GAME 5

Tomorrow night the Celtics play a huge game. They are tied in their best of 7 series with the Atlanta Hawks 2 games apiece. Nobody is really panicing right now in this region because the Celtics still have Game 5 at home in Boston. (They love that dirty water.) The Celtics have been amazing at home this season and especially in the third quarter of games. This one should be sewn up before the dreaded 4th quarter even gets there. But the question is still there, what if the Celtics do lose Game 5?

In that scenario they would have their backs against the wall and have to go back to the dreaded Phillips Arena (which might as well be the House of Pain for the C's right now) for a Game 6. Pretty much they need to win Game 5 right now, because the Celt's have played very hard in this series and it hasn't been successful at all on the road. I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's psycological that they can't play on the road or the theory that I believe is that Doc Rivers is in way over his head right now. They played well in games 1 and 2 and then somewhere he paniced. When the Hawks made their Game 3 push, he paniced and tried to keep his starters in the game instead of going with his set rotation that drove me nuts during the beginning of the series, but after they started consistently winning the younger players started to step up I started to see that it was actually working. Isn't that just like Doc though, just as soon as I start to agree with something that he does, he has to go and change it and turn it into a minus again. The second one of the younger bench players goes into the game and makes a bad play or misses a cut (apparently Leon Powe missed 5 defensive switches) he benches them and feels he can't trust them. So what am I to do about this? What can I do to to help raise the Celtics in Game 5?

I need to be there for them, I am scheduled to be at Fenway Park for the series finale with the Blue Jays thursday night, so me and my buddy Tommy Gunn are going down a night early and going to the TD Garden for Game 5.

I'm psyched, I haven't been there for a Celtics game since 2002 and that was against the Wizards. My pal Riley and I were going to get a chance to see Michael Jordan who decided that he needed to take that game off, but I still got to see the great Christian Laettner play, so I was happy. (Go DUKE!) My first playoff game in any sport, ladies and gentlemen, HERE WE GO!

~Sterling Pingree

Hard times

In the words of the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, (not to be confused with the American Dream Dusty Pedroia) "That is hard times."
That is exactly what this past week has been in Boston Sports. Let's recap.

The Red Sox beat the Angels in a classic comeback game at fenway, from then till they beat Doc Halladay tonight, they hadn't won a single game.

The Celtics won last wednesday in Game two of their first round series with the Atlanta Hawks. Since then? They lost two straight in the daunting confines of Phillips Arena (the word confines just doesn't work for basketball, definatly just a baseball word.)

So this afternoon I was sitting here about to read Bill Simmons latest marathon chat session, thinking to myself about how high I was riding just a week ago. I went to the Sox game with my buddy Griffin and we were talking about how we both thought the Celtics were going far in the playoffs and that the Hawks and even the Cav's didn't prove any match up for the 66 win Celtics. We gushed about the Red Sox who at that point were about to win about their 10th win in 11 tries and were absolutely firing on all cylinders. Since then, nothing good has happened, (except for Jerod Mayo to the Patriots, this is a good thing.....I think) but tonight we got an epic performance that when you couple it with the reverse jinx proficy dream that I had last night, makes it all that much more amazing.
I had a dream last night that Jon Lester gave up 7 runs in just 2+ innings tonight and the Sox got shut out by the DOC. The complete opposite happened, the DOC only shut them out for 8 2/3 innings and Jon Lester did the same through 8 innings. A stunning victory for the Sox, maybe tides are turning again with this win and the Celtics coming back to the TD Garden tomorrow night for game 5.
This could be the beginning of something again.

~Sterling Pingree

Winners and losers of the NFL Draft part 2

okay so the first part of this post was about who I thought the winners were in this years NFL draft. This time its all about who I thought were the losers in the draft and why I have given these teams that title.


The biggest loser in this draft goes to the Atlanta Falcons for drafting Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan. Don't get me wrong Matt Ryan is a good quarterback but the falcons didn't need to make that pick. One school of thought on this is that by picking Ryan the Atlanta faithful think that its saying we are done with Mike Vick.... WRONG! If that was the case then when Ryan was picked people wouldn't have said the words Mike Vick right off the bat... but they did. All Atlanta did was add more fuel to an already raging fire within the organization. Atlanta better hope that Ryan pans out fast because if not... I wouldn't put it past the Falcons to count the days until Vick gets out of prison....

Another team that left me scratching my head was the Tennessee Titans. They have a franchise quarterback in Vince Young, but there is just one problem.... he doesn't have a number one wide receiver that can make plays. So Tennessee goes out and drafts an okay wide receiver who's name I cant remember right now because he's not that big of a player. The point I'm trying to make is that any good quarterback will tell you that it makes a world of difference to have a number one wide out to throw to when you need a big play. Vince young can't keep carrying the Titans on just his legs alone... sooner or later the Titans will need to get Vince some real help.

~Derek Gause~

Winners and losers of the NFL Draft part 1

The draft is over and all of the teams in the NFL have made their picks to help better themselves.But that doesn't mean that it was necessarily the right choice when it comes to the winners and losers of the draft.


First of all I would like to congratulate all of the drafts winners who I thought were the real winners. My hat goes off to the New England Patriots for filling in the two spots that they needed to. The Pats have had a good defense over the past few years, but they were aging at Linebacker so they did the smart thing and drafted young linebackers. They also had some holes in the secondary so they went out and got a corner, a job well done by the Patriots.

In my honest opinion the team that had the best draft was the Kansas City Chiefs. some might say I'm crazy but they did exactly what they said they were going to do.. they drafted players that could hep them instantly, not a couple of years down the road. Their biggest pick was of course Dorsey, the stud Defensive end out of LSU.

My third winner of the draft was the Miami Dolphins because they went out and got their guy on Tuesday before the draft... then went out and got Chad Henne the quarterback from Michigan. There is one honorable mentions that i would like to mention such as the Minnesota Vikings. They needed to get a quarterback in case Jackson struggles and they went out and got John David Booty from USC.


~Derek Gause~

Who's to Blame?

Talladega was Talladega yesterday, especially near the end.

The cars were running four-wide. Bobby Labonte was on the inside, with Tony Stewart next to him on the outside line. Another car was to Tony's outside, too. That car came in on Tony, pinching him and forcing him into Bobby and, before you knew it, five or six cars were piled up on the outside wall. The car that caused it all kept on going.

In the final lap, several cars were battling for position. This same car hits another car, causing "The Big One" and depriving the fans of the exciting finish that was brewing between Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya and others.

One car caused both of the big wrecks at Talladega.

Now, if the driver had been someone like David Ragan, you know that the announcers and the other drivers would have been all over him. We've seen it happen before.

In both cases, though, the announcers ignored what was right before their eyes, what was clearly shown on the replays. The announcers refused to say what caused both of the the wrecks. And I think we all know why.

Because the truth is that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. drove recklessly and caused both of the big wrecks yesterday. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. caused substantial damage to almost half the cars in the field. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is to blame for what happened.

But you'll never hear it from the announcers or the other drivers, because Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is the golden boy of NASCAR.

Aaron Larsen