It has been a very interesting week to say the least. Five members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior hockey team turned themselves into London Police and were charged with Sexual Assault. Another member from the PGA Tour moves over to the LIV Tour, the Superbowl finalist have been determined and the Ottawa Senators are 6-2-2 in their last ten games heading into the All Star break.
The five members of the 2018 team Dube, Hart, MacLeod, Foote, all who are playing in the NHL and Formenton who is playing in Europe have all said through their Lawyers they are innocent and will fight the charges. What is interesting here is will these players be able to cross borders because of the pending charges? What are the optics from their Club teams and how does that affect business relations with companies they have sponsorship deals with. These players in the eyes of the law are still innocent because they have not been to trial. Initial indications are that they will not get to trial until late 2025 or early 2026. Stay tuned.
Another player has left the PGA Tour to join the LIV Tour.Tyrrell Hatton who has 10 wins world wide has signed for 60 million dollars. Over the last four years he has earned 8.8 million dollars on tour. The writing is on the wall for the two tours to come to some sort of an agreement so that players who left the PGA Tour have a path to come back. All the major players who backed the PGA Tour when LIV was first announced have softened their stance. With Jon Rahm who was a big supporter of the PGA Tour left, has certainly sped things up. The PGA Tour does not have the money to compete with the Saudi backed tour, but they are still throwing money around by restructuring the tour to keep players around. Kind of makes you wonder where they are getting all this money or have they been holding back from the players. Now, if the tour can only fix the way golf is broadcast on TV the product maybe more palatable to watch.
Kansas City Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers in Superbowl LVIII . Patrick Mahomes is doing what he does best. Win games. A great athlete with a compete level that is off the charts. The 49ers are there because a second half comeback aided by some Detroit Lions coaching errors. That is the nature of sports. Who can keep their head on straight when the chaos of competition is swirling around you. Too bad because the Lions were the feel good story of the year. I like the Chiefs because of Mahomes and Coach Reid.
Finally, the Ottawa Senators are starting to find themselves. They are 6-2-2 in the last ten games. Coach Martin has now had this team for twenty games. When Coach Martin took over the Club from DJ Smith I said to a very smart hockey guy that it would take about 20 games to sort this mess out. He brought up a good point saying that they would pout for about 5 to 10 games because Coach Smith did hold these guys accountable for there actions. That is exactly what they did. This is a very talented group of players but they did not know how to play the game of hockey. It was like watching beer league hockey at the local arena on a Wednesday night. To date he has brought in a defence first attitude. Because as my friend told me ” it a lot more fun playing with the puck than without it”. Getting the puck back requires discipline, execution, and hard work. However, when you get it, that is when the fun begins. Lately goals against has gone down, goals for up. Now, if we can get a couple of saves from over 20 feet it would certainly increase the chances of winning. Does anyone know if NHL clubs do in depth eye testing for goalies?
Until next time, Happy Groundhog Day!
Great movie BTW.
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