You can't spell "principle-less" without "Principe"

Allo all;

I’m taking a few moments away from my busy day to comment on a few random notes from the sports world:

What a Gene-ius.
The above is an example of the type of pun Gene Principe would use on an Oilers broadcast. They don’t necessarily have to make sense (“The Oilers hope to… Xcel-erate their playoff hopes at Xcel Energy Center… next!”) or be funny (and I can say this with absolute certainty, Principe has never said anything funny). Gene uses his best puns for the game, but also saves some time to pun on his blog (“That’s why MacTavish doesn’t feel like Schremp has been Rob-bed of another chance”). His puns are so bad you can hear Ron McLean rolling over in his grave.

According to his Sportsnet biography, Gene enjoys suckling at the teat of Craig MacTavish in his free time.

Principe is pretty well the definition of a hack. But even as recently as a few years ago, I would have deemed him “tolerable.”

However, that was then, this is now. I guess Sportsnet cut their broadcast crew from five guys to three, and one of the employees fired must have been in charge with proofreading Principe’s notes (“help me out guys… what rhymes with Stortini? Linguini? No, wait, that’s it! Tortellini!”). Considering this is coming from a broadcast that held a still picture of an overhead light for 10 seconds (it happened during the St. Louis game), this can be taken as no surprise.

Gene now spends most of his time photoshopping his face on bodybuilders’ torsos, doing impressions of the Fonz, and coming up with nicknames for Quinner and Louie. Each joke is followed by a grin I desperately want to wipe off his smug face.

Even then… there have been idiot hosts on TV before. What makes Principe particularly galling is he’s Sportsnet’s official “correspondent” for the Oilers. While that correspondent is supposed to be reporting on the team (at least in theory), Gene spends that time doing puff pieces (Sam Gagner's favourite ice cream flavour, how Liam Reddox got the nickname "Red Ox," etc.). Listen to an Oilers postgame broadcast – Gene’s job is to lob questions up to MacTavish, and lets our wordsmith of a coach knock them out of the park (I mentioned it earlier, but when Dwayne Roloson slashed Dan Cleary in the gonads, Gene said “Geez, Craig, it looked like… Dwayne’s stick accidentally came up there.”)

I welcome you all to share any fond Gene Principe memories on the comment board below.

March Madness really is madness.
I’m not a basketball fan, and I am not an American college sports fan. And while I can usually understand sporting trends/fads etc., I must admit I’m at a bit of a loss when it comes to the NCAA tournament.

I understand it’s a cool format (a 64 team bracket, single elimination) and people like the thought of a high seed knocking off a low seed. It makes for good TV, as CBS can bounce between games and feature a game that’s always interesting. But with that said, I don’t understand the wall-to-wall coverage.

I’m baffled that the Canadian sports media will give such play to a sport that receives little to no mention all year. Coming into March, how many college basketball players could you name? Like me, I assume it was zero. Now that the tourney has started, I assume it’s probably still zero. Even if you did follow, it’d be through the internet because every Canadian sports outlet gives NCAA basketball little to no coverage (and rightly so).

I talk a lot of sports with a lot of people, and I’ve never met a college hoops fan. Ever.

Nothing is worse than The Score simulcasting the tournament, and throwing in their own “expert” panel of Tim Micallef and some former NBA player (or so I assume), telling us how some 6’8 guy from Siena averaged 2.3 points per game. I would be more outraged, but this is the same channel that devotes two hours daily to a talk show featuring some idiot (Gabriel Morency) who wears a backwards cap and has nothing relevant to say.

To make matters worse, the talent pool is weak (most good players leave for the NBA after 1-2 years in college) and every games ends in a similar manner – each coach uses the 31 timeouts he’s allotted, while one team fouls the other team in a desperate attempt to come back by making it a free throw competition.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Alexander the lightning rod.
I thought I’d weigh in on the Alexander Ovechkin celebration.

I… don’t really care.

Maybe a jerk thing to do, but is there any other reason we’d be discussing Washington @ Tampa Bay in March?

A devoted follower looks for guidance.
I had a mailbag question posed to me that absolutely had to be answered. It’s from one of the mailbag’s favourites, Mark Rattray.

Scott with your limited knowledge of hockey who would you predict to be on the 2010 Olympic team for Canada. And where do you predict they will finish?

I watched highlights from the New Jersey and Boston game yesterday. I guess I was wrong about my boy Marty Brodeur after all. I am still getting over the Favre debacle, and now this. Thanks for showing me the light, and as always, keep up the good work, and I was joking about the "limited knowledge" thing. Seriously, this is where I get all my sports news from.

Wow, a very powerful post from our friend Mark. I don’t think it’s possible to pick who will be named to Team Canada before we find out who’s running Team Canada, so instead I’ll provide you with my picks for the team.

Without justifying my decisions, here would be my Team Canada if the tournament started today (note: I’ll act as if the tournament started now, not 2010, and am operating on the presumption they’ll move Sidney Crosby and Jeff Carter to the wing, and I did not put any focus into actually drawing up lines):

Nash-Getzlaf-Iginla
Crosby-Richards-St. Louis
Gagne-Lecavalier-Carter
Morrow-Toews-Doan
Spares: Heatley, Savard

Green-Weber
Pronger-Boyle
Bouwmeester-Phaneuf
Spares: Wideman, Keith

Brodeur-Luongo
Spare: Mason

As a good Canadian, I will pick our boys to finish first. With that said, I *shudder* actually like a lot of players on the American team.http://scotttougas.blogspot.com