Sunday Smorgasbord 1-27

• Between splattering my dinner all over myself and trips to the laundry room to repair some of the damage done by a balky pizza cutter (my white 2002 USA Olympic Hockey Jersey took the brunt of the damage), I watched bits and pieces of the NHL All-Star Game Stupid Skills Contest last night. I have to admit, I'm rather flabbergasted by the acceptance of this event. This is a clear ripoff of the NBA and has become more so with the alterations seen last night. Some events didn't need to be "fixed" (like the fastest skater competition) and others just made no sense at all. As for the much ballyhooed Breakaway competition, I was left rather unimpressed by the whole thing, even with A.O. attempts. First of all, even if A.O. had scored on his juggling attempts, would they have been as impressive as THE GOAL was? In a word, no. Secondly, what in the world were goaltenders doing in the competition? The whole idea was to come up with creative stunts to score a goal, yet the goaltenders had a vested interest in making certain that they didn't get (to use the NBA term) "Posterized." When the NBA does their slam dunk competition (which is what this whole stupid Breakaway thing was modeled on), the player does not have to worry about defenders coming after them. Finally, the whole idea of "creativity" and "showmanship" is foreign to the NHL. According to "The Crock", you just don't do those kinds of things to show somebody up or else you'll have to "face the consequences." But most curious of all is the lack of hostile reaction to the continuing "Bettmanization" of the NHL by making the game more like the NBA by those who hate everything Bettman does. Why am I not surprised?
• One last thing about the Breakaway competition last night, interesting wasn't it that the NHL brought in a retired NBA player, Dominque Wilkins, to judge the thing? Think we'll see some retired NHL player judge the NBA Slam Dunk Contest? That will happen right after the (Com)Post hires me to be a sports columnist.
• Well so much for continuing the sanity and stability with the Redskins. As I said last week, the longer the Head Coach search went, the worse it was going to be for Gregg Williams and now he and Al Saunders have been released. Greg Blache and Jim Zorn take their respective positions but a Head Coach has not yet been hired and is not expected to be for at least another week. Whether or not Williams was the right choice to become the next Head Coach is not what was the most important thing. What is the most important thing is that whoever the next Head Coach of the Redskins is; they must be able to peacefully coexist with owner Daniel Snyder. Gibbs was able to do that and clearly there was something about Williams that led Snyder to believe that Williams couldn't. Like it or not, this is Snyder's team and until he's unable to sell tickets (which won't be happening anytime soon) there's no reason for him to change his ways.
• Tobacco Road took their revenge on the Terps this weekend as yesterday, the Women lost in Double Overtime at North Carolina and today Dook beat the Men in the Cable Box. Quite frankly, the women got jobbed on Tobacco Road. All you need to know about the game is that the Terps were called for 28 fouls compared to 19 for the Tar Heels. The Terps had six players with four or more fouls (two of whom fouled out) but not a single Carolina player had more than 3. While UNC didn't get a single foul shot in the first half, they ended up making more than Maryland took for the entire game in the second half and both overtimes. As for the Men, their Quixotic season continues but the odd thing is that all but one (Klempsun) of the road teams won in Men's ACC Basketball games this weekend. A combination of Maryland just not having it this year and a one week layoff conspired to doom them at home once again.
• This week, the Caps have another home-and-home with a Canadian team. The Caps are in Montreal on Tuesday night and then host the Canadiens on Thursday night before the Thrashers appear in the Phone Booth on Saturday night. The home games start at 7 pm while the game in Montreal starts at 7:30 pm. The Terp Men will host Virginia on Wednesday night at 7 pm on ESPN and then head to Georgia Tech for a Saturday game at Noon on ESPN2. The women will host Miami on Thursday night in Cable Box.
• As always, please send all comments, criticisms, corrections, suggestions, questions, and Super Bowl Party Invitations to "capsnut" over at gmail dot com.