That Aud Smell

The new rule is intended to increase kickoff return activity and make it a safer activity. I’m not sure how the increased number of kickoff returns could affect the incidence of injury during kickoff returns. The vote was to approve for only next season — they’ll revisit the issue next offseason.

Every game counts. Pro players - most of them anyway - live and love to train and compete. The team deserves this level of cynicism, I guess. I just see it as the team welcoming back a top young player who’s fully recovered and ready to play. And, sure, the team will be looking to win as many games/points as possible until there are no games left to play. It is a huge bummer to consider that another season of mediocrity could somehow justify keeping KA and DG around.

I’m glad you found the strength to nutshell it. 😂 I understand why attentive Sabre fans would get triggered by player development talk when the team’s season is over in March (again). But I still see this as a both/and situation - not an “instead of” (either/or).

Thompson's career was on its way to fading into Bolivia (shoutout Iron Mike) before Granato moved him off the wing and put him at centre. There was then discussion (including comments from Granato) about how his game, style, even his size (and how he carries it (lightly (that's my take))) were such that the move to centre unlocked his potential. It may and likely will for the player.

Easily. Indeed.

NYSDOT has those red/white barrier arms at every entrance to I-90. Stands to reason there was something similar at the entrance to that bridge. Edit: Looked around on street view in Google Maps on the eastern entrance to the trussed bridge. No sign of an emergency barrier mechanism.

I suspect they do.

The idea is that there will be more kickoff returns. And that they'll be safer than they were under the old (old) rules. The XFL pioneered the technique -- here's a video clip of it -- as I understand it, the NFL version of this concept will have the kicking team lined up on the receiving team's 40 (and the receiving team lined up no farther than their own 30).

It's improving, apparently. He understands enough such that he sensed something was amiss when he listened to his translator "explain" the problem to his teammates in the clubhouse -- that is, he sensed that his translator was lying.

that might explain why i have no mammar--err, memory of it.

How you dare you thusly speak of our sweet prince.

Hear, hear. This is a huge factor as well. He'll be delighted to be playing again. I've seen a lot of gif memes. Never saw that one before now.

To get him some run. To start the process of getting him back into top-flight form. If serial major injuries were to be his fate as a pro hockey player (and God grant that it is not), then the Sabres would be better off knowing sooner than later. No sense bubble-wrapping the guy. If he's ready to go, he should go.

Absolutely horrific. It feels strange to be grateful for things like the timing of the incident and the mayday call, but I'm sure there are hundreds of people whose lives were spared because of those mercies.

I guess? If he's merely playing that as a card and there's more to the story (e.g., he was involved in the gambling), it will come out. And things would go very badly for him, in that case. I get the sense that he's telling the truth. Just a hunch.

The facts as they're now emerging seem to make sense. The initial confusion over Shohei "saying" one thing about hoe he agreed to pay for his friend's gambling debts, and then doing a 180 a day later, is apparently a product of the fact that the guy who was stealing his money (to pay for his gambling debts) was Shohei's translator/interpreter and was therefore speaking on Shohei's behalf as an initial matter. What an incredible mess. I keep thinking of the irony of legalized gambling. Days gone by, everyone smoked cigarettes everywhere but gambling was verboten -- something a local mob capo might run as a racket. Nowadays, everyone gambles everywhere but smoking is verboten. In both cases, the government was/is there taking its cut from the sales of a legalized vice.

The return of my favourite Sabre. It's something to cheer for, anyway. Who says they're rushing him back? If he's healthy and good to go, he should play. And he'll want to play, for sure. The offseason will be here soon enough. He may as well get some run in now, so that he can be ready to compete in the IIHF men's worlds (?).

I agree that the league - assuming they weren't going to do away with them - needed to revamp their kickoff rules. That said, I guarantee you that my brain's gonna hurt trying to understand what's happening on kickoffs when I go to the stadium next season. There's something called a Landing Zone?

It seems like every few years, owners see fit to add a rule to prohibit a certain kind of tackling. Some of those rule changes have made sense (horse collaring), but I'm less clear about this one. It seems like there will be a gray area on whether a tackle was, in fact, a hip drop tackle. Is this something that will be reviewable? I guess it's up to the coaches to coach the proper technique so that defenders aren't apt to commit the foul.

The Shohei Ohtani story is bonkers. The weirdest part is how both Shohei and his interpreter initially copped to Shohei having wired millions of dollars to pay off "the interpreter's" gambling debts. Mmm hmm. Then a day later, Shohei does an about-face (maybe the interpreter does as well?) and says that the money was actually stolen from him. The simplest most scandalous explanation is that these are in fact Shohei's gambling debts and the interpreter is just a fall guy. If that truth were to come to light, this could end very badly. If dude was wagering on games that his team played in, he'd have to be banned for life. The guy's currently the greatest player in the world and could have a chance to contest for being the greatest of all time. Incredible.

Coachella Valley's head coach?

There's a cartoon collision sound that I hear when I see that play above.

I thought the same thing. The best hope for 4/8 is, I think, that it will be partly cloudy.

He's pretty mid as a play by play announcer, but I can't blame Dunleavy for this team's mediocrity.