Kudos Wings...and Let's Get it On Lakers vs. Celtics

I should preface this blog by admitting I'm watching Coming To America with Eddie Murphy for the 3000th time.

"Give it up for Randy Watson...Sexual Chocolate...Randy Watson everybody"
"Damn that boy Good"

I don't know why, but that joke and this movie never gets old to me.

You know what else never gets old....my favorite hockey team winning the Stanley Cup.
We should first discuss the origin of why this is my favorite team. You see all of my other favorite teams: Colts, Pacers, Butler University....are easy to understand. I grew up in Indy so I'm true to my roots....and I'm true to my school...98 graduate Butler.

But I am a Red Wings fan based soley on the fact that they were my favorite team to play with on Sega Genesis hockey. No doubt my efforts in those days made me a first ballot hall of fame player in the pantheon that was my friend Mike McCall's basement.

There were times when I strayed from the Wings because the McCall boys were fervent Wings fans and it gave me great pleasure to upend their dreams with a little guy I call Alexander Mogilny and the Buffalo Sabres.

Mogilny in my opinion was the best overall player...99 rating...super fast skater and the master of pointing the stick one way and pulling it back to the other side for the shot and the score.

However, his team was not nearly as good overall and it was difficult to upend those Wings. Yzerman, Fedorov, Constantinov, a bunch of other OV's, Marty LaPoint, and yes Bobby Probert arguably top 5 greatest fighters of all time with hockey skills. You know how many hours of my life were wasted in McCall's basement? Zero.

They used to let me watch their dog and they'd come home from vacation and I'd still be sitting their honing my skills and eating their food...drinking their amazing selection of soda: Welch's grape, Sunkist orange, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Fanta cream soda. Ok, the last one I just made up but you get the point.

"what you got in that hair?"
"It's juices and berries."
"Shi. that ain't nothing but ultra perm"

Sorry I'll promise to pay more attention to this column.

But in all seriousness, is there a more appropriate nickname in sports than people referring to Detroit as Hockeytown USA? The Red Wings clinched its 4th Stanley Cup in the past 11 years last night with a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. Only a quarter of the roster has been there for all of them. After Scotty Bowman left they did an awesome job of bringing in Mike Babcock fresh off success in Anaheim and Babcock has kept the mojo going full steam in Hockeytown.

The days of the Russian 5 are gone...but new players and stories have emerged like Brian Rafalski and little known Dan Cleary. Cleary came from obscurity and emerged into a viable player this year for the Wings and it culminated with him becoming the first Newfoundlander to win a cup.

Yzerman and Federov both great scorers and two way players are gone... but enter Datsyuk, Franzen, and Zetterberg. How sweet is it for Captain Nic Lidstrom who has been through the entire process of forging hockey's most current dynasty.

"It's something I'm very proud of. I've been over here for a long time," Lidstrom said. "And I watched Steve Yzerman hoist it for three times in the past, and I'm very proud of being the first European. I'm very proud of being a captain of the Red Wings. So much history with the team and great tradition, and we see some of the older players coming through. So I'm very proud to be the captain."

A goal in the final 30 seconds forces game 6....and in the closing seconds of last night's clincher the puck was inches away from forcing a game 7. It was the highest rated NHL finals in a decade....good news as the sport tries to make its way back past poker on the totem pole of sports relevancy.

Alright switching pucks and sticks for leather and hardwood now. This is as excited about an NBA finals as I've been except for when my Pacers made it in to play the Lakers. When I think of what Lakers vs. Celtics means...it means are you a type A personality or are you type B?

Let me explain....I was a Lakers fan. I liked SHOWTIME. I liked the way Magic got the team up and down the court with flash. I liked watching James Worthy and Byron Scott dunking. I liked the drive and kick to Coop for 3.

My dad was more of a Celtics fan. He didn't care for Magic making the simple pass look fancy. He liked the hard hat approach of Bird, McHale, and Parrish. The Celtics didn't have the Lakers athletiscm so they passed it around side to side getting the d moving and then attacked when it wasn't in position. Boston played a much more cerebral game. That's not to say the Lakers didn't but they just had more natural talent and quickness. Boston was probably a little better overall shooting team.

These matchups were so awesome I'd take it immediately to the backyard and pretend to be all the players. I would even emmulate shooting styles and patented moves. Like my Mchale turnaround off glass 13 feet off the left block shot. Why 13feet you ask.... because that's where the cement ended and the pine tree began. Nothing was better though than the 20 footer straight out pretending to be Byron Scott, my favorite NBA player before Reggie Miller.

I guess the point of all this crap is these teams are the NBA. All my learning and falling in love with what this league is about is because of these matchups. These games were so big and so entertaining that I would take our family's Sony Watchman to the lake on boating day. You couldn't see the screen on a sunny day so I'd climb into the bow where the spare cushions went and watch the game from in there....that's where I was when Magic hit the baby hook on McHale.

Tonight....the NBA's two best teams will play and create new memories...and entice a new generation of fans. I'm still cheering for the Lakers...they get er done in 6.

Random Thoughts from the Weekend in Sports

Well it really doesn't get any better than watching Kimbo Slice nearly punch a guys ear off his head as mixed martial arts came to primetime on CBS. That was just flat out gnarly. Kimbo turned James Thompson's ear into raw roast beef. Normally you'd think a guy named Kimbo wouldn't be that threatening but have you seen Slice. He is one of the scariest dudes I've ever seen. Reminds me of the old joke wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley....or a sunny alley.

I mean...the guy is pure muscle. He's built like a building and he's got one of those beards that reminds me of that magnet game we had as kids. You know the little red magnet pen and you could use it to manipulate the shards of magnet and color in beards or mustaches. His neck muscles are bigger than the biggest muscle in 95 percent of the populations body's.

How 'bout that Kyle Busch notching his 4th Sprint Cup win of the season and his 3rd win in the last 5 races. It's funny when you host a show for SPEED the drivers generally are pretty friendly and cool in the garage. Busch was always a little cold to me but I don't mind that because the kid's edgy with the ego but he backs it up. I also loved how Kyle handled the end of last year. All the hype with Junior replacing him at Hendrick and he was way classier than people thought he'd be. Towards the end, Busch wasn't invited to team meetings and that's huge on that team because those guys were tops last year and share alot of info. They really turned him into a black sheep at Hendrick and he took it like a man. There was one race towards the end of the season Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and Kyle Busch were all contending ....Rick Hendrick gets on the radio and tells Kyle

"Alright let's not do anything stupid here. We don't want to wreck each other. If you've got a shot at it go ahead."

Translation....don't wreck him and get out of the way so we can win the championship because you are gone next year. Kyle wasn't thrilled with that message but he took it way more in stride than fans might have thought. People want to make a big deal out of Kyle outdoing Junior so far this year and that's true to some degree...271 points separate Busch in 1st from Junior in 3rd in the standings. But I learned something valuable from Darrell Waltrip at my days at SPEED. He said once

"No real driver cares about the championships...its about the wins man. You want to win every race."

Based on that philosophy, Kyle Busch is winning in a big way over Junior so far this year.

Congrats to my buddy Ryan Briscoe for winning his first IndyCar race in Milwaukee. I got to know Ryan because he dates my former co-host at SPEED Nicole Manske. He is a solid guy and one heck of a race car driver.

It's funny I went home for the Indy 500 last week and had to put up with all my friends telling me how bad he was...he's had some trouble prior to Milwaukee with banging up his cars....but there he was at the 500 closing in on a 2nd straight top 5 in the marquee race until he became infamous as the man who wrecked Danica and we all have that lovely image of a 5 foot nothing...hundred and nothing...girl stomping down pit lane after the Aussie.

After that happened, I had one of my good friends... whose opinions on IndyCar are valued... tell me Thomas Wreckter errrrr Scheckter would replace Ryan by the end of the week. Hmmm, I think not. Briscoe was drawing some heat by die-hards who questioned if he could handle top notch equipment.

There's the thought that he failed at Ganassi in his first Indy ride...but I contend Ganassi's equipment and set ups weren't what they are now....also keep in mind Briscoe had very little oval experience coming in. He's a terrific road racer, he very well could have won the American Le Mans series last year if team orders didn't keep he and Sasha Maasen from giving way to Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas. Most people don't realize he was racking up wins in that series against the higher class, higher horse power Audi R10TDI.

Back to the oval point quickly...Briscoe has had the honor of working with Rick Mears on honing those skills since he got a ride in the 500 last year with Jay Penske. Briscoe has a ton of respect for Mears and was able to notch his first win on the 30th anniversary of Rick Mears first open wheel win.

"Rick Mears is an amazing observer...probably the best I've ever talked with. He has watched me in practice, talked to me at length about lines in traffic and other things to keep an eye on. I've put alot of that stuff together and used alot of it today to win this race. Anything that Rick Mears says is important and this one was definitely for him."

Does anyone else find themselves watching way more of the women's college softball World Series than they should be. I bet it has nothing to do with some of the unbelievably hot pitchers. A dominant rise ball and looks great in baseball pants is a killer combination.

There's 8 billion games left in the baseball season so let's not get to jazzed about anything yet... but I will say the Cubbies on top June 1st for the first time since 1908 is interesting. Keep in mind 1908 is the last time Chicago won a World Series.... it's been 100 years....don't you think they are due?

Pinella has done an amazing job with that club. They wrapped up a perfect 7 game home stand beating Colorado 5-3. I like to mention this in the blog because if you watch ESPN you will only get Red Sox and Yankee information....and you'll probably get to stare at John Kruk's fat face or get to watch him striking out to former Gold Medalist USA Softball pitcher Michelle Smith 10 thousand times. Is it just me or does Krukie kind of remind you of the cookie monster?