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My nephew Taylor Hogan’s Rochester (NY) Monarchs made it to the USA Hockey Tier1 12-and-under semi-finals of the national organization’s annual hockey tournament. We had flown into Rochester for the Passover holiday, and were able to make the drive over to Buffalo where the championships were being held to see the semi-final game. The Rochester Monarchs unfortunately lost to the Colorado Thunderbirds team 6-4. But check out the ‘do on the Rochester team members! The whole gallery can be found here.

Tags: Family, rochester, Sports

The 2006 Leroy the Hoard FFL title game came down to the tiebreaker of bench points, with my nemesis the Cadaver Dogs winning their second league crown.

After the starters finished deadlocked 111-111, the Dogs’ bench routed the Joebobs Bombers reserves. Ironically, the bulk of the points from the Bombers’ bench came from QB Matt Hasselbeck with 14. Had the Bombers realized Drew Brees wasn’t scheduled for much action for the playoff-bound Saints, his 14 points to Brees’ 1 would have given Joebobs the win. With only 95 seconds left to go after the Manning-to-Harrison TD pass, I was up 111-104. Then Cutler passes to Scheffler, for 7 total points. Sob. A true rookie mistake on my part, not realizing Brees would be on the sidelines. I always have this loyalty thing going with my fantasy team, trying not to change my lineup too much - here, it bit me in the tush.  Meanwhile, a late missed field goal against the Steelers by Shayne Graham cost both the Bengals a playoff spot and also a clear-cut win for the Cadaver Dogs.

Congrats to the Dogs. Maybe I’ll have better luck next year…

Tags: Sports

No, not the real SuperBowl - I’m talking fantasy here! For the first time since ever, my sad little fantasy football team has not only made it into the postseason but won last week’s semifinal (sorry Firf) to contend for the title of the Leroy the Hoard Fantasy Football League. It’s a pretty competitive field - mostly sports writers and current or ex- SI.com folks who tend to know a great deal more about the ins and outs of the NFL than yours truly. But in keeping with the league’s namesake, I have persevered over the years to never really distinguish myself. My opponent, the illustrious Cadaver Dogs (9-5, 4th seed) are off against my JoeBob’s Bombers (9-5, 3rd seed). The Bombers have owned their division rival in the regular season (6-2 in the modern era) including a week 14 win to claim the Rosey Potts division title and relegate the Dogs to the Wild Card play-in game. But the Cadaver Dogs hold the edge where it counts - 1-0 head-to-head in playoffs and 1-0 in league crowns. Hopefully, this year will be different. Here are the lineups:

Tags: Sports, Uncategorized

Watching the Open Championship (aka The British Open to us Yanks), I thought I spotted an unusual mode of transportation being used by one of the roving camera positions. A quick search of the wires found the image above - a television cameraman operating a steadicam rig atop a Segway was in fact following the golfers. Having chased the likes of Tiger, Norman, Els and the rest of them in the past, I know how heavy all that gear can be - seems like a perfect application of Dean Kamen’s technology. In the image above by AP Photographer Alastair Grant), you can see the driver has the rig aimed backwards at the group walking down the fairway - probably a lot easier this way than fast-walking backwards into one of those pot bunkers! I’m pretty sure this is a custom version of the XT model - while they do sell a version of the scooter adapted for the player with more money than sense that also carries their golf bag (the GT), I don’t see a camera-ready version on their site.

Tags: golf, Sports, Television

Unlike back in the day when I was with CNNSI.com, real-time biometric and GPS data on the competitors in the Tour de France is now apparently being published into the public domain. Typolis/Ubilabs have created an amazing mashup between Google Maps and data being published by SRM. Here is the result - realtime tracking of the riders, complete with heartrate, speed and similar metrics. Very slick - and better than what I’ve seen on the ‘big sites’ - including ESPN.com. Too bad we can’t see Lance or his disqualified heirs to the yellow jersey.

Tags: google, gps, mashup, Sports, web2.0

As an early Father’s Day present, Jonathan hooked me up with BoSox tickets for their interleague series against our hometown Atlanta Braves at nearby Turner Field. Yes, I’m a Braves fan, but I’m a bigger Red Sox fan, and jumped at the chance to let Sam see them play. This was Sam’s third MLB game, the first at six weeks, and then again last Fall. As in the past, he was a bit overwhelmed by the crowd noise and the sheer number of people, but soon began to enjoy himself. The BoSox won, of course, pushing Atlanta further into a downward spin they have been in lately, this being their 16th loss in 19 games, and their worst record since 1990. In better news, this win -  along with the Yankees loss today - put the Red Sox into a tie for first in the AL-East. Woohoo. Photo gallery is here.

Tags: baseball, Boston, sam, Sports

Editor and Publisher has released the 2006 EPpy Awards (full list here), an annual competition in some 32 categories chiefly focused on new media in the print industry, and several buddies of mine can claim a part in some of the larger awards. My old friend from his AOL Sports days Jim Brady led Washingtonpost.com to Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Internet Service (>1M uniques) as their executive editor and vp. Former Augusta Chronicle photographer Natalee Waters current newspaper The Roanoke Times took home the same award in the under 1-million unique visitors category (one of her audio/picture stories can be seen here). In the Best Internet News Service under 1 million category, The Naples Daily News took the honor where my old boss John Fish and his director of new media Rob Curley won that award. Last but not least my old buds at SI.com took home the award for Best Internet Sports Service over 1 million.

Tags: awards, journalism, new, Sports

In a stunning blow to Red Sox Nation, the evil empire scooped up Johnny D. last night. Say it ain’t so, somebody? The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy sums it up this way:

So now your Boston Red Sox have no center fielder, no shortstop, and no first baseman to go along with no Theo Epstein and no clue. It’s fair to say this is becoming a winter of discontent in Red Sox Nation.

Ah, there is trouble in Beantown, and no savoir in sight. How could the front office have let Johnny Damon go? I can only hope the Braves pickup of BoSox refugee Edgar Renteria gives my other fave team some help in 2006 with Furcal heading to the Dodgers.

technorati tags: red sox, yankees, baseball, boston, braves, furcal, damon

Tags: Sports

Talk about convergence! Girls and (fantasy) football, courtesy of the advertising geniuses at Weiden + Kennedy. ESPN.com fantasy football implements a tried-and-true way to get the attention of the coveted 18-34 male demographic - babes. Link to the videos here(Quicktime).

(Via Adrants)

Tags: Sports, Video

The Associated Press and News Corp.-owned Stats, Inc. announced yesterday that they were forming a joint venture to “create a one-stop shopping destination…providing the best and most comprehensive sports information and context to their customers.” It’s an interesting play (sorry for the sports pun), combining two of the biggest sports data companies, a potential blow to #3 provider Sportsticker, owned by ABC/Disney/ESPN.

PaidContent.orgtalks about potential conflict with the leagues over the consolidation, citing the now-ancient NBA v. Stats, Inc & Motorola suit. That set the precedent in the mid-90s allowing the ‘facts of the game’ to be public domain. But the real battles in terms of statistical access have revolved around reporter/data gatherer’s access to some venues. My old company, Morris Communications, sued the PGA Tour relative to rights to gather and distribute detailed golf scoring information, but for all intents and purposes, Morris lost that battle. And there have been various dustups over reporter’s rights to gather detailed MLB data, like pitch position and such, and the ballyhooed controversy recently over the official licenses for fantasy sports activities.

I would argue, however, that the leagues will appreciate the fact that the data consolidators are also now all tied, in some way, to business units that own broadcast rights. That just gives them more ability to press these providers to behave how they want them to.

If more leagues go to great lengths to create data themselves about their events, the PGA Tour case could have great ramifications. But on the flipside (and I’m no lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt), if the scoring aggregators are performing similar feats to provide their content, they may gain other protections.

Tags: Sports