Sports Junkie Sunday.

My mad sports Sunday, with the wife away for the weekend. Pretty good for someone without cable, I think.

7:45 - 10:00 am == off to a friend's house to watch the F1 Grand Prix of Italy. Monza! Delirious fans and a boring track. But a fun race for a change. Rubens Barrichello always looks on the verge of crying, and Kimmi Raikkonen always looks bored/bitter. Can't believe Bob Varsha still has a job.

10:00 am - 1:00 pm == errands, lunch, and checking message boards re the Canes, Packers, Tiger Woods, Lewiston MAINEiacs, the undefeated W&M Tribe, etc etc. Can't even read everything I want in the three hours.

1:00 - 4:00 pm == Jets vs. Texans. Good start, but kinda dull the rest of the way. Sanchez looks like the real deal tho. Also check out Panthers vs. Eagles for 30 minutes or so, until Carolina stops actually playing. Ugh.

4:00 - 7:30 pm == Giants vs. Redskins. Any day the Skins lose is a good day by my count. Commercials and halftime also lets me check out the golf "playoffs" and the US Open semis. Not a minute is wasted. Plus, bonus coverage of the Cardinals vs. 49ers. Can't see Arizona winning even eight games this year.

7:30 - 8:20 pm == NBC pre-game show. Always reminds me why I don't watch pre-game shows. At least Costas is not on screen full-time tonight.

8:20 -- 11:30 pm == Try as they might, the Packers just can't throw this one away. Thank God. Enjoyed not having Madden around anymore. Now if we can just get rid of Michaels too.


Phew. Nearly 13 hours of sports in one day. More if you could count channel-surfing as double. Add the eight hours of college football from Saturday, and I'm just about full. Until next Saturday, that is...

Training Camp Opens!

After a rainy, then hot, and now suddenly chilly summer, winter is looming far too soon here in the soon-to-be-frozen north. SAD is on the advance, as is the threat of swine flu. So the best news available by far is that NHL training camps are opening across the land. In the land of hush puppies, real BBQ, and double-figure ethnic restaurants, the Carolina Hurricanes camp begins this weekend. The top questions as I see them this month are:

1. Who will be the third pairing D unit? Andrew Alberts has to be one half, but will Brett Carson, Jay Harrison, or even Bryan Rodney make a case for sitting Nic Wallin? Can we hope so?

2. Will JR finally make a move re Anton Babchuk? Supposedly there are "irons in the fire," and "a move is imminent" to send him to another team. This can only mean, of course, that Babs will sign with the Canes and be back on the ice in a few days.

3. When will the annual injury curse strike, and how hard? Already there've been some anxious moments -- Cam Ward's tweaked back at the Canadian Olympic camp, and now Joni Pitkanen's knee surgery that will keep him off the ice for a few weeks. Recent news is that Jussi Jokinen was wearing a yellow non-contact jersey at camp today. The over-under on man-games missed lately has been somehwere around, oh, a thousand. Start the count now.

4. How many "Scott Walker/Aaron Ward sucker punch" comments will the national hockey media make during the first half of the season?

5. Will the answer to #4 be the sum total of actual coverage the Canes receive in the national hockey media?

6. When, oh when, will someone offer me free tix and flights to any Canes home games this year?