhawks to win this series against the Detroit Red Wings. That being said, they should at least put up a fight in this series that already has them down 1-0. Most fans were saying in the Vancouver series that if they just steal one of the first two games on the road, that home ice advantage will be taken away from the Canucks. The same goes for the Red Wings. I didn’t panic when they lost the first game but I was a bit concerned.

The defense was spotty at times and Khabibulin was getting attacked all game. He was making some great saves but I had the feeling he was going to give up some goals because Detroit was attacking him constantly. If you are going to say Khabibulin sucked then you can say the defense sucked with him. Turnovers were another problem. It seemed like Detroit was captatalizing on every oppurtunity they had off of a turnover. Too many of those lead to too many problems especially against a team like the Red Wings.

In order for the Blackhawks to win this series, they need to obviously win game two. If not, then start packing for the off season. Second, turnovers need to be limited. The one that stuck out was the puck going off Brent Seabrook’s stick that lead to the first goal. Last but not least, play defense. They cannot rely on the offense scoring all the time like they did against Calgary and Vancouver with Kippursoff and Luongo being in net respectively. Chris Osgood is very good. He made some incredible saves throughout  and I was surprised the Blackhawks scored two goals on him in game one.

Game two is Tuesday night.