NHL preview, Rangers Top 10, Week 4

My NHL Eastern Conference standings prediction:

1. Capitals - solid forwads, Varlamov/Theodore tandem nice

2. Penguins - can't make it to the top in regular season

3. Bruins - will start slow, Thomas falls back a bit

4. Devils - How do they do it? Brodeur is back

5. Rangers - Gaborik, Lundqvist, and Staal lead the crew

6. Senators - rid of Heatley, counting on Leclaire and Kovalev

7. Hurricanes - just have a feeling Ward will do well

8. Panthers - young players are coming around

9. Sabres - Miller not quite strong enough. but Olympics starter

10. Lightning - still unproven in net and on defense

11. Flyers - goaltending issues and too many "depth" players

12. Canadiens - what a traveshamockery; midgets on top line

13. Maple Leafs - just toughnesss won't make the playoffs

14. Islanders - more decent goalies than proven good forwards

15. Thrashers - hope they play well early and Kovalchuk signs

Ten members of the New York Rangers were on the Late Show w/ David Letterman on Wednesday night to present the Top 10 List of Things Never Before Spoken By a Hockey Player.

10. Instead of fighting, why don't we work things out over brunch? (Donald Brashear)

9. Between you and me, I have no idea what the hell icing is. (Dan Girardi)

8. What this team needs is a skating kitty. (Marian Gaborik)

7. I really wish these fans would watch their language (Brandon Dubinsky)

6. High scorer gets to pick which Barbara Streisand CD we listen to on the bus (Chris Drury)

5. Forget all the goals and the awards, Gordie Howe has one nice looking butt. (Marc Staal)

4. For good luck, I lick the puck. (Christopher Higgins)

3. My real dream is to work at an insurance company. (Ryan Callahan)

2. Who could concentrate on hockey when Jennifer Aniston still hasn't found love? (Henrik Lundqvist)

1. I wish Letterman was on at ten. (Sean Avery)

I like numbers four, seven, and eight the best. Staal, Lundqvist, and Avery did the best delivering the lines, along with Higgins and Dubinsky doing a good job. Kitty! I'm guessing number three is an inside joke to the show that I missed, and number one is related to Jay Leno. Avery should have been given a better one!

The week four Survivor pick is the New York Giants on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs. Coming off of a road shutout, the Giants are facing an even weaker team. While I don't expect back-t0-back shutouts, they should also be able to cover the spread of 8.5. For the rest:

Lions (+10) @ Bears: line so big when Lions showed they can play

Bengals (-5.5) @ Browns: the Browns are pathetic and line should be bigger

Seahawks (+10.5) @ Colts: surprised by how well Seneca Wallace played last week

Ravens (+2) @ Patriots: could go either way, but choosing defense

Redskins (-7) vs. Buccaneers: battle of underachievers

Titans (-3) @ Jaguars: no chance the Titans go to 0–4

Raiders (+9) @ Texans: no reason to trust the Texans defense, so high-scoring

Dolphins (+2) vs. Bills: not feeling good about this one with no Pennington

Saints (-7) vs. Jets: would have gone with the Jets, but two cornerbacks injured

Broncos (+3) vs. Cowboys: only for home-field advantage

49ers (-9.5) vs. Rams: Gore out, but 49ers will be upset about last-second loss last week

Chargers (+6.5) @ Steelers: probably decided by a field goal; Polamalu trying to play

Packers (+3.5) @ Vikings: Rodgers wants to beat his old mentor

Pacing break!,

My guest blog on Rangers Report

Rick Carpinello over at the The Journal News's Rangers Report blog was forced to take two weeks of vacation due to newspaper cost-cutting measures, so he took a cue from his colleague Peter Abraham, who runs the Yankees blog there, to let loyal blog readers fill in as guest posters during his vacation time. My post runs today and is as follows:

It is a bittersweet chance that some of us get to guest blog for a couple weeks. While it is great for us to be featured on the blog, it is only a result of newspapers cutting costs and giving their employees more vacation time. For my appearance, I don’t have any fresh opinion on the Rangers that hasn’t already been discussed here, so I’m going to take an overall look at the National Hockey League.

The 2004–05 lockout was devastating at the time, but the prevailing opinion was that the league could come back stronger than before. Why they couldn’t do this without canceling a season, we may never know. The biggest issue for Commissioner Bettman and the league was that they needed “cost certainty,” which was their code for a salary cap. Fans of the Rangers and other teams with high attendance probably did not see any problem with the 2004 NHL, but the less heralded teams were struggling, especially in places that gained expansion teams under Bettman’s regime.

In 2009, Bettman would like to have you think that everything is rosy with record-setting attendance numbers every season since the lockout. However, are we really in a much better position now? Revenue sharing was good common sense and should have been in place for a longer time before teams were absolutely hemorrhaging money. Despite what the NHL says, we can still see arenas with a lot of empty seats, especially the new Prudential Center (when the Rangers are not playing there), and the Phoenix Coyotes did not get any better financially, being forced to file for bankruptcy. Many of the seats are filled only due to ticket deals and freebies.

Before the lockout, the NHL did not have great television ratings in the United States and therefore had a contract that generated low revenue. Since starting play again, the contract has only worsened, moving the games on cable to a channel that players can’t find in hotel rooms and only having one game per week for ten weeks in the second half of the season on a broadcast network that focuses on only a few big-market teams. In addition, NASCAR is probably ahead of the NHL in popularity, but the NBA is falling back a bit. With four seasons passed since the new CBA was ratified, teams are now finding innovative ways to play with the salary cap so that the stars still get paid and the role players have to fight for every dollar or leave to play in the KHL.

At this point, the best thing that could happen for the NHL would be to bring in fresh ideas in the form of a new commissioner. Without any ties to Bettman, the new person in charge could make changes where Bettman held strong to defend his position. This could include moving one or two teams back to Canada and finding a better way to market the league and its star players, such as putting the two latest No. 1 draft picks on national television more than twice each (only one of these is in a Versus-exclusive window).

All of these problems that still exist will lead to more heavy negotiating in the next couple of years leading up to the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, especially as the salary cap will likely see its first drop after this upcoming season.

http://rangers.lohudblogs.com/2009/08/31/guest-blogger-spiderpig/

Lehigh Choral Arts in Portugal and an introduction

First, an introduction: I'm Brandon Franz and these are my thoughts on my interests and activities.

I was on tour with Lehigh Choral Arts from May 6 - May 15 in Portuguese cities Lisbon, Sesimbra, Palmela, Évora, Cascais, Sintra, and Estoril. We sang at three different churches and a palace, and as Doc said, each performance was better than the last. I thoroughly enjoyed them despite singing much less pieces than members of University Choir. The last performance was moving and sounded great.

The best day in Lisbon was after we were dropped off at Rossio Square for a free afternoon and evening. I had a liter of beer with lunch, we found a free wine tasting store after that, then two bottles of beer, and another liter with dinner at Republica de Cerveja, the Republic of Beer. The beer that runs Portugal is Super Bock. Another defining quality of Portugal is their hamburgers with mystery meat and an egg. For a foreign country, they sure produce some great hamburgers, especially at four in the morning.

Sergio was a good tour guide, taking us through churches, palaces, and city tours. Most of the group took his suggestion to atttend a soccer game, in which Lisbon's worst team out of three, Belinenses, lost 5-0 to Braga in Liga Sagres, the other beer that had high sponsorship in Portugal.

I had two casino experiences: in Lisbon, I lost 70 euro; in Estoril (apparently the biggest casino in Europe), I won 20 euro, both times playing roulette and discovering video roulette. I also found 20 euro on the ground one day, so that's a decent total. There was graffiti everywhere, except on public transportation, it seemed. It was a great trip that we were able to enjoy because we stayed in one hotel the whole time and had some free time to work with, both unlike in China.