Catching up the KHL

Since I'm saving my Christmas card to you all for Christmas Eve (with the exceptions of those who got theirs today), A walk today found nothing but mud, ice, and cold, and the only things I have to rant about today is a pack of simple frustrations even I find whiny, I am left with updating my beloved Lokomotiv team, who comes out of the latest break red hot.

Wednesday was a 2-1 win over tough Traktor.  Artym Anisimov tallied his 10th 13:31 into the first stanza and added an assist on Sergei Plotnikov's 10th at 16:46 of the 2nd.  Anisimov would also make the scoresheet in the next game for a ten-game scoring streak that's so far netted him 8 of his goals and 8 assists as well.  Evgeny Kutnetsov would cut it to 2-1 just 53 ticks into the third (and would go on to net 2 and add a shootout goal in his next game!), but Curtis Sanford held the team from Chelyabinsk off the scoreboard the rest of the way.

That same day, I had to ask Laurie if top-ranked Dynamo Moscow would fire their coach today.  Once again they had a road meltdown.  Facing Sibir, they built up 2-0 and 3-1 leads on goals by NHL lockouts Alex Ovechkin and Nikolas Backstrom- but Sibir tied it and sent it to the shootout, where Ovechkin and Backstrom both got stoned before Arturs Kulda scored to give Sibir the 4-3 win.  In the meantime, fellow lockout Evegeny Malkin got a hat trick in a Magnitogrsk 5-3 win over Atlant.

Friday, our boys played struggling Avtomobilst (5-23-8).  Their Stanislav Zhmakin scored first, but less than 2 minutes later, Anisimov scored unassisted to knot things at 1.  Maxim Trunyov tallied his 4th halfway through the game to make it 2-1 good guys, and Plotnikov and Dmitry Maltsev added third period scores to give us a 4-1 final. The win puts us at 18-9-8, trailing Dynamo (21-6-8) by seven, SKA by three, Ak Bars by 2 and Avangard by 1.  But, it gives us an 8 point lead in our division over Red Army (16-11-7) and thus the second seed in the east.


We are close to the halfway point of the season.  Each conference has four teams that look like they will certainly be in the playoffs.  In the west, that would be Dynamo, St Petersburg SKA, Red Army, and us.  Following these four are a group of six teams just 10 points apart fighting for the other four spots- Slovan, Severstal, Lev, Donbass, Torpedo, and Dinamo Minsk.  After that are the teams that would seem to be in the also ran category- Atlant (9-18-8), Vityaz (6-15-13), Dinamo Riga (9-21-6), and Spartak (7-20-8). 

The situation is much the same in the east.  Ak Bars, Avangard, Magnitogorsk, and Traktor look to be in.  The middle group is a little more defined, with Salavat Yulaev, Barys, Neftekhimik, and Sibir within 5 of each other, and Yugra and Nizhnekamsk trailing at a distance.  Finally the east has two dead-in-the-water teams- Amur (9-23-3) and Avtomobilst.


The All-star balloting is over, and the big winners were the locked-out NHLers.  Our Semyon Varlemov beat out Pekka Rinne of Minsk for west goalie by a slim 26,344-26,204 margin! Malkin rolled up 40,569 votes for the overall lead, 6,838 more than SKA's Pavel Datsyuk.  Ovechkin got third.  The game and its festivities are set for January 12-13.

Sunday notes

I know some of you out there have wondered where my Sunday messages have been.  Well, I have some pretty stiff criteria on what to post on this subject.  First, It needs to be based on something I had to learn.  Second, it has to be something that I am taking to heart.  Third it has to have the proper period of digestion.  Lately, I have either struggled to have myself in the right mind-set, or haven't been led by something compelling enough, or haven't been compelled enough.  Today, I heard a strong, compelling pair of sermons- but digestion is still working on them.  In other words, if I am to give you the lesson I learn, two things must happen- I must learn, and I must be able to tellit in a beneficial way.  On the bright side, you all aren't paying me for insight, so no one's getting short-changed.

This morning, I read an excellent blog post on Surviving Boys about what it means to be an independant voter.  I'd like to make two observations before you check it out, though.  First, though Juli and I sometimes disagree on the candidates' "level of morality", we are pretty much in agreement on everything else, and I thought she did an excellent job on this piece.  Second, I guess I hadn't really given much thought to the "levels" of being an independant voter.  For example, with rare occasions of exception (many of which I came to regret), I have generally voted Republican.  But being independant for me has always meant that, while voting one way, I had the freedom to vote the other on occasion without the broccoli gods smiting me for "betraying the party line".  I believe that the other end of the spectrum for me are those who claim independant status because of an axe they wish to grind, whether they are a minority party adherant (say a communist, libertarian, or neo-nazi) who claim independance to deride all parties, or the system, or what have you.  Juli clearly shows what it means to be an honest-to-gosh independant- one who does her own thinking, weighs what is said on her experience of what has been done, and votes her conscience.  Okay, no go read her post, I promise you won't be missing anything.

Okay, in the meantime I thought I would bring up that the battle between myself and KC over who picks college football the best goes on. This week, he picked 46 winners to my 43 to win his first week out of four.  So far this year, I've picked 206 winners for a 74.37%, and he has 203 for a 73.29 %.

In other news, as we speak I am keeping one eye on the text summary of the ongoing game between Lokomotiv and Dinamo Riga.  Friday was out last game and we managed to snap a two game losing streak with a 4-2 win over Moscow Spartak.  They took the early 1-0 lead in front of 9,000 screaming Yaroslavlians, but Alexei Kalyuzhny tied it with under 15 ticks to go in the first period, his 3rd of the season.  We went on to score 4 straight times, all but one of them in scrambles out front like the first one.  Mikelis Redlihis got #2 6 1/2 minutes into the second; Yegor Yakolev, a member of last years' VHL team, got his first at the game's halfway point; and Yegor Averin tallied his 3rd on a breakaway 4 minutes into the final stanza.  Spartak got a goal late in the third, but came no closer.

Todays game has been a tight affair, and as I write is just now going to OT tied at 1-1.  Andris Dzerins scored at the halfway point to put the Lithuanian visitors on top, but Stefan Kronwall bagged his third at the 7:04 mark of the third to tie things up.  Despite a seven-shot advantage in the third, that's all we got.

While we're waiting for OT to get going, here's a new pick of Mr. Woody Pecker.

Geez, I used to be neat and entertaining; now, I'm just halftime entertainment.  What an upside-down world!

I guess while we're waiting I could mention that NHL star Alex Ovechkin scored his first goal of the year with Dynamo Moscow in a 3-1 loss to SKA St. Petersburg.  Another NHLer, Ilya Kovalchuk had an assist for SKA in the win.  Also, I see Martin Thornberg, a Swede in his second season with Torpedo after 12 years with HV71 in Sweden's elitserien, scored three times in a 10:04 stretch of the second in the ongoing game between Torpedo and Spartak. Wow!  In the meantime, the 5 minite OT is finished with no scoring, so we go to the shoot-out.  Our first two shooters are stopped, so are theirs.  Jamie Johnson, a Canuck who spent last year with Grand Rapids of the AHL, scored for Riga on their third try; Niklas Hagman ties it back up with a score for us. Our goalie, Vitaly Kolesnik, stops their fourth shooter.  And then Emil Galimov, one of last year's stars, beats Maris Jucers for the Lokomotiv win!  It's only the second game he's gotten into, and he was hot late, with two of our four OT shots to go with his game-ender.  That puts us at 3 regulation wins, two shootout wins, and 2 losses.  Next up is Tuesday against Donbass, who just got a score from would-be Philly Fyler Ruslan Fedetenko to beat Spartak in a shootout.

Sports Tuesday

The second week of the NHFFFL season is in the books- and since I'm the only official, we aren't having replacement problems!  All but two of the games this week were intra-owner games.  the two inter-owner games involved Laurie and KC.

In one of those, the Sunset Rangers stayed unbeaten and pulled into #1 in the rankings, pulling away on 2 Willis McGahee TDs to top the Angels 45-31.  The two Dwayne Bowe "let 'em score we're 30 points ahead" scores got the Rangers into that position, but the Angels made a game of it with Monday night TDs from Demaryous Thomas and Roddy White.

The other inter-owner matchupd saw Matt Prater's three extra points be the difference in the Clock BBQs 35-33 edging of the Elks. New acquisition CJ Spillers' two TDs led the winners, but were more than balanced by Steve Gostkowski's 14 points.  But, as with the Pats, it was the one he missed that decided the game.

The KCAs got bounced from the top spot with a 49-41 loss to the Aguas.  The KCAs led 40-18 going into Sunday night, but the Aguas rallied with 2 Vernon Davis TDs, 13 from K Jason Hanson, and Matt Ryan's 6 against the Broncos.  The rookie duo of RGIII and Doug Martin once again led the KCAs with 24 points between them.

In the other all-Chris game, the B2s picked up 23 Thursday night, and rallied behind Ben Rothlesburger and Mike Wallace Sunday afternoon, to mash the Ducks 47-36. Mason Crosby and his teammates on the Green Bay D collected the 23 on Thursday.

The all-Laurie matchup had the Greenwoods rally from an early deficit to handle the winless Beagles 32-23.  David Akers put up nine Sunday night to seal the deal.

The all KC matchup was the reeealy big shue this week.  Buzz racked up 24 points from his three RBs, and Seattle's D and K Steven Haushicka (or something like that) combined for 18 more- and they lost!  Porkchop got 27 from their running back corps, another 21 from the receivers, topped off with 15 from K Lawrence Tynes, and won 69-51.



So if you went by my betting system, three teams covered (Rangers, B2s, and Porkchops) and three teams straight lost (KCAs, Elks, and Beagles).  This week, you have Aguas by 6 over the Beagles; KCAs by six over the Angels; the Rangers by 12 over the 'Woods; 'Chops by 7 over the Clock BBQs; Ducks by 2 over Buzz in the somebody's-gotta-win game; and B2s by 4 over the Elks.


In the KHL, things have slowed down for New Lokomotiv (but it's still the only hockey in town!)  Friday we were broadsided by Torpedo 6-3. After Maxim Trunyov tied the game at 1-1 after one period, Torpedo tallied three times in a seven minute span of the second to go up 4-1.  In the next five minutes Niklas Hagman scored his 2nd and Alexei Kalyuzhny, a vet who spent the last few years with Jaromir Jagr in Omsk, cut it back to 4-3, but Torpedo got goals late in the last two periods to cause the final margin.

Sunday we had our home opener in front of a SRO crowd of 9,000, but could not solve Atlant goalie Stanislav Galimov, and dropped a 2-1 decision.  Daniil Apal'kov got his 3rd goal in the first period, but Atlant beat our net minder Vitaly Kolesnik 2 of their 9 third period shots on goal.

So now, Loko has 2 wins, a shootout win, and 2 losses, dropping them to a three way tie for 8th in the conference in points, with twin Dinamos Minsk and Riga.  League newbe Lev Praha (Prague) is on top with 4 wins, a shootout win, and a loss for 14 points, 6 more than Lokomotiv.  Next up for us is Spartak, who has three wins a shootout loss, and 2 losses for a third place tie at ten points.

In the meantime, the list is growing larger of locked-out NHLers coming to the KHL.  At present, here is the list:  Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Ottawa's Sergei Gonchar have joined Mettalurg Magnitogorsk; New Jersey's Ilya Kovalchuk will be joining SKA St. Petersburg; Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk is going to Ak Bars Kazan; Edmonton's #1 draft pick Nail Yakupov returns to his home team of Neftekhimik; Alexei Ponikarovski of Winnepeg and the Flyers' Ruslan Fedotenko are going to Donbass; Nik Antropov, who last played for Atlanta, has signed up with Barys Astana; Kaspars Dougavins of Ottawa is going home to Dinamo Riga; and other players have signed in the Czech league with Jagr and Tomas Plekanic of the Canadiens going to the club Jagr owns in Kladno, and the Flyers' Pavel Kubina going to Vitkovice.

Others I just found include Jiri Hudler of Calgary going to first-place Lev and Toronto's Nikolai Kulemin joing Malkin and Gonchar in Magnitogorsk.  This means that the rumours of Sidney Crosby joining Malkin at Metallurg are dead, since their is a three-player limit and Kulemin makes three.  A rumour that is still active is that the big money owners of CSKA (Red Army Moscow) will be getting Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, and Flyer goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. A group of players are also headed for Swiss National League A, with brand new Ranger Rick Nash heading for Davos along with San Jose captain Joe Thornton, and Logan Coture headed for Geneva.  Other less founded rumours have players joining up with old teams in their homelands, Including Frolunda in Sweden, Kalpo in Finland and Jokerit also in Finland.

 

Guess what I get to do tomorrow?

Yup, I got Jury duty tomorrow.  As I have little else to do right now, I'm going to a) do my civic duty, b) get the entertainment value, and c) hopefully earn a day or 2 of $40 a pop.

So tonight, I'm going to empty out all the things I've been waiting to unleash on my lovely readers but have been waiting for you to read previously published stuff first.  And if you make it through the rants to story #5, I have a funny for you!

Story #1-  You all know that I am constantly trying to get my Christian audience to do God's will the right way.  I was reading My Utmost For His Highest last night, where the point was brought up how too many of us end up offending the Lord- and everyone else- by jumping into a project on human impulse rather than seeking God's will first.  As such, I was seeking about doing this story in a "names changed to protect the guilty" way, until I learned that it made National news through the much-less-understanding-than-I Huffington Post about 2 hours ago.  So here's the WANE-TV story:

Garrett mayor apologizes for throwing out Sikh pamphlets

Updated: Wednesday, 05 Sep 2012, 5:57 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 05 Sep 2012, 5:57 PM EDT

GARRETT, Ind. (WANE) The mayor of Garrett has apologized to a local business owner for an act that she herself called, "unrighteous." Our partners at KPC News reported the apology on Monday.

The manager and part-owner of Quickway in Garrett, Kulwinder Nagra, 38, said he put pamphlets about his Sikh religion on the counter of the store after the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin .

“I just wanted to let people know who I am,” Nagra told KPC News. “After 9/11, there was a lot of misunderstanding. ”
Surveillance footage shows Hoeffel entering the store at about 12:55 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 28. She bought a soft drink and walked away. She then returned to the counter, grabbed the small stack of pamphlets, took them outside and threw them into a trash bin.
Nagra said he went outside to ask the mayor why she took all four of the pamphlets that had been placed on the counter in front of the register.

“She said, ‘It’s against my beliefs,’” Nagra said. “She said, ‘This is against Christianity.’”
Hoeffel later said she disposed of the pamphlets because of a lack of personal interest, not as a statement about the religion.
Hoefell has since apologized, saying, "I just grabbed what was there. I just decided I didn't want it."
Hoefell and Garrett City Coucilman Brad Stump met with Nagra and his business partners on Monday to discuss the incident.
“I personally believe if you do something wrong, you go to that person,” Hoeffel told KPC news. “I apologized for offending them. I said I know they are a peaceful people.”
Nagra said the Sikh religion teaches forgiveness and the issue was resolved for him when Hoeffel apologized.

Okay, my friends, since people don't seem to understand the simplest of principles anymore, let's take it step by step.

1-Christianity does not excuse or ask for this action.  Jesus did not overturn tables at the Quikee-mart, He did it at THE LOCAL CHURCH!  While we have a Great Commision to spread the word, we have no commission to censor beyond our own home.

2-If you are a public official AND a Christian, you are to be held to a higher standard.  This action was even more heinous for the fact an elected official did it.

3-A Christian would NOT try to pass off such stupidity to the public by saying that, oh, I took the stack to read it, wasn't interested, and threw it away. That, Ms. Mayor, is LYING.

 4-This Sikh gentleman casts a much better light on his faith than she does.  If the Mayor had done this at an atheist's shop to atheist pamphlets, the FFR bunch would have sued- would have been in the right to- and would have won.  That Mr. Nagra just forgave her is the kind of amazing testimony to his faith that we Christians SHOULD be making.

5-Moral of the story- THINK BEFORE YOU ACT.  Think of the consequences beyond your action.  And if you are a Christian, WWJD should be applied.  It's not just a bracelet, it's a way of life.  If it's not yours, please don't bring your "Christian faith" into it.



Story #2- Y'all hear the latest way the thugs of Ft. Wayne have found to prove how stupid they are? From Indianasnewscenter:

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - An altercation that started inside Piere's nightclub early Sunday morning left one person stabbed, three people shot and an ambulance driver injured.

Fort Wayne police were called to Piere's Entertainment Center, 5629 St. Joe Rd., just before 3 a.m. on a report of a stabbing. The man stabbed, 29-year-old Jermaine Loyall of Fort Wayne, was taken to a local hospital, and his friends and family members followed the ambulance to the hospital in a black Chevrolet Impala.


On the way to the hospital, police say a white Ford Crown Victoria with tinted windows drove by the Impala and ambulance in the 2200 block of St. Joe Ctr. Rd., less than a mile from Piere's, and opened fire. The three passengers in the Impala, 22-year-old Dominic Loyal, 27-year-old Latasha Loyal, as well as 31-year-old Lashanda Conwell, were injured.

The ambulance driver, who is also a firefighter, was also injured during the shooting

The ambulance driver provided a description of the white car, and Allen County police found the vehicle that matched the description near downtown Fort Wayne.

After a short pursuit, Allen County police stopped the white car at West Jefferson Boulevard and Fairfield Avenue. The four people inside the white car were arrested. 18-year-old Jakwan Braster, 27-year-old Alfonso Chappell, 24-year-old Traneilous Jackson, the fourth occupant was detained and later released.

Braster was arrested on a charge of “minor consuming,” Chappell on “resisting and fleeing law enforcement” and Jackson was charged with “Aggravated Battery,” “Criminal Recklessness with a Firearm”, and “Possession of a Firearm by a Felon.”

Jermaine eventually made it to the hospital, and was listed in stable condition.

The three people shot inside the Impala drove to the Marathon gas station at Washington Center & Coldwater Roads, where they were treated by paramedics. All three are in stable condition.

The ambulance driver was treated for his injures and released.

According to my son, who was there, it all started when the thugs in the "general population" started blowing crap to those in the VIP section.  Soon later, he saw "about ten guys" pounding hell out of one dude.  This was the dude that got stabbed, apparently with a broken beer bottle.  The victorious group celebrated the victory by hoisting aloft one of the victim's shoes.  Police apparently thought the scene secured, and I'm sure "nobody saw nuthin'" as per usual.  But apparently beating, stabbing, and whatever else they did to this kid was not enough.

INC's reporter said that there is currently no law that increases the penalty for attacking a public safety vehicle.  If we weren't living amongst such animals, it wouldn't be necessary.  Ft. Wayne has a huge unrecognized by city-gov't problem, i.e. they are afraid of offending the black community and the ministers that crawl out of the woodwork to defend any of these "poor dears" that get caught.  Thus, the entire southeast side of the city is only patrolled by police on a "when needed" basis.  Anything more would send the local NAACP screaming to their lawyers.

I'm not saying this out of prejudice, these are the facts and can easily be researched.  We who live in Ft. Wayne don't need to, we know it.  75% of the crime we face in this town could be nipped in the bud where they live.  But the city, afraid of lawsuits, allows this crap to be exported to the north side- just across the river from where I live.

Plus, Pierre's is the largest night club in the area, and "coincidentally" seems to have some sort of immunity from the consequences which less-well-known spots such as the former Rick O'Shays (also not far from me) couldn't withstand.  They have 5 -count 'em 5- off duty cops on the weekend for security and a "million dollar, Las Vegas-style security system".  But I keep hearing of smoking (despite the smoking ban), even of pot, within the club under their watchful eyes.  They supposedly check IDs, but both one of the shooters and one of the vics were underage. They supposedly pat people down, but my son says a guy got in "with a bag" that night.

I'm for shutting the damn place down.  I fail the see the need for off-duty police to to get paid for a job they aren't even doing. I'm for this City doing the things necessary to PREVENT such crap in the first place.  But somebody is obviously making money off the situation (which, to me, is the greatest racism involved here, as those who are "discriminated against" are constantly being sold out of making something better of themselves), and our Prosecutor is so budget conscious that she'd plea bargain a murder into a trafiic ticket, so I don't forsee anything getting better soon.

Story #3- I guess our first report on the NHFFL will be delayed, but I can tell you that the KCAs are looking pretty safe to beat the Greenwoods, the B2s have beaten the Clock BBQs 36-21 and the Porkchops (apparent winners of the unannounced best-logo competition) tipped the Ducks 40-35 thanks to a certain former Colt QB, and everyone else is too close to call.

Story#4- Just to clean the books, the KHL Lokomotiv won again Monday, topping Metallurg Novokuznetsk 5-4 in a shootout.  The enemy scored first at 13:41 of the 1st, and made it 2-0 on a goal by 15-year NHL vet Chris Simon just over a minute later.  Then with our Roman Lyuduchin in the penalty box, Alexei Kalyuzhny, a Belarussian who came over from Avangard Omsk, scored shorthanded to cut it to 2-1 after one.  Yegor Averin got his second score for the young season at 3:51 of the second to tie it at 2-2, but they took another lead at 10:06.  29 seconds later, Daniil Apal'kov netted his second of the season unassisted, and MN pulled their goalie and brought in his backup.

We finally beat goalie #2 on a goal by left winger Niklas Hagman, a Finn veteran of 770 NHL games with Florida, Dallas, Calgary, Toronto, and splitting last season between the Flames and Anaheim's Mighty Ducks.  He's also spent time in the top leagues of his homeland as well as the Swiss National League A.  His power-play goal was matched by MN about six and a half minutes later, and we went to overtime.  After a five-minute OT that saw only 2 shots taken, we went to the shootout.  And guess who was the last of the first six shooters?  That's right, Mr. Hagman, and he was the only shooter to put one in the net to give us the 5-4 win.  Lokomotiv is off until Friday against Torpedo, who has a loss, an OT loss, AND a shootout loss to its credit.  Loko is currently tied with Dynamo Moscow for the best record at 2 wins and a shootout win.

Story #5- If you are a big fan like me, you can go on the KHL site and see text updates of the games as they play.  Of course, you have to use Google's translate function to read it, and sometimes it gets amusing.  Here's how Google translated one update in the season opener:

Gyunge made ​​his way to nickle visiting team. It makes the transfer partner, but the defenders of the Crusade did not allow him to complete the scene naked.

Apparently, the word for "naked" is the is the same as that for "goal" (Isn't THAT interesting?) and what it basically means is, "Gyunge made his way to the visiting team's end with the puck, and made a successful pass, but the defenders of the goal did not allow him to complete the play with a goal."  Now you see why I follow these games?

I know I said just one sports post a week, but...

...I thought I'd do one today because I'm so gosh-darn proud of the logos I made for our fantasy football league on Paint!  Check 'em out:

Aguascalientes (the "hot water" shooting out his top)

the Angels

B2s

Fiery Beagles

Buzz Lightyears

Clock BBQs

Flying Porkchops (Porkchop is my son's cat)

the State Ducks (dig that crazy letterman's jacket!)

the Elks

KCA's (the white elephant beinbg the symbol of the old Philadelphia A's)

Sunset Rangers

Greenwoods (elf-hat on a football)

And now, since I'm already this deep, here's the first Lokomotiv report!

This is the memorial at Josef Vacicek's grave.  He was my favorite player on the original Lokomotiv team who died in the plane crash that killed the entire team one year ago.  Those that were paying attention last year watched me chronicle the the teams rebirth as a minor-league team for a half a season last year.  The team is now back in the bigs (Russia's KHL) and have started the 2011-12 season.

The team from last year graduated eight players from the VHL squad from last year- the rest are on the new team that remains in the VHL.  The graduates were: Oleg Yashin, Alexei Kruchinin, Dmitri Maltsov, Vladislav Kartayev, Daniil Apal'kov, Andrei Konev, Yegor Yakolev, and goalie Nikita Lozhkin, who was called up when Canadian goalie Curtis Sanford began the season as is his usual on the DL.

The first two games were matches with the far western teams, who start out with an eastern swing.  Game one was against Sibir, and they took 1-0 and 2-1 leads on power-play goals.  We tied it up first on a goal by Alexander Chernikov, who played for Sibir the last two years, bagging 25 goals in 2 seasons.  The 2-2 knot was forged by Mikelis Redlihs, a Latvian who had posted 55 goals in 4 seasons with Dinamo Riga.  Then it became the Staffan Kronwall show.  Kronwall, a Swede veteran whose career boasts a 66-game NHL career with Toronto, Washington, and Calgary (1 goal) and 21 AHL goals over 7 seasons, put us up 3-2 at 12:24 of the 2nd, and pushed it to 4-2 with a second goal with a half-minute left in the second.  Apal'kov finished things off with a third period goal that made the final 5-2.  The goaltending for both this and the next one was done by KHL veteran Vitaly Kolesnik, who is coming off a struggle of a season for Salavat Yulaev last year (6-8-3, 3.13 GA AVE).

Game two was against Amur and it was a much tighter affair.  Maxim Trunyov, who comes over from Severstal trying to prove something (12 goals in 3 seasons), put us on the board with 5 seconds left in the first.  Amur tied the game about halfway through the second, but less than a minute later Yegor Averin (also in the prove something group, having totalled 28 goals over four campaigns in Omsk) put us up 2-1.  Despite two power plays in the third and pulling their goalie in the last half-minute, Amur couldn't muster a real threat and we started out 2 and 0.  Spartak is also 2-0, and Dynamo Moscow has two regulation wins and a shoot-out victory, so we're in pretty good company.  Next up is Metallurg Novokutnesk, Monday morning our time.

Eurohockey update

Well, after this week we will have only 5 more champions to crown, as 7 more have won their leagues.  Nottingham's Panthers lead off our list of champions.  They won their one-and-done battle with Cardiff 2-0 to win their third EIHL title and second straight, finishing 40-12-6 overall.They were founded in 1946 and added one championship in the old English National league .  Their playoff success comes despite never having finished better than third save once.

Pardubice took the Czech Extraliga, winning the last two games handily to take the series against Kometa Brno 4 to 2.  Pardubice (35-24-12) has three championships and 3 runners up in the league's 19-year history.  Founded in 1923, they also have three Czechoslovak titles.  Pardubice is a town of 90,000 give or take in North central Czech Republic, first mentioned as a monastery town way back in 1295.  It went from a sleepy village to a not-so-sleepy town after an important railroad line went through in 1845.

Rouen took there second straight Ligue Magnus title in France, and 4th in the last six years.  The Dragons (28-10-3) rolled through games 5 and 6 against Grenoble (who won the other two in that span) took win the finals 4 to 2. Rouen's team, founded in 1982, now has 11 titles to their credit.  (PS in case you hadn't noticed, I'm only doing "travelogues" for the cities that haven't won in the three seasons I've been doing these.)

In Italy, second-place Bolzano did to 1st place Val Pusteria what they did to 8th seed Fassa and 4th seed Cortina- swept them in 4 games to win the Serie A championship.  Bolzano's Foxes (35-13-7) win their 18th title since their founding in 1925- the latest being in 2008 and 2009.  Bolzano is a city of 104,000- one of the largest in the league- in the extreme north of Italy.  Founded in 1190, they were a Bavarian city for centuries, becoming Austrian in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.  It went to Italy after WWI, and the largely German population was diluted in the twenties and thirties when Mussolini embarked on a campaign to triple the city's Italian population.  Sadly, it also was home to a nearby concentration camp during WWII.

In Norway, Stavanger's Oilers took their second title in three years (they lost in the finals to Sarpsborg last year), topping Lorenskog 4 to 2.  Stavanger (47-8-4) has dominated the league since dethroning Valerenga two years past. 

In the Elitserien, HC Brynas (37-24-11) topped Skelleftea 4 to 2 to win their 13th championship, but first since 1999.  Brynas is based in the northern city of Gavle, population 71,000.  It was founded in 1446 by Christopher of Bavaria.  Bavaria, you say?  Yes, the King of Denmark (and Sweden and Norway, in those days) had a Bavarian count for a papa and a Pomeranian (North coast of Poland, not the dog) princess for a mama.  One thing I have to share with you about Gavle is "the Goat."

The history of the Gävle goat began in 1966. Stig Gavlén came up with the idea of placing a giant version of the traditional Swedish Christmas goat of straw in Slottstorget (Castle Square) in central Gävle. On 1 December the 13-metre tall, 7-metre long, 3 tonne goat was erected on the square. At midnight on New Year's Eve, the goat went up in flames. The goat has since had a history of being burnt almost every year, 2005 being the 22nd time it was burnt. Burning the goat is an illegal act and not welcomed by most citizens of Gävle, but undoubtedly this is what has made the goat famous. In 2006 the goat was covered in a flame-resistant coating to prevent arson, enabling the goat to remain standing throughout that winter.

The 2009 Goat.

Finally on the winners, in Switzerland we had the battle between 5th seed (and perrenial champ) SC Bern and 7th seed ZSC Lions from Zurich.  And not surprisingly, Bern had opened up a 3-1 lead after four games.  But then ZSC won 2-1 SO in Bern, 6-3 at home, and again 2-1 in Bern to take the title.  Zurich, who had ended the regular season 19-19-12, finished 31-22-12 overall.  Founded in 1930, ZSC ("Zurich Skating Club")  now has 7 NLA championships, the last in 2008.

Zurich, the financial center of Europe and Switzerland's largest city at 372,000, was populated since at least 15 BC.  For centuries it was the political hub of the nation, and was bombed in WWII by accident despite being a neutral. 

Two more series were to be decided today.  In Denmark, Odensee had been up 3-1 on defending champs Blue Fox Herning, but BFH took the next two 2-0 and 3-0 to send the series to game seven.

Also to be decided today is the Slovakian championship, with Kosice hosting Slovan Bratislava in game seven.

In Finland, JYP Jyvaskyla trails the Penguins of Lahti 2 to 1 after Lahti won game three 4-1.

And in the KHL, it is Avangard Omsk with a 3 to 2 lead on Dynamo Moscow.  After splitting the first 4 games and scoring seven goals between the two teams, they had a relative explosion in game five, which Avangard took 3-2.

BTW Taurus of Neftekamsk, who took out Donbass in the semis of the VHL, has beaten Ruby Tyumen 3-2 OT, 4-2, and 5-2 to take a 3 to 0 lead in the VHL finals.  Neftekamsk, you may remember, was the first team that New Lokomotiv beat in its season opener.


UPDATE:  We have our two latest winners.  One is a repeat- Blue Fox Herning blanked Odensee 4-0 for the Danish championship (Odensee being shut out the last 61:22 of the series).  This puts Herning with 16 championships- 7 this century.  BFH finishes 35-19-3.

The other is Slovan Bratislava who stunned Kosice 2-1 OT for their 8th championship, 7 in the Slovak Extraliga. The Belasi ("Sky Blue") finish out at 43-19-8.

Bratislava is another of those places that has been inhabited forever.  Known usually as Pressburg, it was part of Great Moravia, Hungary since the 10th century, part of the Hapsburg Monarchy of Ausrtia since the 1500's.  A crossroads of history, it fell to Napoleon's army in 1809.  By the time of WWI it was 42% German, 41% Magyar (Hungarian), and 15% Slovak.  Lying right on the corner of Austria, Hungary, and the new nation of Czech-Slovakia, it was hotly debated until 1-1-1919, when the Czech Legion occupied the city and settled the issue.  It was officially named Bratislava on March 27th of that year.  It was the capital of Hungary from the fall of the Hungarian Kingdom at Mohacs in the 1500's until 1756, and was the Capital of Slovakia in both periods of independance.  A city of 462,000, it is sister-citied with Cleveland, Ohio.

In March, Slovan applied for membership in the KHL, as did its Extraliga league-mate HK Poprad.  Poprad shares the city with Lev Poprad in the KHL, but Lev is expected to move to Prague in 2012-13, where it will share the city with Slavia and Sparta in the Czech Extraliga.

Check this out!!

I figured out how to snag a still out of the KHL video of Lokomotiv's first goal, scored by Dmitry Maltsev.

  Needless to say, I also figured out how to get it on my desktop rotation.  Am I great or what?
(Note:  Do NOT answer that question!)

Hockey update- the game returns to Yaroslavl

Just a glancing blow to the KHL tonight, as they are currently on a 9-day “international break”.  Traktor from the eastern conference has taken over the overall lead, and is certainly pulling away as Amur continues to struggle to maintain their early pace.  Traktor leads by 12 in the East, with Avangard right on Amur’s tail.  Amur has shown a sign of life in a two-game set against Barys; though losing the first 5-2, they blew out Astana 7-1 in the second to go into the break.  Magnitogorsk continues to drive back into the race, winning 4 straight and putting the heat on both Barys and Ak Bars.  Poor Automobilst continues to struggle, posting a 4-20-6 record thus far, despite taking Traktor to OT last week.  And a shout out to Automobist captain Andrei Subbotin, who played his 1,000th top-level game in Russia in a 6-3 loss to Magnitogorsk.

SKA continues to hold a 9 point lead over Minsk in the west, with Dynamo Moscow trying to keep pace.  The other metro Moscow teams wish things were going that good.  CSKA (Red Army) lost 4 straight in December (1 in OT), and Spartak lost 10-2 and 5-1 decisions before an OT loss to close out the break.  Vityaz joins Automobilst with 20 losses (6-20-6).  Traktor is the only 20-win team at 20-7-5.

Now the big news is the return of hockey to Yaroslavl.  The reborn Lokomotiv team played its first two games this week, both at home. On Monday, 9047 fans packed into the arena and were not disappointed.  The opening opponent was Neftyanik  (the Oilmen) of Almetyeusk, an Ak Bars affiliate located just west of Kazan.  Dmitry Maltsev netted a goal at 13:19 of the first to put Loko on top 1-0.  In the second period, Oleg Yashin (who comes over after a 14 game stint at Titan Klin) got his 6th of the season at 2:41.  The third period was a big one.  Cyril Kasputin made it 3-0 at 2:01.  Then on a power play, Daniel Erdankov (coming off a 25-game run at Sokol) scored his 12th of the season to put it at 4-0.  Almetyeusk broke the shutout of Goalie Nikita Lozhkin (who stopped 22 of 23 shots) at 13:41, but justshy of three minutes later, Alex Kruchinin (who played 7 games at VMF St. Petersburg) netted his 5th of the year for a 5-1 final score.  Timothy Tankeev, who also came over from Klin, had a pair of assists as Loko scored 5 goals on just 19 shots.

Thursday a crowd of 9,000 saw Lozhkin be a 20-year-old master yet again, as he stopped all 28 shots in a 2-0 win over Ariada-Akpars of Vollzhsk ( a town halfway between Kazan and Ufa, affiliated with Neftekhimik).  Maltsev assisted on both goals, the first by Daniel Romantsev at 10:55 of the first, and the second by Maxim Zyuzyakin at 5:34 of the second.  Again, the new Lokomotiv team wasn’t especially active on offense (outshot 28-16) but Lozhkin was the hero, having stopped 40 of 41 shots in the two games.  Next game is Tuesday vs  Molot-Prikamye of Perm.

Nikita Lozhkin

• Club: Lokomotiv
• Number: 66
• Position: Goalkeeper
• Height: 183
• Weight: 90
• Birth Date.: 10/13/1991
• Nationality: Russia
• Age: 20 years 2 months
• Clubs by season: Locomotive ^(11-12)
  

howsabout a hockey update?

Since we've last visited the KHL, SKA St. Petersburg has widened its lead in the Western Conference.  (A reminder- for simplicity's sake, any game going into OT will be massed in the third column of their record by myself.) SKA has rung up a 4-0-2 record in November, including an 8-1 demolishing of Spartak in which SKA spotted them the first goal and then netted 3 in a 1:46 span of the second period.
Dynamo Moscow continues hot in 2nd place- their only loss of the month a 2-1 loss to Nefthekhimik where goalie Tuomas Tarkki stopped 36 of 37 Dynamo shots.  Torpedo has won three straight to inject itself into the leader board, a point behind slowing 3rd-place Dinamo Minsk.  That streak includes back to back shutouts, 1-0 against Salavat Yulaev and 5-0 against Neftekhimik.  Atlant, with their spanking-new coach tops that, winning 4 straight close matches- three of them by 3-2 scores- to pull within one of fifth-place Severstal.  Following them are Red Army and Dinamo Riga, then collapsing Spartak.  Spartak has gone 1-5-1 in November, being outscored 20-7.  Lev's brief renaissance has fallen off, a mix of losses and OT losses dropping them to 7-14-5.  The thug factory in Vityaz continues to be conference doormat, their only RT win this month so far a 3-2 win over Spartak (go figure).

In the East, Amur remains in the hunt despite a bad slump that was finally snapped in a 2-1 win over Avangard. Traktor continues to have the league's second best record at 15-6-3 ( SKA being best at 19-2-6).  They kept ahead of Amur with back to back wins over Lev and CSKA.  They are followed by Avangard and Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who is on a 4-game winning streak. The bad news for double-M is that they came against Yugra Metallurg Novokutnesk, Amur, and Sibir, who've combined to have a 4-10-8 month.  Barys is in fifth, having just had a streak ended by a Red Army 4-2 win. Ak Bars continues to struggle, losing 4 of 5; Yugra trails them in 7th.  Salavat has not found a solution in a new coach; they did rebound to beat Traktor 4-0, but that was the sole RT win, and the 3 losses include a 7-3 pasting by Moscow.  "The other Metallurg" is next, followed by Sibir, who has lost a good start by going 0-4-1 in the month.  Last place belongs to my woebegone Automobilst team.  It's not that they aren't trying- they split 2 OT games and all three losses were by one goal.  The lone RT win was a 4-2 affair against Minsk which they had took the lead with a Ilya Malyushkin goal with just 1:02 left, then hit the empty net with 0:19 remaining.

And here, for the first time this year, is my patented Eurohockey update! 
England's EIHL is being led by Belfast's Giants, 5 pts clear of Nottingham.
France's Ligue Magnus as usual led by Rouen, with Chamonix and Briancon hot on their tails.
In the Swiss National league A, Fribourg, SC Bern, and Davos are all tied for first, with Kloten's Flyers just 3 back.
Italy's Serie A is topped once again by Val Pusteria; Asiago, who snuck into the playoffs and then won them 2 years running, is mired in a 5th place tie, 9 points back.
In Germany's DEL, Adler Mannheim leads by one over Hamburg; my Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg team is puttering around in 7th.
Norway's GET-Ligaen has Stavenger again on top, and with a vengeance.  The 18-2-0 Oilers are 16 points clear.
Sweden's Elitserien is led by HV71 by 3 points.
In the S-M Liiga of Finland, Kal Pa holds the top spot by 5.
SonderjyskE once again is running away early in the Danish AL-Bank Ligan, 16-2-2 and 10 points in front.  Blue Fox Herning, who caught them to win it all last year, is third, 14 back.
Austria's EBHL is 54 games in (each team) already, and the top powers from last season are right there - KAG Klagenfurt holding a 10-point lead on Red Bull Salzburg.
And finally, the earthquake-recovered Asia League is led, as per usual, by Anyang Halla, 1 point up on the Nikko Icebucks.

And now, for your entertainment, I begin a feature on the worst teams in these leagues.  We won't count perpetual doormat China Dragon of the Asia League, because no one can match their 0-12-0 record and average score against of 7.5 to 1.5 (The range here runs from a 5-3 loss to Anyang- the only game they've topped 2 goals- to a 14-0 thrumping against Nikko) .  In all honesty, there are only three contenders right now.  Villard in France is getting outscored at a 5.7-1.1 clip, but are only 8 games in (0-7-1).  The Fife Flyers of the EIHL are a better challenger, with a 1-13-3 record and a usual score of 5.8 to 1.7.  But right now, the top contender for worst team in Europe is Frisk Asker of Norway, with a 2-18-0 record, and an average score against of 6.4 to 1.8.  That's 128 goals against in 20 games!  Now I don't feel so bad about Automobilst (which, in the end, was the reason I did this in the first place.)

khl update

Well, actually, this isn't really an update, as they've been shutdown for some Euro-tour* since Tuesday.  But there is something off the league website I wanted to share.

On Monday, at the offices of the Kontinental Hockey League, the Disciplinary Committee held a meeting to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident which took place during the previous day’s game between Dinamo Minsk and Vityaz. Toward the end of the game, after Dinamo scored its third goal, some Vityaz players initiated several conflicts on the ice, after which a further confrontation took place, this time between local supporters of the Minsk team and the head coach of the visiting team.

Having heard all versions of the incident and studied all the available material (including the official game report, the report from those overseeing the game officials, a letter from the Director of Vityaz, video footage from the game, representations made by both clubs, video footage posted on the Internet, and television footage), the KHL Disciplinary Committee decided on a number of measures to be taken against those who participated in the aforementioned disorder:

At this point, they list the infractions that were handed out game time and for the most part upheld to FIVE- count'em five- players on the Vityaz side.  It continues:

- with regard to Vityaz head coach Andrei Nazarov: the Committee decided to rescind one punishment of a game penalty (25 minutes), for his confrontation with the spectators, and instead a game misconduct penalty (20 minutes) for ill-disciplined behavior, but to uphold the other game penalty (25 minutes) imposed on him by the officials for offensive behavior. In addition, Andrei Nazarov must pay a fine and is disqualified for two games.

Now, those of you that have followed my KHL stories thropugh the Aeons know that Vityaz is the alleged "Russian Mafia" team, and stocks itself with the low-rent thugs of a dozen leagues, so even the aforementioned crimes are not terribly surprising.  What the KHL does next, though, is something I wish to God American sports would do:

The refereeing of the game was analyzed and judged to be unsatisfactory. The KHL Disciplinary Committee regretfully acknowledges that refereeing errors directly contributed to the unfortunate incidents at the end of the game. The referee and the linesmen face disciplinary action and will also be financially penalized.

I have long been an advocate of referees being PUBLICLY responsible.  The poor showing of NFL refs this year and the constant joke that Big Ten and Pac-12 officials are in every major sport BEG for this to be instituted.  Somehow in America, we've developed the idea that the game official should be publicly sancrosant, and it allows them to hide when their actions allow outcome of a game to be affected (such as the Big East game in which both on field and replay officials claimed that an extra point- clearly shown to be good on film- was missed, costing a team a win in regulation ion a game they lost in OT.  I'd still like to know when beer sales in the replay booth are suspended after THAT one.)  At least in MLB, umpires are honest enough to admit when they f up.  C'mon, NCAA and NFL!
Don't be afraid to discuss referee discipline- IT CAN ONLY MAKE BETTER OFFICIALS!


The Kontinental Hockey League must also mention the ill-disciplined behavior by a group of Dinamo Minsk supporters, which was particularly unexpected in view of the good reputation earned by hockey fans in Minsk, thanks to their previous friendly and exemplary behavior, their appreciation of hockey and the respect shown towards players and coaches from all teams. While in no way excusing the behavior of some the Vityaz team, the KHL must condemn as unacceptable the actions of a certain group of spectators.

The Disciplinary Committee examined a proposal from some of its members that Dinamo Minsk should play a number of games without spectators (WOW!); however, the Committee decided that it would be unjust to deprive thousands of supporters of the chance to watch their hockey team because of acts of disorder committed by a few hundred. In accordance with KHL regulations, financial sanctions will be imposed on HC Dinamo Minsk.

Can you imagine watching a Cleveland Browns or Philly Flyers game without any fans??!!  Kudos to the K for even considering such an act!

The Kontinental Hockey League also expresses its dissatisfaction with the performance of the Dinamo Minsk security staff, and with regard to this issue further measures will be taken.

Man, they just aren't pissing around here!
*In an effort to not be the stupid American, the Euro Hockey tour is a set of 4 mini-tourneys between the national teams of Russia, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic, spread out in four short bursts over the course of the season.  This current set-to is a round robin that openned Thursday and plays in Sweden and Helsinki.  In the openers, Alexander Radulov got 2 goals, the second in a shootout, to give Russia a 2-1 win over Finland;  while former NHL star Peter Nedved and current star of first-place Amur Jakub Petruzalek scored 2 times each for the Czechs in a 5-2 win over Sweden.  It'll be Russia /Sweden and Czech/Finland tomorrow and Russia/Czechs and Sweden /Finland Sunday tro round it out.

FCS, KHL, M-o-u-s-e

And now, back to something I've been (mercifully) lazy about, my updates on the FCS (minor-league college football) and the KHL (Russian major league hockey).  Last week, I must admit, I laid off my FCS stuff because many of the teams I rank did horribly.  Fortunately, they were by-and-large the same ones that the coaches ranked, so I really didn't do THAT bad.  The coaches, however, sometimes I wonder if they pay ANY attention to anyone else's scores before voting.  For example, I counted 24 teams that as of this morning have winning records but not even a single vote on the coaches poll.  This includes 5 teams that are at least 3 games over .500- Dayton (6-3), Georgetown (7-2), Alabama A&M (6-2), Duquesne (7-2), and Drake (7-2), which makes for a combined 33-11.  Now I give you that many of these are from weaker conferences and I don't even rank them.  However, compare it to the 8 sub-.500 teams that DO get votes (such as Missouri State, who got enough votes to rank 30th while sporting a 1-8 record) and are a combined 22-44.  Missouri State has been clubbed by every halfway decent team that's come their way- including losing to big boys Arkansas and Oregon by a combined 107-14, and lovely competitive games against #2 Northern Iowa (42-7), #26 Illinois State (38-13), and #3 North Dakota State (51-21), leaving them outscored on the season 157-353.  For this tremendous record of success they got 23 votes in last week's poll.  If I were an AD, I'd want to know if I employed one of those 23 coaches that think 1-8 is rewardable success.

Anyhow, here's my rankings this week- and it shifts quite a bit after former #1 Georgia Southern fell to former #11 App State 24-17, and former #6 North Dakota St. beat former #2 Northern Iowa 27-19.  NDAKST goes to #1 with their big-boy-less 8-0 record.  Montana St. (8-1) pulls into 2nd with a 54-13 win over Idaho St.  Wofford rebounds in to 3rd (6-2), after pasting slumping Elon 48-28.  GaSo drops to #4 (still 7-1 ain't bad), and Lehigh (who I got to watch against Colgate yesterday) keeps their 7-1 record in 5th for a second week. Sam Houston St. (8-0) won a conference game 66-0 over Lamar and rises to 6th; App State's victory brings them fro 11 to 7.  NIU falls all the way to #8 at 6-2, while Montana at 7-2 holds at 9 after a 45-10 rout of Weber St.  Rounding out the top ten is the Black Bears of Maine, who go to 7-1 after pasting Villanova 41-25 (2 years from a national championship, the Wildcats are now 1-8).

Old Dominion (7-2) won a hard fought  23-20 game against then-#8 JMU (5-3) and rise to 11th, while James Madison drops to 18.  New Hampshire... well, they did win, 31-24, over doormat Rhode Island to go to 6-2 and move up one spot to 12th.  Jacksonville St. (5-3) has seen the wheels fall off of late, and fall another 3 this week to 13th after losing to Tennessee Tech (which the coaches actually had at 17th, and stubbornly I have yet to rank) 21-14.  A battle royal between then-#12 Towson and then-#17 Delaware ended in a 35-30 win for Delaware; therefore, the Blue Hens (5-4) rise to 14th while Towson (6-2) slips to 15th.  I had to nudge Liberty (6-3) down a notch to 16th when it took them 2 OTs to top Presbyterian 27-20.  Harvard ( 7-1) continues to do the Ivy League proud after whopping Dartmouth (sorry, KC) 41-10, and they move up to #17.

William AND Mary (4-4) had a week off together and slip to 19th, just behind JMU.  The next five spots did well enough to stay right where they are (and thus keep Tenn Tech and Dayton off my chart)- #20 Jacksonville (6-2), #21 Stony Brook (5-3), #22 Illinois State (6-3), #23 Indiana St. (5-3, and like W&M and J'ville, took the week off), and #24 UMass (5-3).  I did have one spot for a newcomer, and with reservations I gave it to Jackson State (7-1) at #25.

This week, we have a handful of ranked games:  NDAKST tries to keep its new #1 ranking against #23 Indiana St.; #10 Maine vs #15 Towson; #12 UNH vs #18 JMU.  Others facing tough contests are GaSo vs surprisingly 4-4 Citadel; Lehigh has conference rival Holy Cross; App State has to follow up their big win against Furman; NIU tries to recover against resurgent Youngstown St.; J-Ville State tries to stop their slide against Eastern Kentucky; Jacksonville faces Drake in an all-or-nothing for the Pioneer League lead; and Jackson State faces rival Grambling.

Montana St. gets its turn with Weber St. this week; Wofford gets cupcake Western Carolina; Sam Houston gets SE Louisiana; Montana moves on to cupcake Western Oregon; ODU faces struggling Richmond; Liberty may have a little trouble with VMI; Harvard gets Ivy doormat Columbia; W&M, who's been making everyone look good this season, plays URI; Stony Brook gets Charleston Southern, Illinois St. gets state rival Western; UMass gets to clobber 'Nova; and Delaware gets to watch it all on TV.

Very briefly on the KHL, the teams are beginning to spread out just a bit.  In the west, SKA has taken the lead with a 10-2-4 record (for simplicity's sake I just combine all the various OT results into one third column).  They and Dinamos Minsk and Moscow make up the top pack; Lev and Vityaz (who actually had a 2-0-1 record this week) make up the bottom rung, and the remaining teams range in a 6 point span in the middle.   Over in the East, Amur (13-5-2) continues to surprise, pulling out to a 6-point lead over Traktor.  Ak Bars and Avangard trail the first group; everybody else is caught in a 3-point spread... Except my poor Avtomobilst, who at 3-12-2 trail the next guy (Barys Astana this week) by a full dozen points.  Ah, well.

Sunday sports stuff

Okay, praise and worship the Lord? Check.  Clean up last night's mess? Check.  (AKA the second round of the beer tasting. Lesson: if you grew up with lager, amber beers aren't significantly different from dark beers.) Take walk?  Rain shortened, but check.  Good, now let me do my FCS and KHL stuff.

First off, let me begin by explaining why I do a FCS football ranking.  (FCS is the second tier of College football.)  This week, I had ranked 6 teams in my top 25 that the official coaches poll did not.  These teams went 5-1 with an average victory margin of 10.3 Saturday.  On the other hand there were 6 teams that the coaches ranked and I did not.  One of them, Richmond, was off this weekend. The remaining 5 went 1-4 with an average loss margin of 24.8.  Hooray for me!

I still have Georgia Southern at my #1 spot, as do the coaches.  In fact, the one thing that the coaches and I differ on in the top 4 is in our choices of 2 and 3, with the coaches putting Northern Iowa at 2 and I put Wofford in the runner up.  We agreed on Montana State 4th.  All won by at least 17 this weekend, with the only real competition being faced was Northern's 31-14 win over a South Dakota State team that "also received votes" from the coaches.

 My top seven remained the same, with Lehigh #5, followed by Jacksonville St., and North Dakota St.  But I am at last giving up on Appalachian St. being as good as last year. After a 49-42 win over a Citadel team that all the good teams- even punchless William AND Mary- beat easily, I dropped them out of the top 10 to 11th.  Also falling from the top ten was New Hampshire.  A team that both I (9th) and the coaches (6th) apparently overrated, they got clubbed by that same "punchless" W&M team 24-10 and fall to 14th.  Taking advantage were: James Madison, which moves up 2 to 8th after blowing out woebegone Villanova 34-10 (which, being a "punchless" W&M fan I enjoyed thoroughly); Sam Houston St., who beat a halfway decent Nichols St. team 47-7 to take 9th; and Montana, whom I hate to move up because everytime I do, bad things happen to them.  Nevertheless, they came back to beat tough Portland St. 30-24 and slide into 10th.

Norfolk St. moves up into 12th, and with last week's #16 Towson topping last week's #14 Old Dominion 39-35, Towson moves up to 13, while ODU falls to 18.  Liberty was 17th on mine and "also receiving votes" on the coaches last week; they played Coastal Carolina, who was ignored for good reason by me and ranked 20th on the coaches poll.  Result?  Liberty 63, CC 27.  Liberty moves up to 15th on my list, while CC sinks into obscurity.  Indiana St.'s mighty Sycamores roll over Western Illinois 46-24 and move up to 19th.  Oh, and Delaware, much higher ranked by the coaches last week (8) than me (13) got drubbed 21-10 by UMass a team I had at 21 (and still do) and they had "also receiving votes."  I suspect that this week the coaches might have the Blue Hens a little closer to the 17th I dropped them to than last time.

Maine, after a tough win over JMU last week, struggled to beat CAA doormat Rhode Island 27-21 and slip to 20th; #22 San Diego, #23 South Carolina State, and #24 North Dakota (which last week I rechristened North Bakota for whatever reason- probably the same reason that once every Saturday Northern Iowa becomes Northern Ireland) were victims of the numbers game and held their positions despite impressive wins.  And finally, little Elon lost its brief grip on the last spot on my poll after getting schwacked by Samford 43-31. Taking their place is Jacksonville, who shellacked Morehead St. 50-14 to get back to 5-2.

Next week features two top 25 games- #13 Towson against hopefully resurgent #16 W&M, and #14 UNH looking for redemption against Hen-slaying #21 UMass.  #6 J-ville St.  has a big boy game against Kentucky; Sam Houston faces McNeese St., one of those teams that they ranked (17) and I didn't and got beat; Maine faces the well-rested Richmond Spiders; and Lehigh and JMU take the week off.




Moving on to the KHL update.Dinamo Moscow and SKA continue to dominate the west, despite Dinamo getting blanked Friday by Canadian goalie Michael Garnett and his Traktor team 2-0.Moscow started the week with a 6-5 win over Magnitogorsk in which they trailed most of the game and score twice in the last 5 1/2 minutes to win.  That was enough for the Magnitogorsk team- favorites in the East but struggling at 5-7- and Coach Alexander Garkov got the axe. SKA kept pace with wins over Red Army 4-2 and Salavat Yulaev 4-2 (despite being outshot 39-24) to go to 7-1-2 and tied with Moscow (8-5-1) for the top with 26 points. Dinamo Minsk had the only other winning record in the west at 6-3-4 after a 5-2 win over Barys Astana.  The third Dinamo, Riga, has started to recover from a horrible start with a 4-2 win over Poprad and a 2-0 blanking of my still-struggling team from Ekaterinburg.  They still lead only Vityaz (who got a rare point with a shootout win over Severstal

In the East, the battle is between Traktor (who won twice this week, also topping Ak Bars 2-1) and Amur, who posted a 6-1 rout of Spartak and a 5-2 win at Vityaz.  Not far back is Avangard, who had just a shootout win over Torpedo to their credit this week.  Dropping back was Ak Bars, who also lost surprisingly to Poprad 4-1.  More surprisingly is the continued schnide that Salavat is on.  In addition to the previously mentioned loss to SKA, they also fell to Sibir ( on Vladmir Taraseko's hat trick) 6-3, and to Metallurg Novkutnesk 1-0. Sibir is working its way up, though, with Tarasenko striking for a goal and two assists in a 3-1 win over Severstal.  The woes slightly abated for Salavat today, though; in one of the games already complete when I began this, they had at least gotten a point in a 3-2 OT loss to Red Army.  Ekaterinburg split this week, with a 1-0 win over Neftekhimik behind Evgeny Lobanov's 28 saves which puts them at 3-9 for the season.

So the actual standings coming into this morning's games had Moscow and SKA both at the top of the West with 26, followed by Minsk at 24, Torpedo at 20, Spartak and Atlant at 19, Severstal and Red Army at 18, Poprad at 15, Riga at 14, and Vityaz thugging along at their usual clip with 8.  In the East, it was Traktor at 28, Amur at 26, Avangard at23, Ak Bars at 22, Salavat 19, Sibir 18, Yugra and Novokutnesk at 17, Magnitogorsk and Neftekhimik at 15, Barys at 13, and Ekaterinburg at 9.

Looking over at the scoreboard one more time, there's still just the four games finished- Salavat's OT loss to Red Army; Amur won again, 4-3 against Severstal; Novokutensk took out Vityaz 6-3; and Sibir lost to Avangard in a shootout.  And among the four games going on, Ekaterinburg is down 4-1 to SKA in the third.  Whatcha gonna do?

Muddling through the KHL season

I haven't forgotten about my plan to update the KHL each week, but I've been slow because nobody's broken from the pack to make it terribly interesting.  In the West, Torpedo beat Atlant last night, 3-2 to take the lead with a 6-5-1 record and 19 points.  Canadian Matt Ellison, the league's 4th-leading scorer at 5 goals-6 assist-11 points, had a goal and an assist in the win that jumped them over SKA St. Pete and Dinamos Moscow and Minsk.  SKA had just lost its first game the night before, 2-1 to Moscow, and lost Fyodor Fyodorov to a suspension after he kneed an opponent in the leg and knocked him out of the game.  KHL.ru had the video; the SKA coach just put his head in his hands after the stupid penalty.

Dinamo Riga, last year's playoff darlings, have fallen apart early, losing this week 2-1 in a shootout to SKA, 3-0 to Spartak, and 4-2 to Severstal to drop to a head-shaking 1-6-2, putting them a point behind traditional thugs Vityaz Chekov in last place.

In the East, far east team Amur topped Red Army (yeah, I know they call them CSKA exclusively now, but it is the old Red Army team) 3-2 SO to tie Avangard Omsk for the conference (and league) lead at 6-4-1, 20 points.  Yakub Petruzhalek, the league's top scorer at 4-11-15, scored the first goal of the game, and finished the game with the lone goal of the shootout. Traktor went on a 3-game winning streak to pull into a third place tie with Ak Bars at 19 points, topping Avangard Omsk (who is tied with Amur for first) 2-0, Barys Astana 4-3, and 5-1 over Metallurg Magnitogorsk.  Ol' double M's whupping was one of three losses this week for the considered favorite, also having lost to Neftekhimik 3-1 and Ak Bars 4-1.  Another favorite on the schnide this week is Salavat Yulaev, who dropped 3-2 and 4-2 matches to Novokutensk and Omsk, respectively.  This beside having the league's goal leader with Igor Grigorenko with 7.

My temporary team  of Automobilsk Ekaterinburg are not having a real good season though they did pull out a 4-1 home win against Yugra in which Denis Abdullin, one of the few players on the team with more than one goal this year, got #s 4 and 5 in the match.  Earlier in the week they lost a 3-1 game to Barys, in which goalie Sergei Mylnikov was torched for all three goals on just 11 shots in the second period.  All of which leaves them last in the East at 2-7-0, six points behind Magnitogorsk, Neftekhimik, and Sibir for last in the conference and one point up on Riga overall.

Two more bits of news on the Lokomotiv front:  first, the Penguins and Caps are planning to raise money for the families in their matchup later this year.  All players will wear Loko patches that will be autographed and auctioned off, and players' wives and GFs will be selling remembrance bracelets.  Second, the Loko team that will play in the VHL, the Russian Major League (AKA the KHL's farm league) is set to start Dec. 12th.  They will play 22 games, one against each team and be seeded accordingly into the playoffs.

KHL update

Well, nobody is dominating after 2 weeks of play.  Dynamo Moscow holds the overall lead with 12 pts on a 4-2 record.  This came from a 3-0 record this week: a 2-1 over crosstown rival Spartak; a 6-3 rout of Barys on Janne Jaasvaara's hat trick; and 2-0 over the team I'm following in lieu of Lokomotiv, Automobilst Yekatarinburg.  They hold a 1 point lead over somewhat surprising Dinamo Minsk.  SKA St. Petersburg are 3 back in the points, but the unbalanced schedule has them only playing 3 games so far: last week's 2 wins and a 4-1 win over Lev Poprad, and thus they are 3-0.  Lev, playing their first KHL season, have only one point- an OT loss- to show for their first 5 games.

In the East, Avangard Omsk and Salavat Yulaev head the struggling pack at 11 points.  Both of these teams were stunned this week by Sibir Novosibirsk- Omsk falling 2-0 to the worst goalie (statistically) in the league, Austrian Bernd Bruckler; and Salavat in a 5-4 shootout won on a goal by Vladimir Tarasenko.  But this morning (our time) it was Sibir's turn, losing 4-1 to Neftekhimik.  Surprisingly trailing the two favorites is the "other Metallurg"- the team from Novokutensk, with 10 points after shocking Ak Bars 4-3 on Saturday.  Ak Bars had been rolling, handing Magnitogorsk a 4-2 loss and edging Yekatarinburg 2-1 before the weekend loss.  Yekatarinburg dropped to 1-3 despite the great play of goalie Evgeny Lobanov, who kept his team in both games despite being outshot 33-18 by Ak Bars and 32-19 by Dynamo. 

Speaking of goalies, I noticed in my perusal of the stats page the name of Georgy Gelashvilli.  Georgy was the goalie for Lokomotiv the first 2 KHL seasons, and was mysteriously (to me) the scapegoat for the two championship losses.  He's now with Magnitogorsk and is 5th in save percentage, with a 3-1 record and 1.99 GA ave.  More important, he's still alive.

And with that observation, here's the latest on the crash, courtesy the Moscow Times:
Something prevented the engines of the Yak-42 jet that crashed in Yaroslavl this month from reaching full power for takeoff, the Interstate Aviation Committee reported on its web site Saturday.

The plane's three engines failed to switch into takeoff mode because of an "additional deceleration force," the agency said, citing preliminary data from the flight recorders.
 The Yak-42 only managed to lift off 400 meters from the end of the runway, and only reached an altitude of 5 to 6 meters, it said.

The jet hit a navigational beacon and crashed into the ground, breaking apart and bursting into flames, earlier reports said.
The aviation agency did not specify what caused the deceleration force, but its statement lends weight to the theory reported by media that the pilots might have forgotten to switch off the parking brake.
The agency is analyzing what remains of the jet's braking system, and the Gromov Flight Research Institute in the Moscow region town of Zhukovsky is preparing a simulation of the crash using a similar plane, the statement said, without elaborating.

Could it possibly have been that simple- or stupid?  Or did the brakes just stick on without warning?  I really hope they find it was an equipment failure, and not this calamitous an error.  And the human tragedy of this story is far greater than the US media has reported:


A sad twist in the Yak-42 tragedy reveals that one of Lokomotiv players who died in the crash was anonymously giving money to sick kids, and the last half-million ruble payment was transferred to a young cancer patient minutes before the take-off.

It was several days ago that the parents of 16-year-old Diana Ibragimova from Voronezh learned the real name of the man who saved their daughter’s life. Ivan Tkachenko, captain of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey club, was sending big sums of money to Voronezh without disclosing his name or expecting any gratitude at all, Lifenews online tabloid reports.
Diana’s mother burst into tears when she learned Ivan had died in a horrible accident. It took her a long time to understand that the man she knew nothing about, just that his name was Ivan, was in fact Ivan Tkachenko, captain of the famous Lokomotiv hockey club.
The hockey player’s secret was disclosed thanks to a well-known Russian blogger, Varfolomeev. In one of his latest posts he wrote that the athlete had regularly been transferring large sums of money to sick children. Diana was one of the several lucky children whom Ivan had patronized.
Ivan transferred money to Diana’s family twice, and both times he asked that his name not be indicated under any circumstances.
“We did not even know who our daughter’s benefactor was, just his first name,” cried Elena, Diana’s mother. “We received 500,000-ruble transfers twice; they both came from an unknown Ivan. I thought he might be a successful businessman and could not imagine he was one of the best-known Russian hockey players. Such a young man!” exclaims Elena.
After the family received the second transfer, they wrote a letter to Ivan, but they never received an answer. Neither Diana nor her mother knew that just minutes after sending the money, Ivan Tkachenko died in a horrific plane crash not far from the city of Yaroslavl.
The modest young hockey player did not like to talk about his philanthropy. Only his closest friends knew that Ivan helped children who were diagnosed with terrible diseases.

His relatives say Ivan always rushed to help when he saw a child needed his assistance.

Sports stuff

Starting with my FCS report.  Georgia Southern remained #1 (on my and the coaches' poll) after winning a creampuff game against Tusculum 62-21, and Wofford stayed at #2 (#8 coaches) after giving big boy Clemson all they wanted in a 35-27 loss.  Appalachian St. rebounded after their kicking by VA Tech,  routing conference foe N. Carolina A&T 58-6 to move into third in both polls, while William AND Mary climbed to 4th (5th) after topping VMI 24-7.  The two Montanas each move up a pair on mine; Montana St. (4) to #5, riding a 3 TD second quarter to rout UC-Davis 38-14, while Montana (11) moved to 6th with a tough 37-23 win over Cal Poly.  Eastern Washington drops to 7th (10) with their shocking 30-17 drubbing by South Dakota, 2-0 after being a doormat all last year.  Richmond moves to 8 (9) after a lackluster 21-7 win over Wagner; Jacksonville St., who struggled in week 1, lost in week two to then #24 Chattanooga 38-17 to fall to #9 (16).  Rounding out my top ten is New Hampshire (12), who defeated a team that I had regrettably not ranked- Lehigh- 48-41 in OT.

The rest of my top twenty-five includes #11 Liberty (20), #12 Northern Iowa (2, are you kidding?), #13 Villanova (in the also getting votes section),#14 Chattanooga (17),#15 Lehigh (19),#16 James Madison (14), #17 SF Austin (13), #18 South Carolina State (21), #19 North Dakota State (6, c'mon man!) #20 S. Illinois (15), #21 Delaware(7, but they burned us all last year), #22 Stony Brook, 0-2 but losses in two big boy games, losing in OT to UTEP week one and 35-7 to Buffalo last week), #23 Western Carolina (who won a rout against cupcake Mars Hill after a 42 point loss to big boy Georgia tech), #24 Bethune-Cookman (also getting votes after a 26-18 loss to South Carolina State), and #25 Old Dominion ( ignored despite outscoring FCS rivals 81-31 in two games).  In place of the five of mine they didn't like, the coaches had Central Arkansas (18), McNeese St. (22) South Dakota (23, and they were still giving them votes at 1-4 last year) Sacramento State (24, who got blown out by Southern Utah 35-14) and UMass (25 and no longer eligible for anything since they move to FBS next year).  I can see Central Arkansas, but all McNeese has on its ledger is a 42-21 loss to bbg Kansas and week two off.

This week, 7 of my teams (GA Southern, Wofford, UNH, Northern Iowa, N. Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Western Carolina, and Bethune Cookman) get a week off. The lone BBG belongs to SF Austin (Baylor- ouch!).  Ranked matchups include #6 Montana vs #7 Eastern Washington ( a FAR bigger game for EWU after last week), and #11 Liberty vs #16 JMU.  Two teams get cupcake games (W&M vs New Haven and Montana St. vs Minot State).  That leaves us with: App St. vs Savannah State (who are 0-2 and already have 100 points against); Richmond against VMI (who W&M had no problem with), Jacksonville State vs Georgia State (who got pasted by ODU last week) and boy don't THEY need a win; Villanova gets Monmouth (everyone's favorite whupping boy, and they REALLY need to whup someone, anyone, at 0-2); Chattanooga gets Eastern Kentucky (who followed up an impressive 3-point loss to Kansas State with a disappointing 4 point win over Missouri State); Lehigh gets Princeton (who, like the rest of the Ivy League, opens this week); OOPS!  South Carolina St. also has a BBG- against IU!  Delaware gets cross state rival Delaware State (who is a deceptive 2-0- they only topped VMI by 3, and had to score 22 in the 4th quarter to edge cupcake Shaw);  Stony Brook finally picks on someone their own size, Ivy Leaguer Brown; And ODU draws Hampton (who is a solid but not spectacular 2-0).

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I also thought I might do an every week or two report on the KHL, in honor of the fallen of Lokomotiv.  The season opened this week, and Torpedo Nizhny-Novgorod is off to a 3-0 start, with a pair of 3-0 shutouts surrounding a 4-1 win over Spartak.  They lead the Western conference by 3 points over Dinamo Minsk, whose only loss was one of those same 3-0 shutouts.  Last years' conference champ are among 5 teams with one win, theirs a 3-1 victory over Neftekhimik.  The "Moscow trio" are 2-3 combined thus far, with Dinamo and Red Army both 1-1.  In the east, the season opening Lokomotiv Cup went to Salavat Yulaev, who rallied from early down 3-0 to win 5-3 over Atlant.   They followed that up with a 5-4 win over traditional rival Ak Bars to be one of two teams with 2 wins.  The other is season favorite Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who has topped first year team Lev Poprad 4-2 and Traktor Chelyabinsk 5-1.  Poprad, who started in the Czech Republic and moved to Slovakia when the Czech Hockey Federation would not clear them to play in the KHL, is the first and only team from outside the old Soviet Union (and one of 4 outside of Russia proper).  They also dropped one to second year team Yugra 3-1 to open their first campaign at 0-2.    There has already been two games that went to OT shootouts: the first night, Traktor topped  Metallurg Novokutznetsk 3-2, and this morning our time, Avangard Omsk topped Kazakhstan's Barys Astana 5-4.

Of course, the team I always feel sorry for is Amur Khabarovsk, way out on the Pacific coast.  It is farther from their to the next closest team (I think Magnitogorsk or Omsk) than it is fro that city to Poprad in fricking Slovakia!  Thus they get a lot of doubleheaders over two nights.  The first was against Sibir Novosibirsk, with the far-easters losing the first 5-2 and winning the second 5-3.  The league has thought about getting rid of them because of travel costs, but they outdraw the rest of the league at home consistently.  But I think until Loko gets back next year, my team will be Automobilsk Yekaterinburg- the city where the Bolsheviks celebrated their newfound rule by slaughtering the Romanov family.  AY opened with a 3-2 loss to Metallurg Novokutznetsk, and followed with a 3-1 win this AM over Neftekhimik, and thus are not only looking up at East leaders Salavat and Magnitogorsk, but also Omsk with 5 points and  and Novokutznetsk and Barys with 4.