Guess Krstic Is Not Coming Back

Nenad Krstic has signed a two-year contract with Russian power CSKA Moscow. Krstic played in Russia between NBA stops in New Jersey and Oklahoma City, but this is still shocking. The Celtics were said to have interest in bringing him back, and to be honest I was kind of a fan of that. Furthermore I would think there would be at least a handful of team that would've been interested in Krstic. Russia must have just been offering a lot more money, or maybe he could've been worried about the (what seems to be the inevitable) lockout.

With Krstic gone the Celtics have lost Shaq, most likely Baby, and Krstic making me think even more that they are going to need to go out and find more big men either through the draft or free agency.

Goodbye Krstic, I will miss you and your awkward combover.

NFL Picks Week Thirteen: In Which We Learn Oil Money Can Buy ANYTHING

One of the great things about this summer's 2010 FIFA World Cup was not just the inspiring and then heartbreaking performance of the U.S. team, but that it was an event uniting a continent and a nation with a history of racial and social tensions so profound, that putting on such a successful show for the world was an accomplishment in and of itself. While South Africa is now experiencing some issues filling its World Cup venues, the tournament itself was a tremendous and uplifting event for any fan of the beautiful game.

So with the decisions to be made for 2018 and 2022 today, it's good to see that FIFA had absolutely no interest whatsoever in maintaining that inspiring storyline. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that my personal preferences for each event -- that would be England in 2018 and the United States in 2022 -- would have had the same uplifting social impact that the Cup in South Africa did, but at least England is a nation with a soccer history as rich as any could be, as well as one that would be 52 years removed from its last turn as host by the time 2018 rolled around. In the case of the U.S., people can bash soccer fandom in this country all they want, but the blunt fact remains that the United States is still a vibrant, growing melting pot of numerous international cultures that all put a dramatic importance on the game. Include the fact that by 2022, the increasing Hispanic population will no doubt be a potent force in U.S. society, and that for the 2010 World Cup more tickets were bought by Americans than any other nationality, well, the U.S. seems like a pretty reasonable place to bring the World Cup back to.

Instead, however, the 2018 World Cup and the 2022 World Cup will be played in Russia and Qatar, respectively, proving once and for all that you just can't beat oil money. Now, I don't want to come off as bitter here, nor do I want to appear ignorant of the nation Qatar, which, yes, I did know existed, if for no other reason than because Northwestern has a campus there. But, regardless, there's no way around the fact that these are two countries feeding off petroleum, a source of energy the world is supposed to be weening itself off of, and the fact that either nation would otherwise be an unlikely candidate makes it seem almost obvious that some foul play might have been involved. To any impartial observer -- though I admit, I'm not one -- there are a number of concerns and questions to be asked. After all, Qatar is a country of less people than nearly every U.S. state and it happens to be smaller in size than Connecticut. In fact, only Delaware and Rhode Island have it beat on the minimization scale.

While some people might be pleased with the outcome of the vote, there's no avoiding the fact that Russia already has raised suspicions with its successful bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Socchi, dubbed the "Gazprom games", and Qatar's utter lack of size (can it fit 10 world class soccer arenas and still have room for parking lots?), horrific summer temperatures (its average high in July is 115 degrees fahrenheit) and, uh, debatable soccer tradition, bring about several questions as to whether the nation can successfully host the event. The country will get its first measure when it hosts the 2011 AFC Asia Cup, but that seems to surely be on a different level.

Now, let's not get the wrong idea. Qatar is no primitive middle eastern backwater. It is extremely modern, with connections to several U.S. universities and progressive technology. But perhaps the biggest reason why it won is because it is, uh, rich. Really rich. Of course, most of this money comes from, yeah, oil. And as the rest of the country tries desperately to ween itself from what has been a useful, but destructive, source of energy, this raises enormous concerns when one considers the games are 12 years away and 70% of Qatar's government revenues come from petroleum. What happens if the money runs out? And also, how hot can the fans take? Qatar has announced that its stadiums will be outfitted with carbon-neutral solar systems that will lower the temperature inside the buildings by as much as 20 degrees celsius to maintain the comfort of players and fans. But just how viable is that?

Also, on a personal level, it's slightly unnerving that Qatar has announced it is "generous" enough to allow Israel to participate should it qualify, despite not formally recognizing the Israeli government. I suppose there is also the point that Israel could gain a measure of headway towards making peace with Arab nations by appearing in the games, but color me skeptical. It might have been more reasonable to host the games elsewhere.

I'm sure both hosts will pull off the job with little worry, but a host in 2018 such as England, Spain/Portugal or Belgium/Netherlands, or of course the U.S. in 2022, just seems like a more reasonable, and wholesome bet. But at this point, those two candidates are here to stay. We may as well accept it, even if we're so steamed about it that we can't even bring up Northwestern's totally amazing win over Georgia Tech Tuesday night.

And now to the other football. You know, our football. A sport that is not at all corrupt on any level.

I'm not sure how many people out there have gotten the chance to check out what may be the awesomest thing I've ever seen on the internet, but it's this doohickey. ESPN, ever the progressive digital purveyor, has created a simulator that shows you how the NFL playoff picture changes as you select each game's winner over the next five weeks. And it is just about as cool as it sounds. Now, I won't lie and tell you my picks may not have been slightly biased, nor are they particularly consistent since I came with a wholly different slate of teams the first time I did this last night, but regardless, it's a pretty sweet little gizmo. If you like football and have five minutes too much time on your hands, well, it's a sweet way to kill them.

And now that I'm done with all of my screeds, it's time for some picks.

Last week: 9-7-0
Season: 88-79-9

Houston (+9) over PHILADELPHIA
NY GIANTS (-7) over Washington
New Orleans (-7) over CINCINNATI
Chicago (-4) over DETROIT
GREEN BAY (-10) over San Francisco
Jacksonville (even) over TENNESSEE
KANSAS CITY (-9) over Denver
Cleveland (+5) over MIAMI
MINNESOTA (-6) over Buffalo
SAN DIEGO (-13) over Oakland
INDIANAPOLIS (-6) over Dallas
St. Louis (-4) over ARIZONA
SEATTLE (-6) over Carolina
TAMPA BAY (+3) over Atlanta
BALTIMORE (-3) over Pittsburgh
NY Jets (+4) over NEW ENGLAND

That's all for today. I'm about as tired from writing that as you are from reading it. Happy football everyone.

So I Was Wrong. Go Figure.

Alright, so that legendary showdown I was predicting between the Canadians and Russians didn't quite exactly come to pass. Much to my surprise, the outrageously talented Russians decided they simply didn't feel like playing, while the Canadians finally realized they're an almost unfair combination of skill and strength that can't be trifled with.

Somewhere, Don Cherry is smiling.

Not only did the Canadians smack the Russians around but good, they may have finally found the groove we've all been waiting for them to display. As I've said all along, this is easily the most talented team in the tournament, but for the opening round Canada appeared to struggled at times and took a while to get its offense rolling against lesser teams like Norway or Germany.

Last night Canada was an efficient machine that would steamroll any team it came across. Reports of its demise were outrageously premature, and if the Canadians keep rolling, I can't see how they don't win gold on Sunday. As I now have a feeling we're in for a USA-Canada rematch on Sunday, this doesn't sit too well with me.

And speaking of the USA, they advanced to a semifinal match against Finland with another gritty performance, and while it may at first seem as though the U.S. underperformed against the Swiss, whose roster does not compare talent-wise with any other team in the quarterfinals, the one wild card is always a hot goaltender, and as I said yesterday, Jonas Hiller is good enough to steal a game. And with the exception of a bizarre and lucky turn of the clock at the end of the second period, Hiller came damn close. Hiller was a wall all day, racking up 42 saves, and were it not for Zach Parise's flukey goal early in the third period, the game might have been headed towards a shootout.

As for Parise, he scored his first and second goals of the tournament, which, considering that he's arguably the most dynamic player on the U.S. team, took long enough. Not to say that he didn't play well in the preliminary rounds; Parise assisted on multiple crucial goals and created plays with his frenetic pace and speed, but it was surprising that he hadn't yet lit the lamp. The U.S. could use a few more tallies against the Finns on Friday, who will have a sturdy Miikka Kiprusoff in net to go with what is a fairly potent offense. I still like the chances of the U.S. to out-muscle and wear down Finland over 60 minutes, but I may be viewing that through patriotic lenses.

And I know it. I guess we'll see how it turns out in 27 hours.

Before I sign off for today, I wanted to get back to a few days ago when I brought up my not so recent fascination with Curling. My friend Christian, after reading the post sent me a photo of him and his friends after a jaunt to the ice sheet in college to see what it's all about. I his words, "It's really fun and it DOES tire you out," so I'm not surprised on either account and am even more eager to give it a shot once I actually, you know, have free time or people to do with it. Always the catch there. The more I watch it the more convinced I am that it really is an intense physical work out -- so all you people who claim curlers aren't athletes can stuff it. Moreover, as another reader pointed out to me, Curling can apparently be a more socially conscious sport than most while doing the important job of educating teenagers.

I told you all the game was replete with euphemisms.

You All Should Care About This More

It's a big ol' day of Olympic hockey as we move on to the elimination rounds, and not those silly qualification round games where giants pick on lesser countries. I shouldn't be quite so condescending. After all, Norway did push Slovakia to overtime and Latvia put a scare into the Czech Republic, which also needed overtime to advance.

But let's be honest here. These were not big matchups. With the possible exception of USA-Switzerland at 3 p.m. all of today's quarterfinal matches feature big-time showdowns. I of course will be most glued to the United States, which should, all things being equal, manage a victory over the Swiss. Beyond defenseman Mark Streit and netminder Jonas Hiller, this team is mostly bereft of NHLers and should be a relative easy match. Of course, if being a Mets and Giants fan has taught me anything it's not to take any game for granted. This goes double for the Swiss, who almost stole a game from Canada in the round robin. With Hiller in goal, Switzerland is a threat to beat anyone any day, which makes me extremely antsy.

That said, USA-Switzerland is probably the least sexy game of the day. Finland and the Czech Republic will give us a meeting of two gold medal contenders at 10 as will Slovakia and Sweden at midnight.

But neither of those is the one I'm excited about. Nope. Not one bit.

....

"Well, what are you excited about, Dave?!"

At the beginning of this tournament, Canada was the prohibitive gold medal favorite with many tabbing Russia as the team most likely to stand in its way. Well, Russia does, indeed, stand in its way, but not for all of the marbles, as we all expected. Instead, the Canadians' disappointing first-round showing, which saw the greatest collection of hockey talent on the planet get taken to a shootout before a stunning loss to the U.S., has put both of these teams in quite a predicament.

We're all getting the game we wanted, but instead of gold, they aren't playing for any medal at all. Whomever loses will go home in a remarkably unexpected turn of events.

And that's not why it's so exciting.

Here's why it's so exciting. Canada and Russia don't like each other. Really, they don't. In fact, they hate each other. While we Americans only think of Russian hockey in terms of Sergei Fedorov and the Miracle on Ice, Canada has its own storied rivalry with the east. This comes not so much out of any history of dramatic upsets, but more over the pride of which nation is the greatest in the sport. These tensions came to a head during the 1972 Summit Series, which still is one of the proudest hockey moments for any Canadian who was or wasn't alive at the time. Canada rallied from a 5-3 deficit with three third-period goals in the decisive game in Moscow.

Some Canadians, such as the delightful, and phenomenally dressed Don Cherry still believe the Russians to be too soft to compete with the real men of Canada. Or at the very least that they're taking jobs from good Canadian boys.



If the historic rivalry over the two doesn't whet your appetite enough, perhaps the fact that the three best players in the world will be in the game will. In fact, number one and two will be on opposite sides of the ice and they don't like each other one bit and they're quite vocal about it. The two have faced each other a number of times, including a thrilling playoff series last year when both scored hat tricks in the same game.

During the regular season, Ovechkin's Capitals have had a tendency to win more often than not lately, including a thriller on Super Bowl Sunday this year, when Ovi's hat trick propelled the Caps to their 14th straight win in overtime. Of course, despite the regular season success, Crosby has clearly been the one who has gotten the ultimate prize so far among other spoils.

Regardless, what this all boils down to is the two most dynamic players in the world, who don't like each other, playing for their countries, which don't like each other, in the biggest international hockey tournament in the world in a one-off elimination game.

How on Earth can you not be excited about this? The only person who might not be is Crosby's phenomenal teammate and Russian forward Evgeni Malkin, who, if nothing else, just gets lost in the shuffle. I haven't even gotten to the dozens of All Stars suiting up for either side such as Jarome Iginla or Ilya Kovalchuk.

This is an incredible international matchup with stars and stakes that happen once every four years if we're lucky. If you enjoy any sport, let alone hockey, you should be watching this game.