The Vancouver Whitecaps took on Toronto FC in a MLS game and a fantastic finish was brought by Eric Hassli, to the game, and his wonder goal. Second-half substitute Eric Hassli scored one of the best goals we have seen off of a volley in extra time (video below) which gave the Vancouver Whitecaps a 1-1 tie with Toronto FC in the first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship soccer final Wednesday night.

via Whitecaps

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Thank to my extra-innings package, I came across this commercial while watching the Brew-Crew the other day. As football season is still in hiatus, Brewer and Packer fans alike hail Rodgers at every opportunity. I would actually be curious to get Rodgers on the mound to see how fast he could sling it. Watch the snippet above great great great.

Wall of Fame Sports.com

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For some crazy and inexplicable reason, I’ve seemed to notice a resurgence of interest in the LA Kings lately. Since I’ve proudly proclaimed myself to be a Kings fan for the last 15 years, many people have been coming to me with a barrage of questions about how this has happened. Right now, the cool new thing in LA is to be a Kings fan, and while my first instinct is to be annoyed with these people for previously telling me that “hockey is lame” or “the Kings will never come close to winning the cup,” I’m too damn elated to waste my time with I told you so’s. Instead, I figured I’d do my part as a good citizen and provide some of the bandwagoners with some important Kings knowledge to at least make it sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Much like we’ve seen all throughout this postseason, game two of the Western Conference Finals was completely dominated by the LA Kings. In the 4-0 Kings victory, the Phoenix Coyotes learned that there is no solution for Jonathan Quick and that stifling the deep and powerful Kings offense is just not that easy. The Kings have unquestionably been the best team in the 2011-2012 playoffs, being the first # 8 seed to knock off a # 1 and # 2 team back to back. They have a perfect road record of 7-0 this postseason, and have tied an NHL record with nine consecutive playoff road wins dating back to last season.

The beauty of this Kings team lies in its depth. That word “depth” is one that you hear often in the playoffs because it’s unlikely for a team with only one successful top line to keep advancing. The Kings have three lines that score on a consistent basis. The top line of Brown, Kopitar, and Williams have dominated with 36 points this postseason, but they are getting lots of help from the Carter, Richards, and Penner line (25 points), as well as the King, Stoll, and Lewis line (12 points). The simple fact that Jarrett Stoll is centering the third line is reason enough to call this team “deep.” On any other team, he would likely be placed in a top six forward role. He is consistent in the faceoff circle and puts a ton of focus on mastering the little parts of the game. Let’s also not forget about the 18 points that have been recorded by the Kings six defenseman.

That takes care of the offensive side of things. If anyone had expected the Kings to be in the Western Conference Finals, they would have probably attributed it to a strong defense. Fortunately, the Kings haven’t had to sacrifice their defensive game in order to give life to the goal scoring. The penalty kill has been outstanding, giving up only three power play goals in 11 playoff games (all to the Vancouver Canucks). When I watch the post-game interviews, I keep hearing these teams on the losing end saying that they haven’t yet played their best hockey. There’s a really simple reason for this: The Kings aren’t giving these teams a chance to do that. With the way that they have been able to shut down Vancouver, St. Louis, and in these last two games, Phoenix, it’s unlikely that any team will be able to play “their best hockey” against them.

Another strength of the Kings has been their ability to get under the skin of the opposition. Dustin Brown draws more penalties than anyone I’ve ever seen. Somehow, as a group, they’ve managed to cause teams to take stupid and unnecessary penalties, thus putting the Kings in a position to gain momentum, regardless of whether or not they’re scoring on the power play. At about halfway through game 2, the Coyotes got frustrated and completely lost their cool. Shane Doan boarded Trevor Lewis and got a 5-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. Mike Smith got pissed and hacked Dustin Brown with his goalie stick for no apparent reason, and then came Martin Hanzal with a vicious act of boarding against Dustin Brown, which got him ejected from the game and suspended for Game 3.

It will be interesting to see how the Coyotes will handle the absence of Hanzal in the lineup. Game 3 is tomorrow night at 6pm PST in Los Angeles. I’m anticipating a good fight or two and of course, another Kings victory. We’ll see if the Coyotes have what it takes to fight back, but at this rate, I’m not sure if any team will find a solution for the Kings. Here are some highlights from Game 2:

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Churchill High School senior golfer Laura Inglis not only had the the 5A Oregon state golf championship won with her tournament leading final round, but was about to become the first golfer in Oregon history to win that state title four years in a row. Instead she accidentally signed a scorecard showing her winning score of 69 as a 68 on the scorecard and, in line with USGA rules, she was disqualified.

Inglis’ signed card showed that she made a par on the 18th hole, when she actually made a bogey, her lone bogey of the round. She was in the scoring area when someone mentioned that her score had been posted as a 68.

Inglis made a beeline inside, got her scorecard and reported the mistake. OSAA officials, following the USGA rules the tournament was played under, disqualified her.

Inglis’ card was kept by her playing partner who missed her lone bogey of the day when making notation. Despite not having kept her own card by USGA rules any golfer is responsible for checking the score before signing the card and handing it in.

While this happens semi-regularly on the PGA Tour it’s not something you hear about very often in high school sports. That it happened in the state championship and with history on the line is particularly heart breaking.

Inglis will continue her playing career next year on the University of Oregon women’s golf team but her chance to make history in high school is sadly gone.

Via OregonLive

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The best part of this video is that this young man who will go nameless because I have absolutely no clue who he is, tries to get the crowd pumped for his epic long jump. The crowd obliges with some half assed claps and when the young man jumps face first into a box of sand, I really expected more clapping. I, in fact, gave him a standing ovation on my 5th time watching this clip.

via ADAM

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I have heard and read a lot of opinions the last couple days on what Chris Bosh’s abdominal strain means to the Miami Heat.  But I have yet to see someone express the same view as mine: I think the absence of Bosh will have no effect on the Heat’s success whatsoever.  They may win the title, they may lose to the Pacers this round, but I think the outcome will be the same with or without Bosh.  I know they went 4-5 without him this season.  I know their other bigs are terrible and their bench is very thin.  But honestly the only player who really matters for Miami is Lebron James.

In 2009 the Cavs finished an NBA best 66-16.  The next best player on that team was… Mo Williams?  Zydrunas Ilgauskas?  Anderson Varejao?  Sasha Pavlovic?  Ok, maybe not Sasha, but Cleveland was just a team featuring Lebron and a bunch of other regular NBA players.  They lost in the Eastern Conference Finals to an Orlando squad that got crazy hot hitting threes.  The following year Lebron and a similarly mediocre roster again had the best record in the league (59-23), but they lost in the Eastern Conference Semifinals to Boston when he seemed lost and disinterested for half the series (possibly because one of his teammates was sleeping with his mom).  And finally last year, in the first post “decision” season in Miami, Lebron and the Heat made it to the NBA Finals.  However “King” James put forth one of the worst playoff series any superstar has ever had, and Miami lost the championship to Dallas.

My point is this: Lebron and any four average NBA players have the talent to win the title.  But for whatever reason up to this point he has been unable to get it done.  Whether it happens this year or not has everything to do with him and very little to do with the health of Chris Bosh.

To read more of my blog “37 seconds of sports and other stuff i care about” follow me on twitter @LucidSportsFan, “like” my fan page on facebook, or just go to lucidsportsfan.com

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Chicago Bulls’ team physician said Derrick Rose could miss the entirety of next season after his surgery on Saturday. Dr. Brian Cole, who performed the surgery, said the recovery time will likely be between eight and twelve months.

“We’re at this point very optimistic. … We think of recovery as the long process that’s in stages. But the short answer is the time frame we believe an athlete of this caliber generally requires is about eight to 12 months. Sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.

“While he will be at hopefully a very high level at 12 months, it still may take slightly longer for him to be at his pre-injury level. That’s not uncommon for athletes of this caliber.”

“If you look at reasons why athletes do or do not get back to their pre-injury level of play, there’s no question that the psychological component is part of it,” Cole said. “And because we know that, that’s something we focus on.

“If you look at a typical progression, he’ll be doing basketball-specific activities very early on. And that’s just a great feedback move just to say, ‘Hey, I can do this.’ And then you do sort of non-contact, basketball-friendly activities against other people to start getting a sense of, ‘Hey, I can do this, I can trust my knee.’ And it’s this progression of low contact, high levels of contact in competition, pre-playing a real game that they get the feedback and say, ‘Hey, I can really do this.’ … He will learn to be able to trust his knee.”

Dr. Cole did say, however, Rose is “doing great” and the surgery went “extremely well” which is a positive in this unfortunate series of events.

The center-piece of the Bulls went down April 28th in the first game of the Bulls’ series against the Philadelphia 76ers. Without Rose, the Bulls were unable to advance in the playoffs  making them just the fifth one-seeded team to not advance past an eighth seed.

Bulls’ GM Gar Forman did say that in the time he spent with Rose, “his spirits seemed really good” and “he’s determined to attack this rehab.” There is no doubt this is a huge blow to the Bulls’ future and it will be interesting seeing how Forman handles potentially not having his star for the entire 2012-13 season.

via ESPN

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The single Pictures of You was released in 1990, but I definitely wasn’t aware of it then.  In fact I didn’t really know anything about The Cure until Friday I’m in Love became a huge mainstream pop hit a couple years later.  I’m not exactly sure at what point I discovered this song.  It’s been in many many TV commercials over the years; I remember one in particular for Hewlett Packard digital photography  that I thought was fairly recent, but it turns out is from 2003.  I swear Kodak or Polaroid or somebody must have used the song in another ad since then, because I can’t believe the one I’m thinking of is nine years old.  The interweb seems to disagree with me though.  Anyway, moving on, here’s the video:

To read more of my blog “37 seconds of sports and other stuff i care about” follow me on twitter @LucidSportsFan, “like” my fan page on facebook, or just go to lucidsportsfan.com

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Kareem Abdul Jabbar showed where his mind is on Jeopardy recently. Alex Trebek had to remind him that this isn’t cable.

And as a reminder, don’t mess with Alex Trebek.

(h/t Barstool)

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The New York Giants unveiled their new bling from Super Bowl XLVI on Wednesday, which pays homage to all four of the franchise’s championship teams.

Defensive end Justin Tuck said in a statement released by the team: “We wanted it to represent the four trophies and have that feeling that you made the best ring that you could have made, I think we captured that.”

According to ESPN:

The ring, made of white gold, was designed by Tiffany & Co., which received input from the Giants’ ownership, general manager Jerry Reese, coach Tom Coughlin and Giants captains Eli Manning, Tuck and Zak DeOssie, who also received input from other players on the team.

The ring is covered in diamonds and has four Vince Lombardi trophies, commemorating the team’s four titles. Each trophy is set with a marquis diamond representing a football. The Giants’ logo is surrounded by the trophies and is set with diamonds. The top of the ring includes 37 blue sapphires.

The ring also has some blue coloring, which was important for the players involved in the design process. The ring the team received after its 2007 title featured white gold and diamonds, without any additional color.

The Giants' Super Bowl XLVI ring

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