That was an interesting three weeks!

It's been a very long time since I've chimed in here. I've been busy with real life getting in the way. And mostly I've been lazy when I've actually had time. But I certainly haven't stopped paying attention to all of the amazing things that have happened in the sports world over the last three weeks.

I didn't get down my thoughts when the Red Wings finally clinched the Cup in game 6. I was too busy celebrating! The Wings should be proud of the way they bounced back from the triple overtime loss in game five and, despite everyone saying their "old" legs wouldn't bounce back as quickly as the Pens, they went into Pittsburgh and played a dominant game to put the finishing touches on a masterful season. Aside from those hectic final two minutes, Detroit was thoroughly the better team and a deserving champion. It's scary to see how much talent they've got coming back next year and it's going to be fun watching some of the young guys develop further. As for Pittsburgh, I'm not sure that they're going to be back as soon as everyone thinks. It looks like Shero is going to struggle to keep that team intact, so he's going to have some work to do to make sure the supporting cast is solid enough to make them more than a one-line team in the years to come. They should hold hope though in that as Crosby and Malkin develop further, they'll start being able to take more penalty kill and defensive time that will make them the complete players that Datsyuk and Zetterberg showed themselves to be for Detroit.

The NBA finals happened too ... but that pretty much sucked. The most interesting thing during the finals was the assertion by disgraced ref Tim Donaghy that the league has conspired with the refs for years to fix games and extend series. I would normally laugh off a conspiracy theory like this one (especially when the ref has been found criminally guilty of gambling and fixing games), but this one sticks a little bit better since people have been questioning the reputation of the NBA for years. The refereeing during the 2002 series that Donaghy specifically referenced in his accusation has been called some of the worst in the history of the league ... maybe there's something to this story!

The US Open was a much more thrilling event than the NBA finals at least. All of the old Maple Leafs fans still clinging to Bobby Baun winning the Stanley Cup on a broken leg (it was just a hairline crack in the ankle ... and his goal wasn't even in game 7) can now look at a new hero. Tiger, playing on a torn ACL and a double stress fracture in his tibia managed to still lap the field except for Rocco. Mediate put up an incredible fight and hung in better than anyone could have ever expected him to, but Woods was simply too much. The guy just has an uncanny ability to find a way, any way, to get the ball in the hole when he absolutely has to. How did he make the 80 footer for eagle on 13 on Saturday? Or the 40 footer for eagle on 18 that same day? Or that final putt on Sunday? And then again to birdie 18 when he had to in the playoff and hang on long enough for Rocco to finally make a mistake. It was just an amazing performance that was made even more incredible when we found out how badly injured he really is. I'm not suggesting that he made the right decision to play through his leg problems (in fact, I think it was a mistake), but it sure made for good theater!

And speaking of amazing Tigers, how about those fellas from Detroit?! Winners of 12 of their last 14 games! I'm not going to suggest yet that they can climb all the way back in this, but looking forward at the rest of the season all they have to do is average wins in 2 out of each 3 games to get to 95 wins. 95 wins usually gets them in the playoffs and with the hitting they have (they've started to not suck at the plate any more) and the pitching staff figuring out how to limit the damage each game (giving up less than 3.5 runs per game during this stretch), this team offers some hope to live up to the expectations that everyone had at the start of the year!

Unfortunately, the sports world is now pretty quiet for a while. The summer will bring a few interesting golf tournaments, but without Tiger I think I might be the only one watching. Training camps for football are still a little more than a month away. The middle of the baseball season? Well, one game sort of runs into the next when they play so many. I think it might finally be time for me to break out some posts about the sports that no one follows. There will be posts about triathlon (perhaps a recap soon of the World Championships and later this summer, some talk about Ironman Canada) and in seven weeks, I'll certainly get into the Olympics! Look out for Greco Roman Wrestling! (not really ... even I don't know anything about GRW)