Another Ovechkin Highlight Reel

For the football fans here, I pose this question: In a situation in which a running back finds himself one-on-one with a defender. Would you be more excited to see the runner A) make a spectacular spin move that causes the defender to become confused and fall down B) lower his shoulder and level the defender to the ground?

I ask this not because I have anything relevant to say about football, but because, sometimes, I like to use other sports as analogies when I talk too much about hockey. If you liked Option A, go back a few posts, and view the beautiful video. However, if you like Option B (it's also okay to like both), check out this highlight reel. Please keep in mind that both videos feature the same player.

(Disclaimer: Unfortunately, this was the best Ovechkin hit reel I could find. I'm quite pleased with it except for the accompanying music. I strongly encourage you to turn the sound off.)

Sadly, This Is the Best We Can Come Up With

We're in a bit of a rut here at the Opossum-Palooza, and we apologize. To make it up to you, please enjoy this video of Washington Capitals winger Alexander Semin scoring an absurdly pretty goal. (I know this doesn't really make up for anything, as I'm sure most of our readers don't give a whit about hockey.) Semin (Siobhan: "Semin. Heh") was with the Caps briefly during the 2003-04 season, then played the past two seasons in Russia. He will be returning to DC this year. As the video will show, it should be quite exciting. If you're in to that sort of thing.



(As an aside, I would just like to say that any and all jokes pertaining to Alexander's last name are encouraged. So long as Siobhan doesn't beat you to it.)

On a not entirely related note, the more I discover things like this, the more I grow to love UniWatch.

The Most Beautiful Thing You'll See All Day

This is already up over at Off Wing Opinion, but I couldn't resist posting it here, too. All 52 of Alex Ovechkin's goals in the 2005-06 season. Enjoy.

Why Hockey is Better: Part 23

Erik Johnson, the first overall pick in this year's NHL draft, has opted to go to college rather than sign with the St. Louis Blues.

There. Now that I've gotten rid of most of you by leading with a sentence about hockey, I can talk about how this relates to the NBA and the NFL. Back in April, I ranted a little bit about one of Dan Wetzel's columns on Yahoo! Sports, in which he decried the NBA's and NFL's age limits for being inherently unfair. I proposed an easy solution, that being letting young guys declare themselves eligible for the draft without losing their amateur status until they sign an actual contract with a pro team. As you can see, this is already the case in hockey, where the Blues will retain Johnson's rights even while he plays "amateur" hockey at the University of Minnesota. If I'm not mistaken, the same sort of thing happens in baseball as well.

The irony of the situation, of course, is that both MLB and the NHL have well-established, legitimate minor league systems set up to develop young players who aren't quite ready for the big time. Whereas, in the case of the NFL and NBA, college athletics basically are their minor leagues. (Yes, I know about the NBADL. No, I don't consider it a legitimate minor league, but at least they're trying a little.) Imagine if, back in 2001, the Washington Wizards could have allowed Kwame Brown to play at Florida without losing their exclusive rights to him, rather than sticking him on the bench at the age of 19. How different would his career have looked?

One of the strongest arguments for an age limit is that the bevy of players leaving college early or, in basketball's case, skipping college altogether, is hurting the quality of play in the college ranks. Kind of a selfish argument from college sports fans, but there's no arguing against it. This year's NCAA Tournament was certainly entertaining to watch, but I doubt you would find many people who would argue it was high-quality basketball. Especially compared to years past. Allowing drafted players to continue in the NCAA would not only solve this problem, it would actually increase interest in the college game. It gives NBA fans who might not watch a mid-season college game a reason to be interested. If you're a 76ers fan, and your team drafts a guy in the first round and now he's playing for the University of Texas, you are much more likely to turn on a Longhorns game. (This also, unfortunately, poses the unique challenge of what to do if your team picks a guy who then goes to play for Duke.) Personally, I virtually never watch college football, but if there was a player on the field who was a Redskins draftee, I would certainly turn on a game, if only to check him out and see how he's coming along.

The thing I don't understand is: Why the different rules for different sports? If a hockey player can get drafted by an NHL team and still play in college, why is the same not true of football and basketball? Doesn't the NCAA make the rules for all college sports, and, as such, shouldn't it be consistent across all of them? Am I just missing something that is completely obvious? If not, why hasn't anyone else thought of this?

What is wrong with you people?

Eight goals in the third period tonight in Edmonton. One of the most exciting hockey games I've seen in a long time. Yet, apparently no one saw it.

Sure, if you read Rovell's article, you might come away with a pretty dismal impression of the NHL's prospects for the future. Ratings a fraction of what they were two years ago; getting beaten in the ratings by poker. And the WNBA. The WNB freakin' A. All in spite of one of the most exciting playoffs the NHL has seen in a while. Looks pretty awful, right?

Wrong.

Sure, getting beat by the WNBA is pretty bad. Getting beat by poker may be even worse. But there are so many factors that affect this I don't know where to start. Let's put it this way: Imagine how the WNBA would do if all their games were aired on OLN, with half of those games running past midnight on the east coast. Ask yourself, which would you be more likely to stay up past midnight for: Los Angeles Sparks vs. Sacramento Monarchs or the San Jose Sharks vs. Edmonton Oilers. (Answer? Neither, probably, unless you're a die-hard hockey fan whose going to be awake anyway, like me.)

Ultimately, I sincerely doubt that the NHL will ever sink to the depths of the WNBA or Arena Football in the national sports consciousness. Obviously, not having games carried on the Worldwide Leader hurts, and the sport will never be on the same footing as the NFL, MLB or NBA. But the fact is, people who are hockey fans love hockey. People who are watching the WNBA or the AFL are generally people who just happen to like basketball or football and are just mildly interested or intrigued.

Compare and contrast

Dwayne Wade's shoe commercial:


And the response from an intrepid hockey fan (Foul language included):


Please note that the first clip in the Ovechkin video is from the time Ryan Whitney of the Pittsburgh Penguins delivered a hockey stick directly to Alex's *ahem* groin.

Because, as always, we should always try to be more like hockey.

Dan Wetzel, columnist for Yahoo! Sports, is one of my favorite sportswriters. Today he had a rather thoughtful piece on the state of college athletics. More specifically, on the question of age restrictions imposed by the NFL and NBA that are inhereintly unfair to star players and encourage corruption like the alleged foul play involving Reggie Bush's parents. His argument is that players like Bush are already worth millions of dollars, but are not allowed any of it lest they lose their "amateur" status, so it makes little sense for athletes of that caliber not to accept shady, under-the-table deals. I can't say I necessarily disagree with him. There's certainly no arguing that a player like Reggie Bush should be allowed to make the jump to the NFL if he so chooses, regardless of whether or not it would be a good decision. As Wetzel says, the freedom to make stupid mistakes and ruin one's career is one of the truths America is founded on, and the age restrictions in the NBA and NFL are patently un-American.

Unfortunately, Wetzel misses one important part.

No one seems to care about the gymnasts, the figure skaters, the singers and actors. No one cares about baseball or hockey players... If a kid mistakenly turns pro too early, it's his loss. If a team mistakenly drafts too young of a prospect, that should be its loss – pro teams make dreadful decisions on college seniors, too.

The added emphasis is my own. Because, unlike football or basketball, the MLB and NHL both have well-established professional minor leagues. As a result, a player who goes pro at age 18 needn't be forced immediately into action against the best players in the world. Obviously, in some cases, not every 18 year old needs to start out in the minors (Exhibit A: Sydney Crosby) but the minor league system in place allows young guys to develop fully before being thrust into the fire. Imagine if Kwame Brown could have spent a few years in a minor league learning the discipline and fundamentals he would need to be succesful in the NBA. But because of the structure of the NBA, Brown was pretty much screwed, and to this day he is not half the player he probably could have been had he spent a year or two in college. The new NBA age restriction is in place specifically to protect guys like him, and the NBADL is a step in the right direction, but I'm not particularly convinced.

The solution? I think the NCAA needs to allow players to declare themselves eligible without losing their eligibility. In fact, they should even be allowed to be drafted, without any loss of eligibility until the player actually signs a paying contract. In which case, a team can draft a player, thus securing the rights to that player, without forcing them to leave college early. As near as I can tell, this sort of thing already happens in the NHL, so I don't see why it would be all that difficult for football or basketball.