Saturday May 29th - Morning Briefing

Suns host Lakers in Game 6, Bettman sounds off

-Phoenix fights for for their playoff lives against the Lakers in Game 6 of the series, tonight at 8:30 PM on TSN. The way Nash has played these playoffs, if you miss this game, it's probably because you have to work. In other basketball news, Nate Robinson dominated the 2nd quarter with 13 points in the frame to put the game out of reach as the Celtics won 96-84 over the Magic. Fitting a small black guy would play that well on the day that Gary Coleman died.

-Meanwhile, at 8 PM, Chicago and Philly start their series. Refer to my previous post to decide who you want to cheer for. Both teams riding long Cup droughts, and both teams have horizontal stripes. Hard to cheer against either, unless you have a long standing personal vendetta against a player. And boy, oh boy, does my hatred for Blair Betts go far. (kidding)

-This is Gary Bettman finally being annoying on our side.

-UFC 114 plays tonight in Las Vegas. No Canadians on the card, but that won't stop us from watching. Rashad Evans and Quentin Jackson are the main event, with a feud dating back to last year's filming of 'The Ultimate Fighter' TV series. Jackson quit the UFC for his acting career, so he may have some ring-rust. Evans is coming off a controversial win over Thiago Silva, in which he won a boring fight but may have been knocked out briefly in the third round. The winner of this one gets to take on Shogun Rua, who recently took the light heavyweight belt from Lyoto Machida in Montreal.

-At the French Open, Aleksandra Wozniak of Blainville, QC, lost to Elena Dementieva in three sets. One of these days, Wozniak will have an opponent who's name I can pronounce.

-Toronto FC play the San Jose Earthquakes tonight, in what will assuredly be not in the top three most-watched sporting events in Canada. Just a heads-up.

-Taylor Hall didn't work out at the NHL draft combine. Tyler Seguin was above average on all the workouts (no shit). Taylor Hall will still go first, proving that the combine is pretty well meaningless and pretty much just an excuse for TSN to promote the World Juniors a little bit more.

-Finally, in baseball, the Blue Jays shut out the Orioles 5-0 thanks to a strong performance from Ricky Romero who went 6 strong, striking out 7 and not allowing a run. Aaron Hill went 2-4 with a homer to raise his average to .164 (still somehow below the Mendoza Line). Jason Bay was 1-4 as the Mets got shutout 2-0 by Milwaukee, and Justin Morneau was 0-2 but walked twice in a 2-0 win by the Twins over the Rangers. In other major league news, it turns out that a girl we hang out with is the cousin of Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster. Crazy.

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It's Saturday, and there is lots going on. Some of you will be stuck at work all day, like me. For those that aren't, don't hang out at the beach. Do what I'd do. Sit inside and watch people bounce balls, play with sticks and beat each other up.