Perhaps it is appropriate that on the day the Carolina Panthers are facing the Denver Broncos for the league crown, the NHL Carolina Hurricanes are visiting Montreal to face the Canadiens.
Though Montreal won for just the sixth time in twenty seven games yesterday and have not won a title since 1993, Les Canadiens trail only the New York Yankees in total titles among major North American sports league teams.
Another NHL match up today involves two franchises rich in championship history.
The New York Islanders host the Edmonton Oilers at the Isles’ first year, Brooklyn home.
The two teams combined to win 8 of the 9 NHL titles from (1980-1988), each team winning four. It grows to 9 titles in 11 seasons as the Oilers sans Wayne Gretzky won a 5th title in 1990.
That tops the less, but fairly even distributed 8 titles in 9 seasons, won by the Los Angeles Lakers (5) and Boston Celtics (3), coincidentally also from (1980-1988).
Moses Malone pictured above and who sadly died in 2015, led the Philadelphia 76ers to the 1983 NBA crown. It was the only non Lakers or Celtics title from (1980-1988).
The Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames split a pair of NHL finals, (Montreal winning in 1986, Calgary in 1989), the only non Oilers or Islanders’ NHL crowns from (1980-1990).
On the eve of the Super Bowl some baseball trivia and remembrances.
I remember listening to the spring training game in Lakeland, Florida then and now the winter home of the Detroit Tigers when a line drive off the bat of Gates Brown broke promising Mets’ pitcher Carl Willey’s jaw.
That 1964 season, Dick Ellsworth a Chicago Cubs pitcher made the All Star team largely because of a tremendous 1963 season in which he not only won 22 games, but lowered his earned run average by almost 3 runs per game.
The Willey/Ellsworth “stretched link” continued when Willey died in Ellsworth Maine.
There are nice memories for me regarding both pitchers.
Doug Harvey is a consensus, even landslide winner, member of the all time NHL team, as a defenseman.
Of course the other all-time defenseman is Bobby Orr.
What I did not know, is that Doug Harvey coached for one season.
It was 1961-1962 and he guided the New York Rangers to what was in those days, a rare playoffs appearance in the great old six team NHL.
The eventual champion Toronto Maple Leafs eliminated the Rangers in six games in their semi-final series.
The key game was the Leafs’ (3-2) double overtime win at home in game five.
Red Kelly had the game winning goal while another NHL great as was Kelly, Frank Mahovlich assisted on the game winning goal after scoring a goal himself earlier in the contest.
Let’s face it and there is nothing wrong with it, WFAN Radio’s Mike Francesa is quite familiar with betting lines on football games.
He knows how important three points is yet had no clue regarding the less than 3 point Seattle/Denver line).
Next he made factual mistakes, one saying as he so often does with certainty, concerning point spreads of other Super Bowls involving Peyton Manning.
He was sure the line in the New Orleans Saints’ win vs Manning and the Indianapolis Colts was Indy favored by 3. It was four and a fraction.
Francesa said maybe Manning and the Colts were more than his original 3 or 3 and a half point status vs Chicago (Bears) in a Colts’ win and cover. The line was at least 6 points.
Now drum roll: Francesa saying he must, in this game, pick a team to win and not just cover the spread:
Denver Broncos 23 Carolina Panthers 19.
In WFAN radio Mike Francesa’s world a tie is a win.
Either that or he can not add or dare I say, he “fudges” what is already, admittedly and surprisingly an excellent prediction record for the 2015 NFL season.
at the start of the playoffs, Francesa claimed an undocumented (28-18) regular season record. I know there were ties/pushes in some games he predicted vs the point spread. Did he count those as wins?
Yesterday, before revealing his Super Bowl prediction, which I will reveal in the next post, he claimed a (35-21) record for the year after correctly stating a (5-2-1) record before the two title tilts, on which he went (1-1).
Thus if he does not want to count ties and without making one tie a win as he did, his record is (34-21), just under 5 out of 8 correct.
It is a fine record but not quite as fine as Mr. Francesa purports it to be.
A different kind of fudge and one that leaves a decidedly better taste in one’s mouth than the “fudging” of prediction records.
The CBS television network will take the lead in the category of most Super Bowls telecast and telecast exclusively with their 18th exclusive telecast this Sunday.
This will be the 19th Super Bowl on CBS as they shared coverage of the first one with NBC.
The numbers going into this one produce two ties in position among the four networks that have televised Super Bowls.
Going into this one both CBS and NBC have exclusively telecast 17 Super Bowls. Both Fox and ABC have telecast 7 such games.
The first Super Bowl telecast was shared by CBS and NBC.
By the way, this will be CBS lead announcer Jim Nantz’ 4th Supe telecast and third with Peyton Manning as a starting quarterback in the game.
While Ted Ginn Jr. had a great NFC title game and season for the NFC champion Carolina Panthers, his former San Francisco 49ers teammate now with the Denver Broncos, Vernon Davis did not.
However, each is on a Super Bowl roster, in a game to be played in the stadium in which the 49ers play their home games.
This invokes memories of other seasons, 2011 in particular when Davis contributed mightily to a 49ers team that came so close, to at least making the Super Bowl.
It was an injury that kept Ted Ginn Jr. then mostly used as a punt returner, (he still performs that duty, now with Carolina, of course), out of action, that certainly hurt, if not cost the Niners a Supe berth, as they lost the NFC title game at home, (then it was Candlestick Park) to the eventual champion, New York Giants.
In that title tilt, Kyle Williams, the son of baseball executive Ken Williams, the general manager on the first Chicago White Sox World Series winner in 88 years, had two fumbles returning punts, the second leading directly to “Toe” Tynes’ (first name Lawrence) game winning field goal in overtime.
Both Davis and Ginn Jr. played in the 49ers Super Bowl loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the previous CBS Super Bowl telecast.
Ted Ginn Jr. pictured above scored the first touchdown in the Panthers’ NFC title game win vs the Arizona Cardinals, for whom he played last season.
In the last CBS Super Bowl telecast, the aforementioned Baltimore Ravens, coached by John Harbaugh’s win vs the S.F. 49ers coached by brother Jim, another ex Arizona Cardinal, Anquan Boldin gathered in a Joe Flacco pass for the game’s first touchdown.
Down the long road from the end of the Super Bowl until the NCAA Basketball Tournament, I can bring into focus my feelings on the NBA.
Right now I would like to cite one of that league’s few positives, Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.
Mr. Curry, shamefully denied The Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated in favor of Serena Williams, continues to excel, 51 points in a win, albeit a less than meaningful one in the endless NBA regular season last night.
Just last week, Serena Williams was denied in the finals of the Australian Open by huge underdog, Angelique Kerber.
My point grows, but so what? A great episode of the Dick Cavett Show from Tuesday September 16, 1969, aired on the new channel “Decades” yesterday.
Cavett and his three guests, in order of appearance Joan Rivers, Joe Namath and Adam Clayton Powell Jr, none of whom left their seats to go elsewhere, were all entertaining and humorous.
Mr. Powell came out and also said he would be serious and was decrying the mediocrity in the nation at that time.
With insane buildup for the athletes and yet again less than rousing political candidates on both sides, it is my opinion we live in times far less than mediocre.
The Dick Cavett Show: Sports Icons: September 16, 1969 Joe …
Click above to view the entertaining and meaningful show cited in my post above.
Steph Curry and father Dell, two great shooters, the former now an NBA great, the latter a fine player, pictured above. It takes practice, dedication to craft and of course talent to become a great shooter in basketball.
Sadly the practice and dedication to craft are so often lacking in today’s society.
The vaunted Boston Celtics won an incredible eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons, all with the great Bill Russell, as their center from (1957-1969.)
One coach with two different teams, the 1958 St. Louis Hawks and 1967 Philadelphia 76ers stopped them.
The coach was Alex Hannum.
In 1958, Hannum coached the Hawks to a six game finals triumph vs the Celtics.
Bob Pettit, a great Hawks’ forward, scored 50 points in the clinching game at St. Louis.
Only one current St. Louis team, the Cardinals have ever won a title or even a finals game.
The only other team left, the Blues went (0-12) in three finals losses in their first three seasons. Then the NHL final pitted the winner of the established teams, Eastern Division vs the winner of the West, an all expansion team division.
The Hawks title in St. Louis is the only one in their franchise history.
The football Rams won titles in Cleveland and Los Angeles before winning one in St. Louis in 1999. Now they are back in Los Angeles.
The great Alex Hannum pictured above coached the two other teams to win NBA titles, during the Boston Celtics’ incredible run of 11 titles in 13 seasons.
The Super Bowl this week will be the 18th telecast exclusively by the CBS television network.
One Super Bowl, the first was telecast by both CBS and NBC.
Twelve times, CBS telecast the game exclusively as the NFC network. Sunday will be the sixth time CBS telecasts the game as the AFC network.
As stated before the NFL/NFC network (CBS) and the AFL/AFC network (NBC) shared the telecast of the first such game.
That telecast and its inherent pressure yielded a good line from the fine AFL/AFC network announcer Charlie Jones.
Playing off the often heard players are nervous until the first contact of a football game, Jones said “we will be all right after the first VERB.”
Charlie Jones, pictured above, a fine AFL/AFC network football announcer.
