The Girls are recovering from celebrating the arrival of 2008. A new podcast will be up next week, but for this week, we will be recuperating and getting ready for the year to come.

Well, 2008 started with a blast - of snow and wet weather in the North Country. The Winter Classic between Buffalo and Pittsburgh was classic indeed. A heated game in the blinding snow, ending in a tie and decided by a shootout. Robin LOVES the shootout and Carol is a straight-up hater. But seeing Sidney Crosby send the puck to the back of the net for the deciding goal was the stuff history is made of.

Robin is making it her life’s work to convince Carol that the shootout is the answer. Imagine if that sucker had ended in a TIE!!??? There would be none of this…

David Duprey/The Associated Press

And that’s not right.

There were bowl games on offer yesterday as well. Some good (Michigan upsetting Florida 41-35 in the well-established CAPITAL ONE BOWL), some bad (Hawaii getting spanked by Georgia 41-10 in the Sugar Bowl) and some that you just wish were better matchups (USC crushes Illinois 49-17 in the Rose Bowl).

The debate over playoffs and seeding will rage on…

Over in the NFL, we find that seeding could be a reasonable way to set up the playoffs after some convincing stylings of ESPN’s Gregg Easterbrook and his column, Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

Especially this clip:

In other football news, 9-7 City of Tampa hosts a playoff game, but 11-5 Jacksonville opens on the road, 10-6 Cleveland is eliminated and the 10-6 Giants travel to the 9-7 Bucs. Has there ever been a better case for making the NFL postseason a seeded tournament? No one cares about the AFC versus NFC Super Bowl setup any more: My guess is you don’t even know how that series stands. (Basically, tied; yawn.) The postseason brackets should reward the teams that perform best, and the best Super Bowl pairing — Indianapolis versus New England — should at least be possible when the countdown begins. The NFL could retain conference and division structure for the purpose of organizing regular-season play, then make the playoffs a 12-team seeded tourney. Performance would be rewarded, and pairings would be better. What’s not to like?

The NBA tried to compete for eyeballs over the weekend by providing the world with the LA Lakers in throwback shorts. Yes, the 1980’s SHORT shorts. Here’s a sample.

Fisher is clearly saying “Hold it right there, Mister, I’m not falling for the old ‘banana-in-the-tailpipe’ trick…”

And another…

We have so many questions and comments, it’s hard to know where to begin:

1) Does Derek Fisher know he looks like Richard Simmons? What can Garnett be thinking?
2) Why did the NBA not have BOTH teams wearing the short-shorts?
3) What were the Celtics thinking when they first saw the Lakers warming up pre-game?
4) Will Kobe file a grievance to assuage his feelings of violation?
5) Did anyone catch a chill?

Just fantastic.

Grab yourself a hot cocoa, pull a blanket over your short shorts and take it all in.

Happy New Year!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Fantoo Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.