the mad sports man

 14 person team here. Women's foil has:  Jessica Guo, Eleanor Harvey, Yunjia Zhang and substitute Sabrina Fang. Men's foil has: Blake Broszus, Daniel Gu, Maximilien Van Haszer and substitute Bogdan Hamilton. Men's sabre has: Fares Arfa, Francois Gauchon, Shaul Gordon and substitute Olivier Desrosiers. Women's sabre has Pamela Brind'amour. Men's epee has Nicholas Zhang. Good luck in Paris.

 Yes, it's officially begun. We start with taekwondo. Only two athletes here - Skylar Park and Josipa Kafadar. Park in the women's 57kg class and Kafadar in the women's 49kg class. Let the road to Paris begin.

 The NHL playoffs have begun with Carolina beating New York Islanders 3-1. Coming up has Toronto at Boston for the last game of the day. Two months of Insanity has begun.

 Innsbruck Austria was host for these games and the tournament. It was held from February 2-14, 1976. Highlights include: 1. Sweden joining Canada in their amateur rules boycott, which allowed Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia to use state funded players and de facto professionals. 2. Czechoslovakia had influenza most of the tournament, even finishing with 12 players vs Poland. In that game one Czech player had a positive doping test resulting in a Poland win 1-0. Poland did not get points for it, and Czechoslovakia had a win taken away. 3. On the last day, Czechoslovakia wint up 2-0 on Soviet Union, Soviet Union came back to tie it, Czechoslovakia went up 3-2, then Soviet Union tie it, and a minute or so later went up 4-3. That's how it finished. Soviet Union went undefeated in winning gold, and Czechoslovakia silver. 4. The suprise came from West Germany. They beat the United States on last day and found out in dressing room that they had won bronze. West Germany, Finland and Unite

 What a game. Tied at 5 going into overtime when Danielle Serdachny of Edmonton Alberta wins it for Canada. Canada wins their 13th title, this one on USA soil. Redemption from last year. Oh yeah, Finland beat Czech Republic 3-2 in shootout for bronze. So that's it for another world's. Next year will be in Czech Republic.

 Yup, again. Canada beat the Czech Republic 4-0 and the United States beat Finland 5-0 in their respective semis. Czech Republic vs Finland for bronze. The bronze game is at 11am tomorrow and the gold game is at 3pm tomorrow, both Prince Albert times.  Also Switzerland beat Germany in overtime 3-2 to finish 5th and stay in group A. Germany stays in group B. Stay tuned for the finish tomorrow. 

 Wasn't much of a game. United States blew out Japan 10-0 to reach the semis. The semis has the USA vs Finland and Canada vs Czech Republic on Saturday.

 It was close for awhile,but Canada beat Sweden 5-1 to head for the semis. Renata Fast with two goals.  Assuming the United States win tonight, Canada should be playing Czech Republic. Semi finals to be determined after the United States vs Japan game.

 Only one goal in the game and it went to the Czech Republic. They knock out Germany and will play in the semis. Opponent to be determined.

 Finland beat Switzerland 3-1 to head for the semis. Stay tuned for who they will face as the teams will be reseeded after the quarters.

 The UConn Huskies are NCAA national champions for the second year in a row after beating the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60.  Congrats to the Huskies.

 Some game tonight. United States ends up winning 1-0 in overtime to finish first in group A. Canada finishes second. Only quarterfinals matchup we have is Canada vs Sweden. USA will play the 3rd place team in group B, Germany (won group B) gets third place in group A and the bottom two in group A play each other. Last day of round robin is tomorrow with Czech Republic vs Switzerland, Germany vs China and Japan vs Denmark. Stay tuned.

 Let's start with hockey. Canada beat Czech Republic 5-0 to go 3 for 3. Sets up the big matchup with the United States tomorrow to decide first and second in the group. Now for curling. Nik Edin beat Brad Gushue 6-5 to win this year's men's world curling championship. Gushue still had a good week. Congrats to Sweden and Nik Edin.

 It's in the books as a 86-72 win for UConn over Alabama. It will be UConn vs Purdue for the NCAA tournament championship on Monday night. And both #1 seeds. It's almost over.

 Purdue beat NC State 63-50 to advance to Monday nights championship game. Coming up is Alabama vs UConn starting shortly. Who will face Purdue? Stay tuned.

 Canada just beat Switzerland 3-0 in the women's hockey championships.  Closer than I thought it would be. Canada is now 2-0 so far with their next game against the Czech Republic on Sunday. Czechs play the United States tonight. Stay tuned.

 This year's tournament began yesterday. Canada played its first game tonight and beat Finland 4-1. They play again tomorrow vs Switzerland.  This year's tournament is in Utica NY.

 This season had 18 teams and 80 games. The Washington Capitals and Kansas City Scouts were added. Also the east and west of divisions became the Campbell Conference and Prince of Wales Conference. Each conference were split in to divisions - the Adams, Smythe, Norris and Patrick divisions.  A new playoff format was introduced. 4 division winners and the 8 best afterwards made the playoffs. Division winners had a bye into quarters. Preliminary round was best of three with the 5 to 12 place playing. Winners went to quarters and reseeded. Season had: 1. May 24 1974, Reggie Leach sent to Philadelphia by California Seals. 2. March 26 1975 Washington lost 17th in a row. Two nights later they win their only road game over California. 3. April 26, New York Islanders complete 0-3 comeback over Pittsburgh. (They almost did it to Philadelphia). Islanders ended up setting a playoff record with 8 straight elimination game wins. Playoffs: preliminary; Toronto 2 Los Angeles 1, New York Islanders 2 N

 This is an aerial shot of both Yankees Stadium and the Polo Grounds. Polo Grounds was home to both the Giants and Mets. Here it is. Credit goes to the Facebook page Baseball in Pics. What a great shot. 

 NC State just beat Duke 76-64 and will play Purdue, who beat Tennessee 72-66.  NC State vs Purdue and UConn vs Alabama play next Saturday in the semis. Stay tuned. 

 It will be UConn vs Alabama next Saturday. Alabama just beat Clemson 89-82 and UConn bezy Illinois 73-52. The rest of the final four will be set tomorrow with Duke vs NC State and Purdue vs Tennessee. Stay tuned 

 The 2024 season began in earnest today with almost all teams playing today.  2 games rained out. The Dodgers and Padres had already began in South Korea last week. Here's to 6 months of of speed pitches and homers

 The team of Rachel Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew, Sarah Wilkes and alternate Rachelle Brown are your 2024 world curling champions, defeating Switzerland 7-5. Quite a performance by this team.  First Canadian team to win it since 2018. Congrats to team Canada. 

 The big upset of the day so far had #13 Yale beat #4 Auburn 78-76. Uuf. The other one had #10 Colorado beat #7 Florida 102-100 (I wonder if a 10 seed over a 7 seed is an upset).  Question now is how many brackets have been busted. Probably loads. 

 This tournament went by quietly.  Kadriana and Colton Lott just beat Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres 7-5 and will represent Canada at the world mixed doubles curling championships in Ostersund Sweden from April 20-27.

 This has #14 Oakland beat #3 Kentucky 80-76. Bang. 4 left tonight. Who is next?

 So far only two minor upsets. Both 11 over 6. Oregon beat South Carolina 87-77 and Duquesne beat BYU 71-67.  8 games down and 8 to go tonight, then day 2 tomorrow. 

 Spring begins at 9:06pm Prince Albert time tonight. We're in the last hours of winter. Supposed to be -5c today and that temperature the rest of the week. It was really a mild winter. Only one or two serious cold snaps and one major snow storm. Most of the snow from that is almost melted. 

  It's St Patrick's day.  The one day of the year where we're Irish for a day. Time of the year where we wear green, or drink green beer (although I won't). It's green time for a day. Cheers.

 Brad Gushue, Mark Nichols, Geoff Walker, and E.J. Harden has won the 2024 Montana's Brier, and third in a row. For Gushue, Nichols and Walker, it's their 6th. Wow. Kudos for Mike McEwen for battling. Congrats to Gushue and the b'yes from Newfoundland. 

 From what I heard, Mike McEwen put on a clinic in beating Brendan Bottcher 7-3.  McEwen vs Gushue in the championship game. Can McEwen end Saskatchewan 44 year drought or will Gushue win another? Stay tuned 

 First the Brier Mike McEwen beat Matt Dunstone 6-5 in the 3vs4 page game. McEwen will play the liser of the Bottcher vs Gushue game tonight.  Speaking of tonight is the springtime reminder to move your clocks FORWARD an hour. Certain parts of North America won't have to do so. (One advantage of living in Saskatchewan).

 Sooo.... Matt Dunstone beat Mike Carruthers 6-2 and Mike McEwen beat Jamie Koe 7-0. McEwen had 6 steals in this game, which tied a Brier record for most steals in a game. McEwen plays Dunstone in the 3/4 game tomorrow afternoon (winner to semi, loser out), while Brendan Bottcher plays Brad Gushue win the 1/2 game tomorrow night (winner to final, lower to semi). The end is nigh.

 The 1/2 page playoff qualifier just wrapped up. Brendan Bottcher just beat Mike McEwen 9-7 and Brad Gushue beat Mike Carruthers by the same score.  It will be Bottcher vs Gushue in the 1/2 page game Saturday night, while tonight has Carruthers vs Matt Dunstone and McEwen plays Jamie Koe in the 3/4 page qualifiers tonight. Stay tuned.

 Had a pretty good snowstorm that started Saturday night and ended Sunday night.  Not sure how much Prince Albert got, but places between the Battlefords and Saskatoon got as much as 30cm or a foot of snow.  It's deep enough that the alleyways were plowed.  My room is next to an alley. I heard a plow go by. It's crazy that it was the first snowstorm of the season. I mean, we got dumps of 2 to 4 cm a couple of times. So that happened. 

 The Paris 2024 summer Olympics posters came out yesterday. Looks pretty neat. Here is one. What do you think?

 Happy birthday to this blog. This blog has turned 20. 20 years of hockey, baseball, football, Olympics, Nascar and other wild and wacky shenanigans.  Plus loads of fun facts somewhere. Here's to 20 more years.

 It's the one day that shows up on the calendar every four years. Today is that day. It would be fun, if you were born on this day, where you would put your birthday when it's not a leap year.  Just got me thinking, how many times I've posted on this day.  Hmmm.

 What a crazy 10 days.  Began with Brianne Harris becoming ineligible to play. The Kate Cameron knocking out Kerri Einarson in the playoffs. Ended a few minutes ago with Rachel Homan beating Jennifer Jones 5-4 to win this year's Scotties. Also went undefeated. Wow. This season she is 48-5. Yikes. She will represent Canada at the upcoming world's.

 It's the February long weekend. From family day in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, B.C. and Saskatchewan, Louis Riel day in Manitoba and Islanders day in Prince Edward Island, and heritage day in Nova Scotia and Yukon, the third Monday (except Yukon where it's third Friday) is designated as a holiday. Enjoy the day. 

 Thus season had 78 games and 16 teams. Highlights include: 1. Gordie Howe comes out of retirement to play in the WHA with sons Marty and Mark. 2. May 12 1973 Toronto signs Borje Salming. 3. May 15 1973 Bernie Parent traded by Toronto fir draft picks and considerations. 4. March 30 1974, Parent wins game 45 to set goalie record for wins. 5. Denis Potvin sets rookie defenseman record for points, scoring 13g, 64a, 71 pts. 6. February 20 1974, Phil Esposito records 4th 50 goal season. 7. Bobby Orr records 5th straight 100 point season. Playoffs: qf; Boston 4 Toronto 0, New York Rangers 4 Montreal 2, Philadelphia 4 Atlanta 0, Chicago 4 Los Angeles 1. Sf; Boston 4 Chicago 2, Philadelphia 4 New York Rangers 3. Stanley Cup: Philadelphia 4 Boston 2. Philadelphia wins first Cup and is first expansion team to win Cup. Also first expansion team to beat two original 6 teams.  Bernie Parent wins Conn Smythe trophy. #1 draft pick for 1974 is Greg Joly (Washington). He plays 365 games, scores 21 goal

 Wow what a finish. After a sloppy first half, the game picked up with a crazy finish. Game goes into overtime tied at 19. San Francisco gets a field goal to start. Kansas City gets the ball and scores the game winning touchdown to win super bowl 58 25-22. Some finish. First team to repeat in almost 20 years (New England I believe). Next football will be in May for the CFL season. That's it.

 Wow quite the day from Canada's group. First game had Japan beat Canada 86-82 to put themselves into the Olympics. Canada needed Spain to beat Hungary to qualify (Spain qualified with Canada loss to Japan). For about two and a half to three quarters it wasn't looking good. Hungary was up by 22 at one point. Spain mounted a furious comeback and beat Hungary 73-72.  Wow. Devin Heroux was all over this.  Canada joins Japan and Spain at the Paris Olympics. The ladies join the mens team. First time both basketball teams will be at the Olympics since 2000. So quite the day.

 Today marks the lunar new year. It's the year of the dragon this year. Right on super bowl weekend. So enjoy the festivities or however you celebrate. 

 Came out this morning. They have pieces of the Eiffel Tower on them. The pieces came from extensive renovations of the tower. And here they are.  What do you think?  I like them personally. 

 Their names are Tina (for Cortina D'Ampezzo) and Milo (for Milan). Tina represents the Olympics and Milo represents the paralympics. There are also 6 snow droplets named "the Flo." And here they are. What do you think?

 Opening game is in Mexico City on June 11 in Azteca Stadium. Canada Playa its first game June 12 and plays its last two games in Vancouver (June 18 and 24). Toronto and Vancouver get 5 games each. Guadalajara has 4, Mexico City has 3 and Monterrey has 3. Let the qualifying begin (although I think it's started already). United States starts in Los Angeles on the 12th, in Seattle on the 19th and in Los Angeles again on the 25th. Mexico plays on the 18th and 24th.  Knockout round begins  June 28th and ends on July 19 in Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford New Jersey. 3rd place game in Miami and the semis in Dallas and Atlanta Toronto will have a round of 32 game and Vancouver will have a round of 32 game and a round of 16. 104 games to be played from start to finish. 

 Comes in the team figure skating. Kaita Ruiter, David Li, Kole Sauve, Annika Behnke, Audra Gans and Michael Boutsa claimed bronze and 6th medal for Canada at the youth Olympics. Canada finished with 3g, 2s, 1b for 6 total. 

 ...Annika Behnke and Kole Sauve.  They won gold in figure skating pairs. Yaaay. Way to go and congrats. 

 On Thursday, Eli Bouchard win a silver in snowboarding slopestyle. Yesterday had two golds. One from Charlie Beatts in freestyle skiing mens big air. The second from Eli Bouchard in mens big air snowboarding. This morning a third gold from Annika Behnke and Kole Sauve in figure skating pairs. That is now 3g 2s for 5 total.

 Wow. Talk about monumental collapse. Detroit had a 24-7 lead and ended up losing 34-31. San Francisco scored 27 straight points to star the second half. San Francisco will face Kansas City in super bowl 58 in Las Vegas on February 11.

 Kansas City is heading to the super bowl after beating the Baltimore Ravens 17-10. It is their 4th trip to the super bowl in 5 years. Stay tuned to who they will face. 

 Canada got one medal over the weekend at the youth Olympics and it was a silver from Anthony Shelly in snowboard cross. Meanwhile Muhammed Bozdag, in the mens 1000m short track speed skating, won Turkey first ever  winter Olympics medal (not counting mixed team).  Nice. So there's that weekend round up. 

 Was a good one. Kansas City is off to the AFC championship game after beating Buffalo 27-24. They will be heading to Baltimore next week.  And then there were 4.

 Got close at the end though. Detroit beat Tampa Bay 31-23 to go to the NFC championship game against San Francisco. They are making their first conference title game since 1991. Yikes. Coming up has Kansas City at Buffalo. 

 The San Francisco 49ers are hosting the NFC championship game after beating the Green Bay Packers (fans nicknamed cheeseheads) 24-21. They will get the Tampa Bay at Detroit winner.  Stay tuned.

 Nor only did the Baltimore Ravens fly there, they will be hosting the AFC championship game after beating the Houston Texans 34-10. They await the Kansas City at Buffalo game. Coming up has Green Bay at San Francisco. 

 All 7 Canadian teams in action. Winnipeg beat Ottawa 2-1 in overtime, Toronto at Vancouver and Montreal at Boston is on now and Edmonton at Calgary is the night capper. Update 1: Boston 9 Montreal 4 (ouch) Vancouver 6 Toronto 4. Update 2: Edmonton 3 Calgary 1.  That's it for another year. 

 Chloe Fediuk and Charlie Beatts. Chloe is in curling and Charlie is a freestyle skier. They will lead 79 Canadians at the opening ceremony that is on Friday. This year's youth Olympics are in Gangwon South Korea and run from Friday to February 1.

 Tampa Bay Buccaneers just slayed the Philadelphia Eagles 32-9 and will head to Detroit to play the Lions on Sunday. Green Bay Packers are in San Francisco on Saturday to play the 49ers. And then there were 8.

 This one managed to get played after yesterday snow storm and people pulling an all nighter cleaning out the snow from the stands. Most of the snow was removed. Anyways Buffalo beat Pittsburgh 34-17 and will host Kansas City on Sunday, with Houston going to Baltimore on Saturday. 

 This was a gooder. Detroit is heading to the divisional after beating the Los Angeles Rams 24-23. Yhey will be the home team against either Philadelphia or Tampa Bay. Stay tuned for that.

 The Green Bay Packers will be heading for San Francisco after knocking off Dallas 48-32 in the wild card. Date to be announced later.

 The Kansas City Chiefs are into the divisional round after beating the Miami Dolphins 26-7.  Opponent and date to be determined. Tomorrow has Green Bay at Dallas and Los Angeles Rams at Detroit. 

 This got one sided. Houston beat Cleveland 45-14 and will move on to the divisional round. Opponent and date to be determined.   Stay tuned.

 OK so the nfl playoff matchups are set. The afc: Pittsburgh at Buffalo, Miami at Kansas City an Cleveland at Houston. The nfc: Green Bay at Dallas, Los Angeles Rams at Detroit and Philadelphia at Tampa Bay.  Playoffs start Saturday.  Finally got to update that with work and the games being decided. Plus had to run some errands. Got one more thing yo complete my tasks for today. So there you have it. 

 The United States has won world juniors gold after beating Sweden 6-2. Went undefeated in this tournament. And it's their 6th gold. From what I heard, they will have 12 players back fur next years tournament. For Sweden,  it's their 12th silver. Yikes. So that's it for this year. Gothenburg was a great host. Next year Ottawa is host. Until next year....

 This was a comeback as well. Finland was up 5-2 and the Czech Republic scored 6 unanswered, 4 in the final two minutes, to win 8-5 to capture their 8th ever bronze. Crazy. Congrats to the Czechs. Coming up is the gold medal game between the United States and Sweden. 

 The 1972-73 NHL season had 16 teams and a 78 game season. Some highlights include: 1. Canada vs USSR in the summit series won by Canada 4-3-1.  WHA started, getting players such as Bobby Hull, Gerry Cheevers, Bernie Parent and J.C. Tremblay. 2.  June 26, 1972 New York Islanders buy Glenn "Chico" Resch from Montreal. 3. February 6 1973, Connie Madigan plays first game at 38 years old with St Louis.  4. Bobby Orr wins 6th Norris in a row. First player to win a trophy 6 years in a row. Quarterfinals: Montreal 4 Buffalo 2, Philadelphia 4 Minnesota 2, Chicago 4 St Louis 1 and New York Rangers 4 Boston 1. Semi finals: Montreal 4 Philadelphia 1, Chicago 4 New York Rangers 1. Stanley Cup finals: Montreal 4 Chicago 2. Montreal wins 18th Stanley Cup. Yvon Cournoyer wins Conn Smythe trophy. #1 pick for 1973 is Denis Potvin of the New York Islanders. He plays 1060 games, gets 310 goals, 742 assists for 1052 points and wins 4 Stanley Cups with the Islanders. 

 The United States are playing for gold after coming back to beat Finland 3-2. Finland was up 2-0 after the first. The United States will play Sweden for gold and Finland will play Czech Republic for bronze. The bronze game is at 8am tomorrow and hhe gold game is at 12:30 pm tomorrow. Times are Prince Albert time. 

 Sweden beat Czech Republic 5-2 and will play for gold, while the Czechs will play for bronze. They both will await the result of the USA vs Finland game.  Meanwhile Germany beat Norway 5-4 in overtime and will finish 9th. Norway will be relegated.  Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 will be coming up for next years tournament. 

 One went into overtime and the other one didn't. The one that did just ended. Sweden 3 Switzerland 2. The one that didn't  - the USA 7 Latvia 2. The semis are set. It will be the USA vs Finland in one xns Sweden vs Czech Republic in the other. Plus Germany vs Norway to decide who avoids relegation. All these games are Thursday. 

 An absolute stunner. Czech Republic score with 11 seconds left to beat Canada 3-2. Ouch.  It was just a shot that went off a Canadian defenseman. Canada's tournament is done.  Earlier Finland beat Slovakia 4-3 in overtime and two more quarterfinal games left.  Stay tuned.

 2024 is here. I hope everyone had a safe new years. New year and new beginnings. Like the PWHL. First ever game was played in Toronto and New York won 4-0. Ella Shelton scored the first ever PWHL goal. Does she keep the puck or does the hockey hall of fame? I hope Ella keeps it. I hope it's a good season and a good year.