This thing gets released this afternoon. Just curious, think any Braves will be on there?

I had to go to DC this week for a workshop, so I decided that I would try and catch a few games while I was there. The first night I saw the Washington Capitals take on the New Jersey Devils and the second night I saw the Washington Wizards go up against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

First, the Verizon Center reminds me a lot of the United Center in Chicago. I haven’t checked, but I imagine they were both built by the same Architectural firm. Anyway, the stadium itself is pretty nice; nothing really stood out as being unique about it like the big Dr. Pepper bottle in Dallas’ AA Arena. The seats that I had- upper deck for both nights, had good sightlines except that the speakers block viewing access to the monitors with the stats, which sucked for me as I could see one team’s stats, but not the other. Concessions were absurdly expensive, so I ate at the restaurants outisde the stadium. The Verizon Center is right in the heart of Chinatown, but also has several other types of places to eat and shop as well.

Caps v. Devils: The crowd for this game was really weak. The announced crowd was 10.7K, but I doubt that there were over 7K in actual attendance. On top of that, there were lots of Devils fans, some of whom probably drove down for the game.

The game itself was entertaining- the Devils started strong, but the Caps would end up dominating the middle and latter stages of the game. The final was 3-2, but this score is not really a good indicator of how much the Caps dominated. The funny thing is that Alex Ovetchkin didn’t even score and they still won- I guess he saves all of his goals for Atlanta.

Wizards v. Wolves: As was the case last night, the crowd was weak. An announced crowd of 12K was probably more like 9K. A few Corey Brewer/UF fans were in attendance, but nothing like the Away Support that the Devils received the previous night.

The Wizards controlled this game from start to finish. To me, Caron Butler is one of the most under-appreciated players in the League. He does everything well- shoot, drive, defend, rebound, pass. He’s the basketball equivalent of a Five-Tool Player. He ended up with a 20 or so points, 10 rebs, and 4-5 assists. In fact, he, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Heyward all had Double-Doubles, probably the first time I’ve ever seen three players from one team all get Double-Doubles in the same game.

As far as the Wolves go, Craig Smith was unbelievable; he had 36 points in the game on 74% shooting, including scoring 15 points in the 1^st Quarter. Besides him, no one looked too impressive. There’s been a lot of buzz about Al Jefferson this year and I see that he’s averaging 20 and 10, but he didn’t stand out at all, scoring only 12, mostly in mop-up time.

The funniest moment of the night was when the scoreboard operator wanted everyone to boo during Wolves free throws-they showed a montage of Cowboys photos (Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, Aikman, Emmitt). People were booing with unmatched gusto; it would’ve made Dave proud.  

Bizarre Moment of both nights: There were guys outside selling bootleg T-Shirts and Skull Caps with #21 Sean Taylor. Always good to capitalize off of untimely deaths!

So Petrino has decided to cut and run. No major surprise there although waiting until the season was over might have been nice. Where do the Falcons go from here? It would be great to make a run for Cowher but I kind of doubt he would want to come back as a head coach to a situation like this. From a PR standpoint, I think the Falcons need to at least see if he’s interested. I think they need to get a former NFL head coach or a high (offensive or defensive coord.) ranking assistant, not a WR or DB coach. Any names come to mind?

How many games will you be attending? I heard somewhere that Mike and Steve were mulling over season ticket options.

It’s a shame that the WNBA has folded yet; it must be a great write-off for the NBA.

2 Year/ $36.2 million contract given to Andruw by LA. I’m surprised that he got that much, considering the year that he had at the plate. It seems like LA has a history of overpaying players and getting subpar results out of them; will Andruw be the next one?

We’ll miss his defense, but not his lack of discipline at the plate. He’s definitely not worth 18 million anymore, so it’s not the biggest loss to us when you consider the financial aspects and the prospect of freeing up money to re-sign Tex.

The Hawks looked great last night versus the Sixers, especially in the 4th Quarter. Josh played within his limits and had a great game with 20 + pts, 7-8 Rebs, and 4-5 blocks. For once, we actually went up against a team that seemingly has less experience than we do and we were able to take advantage of that late in the game.

Steve didn’t go to the game tonight, so the Riseup seats were unused. I got home around 8 PM and flipped on the game to see the Hawks down by 20 in the 3rd. Needless to say, the Hawks were listless and didn’t leave much in the tank, probably owing to last night’s game. Talk about piss poor scheduling; what’s the point of back-to-back games like that?

It looks like it will be Ohio State against LSU in the National Championship game. Is that the correct matchup in your opinion? Naturally, I think Georgia is getting screwed with LSU jumping over them for a title shot but I do understand the idea that the conference champion should be given more consideration but LSU has lost twice as #1, most recently two weeks ago, while Georgia hasn’t lost in 7 weeks. Lesticle Miles obviously doesn’t realize that the SEC East is far superior to the West and that he probably wouldn’t have made the SEC Championship game if he was on the tough side of the league. By the way, if he knew which QB to play during the season the Tigers would be undefeated. I think his white hat is too tight.

Having said that, Georgia did lose twice and would have avoided this by beating South Carolina and crushing LSU in the SEC Championship, much like they did in 2005.