Archive for the ‘hockey’ Category

How was your Week? 3/22/14

Posted: March 22, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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There’s a special edition of Sports Time Radio today (Saturday) at 11:00 a.m. on www.blogtalkradio.com Mr. Fantasy and I have our first fantasy draft of the upcoming baseball season tomorrow (Sunday) so will discuss our strategy and what we might do with the 14th and 15th picks. Will work our way deeper into the draft and find some sleepers for you to use to win our own fantasy league as well. This is an interesting league for whatever reason outfielders seem to hold less value. I’d have to guess it’s because it’s not position specific or maybe the fact that there are so many more outfielders than other positions. It’s always fun to do and depending on how your season goes sometimes the draft is the most fun. Hopefully you’ll be able to listen live, but if not you can always find the show in the Blog Talk Radio archives or look for the show at www.ultimatesportstalk.com.

How’s your NCAA tournament bracket going? It looks like no one is perfect as I saw a blurb that nobody will win the Warren Buffet billion dollar bracket challenge. I was a respectable 25 of 32 correct so far. Luckily I got some upsets right and of course lost some games because of upsets. While we don’t talk much college basketball on the show it’s always fun to put a bracket together and who doesn’t want to win a billion dollars. I was unhappy to see the way the tournament committee treated Wichita State. The bracket they made them the #1 seed in was so stacked against them winning it that it makes you want to root for them. I get it they don’t want the smaller schools to advance to far in the tournament. If they go to far it’s bad for television ratings and of course that means less money. Just to put it out there; so no one can say I lied about it; here’s my final four. I have Louisville, Virginia, Creighton and Florida. I have Florida and Louisville in the championship game with Florida winning the tournament. I showed you mine; what does your bracket look like?

Patrice Bergeron and Carl Soderberg each had a goal, Chad Johnson stopped 31 shots for his third career shutout, and the Boston Bruins beat the Colorado Avalanche 2-0 on Friday night for their 11th win in a row. The Bruins became the 1st team to clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Boston has 101 points and is the leader in the Atlantic division of the Eastern conference. I saw some talks about who is going to win the Hart (MVP) trophy; there seems to be three top candidates. It’s looking more and more that Sidney Crosby is going to win this award, but there are a couple of other players who will get some votes. How about Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks. Getzlaf has put up career highs in points per game at 1.15 and goals with 29. Then there’s Phil Kessel, Toronto Maple Leafs. Kessel has 35 goals and 39 assists and Toronto is in 4th place with 80 points in the Atlantic division. It will be difficult to give this award to anyone else but Crosby, but Getzlaf and Kessel should get special mention for the seasons they’re having.

Did you get up at 3:00 a.m. central standard time to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 1st game of the baseball season in Australia? The Dodgers won the game 3 – 1; Clayton Kershaw pitched 6 2/3 innings striking out 7 and giving up 5 hits. Scott Van Slyke doubled and homer while driving in two runs for the Dodgers. Wade Miley took the loss for the Diamondbacks while Paul Goldschmidt had two hits. Kenley Jansen did save the game for the Dodgers. The two teams play again tonight.

So how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

How was Your Week? (3/1/14)

Posted: March 1, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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We didn’t talk a lot of Olympics on the show but yesterday (Friday) I made Mr. Fantasy play NHL owner while discussing the Olympics. If you’re the New York Islanders owner or a fan of the team; how are you feeling about NHL player going to play in the Olympics now? The Islanders are 23 -30 – 8 and in last place in the Metropolitan division of the Eastern conference. If you’re an Islanders fan you realize that they’re not going to make the playoffs this season, but you had a reason to go to the games and see one of the top players in the NHL John Taveras. While playing in Sochi for Team Canada in the Olympics Taveras tore the MCL and meniscus in his left knee and will miss the rest of the Islanders season. The 23-year-old Taveras was leading the Islanders with 66 points this season; he has 24 goals and 42 assists. Henrik Zetterberg (Detroit Red Wings), Mats Zuccarello (New York Rangers), Paul Martin (Pittsburgh Penguins) and Aleksander Barkov (Florida Panthers) where all also injured playing for their countries in the Olympics. Zetterberg has back issues and most report are saying he’ll miss the rest of the season like Taveras. Zuccarello has a hand issue and is scheduled to miss 3 – 4 weeks. Martin had surgery on his broken right hand and will be out 4 – 6 weeks. These are just some of the injuries that players suffered while playing in the Olympics. Will have to see how this affects the rest of the NHL regular season and if it will cause any of these teams trouble in the playoffs.

The New Orleans Saints put the franchise tag on Jimmy Graham yesterday as a tight end. I’m sure no one was surprised at all that the Saints used their franchise tag on Graham. The question all along would be if he would be tagged as a tight end or a wide receiver. Again it wasn’t a surprise that the Saints tagged Graham as a tight end. He’s been listed as a tight end ever since he’s been on the Saints roster. Of course this is a money issue as the value of the one-year franchise tender for wide receivers is $11.6 million, about $5 million more than the tag value for tight ends. Graham’s agent has already said that they’ll file a grievance on this position issue. Graham is a great player at tight end while being covered by linebackers, but when matched up against defensive backs he doesn’t fair as well. Graham doesn’t line up like a traditional tight end would, but the Saints are careful in getting the match ups they need to make him successful. This will be one of the bigger off-season NFL stories to follow.

Spring training has started for baseball and it’s time to look forward to the start of the regular season. You can never put a lot of stock into your teams won, loss record during the spring. You just have to hope that the players get there work in and that no one suffers any kind of injury. I’d have to think the biggest story starting off spring training was the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim giving Mike Trout a one (1) year deal for $1 million dollars with the hope of signing Trout to a long-term contract. This has brought out some big, big numbers on what a Mike Trout contract might be. I’ve heard numbers between $40 and $50 million dollars a season. WOW! It’s always difficult for me to discuss money when it comes to contracts. I fit in the category of these guys make way, way too much money as it is, but you can never fault someone for getting paid the most they can get. Trout is the best player in the game right now and I’ve said on the show a few times already that I believe that he’ll win the M.V.P. award for the upcoming season. They’ve been trying to give Trout the M.V.P. award for two (2) seasons now and I think this is the year that he’ll win it. I have no idea what Trout will end up getting contract wise or dollar wise, but it will far and away big the biggest deal in major league baseball history. What do you think Trout’s contract will end up being?

Not only can you still find Sports Time Radio on http://www.blogtalkradio.com the show is also available on http://www.ultimatesprotstalk.com

So how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

How was your Week? (2/8/14)

Posted: February 8, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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Did the Super Bowl go the way you thought it would go? While I actually had the winner way back before the season started I had no clue the game would go the way it did. Most if not all of the experts I heard and even Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy where picking Denver. Schaumburg Stu finally sided with me and we had the Seahawks against the world. As we all know by now it was a blowout in the Seahawks favorite and no one had that. By now you’ve heard the Super Bowl analyzed every possible way; so I’m not going to do a breakdown for you. Right now I’m just a happy fan who’s team won.

Football wise I will address this video that is trying to prove that the NFC championship game between the Seahawks and the 49ers was fixed. The easiest way to explain this is the video was made by a 49ers fan. I don’t know if you’ve seen this video but I was dumb enough to waste my time and watch the entire thing. Plain and simple it’s a video that any fan with a lot more computer skills than I, could have put together after any NFL game. I actually understand where this guy is coming from. His team lost and he’s upset and he had to find a way to explain why his team lost. I would’ve been just as upset as this fan was if the Seahawks had lost the game but I wouldn’t have made a video claiming the game was fixed. The 49ers are a young team just like the Seahawks are and they are in the toughest division in the NFL. Seattle won the division this season. San Francisco won the division last season. The Arizona Cardinals had a better record than some NFC teams that made the playoffs and the St. Louis Rams are a young up and coming team. If these teams can keep their players and this is a big if this division will be a battle for the next few seasons.

With football over the NHL on it’s Olympic break and the NBA in what some players have described as the “dog days” of the season it’s time for pitchers and catchers to report. The Chicago White Sox are the first team to report in our area (next Saturday) while the Cubs report later next week. Now we all can sit back and wait for Mr. Fantasy’s first mock draft for fantasy baseball.

We talked some baseball on the show this week and the two free agent pitchers I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago are still on the open market. Ervin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez haven’t been signed and I have to wonder if Santana especially priced himself out of the market when he made salary demands when he entered free agency. Both guys also have draft pick compensation attached to them if a team signs them. After the last time I mentioned these two pitchers someone asked me where I thought these pitchers would end up. I really think it’s in Jimenez best interest to return to the Cleveland Indians. He had good success their last season and it would be a good fit for him. Santana on the other hand could end up almost any where at this point. I think at this point Santana will end up with the Texas Rangers or the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

In more baseball news. Yesterday Alex Rodriguez dropped his lawsuit against Major League baseball and the players union (MLBPA) and will sit out the 2014 season on suspension. I don’t think this was a case A-Rod could win and he just saved himself quite a bit of money by not following through with this lawsuit. A-Rod could refile the lawsuit at any time, but right now it looks like he has “exhaust(ed) all options” like he had said he would do. The Yankees will save $25 million if A-Rod doesn’t play in 2014 but he is owed a total of $61 million though the 2017 season. The question now becomes with the dropping of the lawsuit is A-Rod admitting some guilt and would this give the Yankees enough to void the remainder of his contract. I guess will have to wait and see where A-Rod goes next.

So; how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

2/1/14 How was your Week?

Posted: January 31, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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Tomorrow is the Super Bowl; the Denver Broncos vs. the Seattle Seahawks. Most of the experts I’ve heard make picks are going with Denver. Even Mr. Fantasy and Dan the Man are picking Denver to win this game. I guess I am out on my own here going with the Seahawks to win. It’s the best offense (Denver) in the NFL against the best defense (Seattle) in the NFL. If you can believe it or not and with the way we make picks sometimes it might be tough. At the beginning of the season Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy picked Denver and I actually picked Seattle to win it all. Mr. Fantasy had Denver facing Atlanta while Dan the Man had them playing New Orleans. I had Seattle facing New England in the Super Bowl. Who was your pick?

Kevin Durant’s 30 plus points a game scoring streak came to an end last night. It wasn’t a great defensive effort on someone’s part. The streak actually ended because the Oklahoma City Thunder had such a big lead that Durant sat out the entire 4th quarter. Durant scored 26 points in 30 minutes last night as the Thunder beat the Brooklyn Nets 120 – 95. Durant is making his case for Most Valuable Player and with the absence of Russell Westbrook, due to injury has kept the Thunder 1st place in the Northwest division. LeBron James and LaMarcus Aldridge have also made strong cases for MVP but right now the award belongs to Kevin Durant. I remember that when I first started watching the NBA the finals where on tape delay. Then in 1984 David Stern was appointed commissioner now 30 years later the NBA is a world-wide league. I could’ve spent the entire blog today writing about what Stern has done to make the NBA the league it is today. He did have some help as Larry Bird and Ervin “Magic” Johnson where already playing in the league and then a player by the name of Michael Jordan was drafted. While it’s a players league and they where the faces that people saw Stern knew how to work behind the scenes and kept the league growing globally. Today is Stern’s last day as NBA commissioner. Starting tomorrow Adam Silver will be the commissioner of the NBA.

The NHL is getting close to going on a two week break for the Olympics. The Anaheim Ducks have pulled away from the pack a little with an 85 point total right now. The Chicago Blackhawks are next at 79 points while the Pittsburgh Penguins are right behind with 78 points. The St, Louis Blues are also right there with 77 points. The Penguins Sidney Crosby is leading the NHL in points with 75 and assists with 48. Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals is the NHL’s leading goal scorer with 39. Matt Niskanen of the Penguins is the leader in the plus minus category with a plus 30. I don’t want to forget about the goaltenders.Josh Harding (Minnesota Wild) is the NHL leader in Goals Against Average. at 1.66. Marc-Andre Fleury (Pittsburgh Penguins) leads all goalies in wins with 29. Ben Scrivens (Edmonton Oilers) is the leader in save percentage at .937. Tuukka Rask (Boston Bruins) has the most shutouts for goaltenders with 5.

As always I have to ask you; how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

01/18/14 How was your Week?

Posted: January 18, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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The Anaheim Ducks are on a roll right now. Even with a 4 – 2 loss last night (Friday) to the Chicago Blackhawks the Ducks have won 18 of there last 20 games. Anaheim has 77 points and are in 1st place in the Pacific division. They are 11 points ahead of the 2nd place San Jose Sharks. The Ducks are also 1st overall in the Western conference 4 points ahead of the Blackhawks. Ryan Getzlaf leads the Ducks in scoring with 56 points. Corey Perry leads the team in goals with 27; Getzlaf leads the team in assists with 32. Francois Beauchemin and Hampus Lindholm both lead the team in plus/minus with a +25. Perry has 8 game winning goals for the Ducks while Getzlaf is right behind him with 7 game winning goals. On Wednesday Anaheim put up 9 goals against Vancouver. The Ducks play tonight (Saturday) for the second night in a row against the St. Louis Blues. The Blues are 3rd in the Western conference standings with 69 points and it’s a home game for St. Louis.

There’s been some talk of who will be the MVP in the NBA this season. If you where up a little late last night you got to see two guys state their case. The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Golden State Warriors 127 – 121. Kevin Durant set a career high in scoring with 54 points for the Thunder while Stephen Curry scored 37 points for Golden State. Durant was 19 for 28 from the field including 5 of 9 q from behind the three-point line. Durant was also 11 for 13 from the free throw line and added 4 rebounds and 6 assists. Curry was 37 of 57 from the field hitting 6 of 10 from behind the three-point line. Curry was also 9 of 11 from the free throw line adding 3 rebounds and 11 assists. Two pretty good nights to get yourself into the M.V.P. conversation.

I didn’t forget about it or anything like that. Tomorrow (Sunday) is the conference finals to see who goes to the Super Bowl. 11:00 a.m. Mr. Fantasy and I will make our picks. You can listen live at BTR the show can also be found on Ultimate Sports Talk. Last week in our picks Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy where 2 – 2; I was 4 – 0. For the first two rounds of the playoffs Mr. Fantasy and I are 5 – 3 while Dan the Man is 4 – 4. It’s the Seattle Seahawks vs. the San Francisco 49ers to see who represents the NFC in the Super Bowl. Over in the AFC it’s the Denver Broncos vs. the New England Patriots. Seattle and Denver are the home teams for these games; so will see if that helps either team. Who are you picking?

Clayton Kershaw signed the largest contract in baseball history for a pitcher. The Dodgers signed Kershaw for 7 years and $215 million. It’s always a risk to sign a pitcher to a long-term deal, but Kershaw might actually be worth the risk. Kershaw was 16 – 9 with a 1.83 E.R.A. last season. Kershaw won the Cy Young award last season; his second. Kershaw also won the award in 2011. Do you think this is a good deal?

So how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

How was your Week? 01/11/14

Posted: January 11, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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Today (Saturday) starts round 2 of the NFL playoffs. In our picks last week Mr. Fantasy grabbed a one game lead at 3 – 1. Dan the Man is right behind him at 2 – 2. Sadly my week didn’t go as well as I ended up 1 – 3. Our first game today has the New Orleans Saints going to Seattle to take on the Seahawks. On the show last night (Friday) we all picked Seattle to win this game. This is a rematch of a week 13 game that Seattle won 34 – 7. The second game today has the Indianapolis Colts traveling to Massachusetts to take on the New England Patriots. Mr. Fantasy and I have taken the Patriots to win this game, but Dan the Man believes the Colts will pull out a road win. Sunday’s games have the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Carolina Panthers and the San Diego Chargers vs. the Denver Broncos. To get out picks on these games and a review of Saturday’s games you can listen to Mr. Fantasy and I at 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning on http://www.blogtalktradio.com.

The Masahiro Tanaka sweepstakes officially got under way this week when Tanaka had his first meeting with a major league team. In a bit of a surprise the Chicago White Sox where the first team to make their pitch to Tanaka. Living in the Chicago area the talk was more that the Cubs where the team that was going to go after Tanaka and the White Sox where hardly even mentioned. I’m sure this is just the start of team after team making their pitches to try to sign Tanaka.

The Hall of Fame added three more members this week as Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas won election into the hall. All three where on the ballot for the first time. Craig Biggio missed getting into the Hall of Fame by just two votes. The sad part of this is that there hasn’t been a lot of talk about how great Maddux, Glavine and Thomas are, but of the stunt that one voter pulled. Dan the Man and I went back and forth about this on Tuesday’s show; so I don’t want to get into all of the details here. I know there’s been a lot of talk about the voting process, but my question is what do you think they got wrong? Is there someone in the Hall of Fame that shouldn’t be or is there someone not in that should be.

There was a story out there this week that the NHL may stop sending players to the Olympic games. While it’s nice to see the various NHL players go to the Olympics and represent their country, but what you have to understand is this happens during the regular NHL season. No other sport shuts down its regular season games to allow players to go and play for another team even though it is the Olympics. I enjoying watching the Chicago Blackhawks play for their countries in the Olympics, but I understand why the owners don’t want to continue to let them go and play. I think the bigger question might be if the NHL players stop going to the Olympics will hockey continue to be an Olympic sport.

So how was your week?

You can follow me @Burketime

How was your Week? (12/28/13)

Posted: December 28, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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So how many NBA games did you watch on Christmas day? I watched all of the Chicago Bulls win over the Brooklyn Nets. I also watched all of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s win over the New York Knicks. I only made it about half way through the Miami Heat victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. I managed to catch a total of about half of the game where the Houston Rockets defeated the San Antonio Spurs. I was unable to see any of the last game a Golden State Warriors win over the Los Angeles Clippers. The teams also wore jerseys with sleeves. Most of the people I heard talk about the jerseys didn’t like them but I actually did. I’d have to guess that the NBA referees didn’t like the jerseys since there where no numbers on the back and they had to search for the players number to make foul calls. It will be interesting to see if the NBA will pull these jerseys out again this season or if we’ve seen the last of them for now?

It’s week 17 in the NFL and there are two win and you’re in the playoffs games. Aaron Rodgers returns for the Green Bay Packers as they take on the Chicago Bears Sunday at 3:25 p.m. The winner of this game wins the NFC North and gets a playoff spot. While the Packers have Rodgers back, Clay Matthews had surgery on his thumb and is ruled out for this game. The Bears are a slight favorite in this game and a lot of the experts are picking Chicago to win this game and claim a playoff spot. It’s the best rivalry in the NFL in the last week of the regular season with a playoff spot on the line. What more could you ask for? The other win and you’re in-game is for the NFC East division title. The Philadelphia Eagles play the Dallas Cowboys in the Sunday night game for what will be the only playoff spot left by the time this game kicks off. After some game playing by the Cowboys, quarterback Tony Romo had back surgery on Friday and is out of this game. The Cowboys tried to string everyone along during the week and tried to make it seemed like Romo might play in this game. I don’t think anyone believed that at all but I think they where just trying to give the Eagles something to think about. Kyle Orton takes over as quarterback for the Cowboys; they signed Jon Kitna to be his back up. It’s a lot of pressure for Orton to step into but he’s a veteran quarterback and as long as the Cowboys game plan correctly for his skill set he’ll be fine. Now I’m not saying Dallas will win this game just that Orton has a chance to play well. If you want to know who we think is going to win these games listen tomorrow (Sunday) morning (December 29th) at 11:00 a.m. on Sports Time Radio to hear who we’re going with in these two games and all the other NFL week 17 match ups.

Dion Phanuef is in talks with the Toronto Maple Leafs on a seven year deal. The money that I heard was $7 million but I would think for a player like Phanuef it would be much higher. Phanuef is the Maple Leafs leader in minutes played and plus/minus and he does this against the other teams top line most of the time. In 38 games this season Phanuef has 3 goals and 11 assists with a plus minus rating of +10 while racking up 48 penalty minutes.

In the Eastern conference the Boston Bruins in leading the way with 54 points. The Pittsburgh Penguins are on top in the Metropolitan division with 57 points. In the Western Conference the Chicago Blackhawks lead the Central division with 60 points. The Anaheim Ducks lead the Pacific division with 59 points. Sidney Crosby leads the NHL in points with 50 while Patrick Kane is 2nd with 50 points. Alex Ovechkin leads the NHL in goals with 30 while Alexander Steen is 2nd with 24. Joe Thornton leads the NHL in assists with 37 while Nicholas Backstrom and Sidney Crosby are tied for 2nd with 34. Hampus Lindholm is a +22 to lead the NHL in plus minus rating. Tuukka Rask has 4 shutouts to lead all goalies in that category.

Masahiro Tanaka was posted by his Japanese team the Rakuten Golden Eagles on Christmas day. The rumor is Tanaka wants $17 million dollars a season to pitch in the majors. Once a team signs Tanaka his Japanese team will receive $20 million dollar from the team that signs Tanaka. Tanaka was 24 – 0 with a 1.27 era, last season. Tanaka did lose a game in the Japanese World Series but did come back the very next day to close out the championship. There are a long, long list of major league baseball teams looking to sign Tanaka; so now they have 30 days to get his signature on a contract. Let the bidding war start.

So how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @burketime

How was your 11/30/13

Posted: November 30, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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I’ll start out this week by wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you and your family had a good time.

It’s Heisman trophy time in college football and a lot of contenders have fallen by the way side. Marcus Mariota of Oregon has struggled later in the season. Johnny Manziel (Texas A & M) has also had some late season struggles. Jameis Winston (Florida State) has still played well on the field but his off the field issue may prevent people for voting for him. The reports coming out say that the investigation against Winston may not be wrapped up by the time the Heisman voting is due. If there hasn’t been a decision made on if Winston will be charged it might be tough for someone to cast a vote for him. I think that leaves you with a couple of choices. Jordan Lynch quarterback (Northern Illinois) and Andre Williams running back (Boston College) as the top two college football players. I’m guessing that neither of these two will get the award but I think one of them should. Lynch just broke his own record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a game. He had 321 yards against Western Michigan on 11/26. For the season Lynch has 1755 yards with 20 rushing touchdowns and is averaging 7.1 yards per carry. He’s also completed 65% of his passes this season for 2457 yards and 22 touchdowns while throwing just 5 interceptions. Lynch has also led Northern Illinois to a 12 – 0 record this season. I know the knock Lynch gets is that he hasn’t played a big time college football team this season. Northern Illinois best win this season may have been week 1 against Iowa a 30 – 27 win. If Lynch doesn’t win the Heisman he should at least get an invite to New York for the awards ceremony. Breaking into the Heisman race late this season is Andre Williams of Boston College. In his last three games Williams rushed for 295 yards against New Mexico State, 339 yards against North Carolina State and 263 yards against Maryland. For the season Williams has 2073 yards rushing and has 16 touchdowns. Boston College is 7 – 4 this season and is on a four game winning streak as I write this. I did find it odd, looking over Williams stats, that he hasn’t caught a pass this season. This shouldn’t affect the way the voters look at him. Williams breaking into the Heisman talk so late in the season may actually be a plus for him but I don’t know if it will be enough to get him the award. As always the award is supposed to go to the best player in college football but we all know better than that. Lets hope this season some voters see the light and actually try to figure out who that best player is and not cast their vote for the most popular or talked about player.

If you’ve listened to the Sunday shows you know that picking winners in the NFL games hasn’t been our speciality. We did make our picks for the Thanksgiving games and did better than we normally do. Mr. Fantasy and Dan the Man went 2 – 1 with Pittsburgh being the only loss for that day. I managed to jump out in front for the day going 3 – 0. Will make the rest of our picks for the week on Sunday mornings show, so will see how we do. For the season Dan the Man is in the lead at 98 – 65 – 1. I’m a couple of games behind Dan the Man at 96 – 67 – 1 while Mr. Fantasy is bringing up the rear at 90 – 73 – 1. Will see how the rest of the season goes for our picks.

The NBA season is about 15 games into it’s run and the Indiana Pacers have the best record at 14 – 1 but there are some teams very close to them record wise. The San Antonio Spurs are 14 – 2. The Portland Trailblazers and the Miami Heat are both 13 – 3, while the Los Angeles Clippers and the Houston Rockets are 12 – 5. Teams on the other end of the standings are the Utah Jazz at 2 – 15 and the Milwaukee Bucks at 2 – 13. Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder) is leading the league in scoring averaging 28 points per game with Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks) right behind him at 26.5 points per game. Chris Paul (Los Angeles Clippers) leads the league in assists handing out 12.2 per game. John Wall (Washington Wizards) is next at 8.8 assists per game. Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves) leads the league in rebounding averaging 13.9 rebounds per game with 3.9 of the rebounds being on the offensive side. DeAndre Jordan (Los Angeles Clippers) is second in rebounding with 12.9 rebounds per game with 4.4 of those rebounds being on the offensive rebounds.

The NHL is about a quarter of the way through the season and it looks like the Western conference has the better run of it right now but there’s still a long way to go. The defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks are the top point scoring team with 42. The St. Louis Blues, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks are all right behind the Blackhawks with 39 points. The top team in the Eastern conference is the Boston Bruins with 36 points but the Pittsburgh Penguins only trail them by one point at 35. Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins) is leading the league in points with 36. Alexander Steen (St. Louis Blues) and Alex Ovechkin (Washington Capitals) are leading the league in goals scored with 20. Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins) leads the NHL in assists with 25. Dustin Penner of the Anaheim Ducks in the leagues plus minus leader at plus 18.

So, how was your week?

You can follow me on @Burketime

How was your Week? 11/09/13

Posted: November 10, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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With the World Series over, the baseball off-season starts to heat up. Yesterday on the show, Start of the weekend; Friday Dan the Man and I discussed free agent demands that Ervin Santana and Rickey Nolasco have made. Santana wants a contract worth $100 million and Nolasco is looking for a contract worth $80 million. Now I know this is a down year for free agent pitching but why would a team consider giving either if these pitchers contracts worth anywhere near that amount. Santana made 32 starts last season and had a 9 – 10 record. He pitched 211 innings and had a good ERA 3.24, but does that make him worth a $100 million dollar contract. Nolasco went 13 – 11 overall, but was 8 – 3 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nolasco made 33 starts and pitched 199 innings total. His ERA with the Dodgers was 3.52, but would that make you want to pay him $80 million dollars over the life of a contract. It will be interesting to see which teams will jump in and negotiation with these two pitchers but I think I’d be very surprised to see either of them get the kind of long-term deals and the kind of money they’re asking for right now. If these two pitchers are worth this kind of money what would a free agent pitcher like Matt Garza would command. Garza is a free agent as well and has always been looked at as a guy with #1 starter type of stuff. I’m not sure the same could be said about either Nolasco or Santana.

The NBA season is getting going and the Indiana Pacers are the only undefeated team at 6 – 0; while the Utah Jazz are the only team that hasn’t picked up a win yet. The Jazz are currently at 0 – 6 as I’m writing this. You’d have to say the biggest surprise to start the NBA season are the 4 – 2 Philadelphia 76ers. While the 76ers may still end up in the draft lottery you can’t say they haven’t gotten off to a surprising start; even getting a win over the Miami Heat. Evan Turner is leading the team in scoring at 22 points a game. While rookie Michael Carter – Williams is averaging 18 points and 7 assists a game. While I’m sure no one is ready to put the 76ers in the NBA finals they are a good story to start the year off.

With the NHL season about a third of the way over the Anaheim Ducks have the most points in the league right now with 29 and lead the Pacific division. The Colorado Avalanche aren’t that far behind with 26 points and are leading the Central division. There is still a long way to go in this NHL season and right now there are 13 teams with 20 points or more and 9 of them are in the Western Conference. The Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby is leading the league in points with 23 while the St. Louis Blues Alexander Steen leads the league with 14 goals; Henrik Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks is the league leader in assists with 17.

Tuesday on the show we talked quite a bit about the Jonathan Martin, Richie Incognito situation with the Miami Dolphins. I don’t want to go into all the details about what has went on with these two Dolphin players and at this points it’s a no win situation for both guys. At this point in time I’m wondering if either Jonathan Martin or Richie Incognito will ever play in the NFL again.

So, how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

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Sports Time Radio Pregame Show

How was your Week 10/26/13

Posted: October 26, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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On Friday’s show Dan the Man and I discussed some fantasy football issues and I thought you’d get a kick out of a situation I found one of my teams in this week. Myself, Mr. Fantasy and Dan the Man are in 2, 20team leagues together. One of the things I like to do is join another random league that has their draft before yours. I found a 14 team league that was having their draft before ours, so I joined. I was on a good run in this league as my team was undefeated through Week 6 but Week 7 turned out to be my first loss and the remainder of the season may be rough for me. Jay Cutler was my #1 quarterback and he hurt his groin and is expected to miss about a month. My other quarterback was Sam Bradford who torn his ACL and is out for the season. Doug Martin was one of my starting running backs, he has a torn labrum and is out anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. Reggie Wayne was my top wide receiver, he torn his ACL and is out for the season. Jermichael Finley was the starting tight end on this team. He took a hit and suffered a bruised spinal column. There’s no time-table for Finley’s return and his injury may be career threatening. Just to add insult to my injuries we have defensive players in this league and my 2 linebackers are Lance Briggs; who is out 4 to 6 weeks with a shoulder injury . My other linebacker was Brian Cushing, who broke a leg and tore his LCL ligament. I’ve played fantasy football for many seasons now and I’ve never seen so many of my players get injured in the same week. I guess it’s just a string of bad luck.

Tonight is the Sports Time Radio fantasy basketball draft. This is the first time we’ve done a fantasy basketball league. It is set up to be an auction draft, so that always add to the draft. The question is how much is someone willing to pay for the top players in the NBA. I’d have to guess that LeBron James and Kevin Durant will garner the highest bids. Of course since we are based in the Chicago area the Chicago Bulls players always go for more money than what the average price is. Dan the Man and Mr. fantasy prefer the auction style draft where I am a fan of the snake style draft we’ve also used. Either way it should be a good time, but the auction drafts do take some time to do.

The Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals are tied at 1 game apiece with the World Series headed to St. Louis for the next 3 games. While I am a big baseball fan and I enjoy watching the World Series what has interested me is the Cardinals pitching staff. Michael Wacha is 22, Trevor Rosenthal is 21, Carlos Martinez is 21 and Shelby Miller who I don’t believe has pitched in the playoffs for St. Louis is 22. This has to put the rest of the National League Central on notice with young pitching like this. Not to mention staff ace Adam Wainwright is 33 years old. With a pitching staff like that St. Louis could dominate their division and make playoff appearance after playoff appearance.

John Scott of the Buffalo Sabres was suspended indefinitely by the NHL for his hit on the Boston Bruins Loui Eriksson. Scott is what NHL teams might call and enforcer but fans would call a goon. Scott went after Phil Kessel in the exhibition season as well. This resulted in David Clarkson coming in to protect Kessel and getting a 10 game suspension. Scott has one career goal, so you know what he’s on the ice for. With concussion issues at the forefront of every major sport is there a place in the NHL for a player with Scott’s skill set? While Eriksson’s injury happened because of a late check it also brings up the issue, is it time for the NHL to ban fighting?

So, how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

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