Sports shorts

Just a pair of quick stories here.  First, the last fantasy football post of the season.  Last week was the Purple vs the Gold, and in the main row of games on Saturday, the Gold built up a 40-6 lead and by the end of the day was up 44-21, mostly because of Superfreak Cam Newton and his 18 points.  But Sunday night, enter Aaron Rodgers (who put up 18 of his own) and his trusty sidekick Mason Crosby, and when the smoke cleared, the game was 44-all.  The last active roster player on Monday night was Michael Turner for the Gold; and if he couldn't score to give his team the win, Drew Brees would need to get 24 reserve points for the Gold as the Purple reserves were way ahead.  Turner failed, Brees got 12, and the Purple had an amazing 71-59 OT comeback win.

Also, Lokomotiv played game 5 this morning.  They were home in front of a crowd of 9,000 facing league-leading HC Donbass.  (and yes I see the easy punchline, and am ignoring it.  Perhaps if they were 2-13 like the Colts...)  Danill Yerdakov scored his 13th of the season (2nd with Loko) to put the good guys up 1-0 at 2:20 of the 1st.  Sergei Varlamov tied things at 6:16 of the first, and took the lead in the second.  With Jan Krasvoski and Rafael Akhmetov drawing tripping penalties just 34 seconds apart, Donbass scored on the two man advantage at 9:34.  But less than a minute later, Alexi Kruchinin tallied his 6th of the season (2nd with Loko) to re-tie the game at 2-2 .  Just after 2 minutes later, Oleg Misyul got his first of the season to put Lokomotiv up 3-2.  But as coach Petr Vorobiev noted afterwards, the young team got reckless in the final stanza, and Donbass tied it at 11:49.  After a lackluster 5-minute OT period, it went to the shootout.  While Donbass goalie Evgeni Tsaregorodtsev stoned Loko shooters including Oleg Yashin, veterans Varlamov and Denis Kochetkov beat youngster Nikita Lozhkin to give Donbass the 4-3 win.  Next game, also in Yaroslavl, pits us against basement-dwelling Titan Klin, from a town 53 Mi. NE of Moscow.