Tiger Woods was recently named the AP's Athlete of the Decade, beating out Lance Armstrong and Roger Federer by a convincing margin.

Tiger may have gotten more than twice as many votes as Federer, but as I see it, Tiger's numbers pale in comparison to Federer's.

It's unfortunate that the first line in the comparison was almost certainly the one that sealed the honor for the American.

More photos » by Bill Kostroun - AP

It's okay, Brian, you don't have to look. Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Brian Boucher cannot stop the puck as New Jersey Devils' Patrik Elias scores a goal during the second period of an NHL hockey game Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009 in Newark, N.J. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

Browse more photos »

The good news: Claude Giroux scored a crazy soft goal to prevent Martin Brodeur from claiming a record 104th career shutout against the Orange and Black.

The bad news: Everything else.

I don't want to go into the gruesome details of this game too much, but suffice it was nothing new.  They looked terrible.  If his last name starts with a "C," he was especially terrible.

The Flyers, as we know them right now, are simply not a good hockey team.  The switch to Laviolette clearly was not enough to put this team back on track.  It's now pretty clear that something pretty drastic has got to happen, and soon.  I recommend confiscating the players' cars and making them walk to work every day.  They could use that kind of character building.  I would let Boucher keep his car for now, though. He's not to blame at all for this mess.

Here are some harsh realities the team has to deal with right now:

• In their last ten games against teams that don't rhyme with "Die Flanders," the Flyers are 0-10-0, earning exactly zero points.
• In those ten games, the Flyers have scored 14 goals, which works out to an average of 1.4 goals a game.  The all-time record for lowest GAA for a goalie for a season is 1.91, a full half-goal above the Flyers current production. 
  
• For the first time this season, the Flyers have more regulation losses than they have wins.  Yowch.  They also now average less than a point-per-game for the first time in this campaign

After the jump, highlights from the game, questions answered, and tonight's pick for the best Philadelphia bridge to jump off of.

Continue reading this post »

My pick to win the 2012 Olympics gold (excluding Stuart Scott lurking creepily in the background). Photo via images.eonline.com

View full size photo »

Mixed Doubles has been added as a fifth discipline for Olympic Tennis starting with the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

While I'm not a proponent of same-sex doubles, I'm a huge fan of mixed doubles, and think it should be played far more often.  I have never understood why joint ATP/WTA events like Miami, Indian Wells and Beijing don't have mixed doubles, or why grand slam warm up events like New Haven, Eastbourne, and Sydney wouldn't offer it to get players ready for the mixed at slams. 

In any event, more mixed is good news, and should make for some pretty awesome action at the AELTC come 2012.

My early picks to medal:

Andy Roddick and Serena Williams, United States -- These two seem to have pretty good chemistry, and their strong net skills and booming serves should serve them extremely well in mixed doubles.

Novak Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic, Serbia --Jankovic has already won a mixed crown on the Wimbledon grounds, partnering with Jamie Murray to win Wimbledon in 2007.  She and Djokovic were runners up at Hopman Cup a couple years ago, and seem to be the most likely pairing for Serbia in 2012.

Fernando Verdasco and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, Spain -- MJMS is one of the strongest players at net in the WTA, and if the Spanish men really want medals they should start lobbying now to be her partner in London.  Verdasco has had a lot of success in Davis Cup doubles, so he's my pick for now.

Any other pairings you'd like to see, or that you think could do well?

I went looking for a picture of The Spectrum implosion, but then I remembered that hasn't happened yet... Photo via www.companysj.com

View full size photo »

Throughout history, when something goes bad, there's usually a reason.  When Marie Antoinette stopped breathing, it was because she found herself on the business end of a guillotine.   When the Home Alone franchise went bad starting with the third installment, it was because it lost the underrated albino presence of Macaulay Culkin.  In the above picture, Hiroshima was adversely affected because a rather large bomb was dropped on it. 

When a building burns down, some expert is able to look through the rubble and realize that the conflagration was caused by faulty wiring in the coffee machine on the third floor (or something).  The Flyers were a strong building with seemingly excellent coffee machines, racing out to a 12-5-1 start good for fourth place in the East.  But something has short-circuited, and the same team that less than three weeks ago was in position to have home ice in the playoffs is now several teams away from even being in playoff contention.

With that in mind, I'm trying to figure out why this team is going down in flames while the fires are still burning. 

Here are a few possible sparks that could have triggered this inferno:

Continue reading this post »

LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 29: Nikolay Davydenko of Russia holds the trophy as he celebrates winning the men's singles final match against Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina during the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena on November 29, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

View full size photo »

Nikolay Davydenko finished off an incredible week in London by winning the biggest title of his career, beating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 6-4 in the finals of the World Tour Final in London's O2 Arena.  Davydenko beat all three 2009 Slam winners on his way to the title, including his first win in thirteen tries over Roger Federer.

del Potro's turned into a pretty classy guy of late, so he would never have brought up what was probably a big reason for his lopsided loss.  del Potro had to play the night session on Saturday in the semifinals, meaning that he had a much quicker turnaround than did Davydenko.  And after going long with a third set tiebreaker deep in the night, it was always going to be an uphill climb for del Potro to recover fully some sixteen hours later.

There is usually a sense that whoever wins the WTF/TMC/YEC is immediately a front runner to win the Australian Open, but I'm not so sure that's the case here.  The heat and quicker surface should keep him from making too much noise down under.  But a deep run at the French Open is certainly looking like a decent bet.

After a lengthy wait while the numbers were crunched, JMdP celebrates making it to the semis. LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 26: Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina celebrates going through to the semi-final after he won his match during the men's singles round robin match against Roger Federer of Switzerland during the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena on November 26, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

View full size photo »

With three players finishing round robin play Group B was decided by the first tiebreaking criteria, number of sets won and lost.  Soderling (5-2) and Davydenko (5-3) barely edged out Djokovic (4-3) for the two semifinal spots, despite being the two lowest ranked players in their group.

But as close as Group B was, Group A was even closer.  In a group which saw all six matches played last three sets, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, and Juan Martin del Potro all had won two matches, and each had a 5-4 record in terms of sets won and lost.

And it wasn't clear cut after that, going into the second tiebreaking measure. The three had incredibly close games won and loss differentials, which wound up deciding the two semifinalists to emerge from the three-way knot.  Federer had a games record of 44-40, which was good enough to be first.  del Potro (45-43) barely snuck by Murray (44-43) for the final semifinal berth from Group A, despite Murray beating del Potro in their head to head match-up.  The Brits, understandably, have been left with a bad taste in their mouths about the whole thing.

Once it comes down to the second tiebreaking category, like it did in this instance, it's bound to be fairly arbitrary.  A quick non-tennis aside on the topic of tie breaking criteria--how is away goals a valid tiebreak for these World Cup qualifying matches? If, for example, Croatia and Poland tie 0-0 in Warsaw, then tie 1-1 in Kiev, Poland gets through? Completely arbitrary, even if home field advantage is a recognized intangible.  

Last (and least), it was a bad week for the Spaniards, to be sure. Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco went a combined 0-6 on the week, finishing last in their respective groups.  The two Spaniards were the only winless players in the tournament, with each of the six other competitors winning two matches apiece.  Fernando Verdasco put up three valiant fights in his three matches, all three of which were three-setters (including two of the third set tiebreak variety). Nadal, on the other hand, was totally hapless, not winning so much as a single set during the event.  Sadly, for Nadal, this was a totally foreseeable performance.  He hasn't been the same player in the slightest since Madrid, and he has a long way to go if he wants to come close to defending his Australian Open title.  In the more immediate future, he (and Verdasco) have got to shape up in time for next week's Davis Cup final vs. the rested Czech Republic if Spain wants to avoid what would be a massive upset.

I'm guessing there will be a rematch of this year's US Open final on Sunday in London, though with how well Soderling has been playing, a rematch of the French Open final wouldn't be entirely shocking either.