Chicago
Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica
Sports Quote of the Day:
"I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports." ~ Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United States of America
How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Monday night's game, Blackhawks 3, Predators 2 (SO).
By Jerry Bonkowksi, The Sports Xchange
Michal Rozsival's backhander in the final round of the shootout got past
Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 3-2 win Monday at the United
Center.
The Predators' Taylor Beck had his shot blocked by Chicago goalie Corey Crawford, ending the game in the Blackhawks' favor.
Jonathan Toews scored the other shootout goal for the Blackhawks, while only Craig Smith scored for Nashville.
Missing their shots in the shootout were the Blackhawks' Patrick Kane, Andrew Shaw and Brandon Saad. Missing for the Predators were Patric Hornqvist, David Legwand, Sergei Kostitsyn and Beck.
In the overtime period, Chicago outshot Nashville 4-1 but was unable to capitalize, making the shots margin through the first three periods and the extra period a marked 40-27 edge in the Blackhawks' favor.
Chicago built a 2-0 lead in the game before Nashville scored twice in the third period to send the contest into overtime and subsequently the shootout.
Nashville finally lit the lamp at 3:56 of the third period when Legwand tallied his ninth goal of the season, assisted by Victor Bartley and Kevin Klein.
But that would not be it for the Predators. In almost a carbon copy of Legwand's goal, Nashville's Beck scored his second goal of the season at 7:26 by slipping the puck past Crawford's right side to tie the game at 2-2. Hornqvist and Legwand picked up assists on the goal.
After trouncing the Red Wings 7-1 in Detroit on Sunday, the Hawks looked significantly more like the team that began the season with a 21-0-3 record, the best start in team history - well, at least in the first two periods, when they built a 2-0 lead and played tough defense.
Unfortunately, the Hawks' defensive game fell apart in the third period, not only allowing Nashville to tie the game, but having the Hawks embarrass themselves at times with utterly poor defensive play.
Patrick Kahne got his team-leading 19th goal of the season at 12:10 of the second on a wrist shot that made the score 2-0. Kahne's goal was unassisted.
In addition to having a 2-0 lead, the Hawks dominated the Predators in shots through the first two periods (27-11), including a lopsided 18-4 margin in shots in the second period.
Chicago opened the scoring with 12 seconds remaining in the first period on Brandon Saad's seventh goal of the season, with assists by Niklas Hjalmarsson and Toews.
Crawford got his second straight start in goal for the Blackhawks. Typically, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville doesn't keep the same goalie in back-to-backs, but he decided to do so in this game, most likely because of the way Crawford starred in Sunday's game.
In the only other meeting between the two teams this season, Crawford and the Blackhawks beat the Predators 3-0 for Crawford's first shutout of the season.
Even with Sunday's sheer domination of the Red Wings in Detroit, the Blackhawks came into Monday's game still having lost three of their last five games and five of their last 10.
Nashville, meanwhile, came in with a two-game losing streak but had won its previous three.
NOTES: Before the game, the Blackhawks announced they had acquired veteran center Michal Handzus from the San Jose Sharks for a fourth-round pick in the upcoming 2013 NHL Entry Draft. Handzus has played 939 games in his NHL career, with 180 goals and 281 assists. This will be Handzus' second stint with Chicago, having been acquired in a trade with Philadelphia in 2006. Less than a year later, he became a free agent and signed with the Los Angeles Kings. With the return of injured Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp still uncertain, Handzus gives the Hawks maturity and veteran leadership. In 27 games with San Jose this season, he had just one goal and one assist. ... Attendance was 21,306. ... The Predators return home to host Columbus on Tuesday, the start of seven of their next eight games on home ice, including a rematch with the Blackhawks in Nashville on Saturday, followed by a return trip to Chicago on Sunday for the third game with the Blackhawks in one week. The two teams meet once more in Chicago on April 19. Chicago, meanwhile, hosts St. Louis on Thursday before traveling to Nashville for Saturday's game with the Predators.
Jack Pardee dies at 76: Friendly Texan cut wide path through world of football.
By Kevin Kaduk
Jack Pardee presents Walter Payton
with the NFC Player of the Year award in 1978. (AP)The NFL Network has garnered good reviews for "A Football Life," its biographical series on the titans of the game and the journeys they've led since starring on the gridiron.
But with all due respect to the production, they've so far missed a chance to chronicle one of the fuller "football lives" of the 20th century. It belonged to Jack Pardee, the native Texan player and coach who died on Monday at age 76 after a fight with gall bladder cancer.
Though Pardee's football life never landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, it's hard to imagine a figure with a wider variety of experiences and co-workers. Indeed, if you were looking to make a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" type game for football, Pardee might be an ideal candidate for the hub.
In more than a half century of football, Pardee ... • Was one of Bear Bryant's famed "Junction Boys," the 35-man class that survived a brutal Texas heat and a 10-day training camp in the coach's first year at Texas A&M. Pardee would go on to become an All-American in College Station in 1956.
''Not only did we lose a Texas A&M legend today, we lost a man who was a legend at every level of football,'' Texas A&M athletics director Eric Hyman said in a statement.
• Was a two-time All-Pro linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins from 1957-73 and helped lead the Redskins to the NFC title and their first Super Bowl appearance in 1972. Served on George Allen's coaching staff the year after retiring.
• Served as Walter Payton's first pro coach when he led the Chicago Bears from 1975 to '77. He broke the Bears' 14-year playoff drought by winning the final six games of the '77 season.
• Coached the Redskins from 1978-80.
• Coached in both the World Football League AND the USFL (Houston Gamblers).
• Reinvented himself as a college coach at a sanction-bound University of Houston, installed the run 'n shoot offense from his days with the Gamblers and watched Andre Ware win the Heisman in 1989.
Andre Ware wins the Heisman in 1989 as Pardee cheers.
(AP)
• Coached a highly-entertaining Houston Oilers team in the early '90s that
featured the brilliance of Warren Moon, four straight playoff apperances and the
infamous Kevin Gilbride-Buddy Ryan sideline fight.
• Was known as "Gentleman Jack" for the way he treated people with respect, a not-so-small thing in the me-first world of football. (His son said he was never afraid to tell his family that he loved them with a kiss.) Pardee's legacy will live on with a memorial scholarship that has been established for walk-on players at the University of Houston.
“Coach Pardee was a genuine Texas legend,” Moon told the Houston Chronicle. “He was successful on so many levels. He had such appreciation and respect for the game.
“How many Texans do what he did?” He starred in high school (Christoval), played for Bear Bryant (Texas A&M), survived Junction and became an All-American. After his playing career (Rams and Redskins) ended, he coached three teams in Texas. That’s about as Texas as they come."
Doping: Darker side to glamour of global sport is worldwide. It must be eradicated to preserve the integrity of sports!!!
Reuters (editing by Clare Fallon)
Unprecedented levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents.
• Was known as "Gentleman Jack" for the way he treated people with respect, a not-so-small thing in the me-first world of football. (His son said he was never afraid to tell his family that he loved them with a kiss.) Pardee's legacy will live on with a memorial scholarship that has been established for walk-on players at the University of Houston.
“Coach Pardee was a genuine Texas legend,” Moon told the Houston Chronicle. “He was successful on so many levels. He had such appreciation and respect for the game.
“How many Texans do what he did?” He starred in high school (Christoval), played for Bear Bryant (Texas A&M), survived Junction and became an All-American. After his playing career (Rams and Redskins) ended, he coached three teams in Texas. That’s about as Texas as they come."
Doping: Darker side to glamour of global sport is worldwide. It must be eradicated to preserve the integrity of sports!!!
Reuters (editing by Clare Fallon)
Unprecedented levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents.
Now that the euphoria of last year's acclaimed London Olympics has dissipated, however, a spate of troubling stories in the first quarter of 2013 show an altogether darker and more disturbing side to a glamorous, multi-billion-dollar industry.
In January, American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview that he had doped before each of his record seven Tour de France victories.
His confession after years of denial followed the United States Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) decision to strip him of the title and accuse him of being at the centre of the "most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen".
A report from Australia's top criminal intelligence unit linked doping in sport with money-laundering and match-fixing after a year-long investigation. Six leading rugby league clubs, from one of the country's four football codes in a sports-obsessed nation, confirmed they were under scrutiny.
And Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, on trial in Madrid for allegedly running a doping ring in cycling, said in his opening testimony that he also had clients in soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.
Fuentes, who said outside the court this month that he might be willing to co-operate with anti-doping authorities, is appearing in court almost seven years after steroids and blood bags were seized in an investigation code-named Operation Puerto.
"The same people who are trafficking in steroids and encouraging athletes to cheat by doping are the ones who are engaged in illegal betting," said World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman.
"This is essentially money-laundering, bribery and corruption in relation to match-fixing and spot-fixing."
BLACK MARKETS
At a WADA media symposium in London in February, Howman said at least 25 percent of international sport was controlled by the underworld.
"The black markets supply a lot of pharmaceutical products before they are out on the white market," he said. "That's run by the criminal underworld, so a lot of the pharmaceutical stuff comes out in that way."
Rob Koehler, the director of education and programme development at WADA, told an anti-doping conference in London this month the drugs problem in sport reflected the problems of society as a whole.
"We are always trying to push the limit," he said. "Adults are cheating. Students are cheating, in fact they think they are smart if they don't get caught."
Koehler said one percent of the population as a whole was rich while the middle class was shrinking and the lower class growing. The position was similar in sport.
"Top athletes are making millions, some athletes make a modest living, most barely get by," he said. "But what some athletes used to make in their career they are now making in one year."
Doping's black heartland has traditionally been in the speed and strength sports of track and field, weightlifting and cycling.
But it has also become increasingly apparent that the nature of ball sports, which rely on a unique set of skills peculiar to their disciplines, has changed.
Baseball, with its explosion of home runs in the 1990s, is an obvious example and this year slugger Barry Bonds, the record holder for home runs, and pitcher Roger Clemens, a seven-times Cy Young winner, were not elected to the Hall of Fame.
WIDESPREAD DOPING
The pair, appearing on the ballot for the first time after waiting five years following their retirements, were linked with performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell report which detailed widespread doping in the sport.
Baseball is similar in nature to Twenty20 cricket, where strength as well as technique is necessary to repeatedly clear the boundaries. Rugby union players, who used to be a mixture of the big and the powerful and the small and the speedy, are now uniformly bulked up.
Tennis, as the five-set marathons now common in the men's game demonstrate, demands sustained power and endurance to an extent once unimaginable.
Even golfers, as the modern breed of players headed by Tiger Woods demonstrates, are now athletes working out in the gym as well as frequenting the driving range.
In England, the Football Association reacted to concerns expressed by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger about the possible use of EPO by announcing it would bring in testing for the blood booster, which was introduced into cycling in the 1990s.
"We have had some players come to us at Arsenal from other clubs abroad and their red blood cell count has been abnormally high. That kind of thing makes you wonder," Wenger said.
Wenger also called for blood testing in soccer, adding: "I don't think we do enough. It is very difficult for me to believe that you have 740 players in the World Cup and you come out with zero problems."
Roger Federer, a 17-times grand-slam tennis champion, also called for the introduction of biological passports, pioneered in cycling and subsequently introduced in athletics, which track changes in a competitor's blood profile which could be caused only by doping.
"A blood passport will be necessary as some substances can't be discovered right now but might in the future, and that risk of discovery can chase cheats away," the Swiss said.
"But there also should be more blood tests and out-of- competition controls in tennis."
WADA and its president John Fahey, whose six-year term ends this year, have never been busier and he told the London symposium there was no sign the bad news would end any time soon.
"As long as there is sporting competition there will be athletes who choose to cheat, and consequently a need to lead the fight against this global threat to sport's integrity," Fahey said.
"And, if the last eight months are anything to go by, that need is increasing in its urgency rather than receding."
LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan On Women At Augusta, Anchored Putters And The Career Of Michelle Wie.
Monte Burke, Forbes Staff
LPGA commissioner, Mike Whan, stopped by the Forbes offices recently for a chat. The 48 year-old former executive at Procter & Gamble, Wilson Sporting Goods and Taylormade Golf Company became the commissioner of the Tour in January of 2010. He made some waves last year when he told me in an interview that he believes that Augusta National (site of the Masters) should host an LPGA tournament, and that he asks the powers that be about it every year. (A short time later, Augusta admitted its first female members—Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore.)
The LPGA’s first major of the season—the Kraft Nabisco Championship—is this weekend. The event has a bit of extra buzz this year thanks to the favorite, the new world number one, Stacy Lewis.
The 28 year-old is only the second American since 2006 to achieve the number one ranking on the LPGA Tour’s Rolex Rankings.
During his visit here, Whan talked about the state of his tour and the debate over anchored clubs. And he ferociously defended the career of Michelle Wie.
Forbes: So, you started a decent-sized brush fire with your comments about Augusta last year. Have you made any progress with your request to get them to host an LPGA tournament? Do you think your comments helped raise the profile of women’s golf?
Mike Whan: I don’t know. I think it helped golf in general. I still have a regular conversation with them. They respect that I ask. Our women have played at St. Andrews. But I get it. It’s their brand. I’ll keep asking.
Forbes: Tell us about the new international competition you’re launching, the International Crown.
Whan: We have the Solheim Cup already, which is like the men’s Ryder Cup. It’s the U.S. versus Europe. We love that the Solheim, but with what’s going on in women’s golf these days, people were asking, ‘aren’t we missing something?’ For the women’s game we needed something else that included Asia. In July 2014 we will launch the International Crown, which will take place in off-Solheim Cup years. It will be a four-day event with eight countries and four players per country. At the end of 2013, we will take the four best female golfers from every country in the world and add them together to get a country ranking. The top eight countries will get into the event with their best four players. There will be two pools, A and B. The first three days, everyone plays best ball, everyone plays everybody. The top two teams from each pool advance to the final on Sunday, with one wildcard team. So you’ll have five countries on the last day, with each player playing singles matches against a different country. At the end of that day, the team with the most points wins. There is a twist: If there is a tie, the teams each get a sudden-death player. That player is chosen on Saturday night before the matches and put into a sealed envelope. There are no coaches and no captains. The players make all the decisions themselves. The idea for the event was to be different and give golf a fresh look and celebrate how global our game really is.
Forbes: You guys have never been afraid to try something new, right?
Whan: We pride ourselves on that. Whenever someone has a crazy idea, we want to be the test market. A few times a year we have the players take over the broadcast. Brittany Lincicome might be the producer and Stacy Lewis the walking reporter. It’s always a disaster. Camera Four will be focused on a bird and not the players. But it’s cool. It’s a way to get our players’ personalities out there. We were the first to put our players’ Twitter handles on the back of the bibs of their caddies. The players still can’t Tweet during rounds, though. We do that for competitive reasons. We wouldn’t want to get into Tweets like ‘Can’t believe that putt on 16 breaks uphill.’
Forbes: So how is the LPGA doing otherwise?
Whan: It’s been pretty easy for me to prioritize. When I came in, almost all of our tournaments were on tape delay, which is no way to establish a viewership. Watching sports when you already know the answer is no fun. We have much more live TV now, on the Golf Channel, ESPN and NBC, and viewership is up 70% in North America. And we have more tournaments, too. In 2012, we had 23 tournaments. This year we have 28.
Forbes: PGA Tour commissioner, Tim Finchem, recently came out against the proposed ban of anchored putters put forth by the game’s ruling bodies, the USGA and Royal & Ancient Golf Club. Are you with Finchem or the ruling bodies?
Whan: I’m not so sure that Finchem isn’t with the USGA and the R & A. The bottom line is that he has strong players who don’t want the ban. We gave the USGA our feedback and what I added to it was that we’ve been following the rules for a long time and will keep doing so. If they ban the clubs, as long as we have quality transition time, we will, too.
Forbes: How do your players feel about the ban?
Whan: The majority don’t have a strong point of view either way. Most don’t use the anchored stroke. We have a vocal minority that does. But we have fewer golfers who use those putters than the PGA Tour does.
Forbes: What’s your personal feeling? Is an anchored stroke cheating?
Whan: You can’t call it cheating if it’s in the rules today. My personal feeling is that I wish as an industry we’d get over it, make a call and move on.
Forbes: Do you use one?
Whan: I don’t, but it wouldn’t matter much. I’d have problems putting either way.
Forbes: Is your feeling that the ban will eventually pass?
Whan: I would assume so. I really don’t think this is about putters. It’s about a third point of contact. If it’s OK for putting, then it’s OK for chipping and so on. In the long term, they’re thinking ‘Is this the way we want to game to be?’
Forbes: Talk to us about Michelle Wie. She turned pro in 2005 and joined your tour with much hype in 2009. She’s only won two LPGA events in her career and has only had one top-ten finish in the last two years. She’s only 23, but she doesn’t seem to have fulfilled the promise that she once had, given the Nike endorsements, the ads, etc. Does that worry you? Does the LPGA rise or fall based on her performance?
Whan: I don’t think the tour ever relied on Michelle. This is a hard question for me to answer because I know her. It’s hard for me to grade her on just her golf performance. I look back at her and I see a Stanford degree earned while she was a top 30 player. I see one of the ten nicest people on the Tour. I don’t know too many golfers who have had their best years before the age of 23. I don’t know what the final story on Michelle will be, but it certainly hasn’t been written. Could she still win five, six, seven majors? Absolutely. Will she? I don’t know. And if she doesn’t, I still think she got the last laugh. It was always thought that she was pushed too fast. The story was about how we were going to screw her up. But that was all wrong. She’s a good kid with a college education and she’s super well-adjusted now and happy. She’s just not winning tournaments right now. But I know as a parent, she’s all you could ever want in a child.
The LPGA’s first major of the season—the Kraft Nabisco Championship—is this weekend. The event has a bit of extra buzz this year thanks to the favorite, the new world number one, Stacy Lewis.
The 28 year-old is only the second American since 2006 to achieve the number one ranking on the LPGA Tour’s Rolex Rankings.
During his visit here, Whan talked about the state of his tour and the debate over anchored clubs. And he ferociously defended the career of Michelle Wie.
Forbes: So, you started a decent-sized brush fire with your comments about Augusta last year. Have you made any progress with your request to get them to host an LPGA tournament? Do you think your comments helped raise the profile of women’s golf?
Mike Whan: I don’t know. I think it helped golf in general. I still have a regular conversation with them. They respect that I ask. Our women have played at St. Andrews. But I get it. It’s their brand. I’ll keep asking.
Forbes: Tell us about the new international competition you’re launching, the International Crown.
Whan: We have the Solheim Cup already, which is like the men’s Ryder Cup. It’s the U.S. versus Europe. We love that the Solheim, but with what’s going on in women’s golf these days, people were asking, ‘aren’t we missing something?’ For the women’s game we needed something else that included Asia. In July 2014 we will launch the International Crown, which will take place in off-Solheim Cup years. It will be a four-day event with eight countries and four players per country. At the end of 2013, we will take the four best female golfers from every country in the world and add them together to get a country ranking. The top eight countries will get into the event with their best four players. There will be two pools, A and B. The first three days, everyone plays best ball, everyone plays everybody. The top two teams from each pool advance to the final on Sunday, with one wildcard team. So you’ll have five countries on the last day, with each player playing singles matches against a different country. At the end of that day, the team with the most points wins. There is a twist: If there is a tie, the teams each get a sudden-death player. That player is chosen on Saturday night before the matches and put into a sealed envelope. There are no coaches and no captains. The players make all the decisions themselves. The idea for the event was to be different and give golf a fresh look and celebrate how global our game really is.
Forbes: You guys have never been afraid to try something new, right?
Whan: We pride ourselves on that. Whenever someone has a crazy idea, we want to be the test market. A few times a year we have the players take over the broadcast. Brittany Lincicome might be the producer and Stacy Lewis the walking reporter. It’s always a disaster. Camera Four will be focused on a bird and not the players. But it’s cool. It’s a way to get our players’ personalities out there. We were the first to put our players’ Twitter handles on the back of the bibs of their caddies. The players still can’t Tweet during rounds, though. We do that for competitive reasons. We wouldn’t want to get into Tweets like ‘Can’t believe that putt on 16 breaks uphill.’
Forbes: So how is the LPGA doing otherwise?
Whan: It’s been pretty easy for me to prioritize. When I came in, almost all of our tournaments were on tape delay, which is no way to establish a viewership. Watching sports when you already know the answer is no fun. We have much more live TV now, on the Golf Channel, ESPN and NBC, and viewership is up 70% in North America. And we have more tournaments, too. In 2012, we had 23 tournaments. This year we have 28.
Forbes: PGA Tour commissioner, Tim Finchem, recently came out against the proposed ban of anchored putters put forth by the game’s ruling bodies, the USGA and Royal & Ancient Golf Club. Are you with Finchem or the ruling bodies?
Whan: I’m not so sure that Finchem isn’t with the USGA and the R & A. The bottom line is that he has strong players who don’t want the ban. We gave the USGA our feedback and what I added to it was that we’ve been following the rules for a long time and will keep doing so. If they ban the clubs, as long as we have quality transition time, we will, too.
Forbes: How do your players feel about the ban?
Whan: The majority don’t have a strong point of view either way. Most don’t use the anchored stroke. We have a vocal minority that does. But we have fewer golfers who use those putters than the PGA Tour does.
Forbes: What’s your personal feeling? Is an anchored stroke cheating?
Whan: You can’t call it cheating if it’s in the rules today. My personal feeling is that I wish as an industry we’d get over it, make a call and move on.
Forbes: Do you use one?
Whan: I don’t, but it wouldn’t matter much. I’d have problems putting either way.
Forbes: Is your feeling that the ban will eventually pass?
Whan: I would assume so. I really don’t think this is about putters. It’s about a third point of contact. If it’s OK for putting, then it’s OK for chipping and so on. In the long term, they’re thinking ‘Is this the way we want to game to be?’
Forbes: Talk to us about Michelle Wie. She turned pro in 2005 and joined your tour with much hype in 2009. She’s only won two LPGA events in her career and has only had one top-ten finish in the last two years. She’s only 23, but she doesn’t seem to have fulfilled the promise that she once had, given the Nike endorsements, the ads, etc. Does that worry you? Does the LPGA rise or fall based on her performance?
Whan: I don’t think the tour ever relied on Michelle. This is a hard question for me to answer because I know her. It’s hard for me to grade her on just her golf performance. I look back at her and I see a Stanford degree earned while she was a top 30 player. I see one of the ten nicest people on the Tour. I don’t know too many golfers who have had their best years before the age of 23. I don’t know what the final story on Michelle will be, but it certainly hasn’t been written. Could she still win five, six, seven majors? Absolutely. Will she? I don’t know. And if she doesn’t, I still think she got the last laugh. It was always thought that she was pushed too fast. The story was about how we were going to screw her up. But that was all wrong. She’s a good kid with a college education and she’s super well-adjusted now and happy. She’s just not winning tournaments right now. But I know as a parent, she’s all you could ever want in a child.
Time
to start thinking about golfing in Chicago; a true hidden gem of diverse
courses.
Chicago Sports & Travel/AllsportsAmerica wants you. Golf season is upon us and for you diehard golfers that want to try something different, come golf in Chicago. Our group at CS&T/AA, Golf Options Illinois Forever, is ready to accommodate you with some of the most diverse golf courses in one location. Regardless of your golfing ability, we have a group of courses for you to play. We arrange your transportation, lodging, tee times and any miscellaneous request that you might have. There is so much to see and do when you’re not on the golf course. Chicago has wonderful architecture, excellent museums, very good ethnic food, a great night life, remarkable professional sports teams, a diverse population with unlimited potential that has earned it several nicknames such as, “The city that works”, The city of big shoulders”, “The windy city”, “The second city” and “A true world class city.” It all works for us and we want to share it with you. Come golf in Chicago. Email us at chicagosportsandtravel@yahoo.com and let us see what we can do for you. We guarantee you that all of our packages are very rare but priced super fair. Try us, we’re sure you’ll like us. We sincerely look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, “Have a great sports day!!!”
This is the goal-line technology system selected by FIFA for
the World Cup.Chicago Sports & Travel/AllsportsAmerica wants you. Golf season is upon us and for you diehard golfers that want to try something different, come golf in Chicago. Our group at CS&T/AA, Golf Options Illinois Forever, is ready to accommodate you with some of the most diverse golf courses in one location. Regardless of your golfing ability, we have a group of courses for you to play. We arrange your transportation, lodging, tee times and any miscellaneous request that you might have. There is so much to see and do when you’re not on the golf course. Chicago has wonderful architecture, excellent museums, very good ethnic food, a great night life, remarkable professional sports teams, a diverse population with unlimited potential that has earned it several nicknames such as, “The city that works”, The city of big shoulders”, “The windy city”, “The second city” and “A true world class city.” It all works for us and we want to share it with you. Come golf in Chicago. Email us at chicagosportsandtravel@yahoo.com and let us see what we can do for you. We guarantee you that all of our packages are very rare but priced super fair. Try us, we’re sure you’ll like us. We sincerely look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, “Have a great sports day!!!”
By Brooks Peck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpPGYn36Sw&feature=player_embedded
FIFA finally settled on a goal-line technology system that will
be used at this summer's Confederations Cup, and if all goes well, next summer's
World Cup. The German GoalControl system (demonstrated in the video above with
an overly dramatic soundtrack) does not require any modifications to goals, nets
or balls and uses high-speed cameras. When a goal is scored, the referee's watch
vibrates. So even if he's not paying attention at all, we shouldn't have a
repeat of the Frank Lampard disallowed goal against Germany in 2010.
The GoalControl-4D system works with 14 high-speed cameras (7 per goal) around the pitch at the stadium roof/catwalk. The cameras are connected to a powerful image processing computer system which tracks the movement of all objects on the pitch and filters out the players, referees and all disturbing objects. The remaining object is the ball and the system knows its three dimensional x-, y- and z-position with a precision of a few millimeters in the coordinate system of the pitch. When the ball passes the goal line, the system sends a vibration- and optical signal to the officals´watches. Of course, all camera images of such goal event, and also of all near-goal events, are stored and can be replayed anytime.
Tom Thibodeau Deserves NBA Coach of the Year Honors.
By Acamea Deadwiler
Just got the press release from Major League Baseball in which it sets forth how many non-U.S.-born players are on major league rosters. The upshot:
Two-hundred forty-one players on 2013 Opening Day 25-man rosters and inactive lists were born outside the 50 United States, Major League Baseball announced today. This year’s percentage of 28.2 marks the fourth highest of all-time. The 241 players born outside the U.S. come from the pool of 856 players (750 active 25-man roster players and 106 disabled or restricted Major League players) on March 31st rosters and represent 15 countries and territories outside the U.S.
The countries, with the number of players representing each: Dominican Republic (89); Venezuela (63); Canada (17); Cuba (15); Mexico (14); Puerto Rico (13); Japan (11); Colombia and Panama (4 each); Curaçao (3); Australia, Nicaragua and South Korea (2 each); and the Netherlands and Taiwan (1 each).
Later this month the annual report in which people make hay about how few U.S.-born blacks are in the game will come out. It will likely not make much mention of the fact that the game continues to be diverse in many other ways.
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