HF's November Look at Juniors

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:26:52 -0000

HF's November Look at Juniors

Particular quote of interest:

And on the blueline, Cameron Gaunce (COL) is an absolute workhorse. It seems like he’s on the ice every time you look at Mississauga’s defense. He is skilled, strong and smart. Gaunce is the type of player you always put out there in a one-goal game, regardless of whether you’re up or down.

HF's November Calder Race

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:28:49 -0000

HF's November Calder Race

Guess who has two players on the list?

College Basketball Recruiting Getting Cleaned Up?

SlamDunkTheFunk — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:18:29 -0000

College Basketball Recruiting Getting Cleaned Up?

O rearry?

RCT Fantasy Hockey Needs Help!

SlamDunkTheFunk — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:31:11 -0000

RCT Fantasy Hockey Needs Help!

Hey guys, I'm a pretty frequent contributor over at Rock Chalk Talk and we've been trying to get a Fantasy Hockey league together for some time now. I realize the season has already kicked into high gear, but we've only managed to get 6 people and 10 are required for the league to have its draft and start up. I was wondering if anyone from TRR might be interested in joining up and enjoying some cross-blog fantasy headbutting.

Again we have four spots left. Password for the league is "paclife". Hope four of you join up! Thanks!

Luke Winn says we rock.

SlamDunkTheFunk — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:20:50 -0000

Luke Winn says we rock.

Si.com's opening rankings of the college basketball season.

Hockey's Future Look at Islanders Organizational Depth

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:24:33 -0000

Hockey's Future Look at Islanders Organizational Depth

Just as the title says. A positional breakdown of prospects in the Islanders system.

Training Camp Observations 8/4

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:24:07 -0000

As promised (sort of), my attendance at practice this afternoon resulted in me taking sporadic notes.

First thing I noticed was the inconsistency of the training camp event staff. Same guys everyday, but they go by different rules. Last week, they were telling people to move all the way to the far end of the field when they first opened the rope and allowed us to sit down. Yesterday, they weren't letting people in until 30 minutes before practice. Today, I arrived with a friend 55 minutes early, and the parking lot was already jam packed and bunches of people were already covering the hillside. Maybe I'm just missing something, but what's the deal with that?

Practice started pretty much like all the others have with the team slowly filtering out and random music blaring (more of a rock feel today. Rage Against The Machine was an awesome choice). The normal drills were run where everyone looks like a Pro Bowler and I spend most of the time wondering why the people sitting behind me can't convince their kids that kicking me in the back is rude.

To be honest, I've seen the same drills enough times now that nobody really stood out to me anymore, so I didn't start writing anything down until things got revved up a little bit. I suppose that's my bad, homies.

My favorite drill of the day that wasn't offense versus defense involved some punt blocking drills. The guys working through the drill were Vernon Fox, David Bruton, Josh Barrett, Darcel McBath, and LaMont Jordan. McBath picked up the drill the quickest and blocked every punt I saw him break in on. Jordan did well in his limited time as he was replaced by Fox after blocking one. Bruton and Barrett were the slowest to pick it up and missed a couple of kicks before finally connecting and getting the props from the coaching staff.

Speaking of punting, the Punter competition heated up a bit today as they had the punters working against the guys who were just working to block their kicks. The stopwatch was busted out and Kern and Colquitt were both hitting punt with a hangtime of 4.6 seconds or more, with the only shank being a Colquitt kick that went 35 yards or so and hung for 3.8 seconds. After the Colquitt shank, Kern responded with a BOMB from his own 15 that ended up in the endzone after hanging in the air for 5.58 seconds. Colquitt finished up the drill on his next kick with one that looked exactly like Kern's, with an identical hangtime. If camp were to end tomorrow, I'd go with Kern because his coffin corner punts have been much better than Colquitt's, but the rook is at least pushing him a little bit.

The 7-on-7 drills brought about some nice developments and some more of the same. Orton looked good, the first team offense was fluid and Eddie Royal was a beast as usual. Chris Simms, however, looked pretty rough. After getting picked by Jack Williams, he turned around and got two passes in a row batted down, one by Marcus Thomas and the other by Mario Haggan. The defense looks decent, and when they moved the 7-on-7 down to the 10 yard line, they stuffed the first team defense several times. D.J. Williams is really starting to take over the leadership role on that defense as he was directing traffic and on multiple occasions reacted to the man in motion by calling for someone else to shift and that guy ended up breaking up the play. Now, I'm biased because DJ is my favorite Bronco, but he's really looked good this camp. I'll just say right now that Robert Ayers looked completely lost and on one play threw his hands up in the air while the play was going on and just watched it all unfold. One other minor note for 7-on-7 action was Elvis Dumervil completely blew his coverage on whichever TE he was covering and had Simms seen it, he would have had an easy 6.

The 11-on-11 drills complete with officiating is where some of the "big news" came today. Jarvis Moss was pretty solid and played with an energy he didn't have last week when I pointed he looked pretty bad and not ready to play. He applied some good pressure coming around the corner, but still gets stood up too easily at times. I'm starting to think more and more that David Bruton isn't going to make it in this league because of his defensive prowess because he seems to be reacting to everything much too slowly. His foot speed and reaction time all seem much too slow. I sure hope he's an ace special teamer. Tim Crowder looks like the light bulb might be coming on because he's turned it up in the past couple of days and that continued today with him eating Ryan Harris up twice. Harris continued his struggles when Robert Ayers FLATTENED him and batted the pass down. Ayers finished practice strong as he took Tyler Polumbus for a ride on the school bus on the play immediately preceding his emasculation of Harris. Both plays resulted in incompletions as a direct result of the Ayers pressure. The biggest eye opener of the day was Kenny Peterson beating Ryan Clady pretty badly on a stunt and would have gotten the sack had he been allowed to hit the man in the orange jersey.

Practice ended with a two-minute drill and instead of stagnating and generally looking terrible as they did a few days ago, the offense was really clicking and Orton was making great decisions. They moved the ball efficiently and without mistakes and ended up with a first and goal at the 1 with 1 second left to play after a Defensive Pass Interference on Jack Williams, who was defending Brandon Stokley. Williams got his redemption on the next play as he ended practice with a bang by intercepting Orton and returning it 101 yards to the other endzone.

I don't know how to end one of these, so, uh, see you tomorrow when I hit up practice and attempt to convey anything noteworthy to you'uns.

Oh, one last thing, Eddie Royal looks awesome and made an outstanding catch OVER two defenders in the back of the endzone, but I forgot the drill so it wasn't included above. He looks awesome right now.

Heatley to the Oilers

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:38:14 -0000

Heatley to the Oilers

And the NW just keeps on rolling along...

A Look At European Avs Prospects

SlamDunkTheFunk — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:44:35 -0000

A Look At European Avs Prospects

Courtesy of Hockey's Future.

With Jori giving us all the scoop on our North American prospects, HF takes a glance at the shallow (I already read it) talent pool we have across the pond.

Some big-time SFA Love

SlamDunkTheFunk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:09:05 -0000

Some big-time SFA Love

I don't have anywhere else to put this, so here it is. SI.com lovin' the Lumberjacks. Ahh, yeah!

SB Nation User Blog: SlamDunkTheFunk

HF's November Look at Juniors

HF's November Calder Race

College Basketball Recruiting Getting Cleaned Up?

RCT Fantasy Hockey Needs Help!

Luke Winn says we rock.

Hockey's Future Look at Islanders Organizational Depth

Training Camp Observations 8/4

Heatley to the Oilers

A Look At European Avs Prospects

Some big-time SFA Love