Hump Day Trio

The first weekend of March Madness didn't treat me well. After a blazing 16 of 16 start on Thursday, my bracket fell apart in the late games on Friday and then proceeded to have a crappy Sunday as well. When it was all said and done, I had 26 of 32 in round one and just 11 of 16 in round two. The bright side though, is that I've still got all of my Elite Eight picks hanging around, so there's a chance I could go on a real run and come back in the pool!

Now, onto today's Three-fer ...

1. Goalie Trouble in Detroit - I had the (mis)fortune of seeing the Wings games televised the last two nights. While Conklin filled in admirably when called upon, I've got to admit to being more than a little worried at how bad Osgood looked in the first 26 minutes against Calgary. This is supposed to be the Wings starter through the playoffs and he was letting in softies that even I could have stopped. Once three easy ones were past him, the team spent the rest of the second period playing pretty dejected hockey before mounting an unsuccessful surge in the third. Ozzie is going to have to be better or Detroit will go down early in one of their patented "outplay the other team and get killed by the goaltending matchup" upsets.
2. Robo-Lance - With a bad fall in Italy on Monday, Lance Armstrong has suffered his first real setback ever in preparing for the Tour. It will be interesting to see how his 37-year old body responds to not being able to stay on plan all the way through July. The most recent updates today are that he's had a five inch plate and a dozen screws installed in his shattered collarbone! I'd say his hopes of riding in yellow, while already slim with advancing age and competition, might just be dashed.
3. Tigers vs. Catholics - there's another big furor in Detroit today with the release of the Tiger's opening day schedule. It seems that the game is going to be on Good Friday with a 1:05 start. Catholics are up in arms because of the traditional belief that Jesus hung on the cross from noon to 3 pm, and thus most services take place at that time. Says local Rev. Ed Vilkauskas, "Nobody is saying baseball isn't big, but Good Friday is really big. It's 2000 years old." I think the Rev. is just upset that he's going to have to try to sell his tickets in a depressed market.