The most confused NBA star in the league today (aside from mentally challenged players like Meta World Peace f/k/a Ron Artest) is, of course, Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard.
For most of the season, he demanded to be traded but Magic owner Rich DeVos and the front office couldn’t find a taker at a very steep price. Then Howard said that he wanted the team to fire Coach Stan Van Gundy, and it appears that Van Gundy will be out of work soon, because one of the few absolute truths in sports is that is easier to fire a coach than fire players.
With no deal at the trade deadline, Howard decided that he would stay with the team for this year and the one remaining year left on his contract. That seemed to settle the story for awhile – Howard was playing at an all star caliber and he was staying in Mickey Mouse Land.
Then the big baby hurt his back, and at first, it sounded like he was being rested for the playoffs, or a ploy from Howard himself, but, as it turned out, Howard had back surgery which ended his season and the playoffs. Ok – Howard will be back; Van Gundy, the bane of Howard’s day-to-day existence will be gone, issues solved, right?
None other than the most embarrassing African-American sports reporter, Stephen A. Smith (I can only guess what the “A” stands for) reported that Howard feels dissed by the team again and will ask to be traded when the season ends again.
According to the 7-foot man-child, the team continues to treat him badly, and his teammates haven’t been providing the same effort as he. The latest “insult” was that when he had his back surgery, the team was going to fly him back on a commercial air liner. Of course, it would have been first class, but that’s beside the point.
So, Howard will demand a trade, but who is going to pay the Magic’s sky-high price, especially for a player who just had back surgery? Who wants to risk team chemistry and on-court balance with a clubhouse cancer?
My prediction – the Magic and Howard are stuck with each other, probably for the rest of Howard’s career. A career that, if his back allows, will be filled with stats and all-star appearances, but filled with players and coaches that hate his guts. And no championship ring.

A hot goaltender is often the key to winning a series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and today, the day after Mike Smith and the Phoenix Coyotes eliminated the Chicago Blackhawks 4 games to 2. Not to downplay Smith, or Phoenix’s playing style, which gave the Hawks fits all season, but the Hawks never put it all together all season.
Injuries certainly had an impact as was the number of rookies that the Hawks had to play during the season, but the chief culprit was inconsistency. Early in the season, I was yelling at games about poor defense, especially in our own zone. The team was able to cover it up and win a lot of games in the first half of the season on superior scoring ability by its stars: Toews, Kane, Sharp and Hossa. But the defensive shortcomings, poor special teams play and lackluster goaltending led to a nine game losing streak in the second half and showed everyone the chinks in the armor.
The Blackhawks were near the bottom of the league on the power play and penalty kill; Corey Crawford and Ray Emery were in the middle of the pack in goalie stats and the team did not register a shutout all season. The roster changed so much; I think a lot of the players, especially the younger ones, never had any consistency in playing with the same people game after game.
So, our season is over, but five out of six games were decided in overtime, which means that a couple of breaks and the results would be different. The Hawks have superstars; Phoenix has a couple of stars and a bunch of grinders. I still think the are a longshot for the Cup. The Blackhawks are done, but at least it lasted a day longer than the Red Wings and Canucks.

• As I said above, no one is happier than I that the dreaded, hated Red Wings and Canucks are also eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The City of Vancouver is happy that the fans didn’t riot this year.
• So far, we have two Game 7 – winner take all games. The defending champion Bruins face the upstart Capitals in a deciding game. Early in the series, the Bruins went up and it looked like the Caps would fold, especially with Coach Dale Hunter benching Alex Ovetchkin for long periods because he didn’t play defense. But Washington has bought into team defense and could easily steal this series.
• As I mentioned, the Kings knocked off the Canucks behind a hot netminder – Jonathan Quick. Everyone knew he could step up and lead the Kings and he has done so. Now, will they break up the Canucks?
• The Predators eliminated Detroit with a solid defense and Pekka Rinne, one of the biggest goaltenders around. Nashville signed Rinne to a long-term deal, but with two other stars: Shea Weber and (I believe) defenseman Ryan Sutter, this may be the one year opening for the Preds before bigger market teams start bidding on their UFAs.
• The Rangers and Ottawa Senators are also going to a Game 7. The Rangers showed that their high priced talent could deliver, but the Sens, the little team that could, has given them all they can handle.
• Meanwhile the Florida Panthers, or as I call them the Blackhawks South with Campbell and Versteeg have the opportunity of eliminating the Devils tonight. I have no great feeling for the Devils other than being bored when they won the Cup with their defense first style (the same can be said of this year’s Predators). But if the Panthers do advance, I have a sentimental feeling for them.
• St. Louis was the number 2 seed in the west and they gave the San Jose Sharks their annual ouster. St. Louis has been boosted by Coach Ken Hitchcock because absolutely no one expected this team to go anywhere. They could win, but they’re St. Louis, and I like the fact that the Blues have never won anything. Let’s hope that continues.
• For all of this, I think the hated Flyers are the team to beat. They knocked out the Penguins who The Hockey News picked to win the Cup as soon as Sidney Crosby returned to the ice. But Claude Giroux, the third best player in the league according to THN’s poll of players showed how really good he is against Pittsburgh. It would suck to see Philadelphia win, but to me, that’s the way to bet right now.

This is the best time of year – the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Since there are so many stories, let’s hit the ice….

• I was a bit surprised that the NHL Sergeant-At-Arms, Brendan Shanahan, who has the third highest number of “Gordie Howe Hat Tricks” (a goal, an assist, and a fight), gave Blackhawk forward Andrew Shaw a 3-game suspension for his “hit” on Phoenix goalie Mike Smith. The “hit” was marginal at best, and the goalie took a dive in an acting job that would put Greg Louganis, Sean Penn, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep to shame. The referees and league officials should NOT try to affect the outcome of the games through frivolous penalties and suspensions.
• That said, Coyotes’ forward Raffi Torres has been suspended indefinitely for his hit against Marion Hossa in last night’s Game 3 of the Western Conference Playoff game won by Phoenix 3-2 in OT. Hossa will be out for at least Game 4 and possibly the rest of the season. But there was no call on the play. Fighting will never be completely eliminated from hockey as long as the on ice officiating is so poor.
• I am working with some Detroit Red Wing fans and while it is rather enjoyable to have the Red Wings losing, I am much happier that Vancouver is down 0-3 to the Los Angeles Kings. I just wonder if the fans will try and burn down the city this year?
• The Blackhawks south – the Florida Panthers have a 2 games to 1 lead on the New Jersey Devils and Brian Campbell scored a goal last night. If the Hawks lose, with Campbell and forward Kris Versteeg on the team, I might start rooting for the ex-Hawks who were on the Cup winning team from two years ago.
• Would you have bet that the Pittsburgh Penguins would be on the verge of elimination just three games into the first round? Yes, they are playing the Flyers, who are doing their usual intimidation, but the Pens have lost their cool, with 4 players serving suspensions going into tonight’s Game 4.
• Speaking of the Penguins, is it time to say that goalie Marc Andre Fluery is not a big game goaltender? Yes, he won a Cup, but two years ago against the Canadians in Game 7, he did not show up and was pulled, and this year, he has been scored on early, rattles, and then scored on often. Fluery needs to come up bigger, or perhaps the Penguins need an upgrade in net?

I was a fan of Ozzie Guillen. He managed the first Chicago World Series Champion in almost nine decades and he did so for my beloved White Sox. But every day during the season, Sox fans had to cringe at what would come out of Ozzie’s mouth on any given day.
Most of the time it was honest and truthful; sometimes it was funny; it was always laced with profanities. But it often was off the cuff, ill-informed or dumb. With all of the political crap with the team and GM Ken Williams and diminishing returns in terms of wins and losses, it was more than time for Ozzie to go elsewhere, and with the Florida/Miami Marlins looking for a Latino face on the team, it made sense for Ozzie to manage there. But Ozzie said the dumbest thing that someone making their living in Miami could do.
Ozzie told Time Magazine that he loved Fidel Castro, not politically, but because despite many people including the United States Government trying to kill him and subvert his regime, he is still in charge in Cuba. As I said, Guillen has said dumb things before, but this was possibly the dumbest thing he could have said. Considering the huge Cuban population in the Miami area, many of whom left Cuba secretly, or had relatives die at the hands of the Castro regime, he might as well have spit in the faces of the entire Cuban community.
I live in Skokie, which has the highest number of Holocaust survivors in the United States, what Guillen did would be like standing outside of Skokie’s Village Hall and proclaiming that you love Adolph Hitler (and which is why the neo-Nazis tried so hard to march in Skokie in the 1970s).
I admit being surprised that Guillen is still employed. Local community leaders demanded he be fired, which would have been disastrous for the team which spent millions of dollars on a new stadium, players, and a Hispanic manager with World Series experience. So, after Guillen flew back to Miami and took blame for the comments and apologized. The team took the step of suspending Guillen for 5 games; completely worthy and within their rights.
The question now is whether the people of Miami would be willing to trust Guillen again and more important, support the team? Guillen is Venezuelan, of course, and so has a very different perspective than the rest of the community. To him, Castro is a hero who gave the upraised middle finger to America, but to those who lost relatives in the Bay of Pigs and other actions, Guillen’s comments are inexcusable.
As a person gets older, part of what shows maturity is an ability of knowing what you can get away with saying and what you can’t. You don’t yell “Fire” in a crowded movie theater unless there is a fire. There are comments that you can make to your boss, and those comments that you keep to oneself.
Ozzie Guillen is a pretty good baseball manager, but obviously, he has the self control of a 3-year-old. Anything that comes to his mind can come out of his mouth. Amusing, sometimes embarrassing; and completely excusable if it is a kid we’re talking about. It’s fairly inexcusable if you’re 48-years old.

If you had told me last week that the University of Arkansas would sever ties with Head Football Coach Bobby Petrino, I would have said that there was no f#$king way. Petrino’s team finished number 5 in the country at the end of last season. Petrino just completed his fourth season with the Razorbacks, who have 34-17 in that period. Arkansas finished last season ranked No. 5 after losing only to national champion Alabama and runner-up LSU. Petrino had shown that he was the kind of high power coach that Arkansas needed to compete with Nick Saban and the other major coaches in the conference.
The story of course was that Petrino was in a motorcycle accident and at first, Petrino said he was on the bike alone. It was only later that authorities and Arkansas Athletic Director Long found out that he had a passenger on the bike and Petrino covered up the relationship with former Arkansas volleyball player and current football program employee Jessica Dorrell, who is 25, until Petrino called him late last week, minutes before a police report was released that disclosed her presence at the accident.
In the “winning is everything” world of college sports, I thought that Petrino would keep his job, and for once, that would have been fair in my opinion. The situation is a private one between Petrino and his family, but Arkansas decided, much like the NFL in the bounty scandal, that the punishment is worse because the coaches lied about it, Sean Payton lied and covered up the fact that there was a bounty program; Bobby Petrino lied about a extramarital affair and a motorcycle accident. Payton’s lies were about activities that played out on the field. Petrino’s indiscretions involved no players or games.
In some ways, Arkansas is overstepping its bounds in firing Petrino for personal indiscretions. As I stated last week, Louisville didn’t fire Head Basketball Coach Rick Patino after he reportedly had sex with his mistress in a restaurant. People don’t remember this but former Wisconsin Head Football Coach Barry Alvarez made headlines when his wife threw his clothes onto the front lawn of their home when she found out that he had taken a coed to the Rose Bowl instead of her. And he is still revered in Madison.
But Arkansas took a bold move by requiring that their football coach be honest. How can they believe that anything Petrino says is the truth? How can any recruit believe him, especially coming after leaving the Atlanta Falcons abruptly during the season in 2007?
Football coaches; authority figures of all kinds; grown men and women should be held accountable for their words and actions. Arkansas may be on fragile grounds in firing Petrino, but they also may be making a bigger statement in the cesspool of college athletics.

It is always amusing to me when a college basketball or football coach gets into trouble. When it involves players, it usually is covering up bad grades or money under the table. In that case, it’s the student athletes who are doing something they shouldn’t be doing; its hardly ever the coach’s fault for introducing the star to the big money booster in the first place. Funnier are when coaches get caught with their pants down – literally! It’s strange that no one mentions Rick Pitino’s sexual activities in a diner that led to blackmail when his Louisville Cardinals were in the Final Four last week. (We won’t mention the Penn State scandal, which has no amusing attributes whatsoever.)
It wasn’t news to me what University of Arkansas Head Football coach Bobby Petrino crashed his motorcycle last Sunday. A 51-year-old head coach was driving his mid-life crisis motorcycle and lost control. No Big Deal, I thought.
But the plot thickens my friends. Petrino is now on paid administrative leave after athletic director Jeff Long learned the Razorback Coach had failed to disclose he had been riding with a female employee half his age when his motorcycle skidded off the road over the weekend. Petrino said he had been concerned about protecting his family and keeping an “inappropriate relationship from becoming public.”
Of course he did. He was caught cheating and didn’t want the wife to find out about it – a sentiment as old as marriage and cheating. Since he had been successful, he felt he could get away with anything. Petrino just completed his fourth season with the Razorbacks, who have 34-17 in that period. Arkansas finished last season ranked No. 5 after losing only to national champion Alabama and runner-up LSU.
Long said he didn’t hear about the passenger, former Arkansas volleyball player and current football program employee Jessica Dorrell, who is 25, until Petrino called him Thursday afternoon, minutes before a police report was released that disclosed her presence at the accident. Petrino is married with four children didn’t mention he had a passenger during a news conference earlier in the week. Petrino said then that he had spent Sunday with his wife, Becky, at a lake and was going for an evening ride. His only mention of Dorrell was that a woman had “flagged down a car.”
This is Petrino’s second big controversy. He had been Head Coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2007 13 games into the season to take the Arkansas job. He got plenty of heat in that ibnstance from all sides – media. Fans, and former players alike.
Somehow, I think the heat that Petrino will be feeling with be a million times hotter and coming from his family.