I was just sitting down reading a story from a web-site yesterday only to find that there was somone in Ohio who wanted to ban all star games.  Normally I don't react to what somone is saying, but this really bugged the hell out of me.

Here is the link to the article if anyone wants to see for themselves.  In this article he is talking about kids younger than 10 years old.

If you dont have time to read it, let me give you the coles notes version.  Bascially what is being said is that the writer of the letter wants to ban the all-star game because it shatters a person self-confidence and can bruise the kids ego. 

Then he compares it to school and says that if a kid is learning numbers and letters quicker, do we call then "special" or "gifted".  Then he compared the all-star game to taking a vegetarian to a fancy steakhouse and or a person on a strick diet to a buffet.

Next he says all these games do is reward the kids who have developed quicker, then he got rediculous and said that all-star games with children at a young age can lead to injuries with extra games and practices.  I'll use a direct quote and he says "They take a toll on young bodies and lead to an avalanche of overuse injuries."

Then he goes on from there talking about how you should take a stand and help in the fight to ban all-star games in general, or something along those lines.

I don't know what to say after something like this.  This was written by the guy who wanted the great institution of the "Participant" trophy installed at every youth sports league in North America.  Whenever someone wants their child not to feel upset by belittleing other accomplishment bugs me to no end.

This letter was probably written by a parent who thinks their son or daughter when they are signed up for sports is going on to better things even though they can't tie their own shoes yet.  Then when their child got passed over for an all-star team, they are just so upset and they use the old addage of if I can't have it no one can.

Then he proceeds to damage his stance on the issue further saying that it can lead to a bruised ego when a child is passed over for an all-star team.  If your kids who is younger than 10 years old knows what an all-star team is unless he is watching the peofessionals, you have missed the point.  A 10 year old isn't going to be drafted tomorrow so whether or not he makes an all-star team should be irrelevant.

Next we have the overuse injuries comment.  You know what else provides overuse injuries to kids, playing video games for hours on end and eating bag after bag after bag of chips.  That also adds to the kids being severely overweight and less interested in sports. 

At least when kids are playing sports like baseball, basketball and football, they have a goal to strive for in being a great player, who is better -yes some kids are going to be better and it is not based solely on whether or not they have developed some are more skilled than others- than other players on their team.

Why should somones accomplishments be torn down to make other feel better about themselves?

I say that all-star teams are great because the ones who are passed over will try harder and they will try to become a better player.  Being dissappointed builds character in a person and isn't that more important in raising a productive member of society.  When kids get dissappointed at a young age, they learn how to persevere and get beyond road blocks.

If you don't teach a kid dissappointment at a young age what is going to happen when s/he hits middle age and goes off sulking when he didn't get a big account at the law firm s/he may work at.  It motivates them to become better at what they are doing and gets them working harder to achieve that goal.

Nobody celebrates mediocraty and by banning the all-star game, that is exactly what you are doing.  You saying that everyone is equal, which in many cases, like sports and life, they are not.  If you say to a kid that everyone gets a trophy for participating, the kid will be conditioned to think that way their entire life.

Listen to a lot of recruiting stories for big college programs.  Not everyone can go to USC, so when teams play USC, there is a little extra motivation to try and beat them to show them what the missed.  Ian Johnson, runningback at Boise State was passed over at UCLA, and has gone on to become one of the best runningbacks in college football.  What may have motivated him to this level, somone telling him he was not good enough.  Johnson was passed over on an all-star team and went on to great things in spite of his situation.

If you remove the all-star game you will be a lot more harm than good, by raising a nation of soft people, like the ones on American Idol who think they are excellent even though they are probably the worst on the planet, everyones great accomplishments will be downgraded and belittled to make everyone appear equal.  No one is equal or we would all be playing professionally.

I learned this concept when I was playing minor hockey and was passed over for an all-star team.  It motivated me to become a better player and then I kept moving up in levels.  When I got to my highgest level that gave me an incredible sense of accomplishment and I felt good about my self.

If there was no all-star game, maybe I wouldn't have gotten as high up as I did.  An All-Star game made me a better person, and I wasn't even apart of the game.  The team I was passed over for gave me motivation to get better, it taught me to peresevere and be a driven person and to work hard for everything I got.

By removing the All-Star game and start giving trophys to everyone, you create a culture of entitlement and then when somone doesn't receive a "good job" or an "atta boy" thats when it hurts the kids development.

When these people realize that they are hurting the kids rather than helping them, we will get a better kids and better professionals, because somone didn't say to them, "Congratulations Participant"

Not enough to do an entire post on one topic, so here is a little bit of everything:

1. Loved hearing about Fresno State winning the college world series last night upsetting Georgia 6-1.  Great story to see them win the National Title, and being 6-0 in elimination games in the entire tournament.
2. Jermaine O'Neal to the Toronto Raptors for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and the 17th pick is a good deal for both teams.  The Raptors get a big man to play down in the post and sit there and rebound the entire game long, and it takes a lot of pressure off Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargniani who were playing the inside game.  The Pacers get an excellent point guard in Ford and the possibility o####reat player with the draft pick.  Nesterovic was just a throw in to make the salaries match up, but he could turn out to be a good player for Indiana.
3. If the Miami Heat don't take Michael Beasley with the second overall pick in the draft this will be the biggest passover since the Raptors took the stiff Rafael Araujo with a ton of good palyers still on the board.
4. The whole Javon Walker saga has become a little tired.  After his BS excuse that he was mugged at his hotel room and dragged to a car and dumped in the street was completely believeable.  Now we have testimony that he willingly got into someones car and then was dropped off in the street.  I was on Javon Walker for bad decision making when this stroy broke, then I dismissed that totally implausible story, and now the truth has come out.  Okay, time to move on.
5. I love interleague play, and when I hear people say the schedule is un-balanced and un-fair need to look at baseball as an entire sport.  It is the most un-fair sport in the world.  Different parks have different dimensions, some parks have different nuances to them (Houston has a hill in centre field and Fenway has the Monster).  The schedule has been un-balanced for a long time.  The AL EAst plays the Yankees and Red Sox 18 times each, while other AL teams play them about six-nine times a season.  The Cubs get to play the Pirates 18 times a season.  Baseball on the whole is the most un-fair sport on the planet.
6. Stop beating me over the head with somone dunking in the WNBA.  When Candace Parker throws one down on someones head and doesn't just let it fall over the rim, call me.

That's it for this week.

With the NHL Draft taking place in Ottawa this weekend, every hockey fan is wondering who is their team going to pick, what trade day deals are going to happen and how is their teams chances at the Cup going to look after the weekends completes.

Being the good person that I am I thought I would shine some light on a few things.

Steven Stamkos will be the first overall pick, no questions asked.  I think that Tampa Bay's problems are not concerned with offence and they should be focusing on defense, but a prospect like Stamkos only comes along every so often.

Watching Stamkos at the World Junior Championships this past Christmas was a treat because I finally got to see what eveyone was talking about how good this kid is.  He will be an instant impact player in the NHL and will slide right into the Lightning line-up replacing the departed Brad Richards.  Their powerplay will be incredibly good with Lecavalier, St. Louis and Stamkos.

Teams are going to shy away from taking European players who are signed with club teams and playing professionally in Europe because of the disintegration of the IIHF Transfer agreement between the NHL and all other professionaly leagues around the world.

Players like Nikita Filatov who is projected to be the Number 5 overall pick according to TSN, will get passed over simply for the degree of difficulty of getting players away from their European team without being caught in a legal battle like Evgeni Malkin was when he left Russia for the Penguins.

In the NHL, especially with the Draft, you can't expect to be good overnight unless you get a prospect that is a 100% can't miss like Stamkos.  Most of the time when you get a player who is 18 years old, he takes time to develop physically, when the player is a lot smaller than his future NHL colleagues.

The mental aspect is not that big a deal because the players in the CHL are used to playing a ton of games, including three games in as many nights.  Also, in the CHL they play with the rules they are going to play with in the NHL which is another reason that the turnover is going to be a lot faster than a sport like baseball and or to a lesser extent football.

A draft in any sport-except baseball-is always exciting and the upcoming NHL one will be no exception.

On New Years day in 2007 a tradgedy happened to the Denver Broncos.  Conerback Darrnet Williams was gunned down in his SUV outside a night club with then teammate Javon Walker sitting in the car with him.  Walker who survived the burtal attack lived to tell the story of that brutal night.  Williams died while he was in Walker's arms.  Walker keeps the blood stained clothing from that night with him to remind him of what happened.

It appears that he hasn't learned.

Walker was found the morning of June 17 in the street in Las Vegas with a broken orbital bone and robbed, after he allegedly purchased mass amounts of Dom Perion Champagne and began to soak the crowd at he night club he visited that night.

How does a person not make a better decision after going through traumatic events such as the death of a friend and teammate?  You watched something bad happen to a friend, and now you go and have a "Look at Me" moment in a club in Las Vegas?

The incident leading to Williams death has been speculated to have begun in the same way as the most recent events began.  If that is true, wouldn't that make you even a little more hesitent about how you conduct yourself the next time you are out in a club?

Affter the Williams shooting, Walker didn't show up to the funeral because he said that he had to go re-count his thoughts over what happened.  What better place to do that than America's playground.  If you were scared because of what happened to Williams, why would you go straight into the fire?  Wouldn't you go as far away from a situation?

Walker doesn't know who is in the club that night, and if there is someone who has a history of bad intentions and is looking for a fight, while Walker had his alleged moment, someone easily could've picked him out as an easy mark.  He is a victim of his own actions.

I don't like to see these types of things happen to anyone, but if you don't learn from your own experiences, then I find it hard to feel sorry for someone.

Since he didn't learn from his past experiences, this is just another case of an athlete finding out the hard way that--and this is a really bad term to use--he isn't bulletproof.

With the NBA Finals beginning tonight, most of the talking heads on all the major networks are making thier predictions on who is going to win the series and how many games it is going to take.

But I am having a problem...I have no idea who has the edge in the series.  This finals is the biggest pick'em series I have seen in any sport for a long time.

I am going to attempt to break it down, but I may tear my hair out before I am finished.  Maybe if I get my thoughts down on paper, my pick will be revealed.

Boston Celtics

Positives: Three simple words, "Boston Three Party".  Paul Pierce is Paul Pierce, KG is KG, and Ray Allen has finally joined the party and has reverted to his old self.  We have an emerging star in Rajon Rondo who has turned into a decent point guard, and you are getting contributions from the bench with Kendrick Perkins and James Posey and the rest of the Celtics bench will shine at home.

Also Doc Rivers is a good coach who has gotten the most out of his players over the entire season and brought them from basement dwellers to penthouse sellers.  Most of that is because of the Big Three, but Rivers had to find a room big enough for the egos that come along with them. They also have homecourt advantage which has been such a big thing in the NBA playoffs this year.

Negatives: Who is going to cover Kobe Bryant?  Who is going to make sure that Kobe doesn't go off for 50 in every game in the series?   Will the real Ray Allen stick around for an entire series?

Just a few questions, but the same goes for the Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers

Positives: Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.  Since the Memphis Grizzlies "traded" Gasol to the Lakers for a rack of basketballs or Kwame Brown, whichever has more value, the Lakers have been excellent and been largely unstoppable.  I started watching more West basketball with the Lakers and all the other good teams out West.  Lamar Odom has finally had his coming out party, since he hasn't been forced into a role he could not excell at.  He can finally just play his game.

Also the rest of the Laker have been playing excellent basketball with Derek Fisher leading the way.  Then they have one fo the greatest coaches in NBA history, the Zen master Phil Jackson, who is arguably a top three coach in NBA history.

Negatives: Who is going to cover Kevin Garnett?  Does Gasol have the strength to consistently #### with Garnett for what I believe will be a long series?  Finally, in hearing that Radmanovic will be covering Pierce, that made me cringe, Pierce might go off for a ton of points.

Well, as good as I tried, this Finals is still as clear as mud.

But I think that I will say the Lakers in seven, with the home team winning every home game except for the deciding game.

This series looks like it could be a really fun one to watch, and its about time.

The upcoming EliteXC MMA event this Saturday will be the first time that Mixed Martial Arts will be broadcast on a major television network.  Maybe MMA has finally shaken itself of its old image and is now a main stream sport, rather than its life before the modern UFC when it was seen as a cult sport.

This sport has come a long way from its days of allowing eye-gouging and shots to the business.

Since the sport was first introduced, it was shunned by all major media people, and it was attempted to be shut down by a current presidential candidate.  But now with the regulation of the events, how the fighters represent themselves and the sport, and grass roots shows like Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter how could this sport not be considered with the stick and ball sports of Football, Baseball, Hockey and Basketball.

Even respected sports networks like Sportsnet in Canada and a certain four letter word, lets call them PSEN, have had spots on television dedicated to this sport.  Sportsnet even employs thier own MMA talking head.  Not to mention most sports websites now have entire pages dedicated to the covering of not only the large events like the UFC, but also others like WEC, MFC and EliteXC.

Now  politicians are trying to influence these young viewers of these events, as evidenced by the commercial during TUF last night where various UFC stars are encouraging people to vote.  People who once poo pooed the sport, are now trying to take advantage of its popularity.

But even with the popularity of MMA, people still see it as they did when Royce Gracie was breaking people's arm.  They refuse to take a look at this sport now and see how far it has come.  But, then you can't influence how people perceive thier sport when thier mind is already made up.

With the first MMA event being put on "free" TV, Maybe MMA has finally arrived.