Leftover Thoughts and News from Yesterday

Here is some more news and thoughts pertaining to yesterday’s talk on the Olympics and the NBA:

• Canada opened their Olympic pool play win an 8-0 win over Norway, generally considered the worst team in the Olympics. Sydney Crosby contributed 3 assists in his first Olympic game.

• Russia and Sweden are considered the biggest threats to Canada bringing home the Gold. Russia opened up their pool play with an 8-2 win over Latvia. Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist while Sergei Gonchar did not record any points. Alexander Ovechkin scored two goals and former Penguin Alexei Morozov, serving as the Russian captain, had a goal as well. Yes, that Alexei Morozov, the guy who could never live up to his potential in a Penguin uniform. Sweden opens up pool play this evening against Germany.

• No medals were awarded last night, leaving the medal count the same as yesterday with Germany leading the United States by one.

• The Olympic Games are obviously being played in Vancouver which is in the Pacific Time Zone. This means that action continues on into the late night here on the East Coast. This doesn’t bother me too much as I am generally a night person anyhow and it sure beats when the Olympics are held across the globe and the events you most want to see are in action in the middle of the night (such as the Men’s Basketball Gold Medal game last summer which started at approximately 3am local time).

• Kevin Durant led his Oklahoma City Thunder to another win last night, beating the newly revamped Dallas Mavericks. Durant finished with 25 points, 14 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 assists, extending his 25 points or more streak to 26 games. Durant scored his 25th point with a runner in the lane with about 30 seconds remaining in the game thus avoiding the first ever blog jinx.

• Many of you are probably Bill Simmons (of ESPN.com) fans already. If you are not or do not know who I am talking about, Simmons is a writer for ESPN nicknamed “The Sports Guy”. He is a common sense columnist for ESPN that gives comedic opinions on sports, life and reality TV to name just a few topics. His niche, however, is the NBA. Yesterday, my favorite column of the year of his came out dissecting the trade value of the top players in the NBA. Give it a READ; it will get you caught up on all the players you need to know about if you do not follow the NBA too closely. A certain someone I discussed yesterday just happens to fall in at number 3 as well, right behind Dwight Howard and LeBron James.