Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leap day: Wild make trades; Daytona's a wreck

Leap Day! The thought occurred to me late this evening to put up a blog, mostly so then I could have a blog archived on leap day. Why not, right?

As far as sports, the Minnesota Wild are still chugging along. They've played well and they've played horribly with their past few games. Shutting out the defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins 2-0 at home and for a nationally televised game was one of their better efforts. Niklas Backstrom even had a career-high 49 saves.

But the game on Tuesday sounded like a disaster against the Los Angeles Kings - a 4-0 loss at home. The boo birds were out yet again at the Xcel Energy Center, allegedly.

Bye-bye Zid
The bright spot was on the trading block for the Wild. Last week, they were finally able to unload defenseman Marek Zidlicky. He had been complaining about the style and made his feelings known to the media and the hockey community that he didn't want to be on the Wild anymore. So Chuck Fletcher pawned him off on the New Jersey Devils.

Don't let the puck hit you on the way out.

The best news was what the Wild got in return though, especially when many didn't think they'd get much back for the mouthy Zidlicky. Former Wild players Kurtis Foster and Stephane Veilleux came back "home," and they also got winger Nick Palmieri and some draft picks. Not a bad deal.

Dayto - er - "Danica" 500
Nascar kicked off its lengthy racing season Sunday (and actually Monday and Tuesday) with the Daytona 500. The race was rained out for the first time ever Sunday, pushing the start eventually to Monday evening. It didn't finally get done until very early Tuesday morning.

Because it's racing, and a marquee race, I tuned in to bits and pieces of the race coverage. Twitter told me that early on, the new series diva, Danica Patrick, had been involved in a wreck and was many laps down. Kind of nice to get her out of the way at the start, I guess.

The race was filled with caution flags and even a lengthy red flag - due to a you-don't-see-this-everyday explosion involving a jet drier and Juan Pablo Montoya's car. He was trying to catch up to the field during a yellow flag when something on his car broke, sailing him into the jet drier truck and causing a fireball.

After that, the race should've been put out its misery. Sometimes in racing if you push your luck too much, it may just run out. I was afraid of a serious crash happening, but maybe my mind is still reeling from the IndyCar season finale in Las Vegas that took the life of driver Dan Wheldon.

Too much focus on Danica
This is Patrick's first year in Nascar full time, away from her open-wheel roots. And boy, did the good ol' boys eat it up. I'm not a fan of hers - she's nothing too extraordinary and she has an attitude with a dash of entitlement.

She crashed prior to the race, a pretty good smack, and the lame in-car camera caught her taking her hands off the steering wheel. This is standard procedure in IndyCar (to protect your hands from injury), and it has been for a long time, so I didn't think much of it. But it was a huge deal for Nascar fellas. So when Jimmie Johnson did it during the big race, Patrick got the credit.

Just one more thing that Nascar will probably try to claim. Just like they did with SAFER barriers and the HANS device. We all know where it started.

No comments:

Post a Comment