$3.50 for Angels and Airwaves, but not one cent for earthquake relief. Oh, and plenty of ugly antipathy for other people’s grandmothers.

Update: Shirley began Valentine’s Day in as classy a manner as possible.

Here’s a snippet of some letters typed together to provoke laughter or shock.

Chuck Knoblockhead: So you’re not supposed to make the girl pay?
Minda: . . .
Chuck Knoblockhead: Well fuck, you say you want to be equal and then you won’t pay for 100% of the meal?
Chuck Knoblockhead: HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?
Minda: SEVENTY CENTS TO THE DOLLAR!
Chuck Knoblockhead: EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK
Andy Hutchins: EQUAL SUGAR SUBSTITUTE
TheDerridaDrop: No Blood For Oil!
Andy Hutchins: Don’t Tread on Me!
TheDerridaDrop: 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB
Chuck Knoblockhead: 54′ 40″ OR FIGHT
Minda: KANYE WAS FRAMED
TheDerridaDrop: I LIKE IKE
Chuck Knoblockhead: WAKE UP SHEEPLE
Andy Hutchins: MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE, BUT NOT ONE CENT FOR THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE IF THEY HIRE MARIOTTI
TheDerridaDrop: THE NARD DOG
Chuck Knoblockhead: THE NARD DOG
Chuck Knoblockhead: ROAD TRIP!
TheDerridaDrop: I’m so scared from all the yelling

There’s something different about the NHL this year. It doesn’t have anything to with anything on the ice  and it isn’t the salary cap. It’s the coaches. In a dramatic reversal from the 2008-2009 season, when a record seven coaches were fired in-season, including two before the end of November, only one coach has been fired so far, Philadelphia’s John Stevens. It’s not just the NHL either; last season, eight different NBA coaches were let go before the end of the regular season, only 2 have been canned so far this year and one of those coaches was New Jersey’s Lawrence Frank, whose team was on the verge of breaking the league record for most losses to start a season when he was axed. In college football, the amount of firings in the BCS conferences before the end of the regular season dropped from 6 to o. Even the NFL, which only saw 3 in-season firings in 2008, has only registered 1 axing this season, Buffalo’s beloved Dick Jauron. The only sport where the early firings didn’t go down was MLB, which once again saw 4 coaches go home before the middle of October.

So what’s behind this newfound patience from the GMs, owners and ADs of pro and college sports? Better coaching? Not particularly. The Nets’ much-maligned losing streak came this year, not last and as for the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders had much worse starts to the season than what cost Chicago’s Denis Savard and Tampa Bay’s Barry Melrose their jobs last autumn. You could also point to the sheer amount of firings last year. Since firing the coach is usually a tactic used to shake up a team or at least make it look like management is trying to shake up the team, pulling the exact same trick the very next year generally doesn’t happen, unless the new coach is just that incompetent and unpopular or the owner’s Al Davis (and even he’s waiting to get rid of Tom Cable this year).

Quite honestly, the lack of a real swinging gate in major sports this year may just be due to the dirty little secret of in-season firings: they don’t work enough. Occasionally, you’ll see something happen like in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins replaced Michel Therrien with Dan Bylsma and won the Stanley Cup but with the vast majority of sudden coaching changes, most teams do just as badly with their new coaches as they did with their old ones. Even those teams which do rally to make the playoffs or a bowl game lose at some point in the postseason,. Given the fact that all of the sports mentioned have been switching coaches in the offseason just as much as usual, it’s probably just smartest to conclude that most teams’ front offices just don’t see any real advantage to speeding up how fast they give out pink slips.

A conversation with my mother during Monday Night Football:

Mom: You really should go back to pursuing a career in sports journalism.

Me: …why?

Mom: So you could draw stuff on the field with a Telestrator!

Me: You know I’d just draw penises, right?

Mom: I know. I’d like that.

[Fin.]

(Image via.)

BOOOOOOOOOOOO

Dear Troy,

Based on my kneejerk assumptions that are essentially groundless, you lead a pretty good life. By most safe financial estimates, you’re loaded. You’re a Hall of Fame quarterback with four Super Bowl rings. Your job consists of flying around the country one day a week for six months out of the year to talk about a game for four hours a week. And not only that, your partner on the job is universally reviled on the internet and universally loved by all sportswriters – meaning we barely have time to criticize you aside from the odd gay rumor here and there. Basically, you’re the world’s richest invisible man – we’re all pretty sure you suck ass, but we can’t stop gritting our teeth while the douche-in-a-box next to you monotones his way through our greatest sports moments.

Well, fuck that for right now. Joe Buck is stupid (lol, whatevs). Right now, I gotta talk to you. You see, while Buck gets the brunt of the criticism, you contribute at least as much suckdom to each Fox big game broadcast as he does. You make me hate my life during these games just like he does. Case in point: today’s game between the Steelers and the Packers.

The Steelers had just kicked a field goal to take a two-point lead late in the fourth. Out of nowhere, they tried an onside kick that almost worked perfectly—until a Steelers player went too quick and touched the ball before it went ten yards. What initially looked like some ballsy play-calling from a coach trying to stop a five-game skid immediately turned into a Packers possession with less than four minutes remaining. And this is where you struck. Over and over again, as the Packers went to score with more than two minutes remaining, you openly questioned the onside kick call, repeatedly saying that “it doesn’t make any sense.” You would not shut up about this.

Now, the opinion that it was an awful call is not necessarily a bad one. Yes, it did give the Packers great field position while only down by two. However, there was a positive side to the call, even with the bounce not going the Steelers way. (We’ll get to that.) Of course, you could not have been bothered to stray from the little storyline you built in your head; you gambled on the fact that Mike Tomlin’s call would cost the Steelers the game. That was the way the broadcast would progress—if the Steelers eventually DID win, it would be in spite of Tomlin’s hubris, not because of it.

This is stupid.

Let’s take a look at what went down: The Packers got a first down and then a score with a little over two minutes left. Even with their two-point conversion, the Packers only lead by six. A touchdown plus extra point means a win for the Steelers, which absolutely was not out of the question: Ben Rothlisberger was having the game of his life up till that point, masticating the members of the Green Bay secondary like so much Choco Taco flotsam floating past. Not only that, but they had almost a full two minutes to take their cruising offense down the field against a defense that seemed almost helpless to stop them through the air.

Now, allow me for a minute to go all hypothetical on yo’ ass: suppose the Steelers kicked away like you chided them for not doing. Say the Packers were given more or less average field position in their own territory (for estimation purposes, on their 20) with that same amount of time. Now, could the Steelers’ defense have stopped the Pack attack and force a punt? Possibly, but it really wasn’t a guarantee. Aaron Rodgers was having a comparable game to Rothlisberger; certainly not as amazing statistically, but great nonetheless. Not only that, but had the Packers been able to matriculate the ball downfield for that same touchdown there would have been significantly less time for the Steelers to come back—probably closer to a minute left, if that.

Looking back at it, it sure seems like Tomlin didn’t have total confidence in his defense. You guys nailed that point home. Good job.

However, there was another side to the whole thing, the side where even in the event of a Packers touchdown and two point conversion, the short field given to them would almost guarantee a fair amount of time for the Steelers offense to do what they’ve done all game. But this side didn’t exist to you. It was a stupid call, it was a trick play; whatever angle you viewed the onside kick from, it was wrong.

And the lack of confidence in the defense! Now there’s a good solid line you can take on this.

As we all know, defensive football players are mentally built like a cross-bread between a chihuahua and Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock. They are known to vomit when faced with a possible mandate on their stopping ability. Who could forget when frazzled former Vikings Jim Marshall ran a fumble back the wrong way after Bud Grant told him he looked “a little fat” before the play? Or the time the whole Patriots defense walked off the field in 2004 after Bill Belichick told them Doris Day was “for queers”? How could Mike Tomlin do such a thing to those poor sweeties?! Much better to continually ask that question rhetorically for the rest of the game rather than, ya know, analyze what the fuck you’re seeing. That’s what you’re paid for.

Like most things, I can relate this to pro wrestling: any wrestling fan who pays attention to the WWE knows that the announcers don’t do a damn thing to make the wrestlers seem like anything but actors. Their moves aren’t referred to by their proper names anymore, mostly replaced with generic statements like “[blank] slams [blank] down”. We’ve been told by WWE announcers why this is: they want to make it seem less like a sport, more like a show. They want the announcers to follow a storyline that builds throughout a match. It’s annoying, but we deal with it because, well, it’s fake. Everyone involved knows the outcome.

Football is not pro wrestling. So why, Troy, do you insist that we follow one hard line of logic throughout a game, with nary a mention of the opposite side?

Because YOU SUCK BALLS, THAT’S WHY.

YOU ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT YOUR JOB. Nothing makes me less excited to watch a football game than to hear your banal editorializing after every possibly controversial play. You assume that we’re not smart enough to decide between “that was a good idea” and “that was a bad idea”, so you do it for us and you DO NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT. You don’t give even a modicum of thought to the game as it plays out. Everything happens because of or in spite of one singular moment that YOU decide upon as the gamebreaker. Look back at that last Steelers drive: there was a holding call on the Steelers’ left tackle that was questionable, but because you already knew what you were talking about you glanced at your monitor, you said it “clearly” was a penalty, and went on your merry way. You are the sports embodiment of the way our media today now feels the need to tell us not only what is important, but why. You are the sports equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Which means, of course, you are a ignorant fuck who shouldn’t be let within five feet of a national audience.

Oh, and you were an overrated QB who wouldn’t have done shit without your All-World running back, receiver and offensive line.

(AND YOU MADE ME ROOT FOR THE STEELERS. AND THEY WON. FUCK YOU.)

The classic PC game Scorched Earth provides an instructive model for the Blue Jays.

The Sports Illustrated report this afternoon that the Toronto Blue Jays have dealt Roy Halladay to the Phillies in a three-team deal confirmed what most Jays’ fans have known since the team’s early hot start last year fell apart; the team’s officially gone into rebuilding mode. However, the question remains as to just what that will entail, and the Jays’ recent history is not auspicious in that regard.

Much like his namesake, former Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi made lots of speeches, but never actually began to fight. He promised five-year plans (because those have never had any bad historical connotations!) that would see the Jays contending for the AL East title, but never actually accomplished much of anything. In his tenure from the 2002 season through 2009, the Jays won 78, 86, 67, 80, 87, 83, 86 and 75 games. They finished third in the AL East four times, fourth twice, fifth once and second once, and never made the playoffs.

However, in my mind, the key problem with the Ricciardi era was that the Jays never settled on an identity. They boosted payroll to a middle-of-the-road $100 million, which wasn’t enough to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox but was enough to prevent them from going into a full rebuilding mode. It carried unrealistic expectations. Now, Ricciardi made many stupid individual decisions with that payroll (Vernon Wells? B.J. Ryan? David Eckstein?), and it’s possible that a better general manager could potentially have pulled off a playoff berth in one of those seasons with smarter use of his limited resources. A World Series title still would have been very unlikely, though, as the Jays didn’t have enough stud prospects coming up through their system and didn’t have the resources to sign the best free agents or trade for expensive stars.

The problem with being a middle-of-the-road team in any sport is it accomplishes nothing. You win enough games to give fans a false sense of hope, but you never really contend for a title and you never really rebuild for future contention. Ask fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who went through the same experience in the late 1990s and early 2000s before starting their current rebuilding campaign. As sports fans raised on Hollywood dramas and heroic tales of underdogs, we’re largely conditioned to think that everyone has a chance, and to a degree, that’s true. There are improbable playoff runs and champions in every sport, but the point is that they’re improbable. By and large, it’s the top teams that win, and baseball’s grueling 162-game regular season perhaps makes it more difficult than any other sport for unlikely teams to go on a run and win it all; the larger sample size of the regular season tends to correct for brief hot streaks like the one the Jays had at the start of last season. Every team has a winning window, and it’s almost impossible to contend every year, particularly with limited financial resources. You’re often better off picking a three-to-five year window and focusing all efforts on it, even if this hurts your team for a few years.

The teams that actually are making progress towards becoming good are frequently closer to the bottom of the standings. They’re more concerned with developing talent than winning games, so they give young guys a chance instead of signing overpriced veterans and invest that money into scouting, signing draft picks and developing prospects. This means they don’t win for a while, which also has the side benefit of giving them higher draft picks. Now, that means less in baseball than in most other sports thanks to the size of the draft and the high rate of washouts (in a study of the 2002 draft I did last summer, 26.7 per cent of the MLB first-round picks never played a major-league game, much higher than any other league), but high picks can still be very helpful, as the Tampa Bay Rays have shown. If you regularly draft high, invest the money to sign top draft picks, build a strong developmental system and let your young players collect major-league experience when they’re ready instead of blocking them with overpriced veterans, you’re generally in better shape for the long haul than if you do just enough to narrowly miss the playoffs or exit in the first round every year.

The amazing thing is how few teams really go into serious rebuilding mode, though. Rebuilding’s become a dirty word that many executives seek to avoid at all cost, promising to “contend” every year. The thinking seems to be that fans won’t go to watch a rebuilding team. However, I think this underestimates the intelligence of sports fans in our day and age. Especially in baseball, many fans know before the season even starts if their team realistically has a shot at the playoffs or not, but many of them still devotedly follow their team even if they know they won’t win before hell freezes over (see Minda and the Royals). In fact, now might be a better time than ever to be clear about rebuilding efforts; there’s more information out there about minor leaguers and prospects than there has ever been, and many fans will gladly keep tabs on those guys as they rise through the organization in hopes of their future stardom. You can make a good argument that it’s more exciting to watch a developing player who has the chance of being really good than a mediocre overpriced veteran.

A few organizations have taken this into account. One is the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, who have been thinking for the future for a while now; general manager Dean Lombardi talked about his plan to tear the team down to the bare bones and then build them up from scratch in this piece from the team’s website. It’s worked pretty well so far; they’ve drafted high and well, and have given plenty of playing time to young stars like Anze Kopitar, Wayne Simmonds and Jack Johnson, and they’ve gone from being a perennial doormat to leading the Western Conference without the intermediate stage of doing just enough to get into the playoffs, but not enough to win anything. Similar stories have happened in baseball with the Rays and the Florida Marlins, with years of being horrible while developing talent followed by years of title contention. In fact, Chuck and TDD mentioned in the Rookies’ chat earlier that they’d rather be fans of the Marlins than the Atlanta Braves, a team which operates in the traditional mode of doing enough to hang around the playoff picture but not enough to actually contend.

How does this all apply to the Jays? Well, they have the choice of several different options coming up. They won 75 games last year with Halladay, so they could try to replace him with a middling free agent pitcher and hope for a 70-win season, maybe slightly better if they get a few breaks. They could go into moderate rebuilding, replacing Halladay in the rotation with one of their young pitchers, and probably win 60 to 65 games. However, what I’d really like to see them do is the scorched earth option to prepare for contention down the road. In my mind, they should get rid of every veteran player who isn’t likely to be around in three to four seasons, either via trades for prospects or draft picks or just releasing them (this means you, AL Least Valuable Player Vernon Wells!). They could then give that playing time to minor-leaguers and prospects in the hopes that some of them will become capable major leaguers with time. This will lead to an atrocious 2010 season, maybe with 40 or 45 wins, but it will be much more interesting than either of the other options.

The Jays will be bad, but winning isn’t the point, player development is, and a savvy marketing campaign based around the young prospects could help the bottom line regardless of the final W-L totals. Moreover, this will let the team see which of their prospects might eventually pan out, and it could lead to some diamonds in the rough who might normally fall through the cracks. It also should lead to good draft position and provide money (in salary savings) to sign high draft picks and improve the scouting and minor-league systems. If they repeat this for a few years, they might actually become championship contenders despite their brutal division, and that’s much more appealing in the long run than continually mediocrity.

Media interview Roughriders' coach Ken Miller (centre) at a breakfast with the Grey Cup (background) this week

Saskatchewan:

Number of Grey Cups won: Three

Last Grey Cup victory: 2007

Coach: Ken Miller

How they got here: Finished first in the CFL West Division, then knocked off the Calgary Stampeders 27-17 in the West Final to advance to the Grey Cup.

Key player: Running back Wes Cates. Cates is a rushing and receiving threat in the Ray Rice mould, and a very good one. He was key to the Riders’ Grey Cup win in 2007 and was their top player last year. He’s had a down year thanks to injuries, but if he can get the Saskatchewan rushing game going, that could be the crucial key to their success. Otherwise, Montreal will be able to drop too many men into coverage and pick off quarterback Darian Durant.

Montreal:

Number of Grey Cups won: Six

Last Grey Cup victory: 2002

Head coach: Marc Trestman

How they got here: Finished first in the league with a 15-3 record, then demolished B.C. 56-18 in the East final.

Key player: Quarterback Anthony Calvillo. Calvillo won his third Most Outstanding Player award and his second one in two years this week. He may be 37, but he threw for 4,639 yards and 26 touchdowns while completing 72 per cent of his passes and was only picked off six times. However, the Alouettes are a surprising 1-6 in Grey Cup games with Calvillo at the helm. Not all of that is his fault, but this edition of the team certainly goes as Calvillo goes. If he has a typically brilliant day, they’ll win. If not, he may drop to 1-7.

Alouettes' QB Anthony Calvillo receives his third Most Outstanding Player award Friday.

Thanks for reading The Whole 110 Yards this season! Be sure to stop by Sporting Madness for my other Grey Cup coverage and my live blog. I’ll have one final edition of the Whole 110 Yards posted early this coming week to wrap up the game and the CFL season that was.

Casey Printers will lead the B.C. Lions into the Eastern Final today.

Last week’s CFL playoffs saw a pair of thrilling games, with the B.C. Lions seeing off the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Calgary Stampeders taking down their provincial rivals in Edmonton. That sets up a pair of intriguing matchups for this week. Time to break them down below.

Eastern Final: B.C. versus Montreal:

Yes, B.C. is the CFL’s most westernmost team, but they’re playing in this one thanks to the CFL’s unique crossover format, which I quite like. The Lions finished fourth in the West, but had a better record than the third-place team in the East, so they advanced into the Eastern playoffs and took down Hamilton, earning a spot here. They’ll have a tougher task against Montreal, the most dominant team in the CFL this year, but they do potentially have a shot. Casey Printers, who only returned to the team a few weeks ago, has been very impressive at quarterback, and the Lions have done well againt Montreal this year. If their defensive line can get after Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo and shut down the rushing attack of Avon Cobourne, I think they’ve got a good shot at this one.

Pick: B.C.

Western Final: Calgary versus Saskatchewan:

This could be a good one as well. It’s the first time in several decades that the Riders have hosted the Western Final, and their fans should be in great form. They’ll be motivated. Quarterback Darian Durant has looked better in recent weeks, and he has an impressive case of receivers, including Rob Bagg, Andy Fantuz, Chris Getzlaf and Jason Clermont. Calgary’s fighting for the right to advance to their hometown Grey Cup next week, though, and they have the league’s top RB in Joffrey Reynolds and one of its better QBs in Henry Burris. Their dual-threat receiving tandem of Nik Lewis and Jermaine Copeland will also cause problems for Saskatchewan. Still, I think home-field advantage will be enough to put the Riders over the top, especially if the weather comes into play.

Pick: Saskatchewan

I’ll be live-blogging both games today over at Sporting Madness. Stop by and join in for one or both: the East final kicks off at 1 p.m. Eastern, with the West final to follow at 4. I’ll also have a full recap of the games up here later this week.

Partial hair loss.

This is a photo of him during their 2009 season opener at New England.

...more partial hair loss.

Normally, it takes four years in the White House for someone to age that fast, not three and a half in Orchard Park, but that pretty much sums up the Dick Jauron Era for you. The frustrating thing about his time with the Bills (alright, a frustrating thing, since it would take another Jauron Era to get through a full list of all the frustrating things) is that even though he’s been coach of the Bills for most of the time I’ve lived in Buffalo, he still never really did enough to prove himself a spectacularly good or spectacularly bad coach. That’s not to say that he didn’t have countless coaching blunders. He just wasn’t capable of consistently producing trainwrecks the way Herman Edwards, Romeo Crennel, or Rod Marinelli can any more than he was capable of consistently producing 10+ win seasons like Tony Dungy or fellow facial expression-challenged AFC East coach Bill Belichick.

At some point the frustration of losing when you expect to win and winning when you’re this close to being able to walk away from following a team for the rest of the season combined with an uncanny inability to so much as draw up the energy for a Herm Edwards/Jim Mora/Denny Green style meltdown just gets to a fanbase and by the Bills’ bye week, the public and media backlash against Jauron resembled a miniature version of the Knicks at the height of the Fire Isaiah movement.

Was that fully warranted? Probably not but after 10 years of missing the playoffs, it’s not like that reaction wasn’t going to happen the instant that the Bills had their first losing streak. With two excellent RBs, a great starting WR in Lee Evans and two promising DBs in Leodis McKelvin and Jairus Byrd, the Bills had to win at least 8 games this year for Jauron to keep his job. Everything had to right and when instead, everything went wrong, it became actually sort of cruel to keep Jauron around.

Now that he’s actually gone, I can’t say that I actually have any really strong emotions, which is really fairly fitting for a coach who never really showed any, apart from his sarcastic claps every time the OL got called on a false start penalty. More than anything else, I just feel a vague sense of relief that the whole thing’s over. I imagine Dick Jauron feels the same way.

Losing team of the week-the Carolina Hurricanes have always been a streaky team, winning the 2006 Stanley Cup with a rookie goalie by simply outlasting the Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers on their way to the title, then missing the next two postseasons with Mets style collapses before rallying down the stretch last season and making it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Still, it’s kind of unusual for a team to be so streaky that they could go on a 14 game losing streak. The good news for the ‘Canes: the streak ended on Sunday with a 5-4 SO win over Minnesota and have a 4 game point streak thanks to SO losses to the Islanders on Friday, Montreal on Tuesday and a SO win over Toronto on Thursday. The bad news: their star forward and goalie, Eric Staal and Cam Ward, are out with serious injuries, along with one of their backup goalies, Michael Leighton.

Speaking of streaks-at the other end of the win column, the New Jersey Devils finally lost their first road game of the year on Monday, 3-2 to Philadelphia. The Devils were one game away from tying Buffalo’s record of 10 straight road wins to start the season.

Are you sure you aren’t doing this wrong?-the good news for Chicago Blackhawks fans: the team is close to signing Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews to contract extensions and is about to sign one of its players to what could be a 13-year deal. The not quite as good news: neither Kane or Toews is said player, with defenseman Duncan Keith getting the Ovechkin/DiPietro-length deal.

Odds and ends-Alexander Oveckin and Ilya Kovalchuk are back, making Southeast Division games infinitely more watchable, Anaheim’s owner, Henry Samueli, is out of jail and back in control of the team and Brendan Shanahan finally retired.

Can you even find a good place to start bashing that caption? What could have been the thought process here:

ESPN.COM HOME PAGE WRITER: Zack Greinke? Who the hell is that? What are the Royals? That’s not Justin Verlander’s team! (spends three seconds looking up wins, losses, and ERA) A-HA!

Click through to the MLB page, and we get this:

Look at that beautiful piece of audience manipulation! The sinister, Darth Sidious expression! The egregious, borderline-irresponsible italics! “The buzz!” THAT must be why he won! Not because he’s better than Felix Hernandez, or any other AL pitcher. Duh.

Jeff: Boy, this thing just does NOT want to come out!

(spends several hours trying to remove eye booger)

(realizes he’s been working on the wrong eye)

(finally clears out the correct one)

Jeff: Silly me, that went much easier! Now that my eyes are functioning at optimal levels again I should do something that uses them. But what?

(thinks)

Jeff: Oh, I know! I’ll see what Netflix sent me recently! Hmm…FernGully 2, The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses, Magnolia, and…Twilight? Oh, I bet it’s a movie about that old TV show, the black and white one where all the weird stuff happened to people, The Andy Griffith Show! That sounds like it’ll be a great time!

(pops in DVD)

(watches intently)

Jeff: Well. That was certainly different than I remember. Where was Opie? And why did Barney keep biting people? And what about Aunt Bee? Was that supposed to be Bella?

(peruses Google for answers)

Jeff: Huh, apparently they based that movie on a book about Mayberry, except the book changed all the characters and the plot. How curious. And it says here there are more books AND they’re being made into movies! I better check this out.

(gets in Dodge Stratus)

(drives to Wal-Mart)

(goes to book section)

(grabs everything Stephanie Meyer has ever written)

Jeff: Looks like there is a lot of reading in my future!

(is approached by 12 year old Twi-hard)

Twi-hard: Ooooo, you love Twilight too, mister?

Jeff: Well. Maybe. I just saw the movie today and figured I should read the books.

Twi-hard: So who’s your favorite character? Mine’s Edward.

Jeff: Was that the one that’s supposed to be Gomer?

Twi-hard: Who’s Gomer? Edward is the hunky vampire played by Robert Pattinson.

Jeff: Oh! He had the weird hair. And for some reason he sparkled all the time? Why did he sparkle?

Twi-hard: Because he went out in the daylight! He’s a vampire!

Jeff: But aren’t vampires supposed to die in the sun?

Twi-hard: No! Stephanie Meyer decided to change that!

Jeff: So they just…sparkle? Does that happen in all the books?

Twi-hard: Yeah.

Jeff: Well that just seems silly. Maybe I shouldn’t waste my time…

Twi-hard: Twilight is not a waste of time! How dare you!

(Twi-hard lunges for Jeff’s neck)

(clamps on with her teeth)

(hangs on for several minutes)

(Jeff finally gets her off his neck)

(runs)

Jeff: Well, that was terrifying.

Twi-hard: Twi-hards unite and take down the blasphemer!

(legion of pre-teen girls crawl out of the aisles)

Jeff: Uh-oh…

(Jeff sprints for the frozen food section seeking safety)

Mysterious Voice: You need help?

Jeff: Excuse me?

Mysterious Voice: You’re being attacked by those Twilight crazies right? Well, I can help you.

Jeff: But who are you?

Mysterious Voice: I am…Iguanaman! Arch-enemy of all fans of Stephanie Meyer!

Jeff: Um. Thanks?

Iguanaman: No problem!

(leaps into action as Twi-hard army comes around the corner)

Twi-hards: EEEEK! SLIMY LIZARD!

(Twi-hards run away, go carve their own initials along with Edward Cullen’s inside a heart into the tables at the in-store Subway)

Jeff: Thanks a lot! How can I ever repay you?

Iguanaman: Crickets. Lots of ‘em.

Jeff: For your iguana?

Iguanaman: …sure.

Jeff: Sounds fair to me!

(buy large quantity of crickets)

(grabs a Harry Potter book)

Jeff: Oh look, a book about Gilligan’s Island! This should be a fun read…

Come back some time in the future when there may at some point be another installation in this series. Or not. Whatever. Twilight sucks.

Remember the name.

The situation more closely resembled a high school game than a Division 1 revenue sport contest. The video you will probably see on SportsCenter is grainy and taken from the videoboard feed in the arena, not from any TV feed. But the shot was real, probably the best buzzer-beater you will see all year, and the player who made it, Jeremy Lin,certainly belongs on any college basketball court in the land.

The situation: the third overtime in a game between Harvard and William and Mary, the two oldest colleges in the country. The maybe 1,000 people in attendance have been riveted by a compelling game on a Sunday afternoon, but make no mistake: this game should’ve been over well before the third overtime. Harvard was the more talented team, with the excellent recruiting class brought in by head coach Tommy Amaker and the best player on the floor in Lin, had allowed the Pride to tie the game up late not just in regulation, but in the first OT and second OT.

With 12 seconds left, and Harvard up 85-84 , W&M guard Sean McCurdy rebounds a missed free throw and takes the ball the length of the floor, scoring the go ahead layup with 3.6 seconds left. Lin, defending McCurdy, inexplicably didn’t stop the ball, allowing McCurdy a free lane to the bucket for the winning score. Harvard, no time outs remaining, throws the ball in to Lin, who gets bumped at midcourt, then bumped again 30 feet from the basket by McCurdy. Falling backwards, Lin heaves the ball up with .5 seconds remaining.

Swish.

The crowd went crazy. Even the “down in front” Harvard alums were screaming and jumping up and down. It was sweet instant revenge for Lin, who was previously best known for torching Boston College in a massive upset last year. Harvard is now 2-0 on the young season, and looks like Cornell’s main challenger for the Ivy League title. Cornell returns five starters from their NCAA Tournament squad last year and are the prohibitive favorites, but with Jeremy Lin on your team, anything is possible.

Clicks will allow you to download the video here and the radio call of the game-winner by Chris Villiani here. If you, you know, want to.

Update: Hey, embeddable video!

(HT: SBNation.)

East semifinal: B.C. Lions versus Hamilton Tiger-Cats (today, 1 p.m. Eastern, TSN)

Those who have some knowledge of Canadian geography might find this one farfetched, as B.C. is the westernmost province in Canada. However, the Lions are here thanks to the crossover rule; they finished fourth in the CFL’s West Division, but had a better record than the third-place team in the East (the Winnipeg Blue Bombers), so they take Winnipeg’s spot in the Eastern playoffs.

The Lions almost didn’t make the playoffs at all, though. They could have clinched a playoff berth in the West with a win over the Edmonton Eskimos last Friday, but lost quarterbacks Casey Printers (Florida A&M) and Buck Pierce (New Mexico State) to injury and were forced to go to fifth-stringer Zac Champion (Louisiana Tech). Champion was the fifth different quarterback to start for the Lions this year, all thanks to injury. That’s never been done in the NFL according to my research; CFL records are harder to dig up, but I’m presuming that hasn’t happened in three-down football either. In any case, Champion struggled and so did the rest of the team; they lost 45-13 to Edmonton, giving the Eskimos the third Western spot and putting B.C.’s playoff hopes in jeopardy.

In fact, the Lions wouldn’t be in the playoffs if it wasn’t for some help from their feline cousins. Last Sunday saw the Tiger-Cats on the road in Winnipeg. With a win or a tie, Hamilton would clinch the right to host a playoff game against B.C., but a loss would force them to travel to Winnipeg in the first round. The Tiger-Cats got it done, with strong performances from quarterback Kevin Glenn (Illinois State) and running back DeAndra Cobb (Michigan State) leading them to a 39-17 win.

This year has seen quite the turnaround for the Tiger-Cats; Hamilton is making their first playoff appearance in four years. It isn’t the first playoff game at Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium in that span, though, as the Vanier Cup (the Canadian university football championship) was played several times recently; I was in attendance last year as an editor for The CIS Blog. Still, Hamilton fans have gone a long while without CFL playoffs; it’s nice to see them have a chance to watch them in person again.

This game’s going to be an interesting one. B.C. looks likely to start Printers, who only joined the team a few weeks ago but now will be starting the playoffs against his old team. Thanks to injuries to Pierce, Jarious Jackson (Notre Dame) and Travis Lulay (Montana State), Printers moved up the depth chart rapidly. When he got a chance to start three weeks ago against Saskatchewan, he looked more like the 2004 Printers who earned the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award with the Lions than the Printers who struggled with Hamilton in previous years. He turned in very solid performances against Saskatchewan and Calgary, even if he didn’t come out on the winning side; B.C. lost to the Roughriders in overtime and lost on a last-second field goal against the Stampeders. Still, as I argued last week, quarterbacks should be judged by their play, not their team’s win-loss record, as victories are about much more than just the quarterback. Printers has played well enough that I’d bet he’d be starting even if Pierce and Jackson were healthy; with them still injured, he’s an obvious choice. It will be instructive to see how he does in his return to Hamilton. It won’t be all on Printers, as he’ll need strong performances from his offensive line (without regular centre Angus Reid of SFU) and receivers like Geroy Simon (Maryland) and Paris Jackson. B.C.’s defensive play will also be crucial; look for strong showings from Canadian defensive end Ricky Foley (York), who led the CFL in sacks this year, and 37-year-old safety Barron Miles, who seems to have found the fountain of youth this year; he led the CFL in interceptions this year and holds the all-time interception record with. Still, much of this game will come down to Printers’ performance. If he plays the way he did down the stretch, B.C. has enough talent around him that they could easily take this game, and they might even make a run all the way to the Grey Cup.

Hamilton won’t be a pushover, though. The Tiger-Cats have plenty of talent, including perhaps the best linebacking corps in the league with Otis Floyd and Jamall Johnson. Both are former B.C. Lions, so they’ll be eager to do well against their old team. On offence, expect strong performances from Glenn and Cobb, but we should also see a good showing from wide receiver Arland Bruce III. Bruce was traded to the Tiger-Cats in midseason from their provincial rivals because Toronto Argonauts head coach Bart Andrus famously said “I don’t know if he makes our offence better.” Well, since getting to Hamilton, Bruce has made the Tiger-Cats offence much better; he led the team in receptions and yards this year despite playing only part of the season with them.

Both of these offences have tons of firepower, so this one may come down to who’s able to play better on defence and special teams. Hamilton has the edge in the linebacking corps, which has been one of B.C.’s weaker points this year, but B.C. has a great defensive line anchored by Canadian defensive ends Foley and Brent Johnson and a strong secondary featuring the likes of Miles and Dante Marsh. Both Hamilton’s Nick Setta and B.C.’s Paul McCallum are highly accurate kickers, but Setta has a bit more power. B.C. has a good group of returners, though, including Ryan Grice-Mullen and Michael Bumpus, and they have an excellent cover team led by CFL West Division most outstanding special teams player Jason Arakgi. The edge in defensive and special teams play leads me to go with the Lions in this one.

Pick: B.C.

East Division semifinal: Edmonton Eskimos at Calgary Stampeders (4 p.m. Eastern, TSN)

This should be another good one, as games between these provincial rivals are always heated. These teams have been very competitive this year, as have all of the Western teams: first-place Saskatchewan only finished five points ahead of last-place B.C. Calgary, the defending Grey Cup champions, got off to a slow start, but turned it around in midseason. Edmonton did better out of the gate, but stumbled down the stretch and only clinched a playoff spot in their last game of the season against B.C.

Calgary has a ton of offensive weapons, but they aren’t always able to get them all going. One player who has really turned it on down the stretch, though, is running back Joffrey Reynolds, the West Division’s nominee for Most Outstanding Player this season. Reynolds got off to a slow start, but finished the season leading the league in rushing yards. The Stampeders also have perhaps the most mobile quarterback in the league in Henry Burris, who led all quarterbacks in rushing yards this year. Burris is an excellent passer as well; he completed 339 of 571 passes (59.4 per cent) for 4831 yards, the second-highest total in the CFL, and threw 22 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He has a stellar receiving corps to work with as well, including slotbacks Nik Lewis and Jermaine Copeland.

Edmonton is a more one-dimensional offence. At times, they’ve shown the ability to run the ball with Arkee Whitlock and Calvin McCarty, but they abandon the run at the slightest provocation. This team lives and dies with quarterback Ricky Ray, which isn’t such a bad thing, as he, Burris and Montreal’s Anthony Calvillo are probably the best quarterbacks in the CFL. Ray isn’t the most mobile guy, but he has a heck of an arm, and he has a talented receiving corps, including the likes of Fred Stamps and Maurice Mann. Ray led the league with 4916 passing yards, completing 401 of 596 attempts (67.3 per cent) for 22 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. He’ll put up numbers today, and this might just turn into a quarterback duel between him and Burris.

Both teams have question marks on defence. Calgary has had some defensive issues all year, and the move to jettison middle linebacker JoJuan Armour (now starting for the B.C. Lions) in midseason hasn’t helped. Edmonton’s always had problems on the defensive side of the ball, and that hasn’t changed this year either, so expect this one to be high-scoring. Calgary does have an edge on special teams, as their kicker is reigning CFL special teams MVP Sandro DeAngelis, who has perhaps the strongest leg in the CFL and excels at both field goals and punts. Edmonton’s Noel Prefontaine is a savvy veteran, though, and he’s proved he can still play at a high level. Neither team has been able to do too much consistently in the return game.

In the end, I think Calgary prevails here. Edmonton is dangerous and will give them a run for their money, but the Stampeders’ balanced offence may prove too much for the Eskimos to handle. Ray and company will put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to compete with the tag team of Burris and Reynolds.

Pick: Calgary

Thanks for reading The Whole 110 Yards! I’ll have a recap of the playoff games (hopefully) Tuesday, and a preview of next weekend’s conference semifinals Saturday. Tune in then for that.

We yield all our time.

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Content next week. Maybe. Or not.