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Showing posts from 2021

2021: NHL Head Coach and Front Office Hunting Season

Hockey has gone through some tough times between 2020 and 2021. Pandemic, season stoppage, a bubble playoff, a shortened 2021 season, a massive scandal at one of the biggest clubs, and recently, hefty amounts of executive changes with the clubs. Since the end of the last season, starting with the New York Rangers and all the way to the Vancouver Canucks as of December 5th, 2021, there have been five clubs who have decided to sack their executive leaders, be it the general manager, head coach, both, and a combination of assistants and lower-level management. 2021 has been NHL's season of executive turnover, so just what does this mean about the state of club leadership during a time of great change and uncertainty? Hockey has always been a volatile sport from the business side. Coaches get recycled far too often, GMs can fail with one team but manage to pick up a job in the same role with a new club for an even higher salary, ownership groups tend to make very hasty or late decision...

Is There an MLS Bias in USMNT Selection?

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The November international break is coming up with another round of World Cup qualifiers set up for the US Men's National Team. The road to qualifying for the Stars and Stripes has not been smooth, as they have been suffering through what seems like a gauntlet of CONCACAF teams to secure qualification for Qatar in December. Some USA soccer fans are getting a little irritated with the team selection manager Gregg Berhalter has been choosing for these important matches. It is notable the number of MLS players that round out the depth chart for the USA, something fans have taken to social media on more than one occasion to gripe about. Some fans have come to think Berhalter has a certain bias about choosing MLS players over the American players that have made the jump to leagues in Europe. So, I guess the question has to be raised: is there an MLS bias in the USMNT?  It is no secret that US Soccer has long strived to develop its own domestic soccer league, and to a degree, the MLS rep...

Signing Mbappe Wouldn’t Solve Real Madrid’s True Problems

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This summer was a very peculiar one for Real Madrid, as they seemed to take another page out of their galactico playbook and rehire Carlo Ancelotti as manager. They secured David Alaba on a free transfer, Gareth Bale has returned from a half-decent loan at Tottenham, but Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane have departed and there’s certain to be other players leaving in order to finance the next galactico: Kylian Mbappe. Florentine Perez has made it very clear the Los Blancos are going to sign the French superstar but with what money? And with PSG not willing to sell, it seems kind of dubious to think Mbappe will be leaving PSG for Madrid, yet Perez is making it clear he will get his next talisman. But Mbappe wouldn’t really solve the problems that are crushing Madrid currently.   Madrid has a very old squad, something they have either failed to truly address or one they can’t seem to find a way to move on from. They have seven players over 30 in the starting XI and Carlo seems set to ...

The Wild Got It Wrong in 2012. They Must Get it Right in 2021.

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It was a tough summer in the state of hockey, but it was perhaps the moment that was long needed and borderline overdue. Minnesota Wild’s Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, the two stud American hockey players (both from Minnesota, to boot), were given the news they would be getting the final four years of their 13-year, $98 million contracts bought out. This almost feels like a divorce after a marriage that both sides tried to make work for a very long time but the nadir finally reared itself in a time of great turmoil. The turmoil being the pandemic and the Wild’s sudden resurgence with a new superstar at the helm. The fallout hasn’t fully settled yet from Parise and Suter’s departure, but this marks a new era in Wild history. One where they just do not make the same mistakes they made with Parise and Suter.  It would be wrong to blame Parise and Suter for the problems they unintentionally caused Minnesota over their tenure. When you have two players signed to that cap hit, for such a p...

'It's Coming Rome': The Renaissance of Italian Football

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Wow, what a Euros. What more could we have possibly asked for? Every single match was a nail-biter, even with some of the smaller national teams. Fans were back in the stadiums, there was chanting, jeering, whistling, a lot of high moments, some that we wish we never had to witness (glad Eriksen is doing ok), and last night, the champions were crowned. Italy came into this tournament as a potential winner but nobody seemed to truly rate them as a full-on contender. Yet, what we witnessed over the course of this month-long journey was the return to one of Europe's greatest teams. After that penalty shootout against England, it was very clear to me, and the rest of soccer media: Italy is back. Italy's revival was not by accident. Instead, it was a careful, strategic approach to returning to glory. Italy hadn't won an international tournament since the 2006 World Cup, another match that is forever hallowed into the Italian footballing culture. They missed out on the 2018 World...

Is Time Running Out for Alex Ovechkin?

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Even if you are not an NHL fan, you have probably heard about Alex Ovechkin. He's the caveman-looking Russian phenom who has taken the League by storm since he burst onto the scene in 2004. He has been the leading goalscorer for the league for many years, at times the NHL's MVP, winning scoring titles, and bringing a Stanley Cup to America's capital city for the first time in 2018. Ovechkin has been the heart of the Washington Capitals in the modern era. He has overcome many grueling NHL seasons and postseasons to earn his name on the Cup, but now there is one hump he cannot avoid: the cruel fate of Father Time. The clock is ticking on the Capitals and Ovechkin. Their contention window is closing and Ovechkin's contract is expiring. So, the question remains, how much longer can Ovechkin keep up his elite production, and can the Capitals stay afloat? The 2021 season was by no means a bad one for Ovechkin. He shattered more goal-scoring records as he tied Marcel Dionne wi...

To Juventus, the Scudetto Means Little. To Inter and the rest of Italy’s Clubs, it Means Everything.

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Nine years is a long time. People grow, their personality changes, for better or for worse. In sports, nine years is like a century. It almost feels inevitable to try and overthrow a team that’s been at the very top for such a long stretch of time. However, it only takes a small stroke of good fortune for circumstances to change. Inter Milan were the lucky lads who got that. For the first time in nine years, Italian soccer has a new champion. The evil empire that Juventus has become in Italy has been vanquished. Their chokehold on Serie A and Italian cups has loosened. Everyone is thrilled as the parity that once made the Italian league such a powerhouse in Europe is returning slowly but surely. And Inter winning the Scudetto is just the beginning.  Context is important in this manner. Ever since the Italian match-fixing scandal was uncovered in 2006, Juventus have risen from their relegation punishment as something completely different. They have grown into a massive club, their f...

Why the European Super League is a Bad Idea

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The soccer world was shaken to its core on Monday when it was announced by twelve of Europe's biggest clubs that they would be breaking away from the traditional Champions League competition and creating a new Super League, one that would completely alter the nature of football entirely. This new league would be closed off to these select twelve clubs in Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Liverpool, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid, would be a mid-week European contest similar to that of the Champions League, but instead of having a group stage where various clubs of different size and stature would compete, only these listed twelve would play each in a sort-of NFL style table. This announcement has been met with massive criticism, anger, and what may soon come, legal action. With so much news coming in day by day of developments of this debacle, I wanted to explain why this Super League could be one ...

Columbus Blue Jackets: A Curious Case Study in Small-Market Hockey

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The 2021 NHL season has shown how competitive the professional side of hockey is. If anything, this season has shown just how much certain analytics matter in building a contending team. With the new division alignments for travel purposes, there are some clubs that have emerged out of the ashes as your-easy-to-spot favorites, then you have your dark horses, your pretenders-or-contenders, and of course, your fringe teams, and the tank jobs.  The Blue Jackets are one such club that is struggling to find their identity this season. They are definitely a pretender-or-contender. While on paper, the Jackets look like a team that should be running the table with an absolute stellar side. Instead, they have been the equivalent to lukewarm hot cocoa: their play doesn't give that warm feeling that things are going right. Despite some dominant performances, they have been absolutely terrible in others. There is severe inconsistency in the lineup. On paper, this team should a Stanley Cup cont...

College Football's Playoff Problem

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Here we are again, another college football season wrapped up. It was not an easy season to complete due to all the COVID spikes that struck down even the game's Socrates in Nick Saban not once but twice; fear not because he recovered swiftly and led his Alabama to another national title, his sixth with the school and seventh overall. This national championship was gassed up like it was going to be a game of epic proportions as we had the college game's version of the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers battle for glory. In the end, it was one of the most one-sided affairs in the national championship game history. It would've felt better if the scoreline was a little bit closer, but it was all Bama. The part that is really funny to me about this Bama win is that nobody is happy unless they are a Tide fan. The reason? The college football playoff and championship have become stagnate.  Each year, the CFB landscape is supposed to change, because a new season offers a ...

2021 NHL Storylines to Follow

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It's the greatest time of the year. Hockey season is officially upon us, even though it's like four months overdue. I have been itching for the NHL to return since they completed the 2019-20 season in August-September, respectively. The new season is bringing a whole new batch of fun storylines to the table, in what is sure to be an exciting-yet-shortened season. So what should we be on the lookout for come January 13th? 1) Tampa Bay's Cup Defense Officially Starts With the new season comes the beginning of the quest for the Stanley Cup. 2020 was the year the Tampa Bay Lightning finally shed their demons and triumphed over the Dallas Stars en route to their first Stanley Cup since 2004. To think, the Bolts dominated almost every matchup they had in the playoffs, even though some of their series went to six games. Not to mention, they did it without star center Steven Stamkos. However, Stamkos has had plenty of time to recover from his knee injury and he will be needed now m...