Your morning 'Eh' Factor headlines

Because we haven't done headlines in a while, why not?

Chris Pronger left the game in Philadelphia's 5-3 over Montreal last night. It is being called a 'lower-body injury' for now, because Pronger ran off with the medical reports.

News and notes this Tuesday

-There are two big hockey stories to look at today. The fallout has evened out from yesterday's shocking, absolutely shocking revelation that Roberto Luongo would step down as Captain of the Vancouver Canucks. Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun does a nice job of arguing that Henrik Sedin should replace him. Over at The Hockey Writers, I argue the same point with the grace and maturity of the comments of the MacIntyre column.

-Then there is Sheldon Souray. His orange highness Steve Tambellini told the media that Sheldon Souray would not come to training camp. Souray's only fault, it seemed, was criticizing team management. And going minus-19 in just 37 games played.

-Speaking of Edmonton baggage, Eric Tillman has officially been named General Manager of the Eskimos. The TSN story does not skimp out on the details in the fourth paragraph of that story. Tillman is generally credited with building the current version of the Roughriders and winning that team's first Grey Cup since 1989, restoring the glory that team never had. He scouted and signed Darian Durant, Weston Dressler and Rob Bagg.

Even though he tried to hump the babysitter, Tillman and the Eskimos have drawn pretty well zero criticism through this union of geeky-faced football experts and football teams with names coming from derogatory Inuit slang.

-BC signed Ricky Foley last night. Then they didn't finalize it, but then they did today. BC has won two straight. Saskatchewan have lost 2 of 3 and Rider fans are scared. Will there be a home playoff game in pouring, pouring, despicable rain in November at Empire Stadium? Oh God I hope so.

*UPDATE* It appears that Ricky Foley has actually signed with Toronto, the rat bastard, or as Cam Cole put it on Twitter, owner David Braley "successfully outbidding himself for services of prized pass rusher."

-Defensive Player of the Week:



-Some MLS team somewhere in Canada fired their coach/manager. Never trust a guy with one first name.

-From the "Darryl Sutter is still insane" files, James Mirtle reports that Calgary tried to sign Vesa Toskala this summer. No word on whether Toskala turned the contract down because he could not in good conscience work for somebody dumb enough to sign him.

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I'll return to a full-day of posting on Friday, where I will get some CFL previews running.

Sidney Crosby hits a homerun at PNC Park and other wacky news

-In what is the easiest joke to make in the history of lazy sports blogging, Sidney Crosby hit a homerun in batting practice at PNC Park in Pittsburgh and will be slotted into the three hole for the 47-91 Pirates' game tonight against the Atlanta Braves.

-Who has two thumbs and is from a country whose national men's soccer team won an International Friendly? This guy! Canada defeated Honduras 2-1 last night at Saputo Stadium in Montreal last night.

-So a Waterloo football player pisses into a cup... and becomes the first ever North American athlete to test positive for HGH. Friend of the 'Eh' Factor and newest Yahoo! Sports blogger Andrew Bucholtz writes on the implications this has for Waterloo, the CIS, the CFL, and sports in general. I had a joke on this, but I used it up earlier in the day.

-If the rumour of Jamie Langenbrunner being traded for Tomas Kaberle sounds ridiculous to you, it probably is. This was an Eklund rumour (which is capitalized) that has gained steam today because, well, it involves the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it involves draft picks. Forwarded to me by a friend, the rumour is "The trade would involve Tomas Kaberle and a 4th rounder ending up in NJ, With Rolston, Langenbrunner, a first in 2011, and a second in 2012." [sic]

In other related news, the negotiations between myself and the student union building for the last roasted chicken sandwich hit an impasse when I realized it cost $5.

-Oh yeah. Buck Pierce fell hard and dislocated his elbow against the Riders and his season may be in jeopardy. It may work out for him, since "not playing for the Blue Bombers during the 2010 season" looks way better on the resume than "Blue Bombers starting quarterback- 2010". Also on TSN are reports that former Olympic bobsledder Jesse Lumsden may return to football. Which is appropriate, because nothing emphasizes the Bombers' season like... ah, you know.

-Here's a rumour that might have legs, about Eric Tillman possibly locking up the Edmonton Eskimo General Manager position. Tillman likely won't make a decision until he's found a suitable babysitter in Edmonton. Also on Rod Pedersen's blog can be found excerpts from a Stevie Bagg radio interview earlier today, where it seems like he won't be coming up to Canada this year.

Headlines to begin your September

-Canadian Interuniversity Sport football season kicked off last night, and we begin with an upset. Number 10 McMaster beat defending Vanier Cup champ Queen's 23-18 in what was, by all accounts, a thrilling game that featured one of the craziest plays we'll see all year, a 101-yard kick return by McMaster's Michael DiCore. Meanwhile, in a less publicized game, the GeeGees beat Windsor 23-14.

-The Canadian Journalism Project, jsource, drops a mention on the Toronto Sun/Pension Plan Puppets issue, which has miraculously made it two weeks without anybody ever having given it the suffix 'gate'. They linked back to a story where they criticized the Toronto Star for avoiding accreditation as well.

-Jose Bautista closes in on George Bell's 47 with his 43rd home run as the Blue Jays crushed the Devil Rays 13-5. The Jays put up a 10-spot in the sixth, but you probably didn't see that, because you probably didn't have Sportsnet One. You probably won't watch the Blue Jays today either, because you probably don't have Sportsnet One.

-In Cincinnati Red-land, Cuban Aroldis Chapman hit 103 mph on the radar gun in his Major League Debut. This somehow affects Toronto native, Joey Votto, who still leads the Major Leagues in OPS. The Reds are seven games up on the Cardinals and look to be a shoo-in for the playoffs.

-BC Lions defensive back and all-around CFL good guy Davis Sanchez will donate his game cheque from this week to the Tony Proudfoot foundation for ALS reserach. For a primer on the former Alouette diagnosed with ALS, here's a Bruce Arthur column from two weeks ago on the subject.

-Finally, the Canadian basketball team dropped their fourth straight at the FIBA World Championship with a 71-61 loss to New Zealand. You may have missed my ivory tower hemming and hawing from last night, which chronicled Canada's struggles in the fourth quarter. At least in this morning's game, they looked

Hoser headlines, the Sunday morning update

The most important thing we can do on a Sunday, before we blast you with irrelevant news on Canadian sports figures throughout the week, is show you a picture of Jon Ryan, a punter for the Seattle Seahawks from Regina, Saskatchewan:

He's a great punter.

Here is Tyler Dellow of mc79hockey offering up how the NHL will ruin Internaional hockey, by elimination Olympic competition. Dellow is responding to a stupid Bleacher Report post from a Leafs fan who will back every move.

Simeon Jackson scored his first goal in the Coca-Cola Championship. That's English soccer for you North Americans.

Canada's representatives at the Little League World Series, from Little Mountain in Vancouver, won their opening game 4-2 against Panama. Apparently tacky pants were involved, but I don't have a picture.

Saint John's Matt Stairs hit for a record 21st pinch hit home run on Saturday. As the great Jonah Keri pointed out, CANADIANZ IN UR BASEBALZ, EATING UR RECURDZ

Finally, Something's Bruin has the definitive recap on the Pension Plan Puppets/Toronto Sun snafu that's being going on. You can find it here.

Basically, a newspaper from a major chain stole something from a blog. From where I stand, that decreases the value of my own journalism degree. I should sue. A newspaper writer is different from a blogger because he or she has already established a level of trust, and when a newspaper man does anything to lessen that level of trust, we are all affected.

But let's turn the subject. Don Cherry thinks that the Toronto Maple Leafs will make the playoffs, and the Phoenix Coyotes will return to Winnipeg within the year.

Finally, a good piece by the guys at Hoops Head North explaining the future of Canadian basketball and what we must do to get on top. After all, our own James Naismith invented the game. By the way, the FIBA World Championship will now be on TSN2.

That it? Stay patient for the updated Excitement Rankings later. I suggest sitting there and constantly refreshing the page.

Briefing - Thursday May 27

-The CFL has announced that a deal has been made between the CFL and the CFLPA. The deal has not been ratified so explicit terms were not announced, but the CFL presser confirms that there will be a drug testing policy as part of the new agreement, as well as a clause that sends Jason Armstead to remedial math classes on the league's dime.

-Lakers coach Phil Jackson said that his team is not having a problem adjusting to the Suns' 2-3 zone. He's probably right, and if Phoenix's bench plays for the remainder of the series as it did in Game 4, Los Angeles is proper fucked. Particularly when Derek Fisher and Ron Artest are undressed by Slovenian backup point guards while Kobe watches:



-So, uh... I did some quick calculations, and it seems that 84 per cent of the 38 players who played in the last game for Chicago and Philadelphia are Canadian. Not only that, but there's a certainty that at least two players will win both a gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year. Mike Richards and Chris Pronger on Philly, and Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith on Chicago. Only three players have ever done that before, being Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan in 2002, and Ken Morrow in 1980 with the New York Islanders. Also, to bring up old stereotypes, not a single Russian or Swede are in the Stanley Cup Final (UPDATE: Not name Hjalmarsson). Compare that to both team's failure to make the semifinals at the Olympics, it looks like Canada is pretty much the best country for hockey on the planet. Neener, neener, neener.

-Without playing, Toronto F.C. won the Voyageurs Cup as the Canadian Nutri-Lite Soccer Champions. Vancouver Whitecaps F.C. drew 1-1 in Montreal against the Impact, clinching the title for the Reds with still one fixture left between the Whitecaps and TFC. When asked about how it was to win such a prestigious championship, Preki said "huh?"

-The Arcade Fire have two new songs out. This one is called The Suburbs, and it's leak this morning pretty much broke the Internet:

Weekend update

Well, the long weekend had me busier than I expected, so I didn't write anything, but I can tell you what happened.

-TSN showed way too many highlights of Taylor Hall throughout the entire Memorial Cup. I noticed that they upped their coverage of the event considerably this year, possibly as a means of promoting Hall. Now TSN is actually showing the NHL draft combine Friday in Primetime. This begs the question...

1) Who the fuck wants to watch a draft combine?

2) When the fuck is TSN's amping up of young prospects going to catch up with us? The World Juniors are almost unbearable to watch on 'The Network' now that every single Canadian player is talked about to the point of delusion. I can understand being interested in prospects, but now TSN is using events such as the World Juniors and the draft to promote their own programming. Ever notice how Pierre McGuire always seems to slide in the NHL team of a player at the WJHC at every possible moment? The Network is more prevalent in the playoffs this year, they have more games on per week, they have two national networks and they want fans of teams that stink to watch for the young players they've hyped. Brilliant cross-marketing, but it's making half the country hate Team Canada at the Juniors.

-Ron MacLean sat in a rocking chair and taped up a stick as Philly took to the ice in Game 5 against Montreal. It figures that the Eastern Conference Champions are a team that made the playoffs on the final day of the year by beating New York in a frigging shootout. Elsewhere, Rangers fans are kicking their own shins with their heels and devising ways to jump off a skybridge.

-Chicago... this is hard to admit as a Canucks fan, but the fact that the Blackhawks are in the Stanley Cup finals makes me upset that the Fratellis broke up:







I can't get enough of that goal song.

This Stanley Cup Finals series has all kinds of implications for a Canadian team. For one, as has been pointed out by everybody, everywhere, a Chicago win means that Toronto would become the only franchise to not win a Stanley Cup since the Original Six era, and also give them the longest Cup drought.

-http://twitter.com/walsha/status/14665009796 There are many, many Montreal fans who are happy at what Jaroslav Halak accomplished this season, but his biggest fan is agent Allan Walsh and his family. A restricted free agent after a playoff run that saw Halak single-handedly beat arguably four of the top five forwards in the game, Halak (and by extension, Walsh) are going to see a fat paycheque likely before July 1st. For some reason, the Philadelphia series won't apply.

-Steve Nash broke his nose and had it surgically repaired after practice during an off-day. This comes a day after he dropped 17 points and 15 dimes (behind Amare Stoudemire's 42) in a 118-109 Game 3 win. Game 4 is tonight. Set your TiVo's accordingly, because this series has a lot of potential to go the distance.

-In other basketball news, the Celtics, up 3-0 in their series against Orlando, lost in overtime 96-92 and are now up 3-1. It's the curse of Milan Lucic.

-The man who owns 25% of the Canadian Football League is headed to the Senate. David Braley, who owns the BC Lions and the Toronto Argonauts, forced writers across the country to use stupid football terms to describe politics. This is a good fit for Braley, since the relevance of the Canadian Senate is about as relevant as the Toronto Argonauts, and both are not really well-liked West of Ontario.

-Argentina beat Canada 5-0 in soccer. The Canadian Press recap sounds like something that your local university's sports information officer would write:

El Monumental was a sea of noise an hour before kickoff. As the Canadian players came out for warm-ups, the host crowd whistled loudly and that was just a taste of what was to come.

Cliché'd.

Injuries and club commitments forced Canada to field a mix of youth and experience, with the main goal to get some experience as a group against one of the top sides in the world.

WTF'd

This week, hopefully we'll have some fall-out from Montreal, including riot videos, and full recaps of this week's Suns and Canadian Soccer Cup series.

Thursday, May 20 - Morning briefing

-Calgary defeats Brandon 5-1 in an utterly meaningless game in the final round robin game of the Memorial Cup. Fun fact: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart, who gave his name to the Hitmen, visited the team after they won the WHL championship. No word as to whether or not brother Owen's path is mimicking the Calgary Flames most recent season.

-The Blue Jays defeated Seattle 3-2 at Safeco Field, in a game that was televised, only on a delay. Except in the Pacific and West regions. Kevin Gregg pitched himself in-and-out of a 2-out, 2-runners on jam in the bottom of the 9th, and now leads the American League in saves. The losing pitcher in this game for Seattle was Doug Fister. (Fister? I barely know her!)

-Steve Nash and the Suns now find themselves down 2-0 to the Lakers after a miserable fourth quarter. Coming back in the third to have the game tied at 90 after 36 minutes, Pau Gasol pumped through 14 of the Lakers' 34 fourth quarter points and they won handedly 124-112. Nash had 11 points and 15 assists.

-Breaking tonight, Floyd Landis reportedly admitted to his blood doping use at the Tour de France. The PED-crazed media can now finally look away from Toronto.

-It's Thursday. The Canadiens are in action at 7 Eastern on CBC, Steve Nash is down in his series so the basketball playoffs are pretty much over (seriously, off-day until Saturday, oddly enough) there's an off-day at the Memorial Cup so that means we'll see Ricky Romero pitch against Jason Vargas in a matinee on Sportsnet, unless that's pre-empted for reality show repeats like last night's game was. Also, Gibson's Ryan Dempster is on the hill against the Phillies for the Cubs.

-Oh right, and Canada is playing Russia at the World Championship. Catch the inevitable loss on a repeat on TSN2 during primetime hours, followed by some mock shame from the TSN panel. Then we'll be over it in time to ignore the Spengler Cup come December.

Wednesday May 19th - Morning Briefing

-Even though two of Philadelphia's goals were scored by Daniel Briere, of Gatineau and Simon Gagne, of Sainte-Foy, Flyer fans at Wachovia chanted 'Frenchies suck' in the waning minutes of their 3-0 Game 2 win over the Montreal Canadiens. Meanwhile, it appears that Michael Leighton and Jaroslav Halak accidently switched jerseys sometime before the start of Game 1.

-Basketball: Here's a video that Raptors fans will love, of Vince Carter missing two important free throws late in Game 2 against the Celtics. The audio is slightly off, but it's nonetheless amusing.



-In Brandon, Eric Wellwood scored on a rebound from 15-feet out 12:22 into the overtime period and the Windsor Spitfires finish the round robin 3-0, eliminating the Moncton Wildcats. Moncton's Gabriel Bourque had a wide open net with 30 seconds to play and hit the crossbar. The Wildcat loss means that the final round robin game between Brandon and Calgary is entirely meaningless, as the two will meet again on Friday for the semifinal.

-If you're lucky enough to have Sportsnet's alternate channel, you'd have maybe seen the Blue Jays destroy Minnesota 11-2 at Skydome in the second game of that series. Hill, Wells, Encarnacion and Overbay all homered for the Jays, who gain a game on the Yankees who lost to the Red Sox 7-6, but stay five back of the division-leading Rays, who beat the Tigers 6-2. Marcum went 7-strong to pick up his third win on the year, allowing five hits, two walks and striking out three. New Westminster's Justin Morneau, who was strong in Monday's game, went 0-for-3 with a strike out.

-With a goal and an assist, Jonathan Toews continued to secure his spot atop the NHL playoff points race in a 4-2 win over San Jose in Game 2. San Jose is now 0-5 in home conference finals games in their history and look overmatched in this series.

-Steve Nash and the Suns appear to have shaken off Game 1 as just one game in a long series. Bright Side of the Sun has the compilation of clichés dropped at their Tuesday practice.

-Stay classy, Olympic protesters. An anarchist group firebombed an RBC branch in Ottawa, protesting RBC as a sponsor for the Vancouver games. The fire caused $300K in damage, thankfully, nobody was hurt. A video and message from the group can be found here.

Tuesday May 18th - Morning Briefing

-Even though Sportsnet had the television rights to the Blue Jays and Twins game last night, they decided to use all four of their regional stations to play the Calgary/Windsor Memorial Cup game. Considering the interest in the hockey game would lie in the prairies and Southern Ontario, and considering many Canadians have digital cable with all regional networks, wouldn’t it make sense to use the East feed to show the baseball game? Or even the Pacific feed, so British Columbians could see their own Justin Morneau go 3-for-4 with two jacks. The Twins walked all over the Jays and won 8-3.

-Meanwhile, in a game that was televised, Taylor Hall scored twice and his Spitfires got some stellar goaltending from Philipp Grubauer on their way to a 6-2 shelling over the Calgary Hitmen. Martin Jones, the WHL goaltender of the year, has looked obnoxiously average so far this tournament, being bailed out Monday night by his defensemen and the post several times. The Spitfires qualify for Sunday’s final with a chance to defend their title.

-Down in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant put up 40 including 21 in the 3rd, Lamar Odom had 19 points and 19 boards and the Lakers thoroughly dismantled Victoria’s Steve Nash and his Phoenix Suns in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals 128-107. Nash had 13 points and 13 assists, but the Suns couldn’t shoot, going .494 from the floor and .227 from beyond the arc.

-Darren Dreger has tweeted that Ian Laperriere will not play Game 2. Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren has pretty much told us to wait for Laperriere to play before Jeff Carter does. No word on whether or not Peter Laviolette is going to give Daniel Carcillo the role of blocking a P.K. Subban shot with his face.

-Dave Staples of The Cult of Hockey has an excellent piece on Taylor Hall’s penchant for getting hit hard, and often. The post contains a video of Hall getting stapled by Travis Hamonic in his first game at the Memorial Cup. Solid stuff.

-Welcome to The ‘Eh’ Factor. Bear with us while we sort this beast out. Canada and the Czech Republic are playing live on TSN2 right now. Canada is losing 3-1 at the end of the second period. If you were planning on catching the replay later, well, forget I said that. Moncton and Windsor play later tonight. So do both NHL Conference Finals series, as well as Game 2 of Boston/Orlando, if you’re into that sort of thing.