The NHL regular season ended yesterday. There are five teams from Canada who made the playoffs: Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Winnipeg Jets and Ottawa Senators. The Senators with red hot play down the stretch clinched their playoff spot yesterday.
Neither the defending champion L.A. Kings, nor the defending President’s Trophy winning Boston Bruins made the playoffs.
The New York Rangers, finalists last season, won the President’s Trophy this season, with the most points in the league.
The other three division winners were the Montreal Canadiens, Anaheim Ducks and St. Louis Blues. The division winners were the top four teams in points.
The always exciting Stanley Cup playoffs begin Wednesday night.
Rick’s Cabaret is the popular gentlemen’s club in midtown Manhattan that is a favorite with celebrities, and especially pro athletes. You can watch sporting events on the clubs many high-def TVs–I was there to take in the Yankees/Red Sox game.
The club is three floors, featuring Ringside Seating around the stages, a 2nd floor Steakhouse, VIP Lounges, and Deluxe Private Suites on the 3rd floor. The Rick’s Cabaret Girls are beautiful and friendly–and there are many of them.
Needless to say, my friends and I had a great night. We watched the Yankee game, got table dances from the lovely girls, and noticed a celebrity seated nearby. We stayed on the 2nd floor in the club’s restaurant the entire evening.
Perhaps most people wouldn’t expect a fine dining experience, but the Rick’s Cabaret NYC Steakhouse is first rate.
My compliments to Chef Franklin Edwards, who I learned was trained at the French Culinary Institute. He offers a classic steakhouse menu, but has added some contemporary items to the menu, and it works!
Chef Franklin Edwards
There will be a new Stanley Cup champion this season as the defending champion Los Angeles Kings were eliminated from playoffs contention last night.
Though this is a highly disappointing result, the Kings’ three year run manifesting in two Stanley Cup victories and one conference final loss is one of the best feats in recent NHL history.
The Winnipeg Jets were the team battling the Kings for the last playoff spot and despite a loss last night, clinched a playoff berth when L.A. lost its game.
At least 4 teams from Canada will be in the playoffs while a fifth, the Ottawa Senators have a magic number of one point with one game left to qualify for the playoffs.
Lon Simmons was one of the greatest sports broadcasters ever and a true legend in the Bay Area of San Francisco/Oakland. He died this week at age 91.
His football play by play was on the mark, with explosive, breathtaking calls such as when Jerry Rice broke loose for extra yardage on the San Francisco 49ers’ Super Bowl winning drive vs the Cincinnati Bengals after the 1988 season.
Mr. Simmons called so many great moments including Joe Montana’s touchdown pass to John Taylor to win that Super Bowl.
Lon also broadcast for both the baseball Giants and Oakland A’s.
There are so few radio sportscasters with any real ability left. They were not weened on radio.
Simmons was superb, using “tell it good bye” on his home run calls including #600 for Willie Mays, who by the way pinch hit for George Foster when he hit that historic home run. Each man hit over 50 home runs in a season.
So I say good bye to Lon Simmons remembering the great calls and his superb ability–which I hope to emulate in my broadcasting career.
I wish I had a reel of his work but at least my mind does: Lon when Jim Marshall ran the wrong way and scored a safety for the other team, John Brodie to Bill Tucker as the 49ers finally won a division title in 1970, Juan Marichal’s no hitter, which the great Russ Hodges, the Giants’ lead announcer at the time, was kind enough to let Lon call and so many others.
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Willie Mays with Lon Simmons
The dynastic University of Connecticut woman’s basketball team collected their third straight NCAA title with a victory over Notre Dame’s woman’s team in the championship game.
It is the tenth title for Connecticut coach, Geno Auriemma which ties him with and evokes comparisons to UCLA men’s coach John Wooden.
All ten titles have happened since 1995 while Wooden won ten titles in twelve seasons.
It was the second straight season in which Connecticut defeated Notre Dame in the final game. Also it is the fourth time in five seasons, that Notre Dame lost in the final game.
Duke University won its fifth NCAA basketball title, all under coach Mike Krzyzewski, beating Wisconsin in the final/title game. Wisconsin has not won the title since 1941.
Tyus Jones, who was named the most outstanding player of the final four, led Duke with 23 points.
Krzyzewski, known as “Coach K,” passed legendary Kentucky coach Adolf “Baron” Rupp by winning his fifth title. Only the great John Wooden, who won 10 as UCLA coach has won more titles.
In a 30 season span all under “Coach K,” Duke has been to nine title games, winning five.
This was the 25th finals game for CBS lead announcer Jim Nantz (1991-2015). Duke which won its first two titles in Nantz’s first two seasons has won five titles in that span.
Another Nantz favorite, Connecticut, has won all four of its titles in the span. Add three titles each for North Carolina and Kentucky and four schools have accounted for 60 percent of the titles in the “Nantz” era.
Here are my predictions in each of the three divisions in the American League.
The Boston Red Sox will win the American League East. Improvement will be shown by the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, the latter without over rated manager Joe Maddon.
In the A.L. Central, either the Chicago White Sox or Cleveland Indians will end the four year divisional reign of the Detroit Tigers.
In the West, I am tempted to pick the underdog Houston Astros but will go with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The K.C. Royals and Baltimore Orioles, last year’s ALCS opponents will fall back this season.
It will be Duke vs Wisconsin in the NCAA Basketball final tomorrow night in Indianapolis. Duke continued its domination of Michigan State while Wisconsin upset previously unbeaten Kentucky to set up the final.
The Duke/Wisconsin game is considered even. I do not care which team wins but hope for a lopsided result so more people will shut down the voices of Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery and Grant Hill.
Given a choice between “water torture” and hearing them for hours on end, I would choose their incessant gushing and hyping, but I would have thought about it for a while.
In the NL East, the Washington Nationals are a big favorite. I predict they will outlast an upstart New York Mets team and win the division.
In the NL Central it will be the St. Louis Cardinals and pretty easily.
In the NL West the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers will outlast an upstart San Diego Padres team and win the division.
Sadly, two wild card teams will join the division winners in the playoffs.
I will not pick the wild card teams but recognize, as was the case with the current world champion San Francisco Giants, what a viable threat to win the title that wild card teams pose.
Eddie LeBaron was an exciting quarterback for the Redskins and the Cowboys, who later became Executive of the Year” as the Atlanta Falcons general manager (1980). He passed yesterday at age 85. I recall his unusual NFL record: the shortest (two inch) touchdown pass!
It happened on Sunday, October 9, 1960, as LeBaron, the Dallas quarterback, in the Cowboys first season, was credited with a two inch touchdown pass to Dick Bielski.
Accounts stated the NFL’s smallest quarterback (Le Baron was 5 feet 7 inches and 160 pounds) threw the NFL’s shortest touchdown pass.
The previous record for the shortest touchdown pass was held by the great Green Bay Packers’ NFL passing combination of Cecil Isbell to all time great receiver, Don Hutson. Their pass was a whopping 4 inches.
Andy B Sports 