UMFan83

Not on my part lol. People can call me whatever they want. It's not like I'm hoping the team loses, and it's not like I'm completely ignoring them. I just am not having much desire to watch them this year. I'll probably regret making these comments in mid-June when they are the only thing going on for me and I suddenly find my interest rising, but right now meh. Baseball is still my favorite sport, and the Cubs are still my favorite team amongst all sports teams I follow, and by a decent margin.

Yeah it's not ignoring on purpose or anything. It's just lack of interest. I can't explain it. I watched every game in 2006, so its not the losing that necessarily bothers me. I still watch baseball, I'm watching a White Sox-Royals game as we speak. It's just something about this team that I just don't want to follow them.

Seriously: http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rpi/_/sort/sos The only team with a worst SOS is the Twins, just barely. Their RPI (relative power index) also has the Cubs 30th out of 30. Does anyone else just want to ignore this season and come back recharged in 2011? I am hoping to god the Blackhawks stretch this out until mid June, then LeBron/FA talk carries me to July when the Bears head down to Bourbonais. With so much going on with Chicago's winter teams, this is the perfect season to just take off the Cubs, as there is a pretty good bridge between their previous seasons ending and the next ones starting. For those who are non-Chicago sports fans, I'm sorry. Maybe things will change, but for the first time since maybe 2002, I just have no desire to follow this team.

We're gonna score 4 in the bottom of the inning now, right?

Home ice advantage and getting to face the 8th seed isn't enough to get you excited. That Halak kid has looked damn good, but this is still a bottom rung playoff team we're talking about here. The Canadiens have been ridiculously outplayed in the playoffs, it's honestly a miracle that they are still playing. While I'd make Montreal the slight favorite, it would not be very crazy to see the Flyers get to the Cup Finals. Of course they will be waxed by the Sharks or Hawks but whatever.

Yup. Basically once you sign your own guys and go over the cap, you can then make trades for other players as long as the salaries match. There are also exemptions (lower level, mid level) which are basically allowances every team is given to sign one player to a certain amount of money regardless of cap space. So there's a cap but its very loose as teams that are only at or below the cap are often called cheap for being unwilling to go over. It's how teams like the Lakers, who are way over the cap, can end up with a Ron Artest in the offseason. It's also how the Knicks were able to amass an over $130 million payroll a few season ago.

I don't think think they have enough. The Knicks are 17,000,000 committed next year and barely can afford 2 max guys. The Nets are at 22,000,000. They would need a trade (albeit smaller one) to afford 2.

What would come between it and Red Sox/Yankees 2004? It would be like Red Sox Yankees if the Yankees built a 6-0 lead in game 7.

I have no desire for Calipari unless it's a prerequisite to getting LeBron

4th time in north american pro sports history. 3 times in hockey, 1 time in baseball.

I wonder if truffle is still deciding who to cheer for the rest of the playoffs. What a choke. I'm sure Boston fans will take this choke for the Red Sox in 04, but it still can't feel great. In the West 1 vs. 2. In the East 7 vs. 8 wow.

If any city is deserving of blowing a 3-0 lead it's Boston.

Wow....4 unanswered goals. Flyers lead.

I was hoping to see a truffle post since they came back. He probably stopped watching the game and is doing something else and has no idea.

Maybe you should root for the Flyers who are still very much alive in this game.

I agree...despite the results, there hvae only been a few times where I felt the Hawks were playing within the realm they were during much of the first half of this season. When they were on top of their game, they would just destroy every opponent they played. Seriously, you couldn't catch this team on an off night. I remember a game against Boston this year where they were stunned by 2 quick goals on the road. Never flinching, the Hawks stepped up and scored 5 unanswered goals to win 5-2. And it looked easy. Its amazing to think the Hawks have a very good shot to win the Stanley Cup while never finding that level of play again this year. What I've read suggests that both Nashville and Vancouver pretty handily controlled the play against us, and yet we've won both series in 6. Is there a link to the stat guy you were talking about saying that about the Hawks?

Personally, I responded quite awesomely.

I honestly feel that way. I just have no interest in this team. I almost want to but I can't. I don't know why either, but I just don't care either way what they do. Last year I would have been listening to the game while at work. This year, at about 2:30 I went to Chicago trib's website to read an article and noticed that the Cubs were playing a day game and said oh, I thought they were on the road.

Oh noes, our bullpen failed us again. Can we transfer some of those 6 runs to one of the games where we only scored 1 or 2 of them?

Yeah I just hopped to deadspin after I saw your post. They seem to think it's an email hoax....very similar hoax was started for the Villanova team after they got bounced in the NCAAs. That would be AWESOME though. Although the simple solution for Cleveland would be to jettison West and keep a happy LeBron

?

Man are we ever going to beat those pesky Pirates?

I'm just now starting to get into some of these advanced stats like CORSI and fenwick%. Good stuff. According to that article's stat GVT here is how the Hawks and Sharks matchup (taken from the article) Hawks offense: 3rd in NHL Hawks defense: 1st Hawks goaltending: 30th Hawks PK: 2nd Hawks PP: 12th Sharks offense: 5th in NHL Sharks defense: 21st Sharks goaltending: 6th Sharks PK: 5th Sharks PP: 7th Now look at them against each other: SJ OFF vs. CHI DEF: San Jose Sharks Offense: 20.6 GVT (Rank: 5th in NHL) Chicago Blackhawks Defense: 30.2 GVT (Rank: 1st in NHL) Chicago Blackhawks Goaltending: -20.7 GVT (Rank: 30th in NHL) Total: San Jose Sharks +11.1 GVT CHI OFF vs. SJ DEF: Chicago Blackhawks Offense: 29.5 GVT (Rank: 3rd in NHL) San Jose Sharks Defense: -7.1 GVT (Rank: 21st in NHL) San Jose Sharks Goaltending: 13.9 GVT (Rank: 6th in NHL) Total: Chicago Blackhawks +22.7 GVT SJ PP vs. CHI PK: San Jose Sharks Power Play: 6.2 GVT (Rank: 7th in NHL) Chicago Blackhawks Penalty Kill: 16.7 GVT (Rank: 2nd in NHL) Total: Chicago Blackhawks +10.5 GVT CHI PP vs. SJ PK Chicago Blackhawks Power Play: 0.6 GVT (Rank: 12th in NHL) San Jose Sharks Penalty Kill: 11.7 GVT (Rank: 5th in NHL) Total: San Jose Sharks +11.1 GVT Based on that it looks like Chicago has the 5v5 edge and SJ has a slight edge on SP, but we're looking at 2 teams that are among the elite in the league at everything except 1 thing, SJ's defense and Chicago's goaltending, though I suspect if we had Niemi playing goal all season long, we'd be marginally better there, maybe 25th instead of 30th. I still say Hawks in 6

I don't even think a Celtics fan would be caught dead in that.

BTW, it sucks that there is really no transcendent superstar in Chicago right now like Sosa or Jordan were in years past. (until LeBron) I feel like of the names on this list, Derrick Rose would eventually be the biggest named star in Chicago sports. As cool as Kane is, he's a hockey player so unless he gets to the level of popularity of Ovechkin or Crosby, it won't be him. Urlacher used to probably hold the torch and maybe does now, but he's on the downside of his career and has been out of the spotlight for almost a year with his injury. Cutler throws too many INTs and has a bad image among the rest of the sporting world to be the biggest "star". Derrek Lee is a nice guy but no superstar. I forgot who else you listed. That said, I'm gonna have to go with Chris Richard.