I happened to be at the Acc for tonights battle between the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs. First the good:

I thought Kulemin had one of his best games as a leaf.

Jason Blake cutting to to the middle was shocking to see, if he did it more often he would have more than the 7 goals he has from the perimiter.

The play of the night was Tomas Kaberle jumping the guy on the bruins fo trying to decapatate Matt Stajan. TK, who looks like he may weigh 100lbs dripping wet instantly jumped the guy before anyone else on the buds had a chance. That has to greatly improve his presence in the lockeroom.

Gustafsson got his first shutout, the buds ther first in 2 years.

And now, the rest of the story:

With the exception of the last 10 minutes or so it was a dreadful game to watch. It had no tempo, no flow, no high or lows.

The officiating was horrific. One of the Leaf players in the third got hauled down right in front of the referee who did nothing but wait 30 seconds to make a marginal call on Matt stajan.

Lastly, I know I am going to take shut for this but….. I happen to have a really nice tv at home. The HD picture is fantastic. The sound is crisp. My couch is really comfortable. The food is good and reasonably priced. I get to listen to the commentary and best of all I get to see the replays. Lastly, on most occasions I don’t have to wait in line to go to the can standing in urine drenched floors.

No really, as I sat and watched the game, I started to ask myself what was really different. At home I wouldn’t be watching with close to 20000 people, but I also wouldn’t be listening to most of the moronic comments I hears all night. I certainly wouldn’t have to listen to those oh so creatve bruins suck chants.

So other than the ambience, what am I missing when I am at home? It was, I have to admit really annoying tonight when Stajan got belted notorious have the benefit of the replay OR the commentary. From our vantage point it looked like Stajan was bleeding lien crazy and that Kaberle was first to his rescuse. Stajan returned almost immediately, and Pony got the penalty not Kaberle. Having to text message LT to find out what the hell was going on was a pain.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time. Instead the home environment has caught up with the live version. Of course you can never fully replace the sounds, the smell, the atmosphere of the live game. We are getting damn close at a fraction of the price. It’s good and it bad.

Special thanks to CP for the ducats to tonights tilt. It was a ton of fun and brought back tons o memories of the 80’s!

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

From the iPhone pardon spelling and grammar

Baseball has a problem and it needs to be addressed immediately.

I know among baseball people this is unpopular, but I don’t care about baseball people right now. I know human error has and always will be apart of the game, but sometimes, humans really screw up.

Even with the limited use of instant replay that baseball currently uses, the umpires are getting calls wrong. Not only are the umps getting them wrong, they are terribly wrong; and Bud Selig seems happier than a pig in slop about this.

Selig, or “Captain Reaction” as I sometimes refer to him as, has tried his hardest to keep the use of technology out of baseball.

But give Selig some credit; he has talked to baseball people about the issue. You know these people; they share the same views as the Commissioner.

“The more baseball people I talk to, there is a lot of trepidation, and I think their trepidation is fair,” Selig told reporters. “Affecting the game on the field is not something I really want to do.”

Fair points, but baseball has made on the field changes in the past. Lowering the mound following Bob Gibson’s 1968 season? Adding teeth to their steroid policy after allowing the problem to run rampant for years, only after Jose Canseco decided he needed some money. I’m just saying that change isn’t a bad thing.

For change to happen, Selig has to open up his circle and not just talk strictly to baseball people. He must talk to other commissioners like Roger Goddell of the NFL, whose league uses replay on a challenge system for a ton of calls. How about Gary Bettman of the NHL whose league uses replay for goal calls, high sticks on goals and for determining suspensions. Or possibly David Stern of the NBA who’s league uses it for buzzer beaters or calling a made shot a two or three pointer.

“I think my position is clear,” Selig told the New York Times. “This is a game of pace, I’m worried about that.”

Excuse me? I love baseball, but I think I saw a snail roll by a baseball game once and comment on how slow the game was going. What would take more time? A replay official paging the on-field umps to take a second look, or a manager getting out of the dugout and in the face of one of the umpires?

The replay might take less time than Lou Piniella kicking his hat around the diamond. It would just be far less entertaining.

Sports fans are calling for Selig to react to the poor umpiring. Come on Captain Reaction…React! It’s what you’re best at.