I didn't get to see the Rangers vs Devils game on Sunday, but watching the highlights Monday morning I saw Sean Avery set a screen on Martin Brodeur, he was using his stick as a little bit of an extra screen.

All I heard from different analysts was that what Avery was doing was not illegal, but it was not "kosher" and that is was unsportsmanlike.  I have seen a bunch of different highlights of this and I have found nothing wrong with what Avery is doing.  Avery is being a pest to goalies, that is waht he gets paid to do.

Aside from the analysts saying that Avery was wrong, it is mostly goalies who are poo pooing his actions.  Dallas goalie Marty Turco was one to say that what Avery did was wrong.

I like Turco, but he is not the most objective source to go for to an opinion on an issue like this.  All goalies look out for other goalies.  If every goalie had a say on what was allowed in front of them, they would want to make setting screens illegal.

Avery was just trying to level the playing field between he and Brodeur.  He was trying to make it more difficult for Brodeur to make a stop.  He was trying to heklp his team win the game.

I notice that when I see the talking heads on TSN and Sportsnet saying that Avery was unsportsmanlike, they look over the nice shot to the groin that Brodeur and most goalies give to the players setting the screens.  Nobody came to Avery's defense and said that Brodeur was wrong.

Maybe they say that Avery was wrong because there has been some questionable decisions made in the past.  This is sort of the same talk I heard when Chris Simon stomped on Ruutu's leg, and one analyst said that "It's Ruutu!"

Nobody likes the pest.  Everyone will stick up for the guy who is being bothered by the pest.  Everyone is going to protect the stars like Brodeur and crucify guys like Avery.

If it was another player like Darcy Tucker, people would be calling him an innovator, saying why don't more players use their sticks like that.

Take your opinion of Avery out of the equation, then look at the highlight again.  Then make your decision and see what's wrong.

This is the best time of the year.  Well, almost.

The NCAA tournament is wrapping up tonight after a great run that will actually produce a pure champion.  I love seeing the Cinderella stories every year, but when you get the best four teams playing in one city over three days, I do a little jig.

I couldn't believe that Kansas and Memphis screwed my bracket and forced me into second behind my friend who doesn't know how to spell UCLA or UNC.  Gotta love college basketball, but is digress.

Every team this past weekend would have run Davidson out of the gym and steamrolled them, just like Geroge Mason a few years ago.  Kansas vs Memphis will be awesome to watch and we will get a true champion.  Ummm, Hello! BCS are we paying attention?

Baseball season is just getting underway, and I could not be happier for a couple of months.  I love baseball, in April and May and in September and October.  In June, July (except for the All-Star Game) and August, I find baseball boring.

Nothing against baseball, but those Orioles vs Rays or Pirates vs Giants just don't get me to the TV.  I love the great teams, and will make time for Yankees vs Red Sox, but that pretty much it.

The NHL playoffs are begining this Wednesday and this is the most excited I have been for the hockey playoffs since the lockout. With the down to the wire races for a playoff push with the Capitals winning their division, and also having Sid the Kid and Ovechkin finally in the playoffs together, I will make time to watch as much playoff hockey as possible.

Who could forget the Masters is coming up this weekend.  I don't watch as much golf as my family does, but when you get great story lines and great scenery, watching four golf events a year, I enjoy this one the most because it means a lot of things are happening.  what I mentioned above, a couple of other things.

NFL pro days are complete and now we are just counting down the days until the Dolphins are no longer on the clock.  I love listening to draft talk up to and including draft day, it makes me pine for the best time of the year.

Finally, the NBA has drawn me in as a fan.  I actually watched NBA games this past season after the Big Diesel becamse the Big Cactus and the West became more stacked than Keeley Hazell.  I had fallen out of love with the NBA, but the Celtics this season and the Suns playing the best defense is a good offense.  Finally scoring in the NBA brought me back and is getting me interested.

This time of year to me is not the best time, but second ain't terrible.

With the Ottawa Senators chances of missing the playoffs reaching an all time high this year, I think for a good laugh, lets look at theirs and some other epic collapses in all of pro sports.

2007-2008 Ottawa Senators
After starting the season with a 13-1 record, and looking like a shoein to make the Stanley Cup finals, and maybe win the entire thing.  But then the Sens ate some bad fish when out on a road trip and started choking.  The Sens have been on a nose dive ever since the All-Star break, and they may not have a chance to pull out before they hit the ground.

2007 New York Mets
With a 7 game lead, with less than a month to go in the season, the Mets were playing with their family cat and swallowed a fur ball and began to choke.  With as good as the Mets were last year, they still couldn't close the deal.  Not only did they lose the division to the Phillies, they missed the playoffs all together.

2006 Boston Red Sox
What happened?  Two years off of winning their first World Series in 86 years, all I remember from this season is what is known as the Boston Massacre.  The Red Sox had a lead in the division, then came August 18.  The Sox had a four game scheduled series with the Yankees, that turned into five game series because of a rain out.  The Yankees went on to lose all five games to the Yankees and then lose the division, and finish in third place.  The Yankees are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.

1978 Boston Red Sox
The original Boston Massacre.  most Red Sox fans will remember this for Bucky Dent.  With a 14 and a half game lead on July 19, the Red Sox proceeded to break their fans hearts when the coughed up seventeen games losing the division by 3 and a half games.  Yankees outfielder, Reggie Jackson said after the season, "We played great, but we didn't win it. They lost it. If they'd played .500 the last half of the season, we'd never have caught them".

1978 Washington Redskins
The beginning of the season looked promising with 6 straight wins.  But then the the 'Skins had a drink go down the wrong tube, choked and finished 8-8, with 5 straight loses.

1942 Detroit Red Wings
The original team to lose a seven game series after leading 3-0.  While leading in the deciding game in the Stanley Cup finals, 1-0, they lost the game in 10 miniutes by letting the Toronto Maple Leafs socre three unanswered goals.

Jean Van de Velde, 1999 British Open
Who could forget Jean Van de Velde hitting the ball into the water at Carnoustie in 1999.  Then after rinsing his ball, Van de Velde decided to get a little wet himself.  Van de Velde turned his golf pants into flood pants and waded into the creek and proceeded to attempt the heimlich maneuver.  He was unsuccessful.

Greg Norman, 1996 Masters
Bogey. Bogey. Bogey. Double bogey.  That sounds like a guy at your local dog track executive course, not a professional at Augusta.  This was the greatest choke job in golf history, until a monsieur Van de Velde got wet at Carnoustie.

But here is the gold medalist...........

2004 New York Yankees
This one is pretty simple because it made history that had not been made in 86 years.  After the Yankees took a 3 game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, the Sawx "kept the faith" and fought back in three great games to only destroy Yankees in the final game.  Then the Sawx lucked out in the World Series to let Bill Buckner rest easy.

Let me know any others you can think of.

With the happenings of the past weekend during a playoff game in the Quebec Major Juniour hockey league involving former NHL goalie great Patrick Roy, Hockey has taken another black eye that it didn't deserve.

Jonathan Roy, Goalie of the QMJHL Quebec Remparts can be seen on many sports casts and your local computer during a playoff game being held back by the referees while trying to start a fight with the goalie of the Chicoutimi Sauguneens.

After the referee holding Roy back left to attend to another matter, Patrick Roy can been seen in two different camera shots waving for his son to go to the other end of the ice.  I have no idea what Patrick was saying nor am I going to speculate as to what was said, but he should have made more of an effort to control the conduct of his team, let alone his own son.

Then Jonathan Roy skated the length of the ice and began to assault, and that is the only way to describe it, the opposing goalie then proceeded tell the crowd that they were number 1, then begin another fight with a player, I said to myself, "this is going to be an ugly suspension".  That is not what happened.

Then we get a little 7 game suspension for the son and 5 games for papa, I felt that the ball had been dropped like it so often is in Hockey from the NHL on down to junior.

Then watching two shows on the Tuesday following the incident, ESPN's "Around the Horn" and "Pardon The Interuption" and hearing the LA Times columnist Bill Plascke and Miami Herald Columnist Dan Le Batard say that this is part of the game. 

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

Le Batard continued and said that hockey is a brutal game.  Does anyone every say that football is a brutal game?

When did battery become woven into the fabric of a game that I love and still play?  We see incidents like this happen every year in hockey, but does anyone try and put a stop to it, No.  Everyone now sees hockey as a brutal game and one full of thugs.  From the Bertuzzi incident to this one.  Seven games is an absolute joke for what Roy did.

I have heard people say that it is a playoff game and that playoff games are more vauable than regular season games.  So I say if the games or more valuable, make the punishment fit the crime.  Deterents have been sorely missed in the NHL and hockey in general, but incidents like this where they can throw the book at someone, they toss a pillow.

If Roy had done this on the street he would be on trial for battery.  But because he is playing hockey and you have opinions like those of Le Batard and Plascke, people always get a pass.

With an opportunity to send a message to players in all of hockey, hockey did not do anything.  That means that everyone has accepted this as part of the game and they have done the game a disservice.

It is a shame that no one feels the need to fix this part of the game.

After hearing of the top quarterback prospect coming out of high school, Terrelle Pryor chose the Buckeyes over the Wolverines, I began to look around the net to see where people would be rating the Buckeyes recruiting class of 2008.

I then stumbled across something written by the Detroit Free Press.  Actually a couple of things.  These are the titles of a few things:

1. Michigan's future never depended on Pryor
2. No Terrelle Pryor opens door for other QBs, Carlos Brown, 2009 recruits
3. Wolverines already have a dual-threat quarterback not named Pryor
4. Michigan shouldn't be disappointed that it missed out on Pryor
5. Terrelle Pryor could be a bust like past No. 1s

Do I dectect a little bit of sour grapes coming from Ann Arbor?

I am not an Ohio State fan but these headlines make me a little skeptical about the concept of objective journalism.  These legitimate articles on a legitimate newspaper such as the Detroit Free Press just give more cause that the world of agendaless journalism is gone.

What would the headlines have been if Pryor had chosen Michigan over OSU? 

1. Michigan set for the next 4 years
2. Pryor solidify's Michigan's potent offense
3. 4 time Heisman comes to Michigan?
4. RichRod pulls one over on the vest.

The Ohio papers weren't the most objective either, but I want to be as objective as possible.

With my knowledge of College Football, I think that it would have been better if Pryor had chosen Michigan over OSU because of offensive style and ability to get on the field right away.  OSU is not right for him because he will be sitting on the bench for a while behind current Bucks quarterback Todd Boeckman.  Also thier offense is a pro style offense that doesn't suit Pryor's strengths.

This new development will just amp up one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports.