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On Wednesday’s episode of “The Fix,” The Jones recap an instant classic — Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Topics discussed include: Ray Allen’s three, Chris Bosh’s back-and-forth narrative, LeBron sans-headband, Mike Miller sans-shoes, why Pop took Duncan out late, whether Ray fouled Ginobili, Tony Parker’s step-back three, Diaw’s D, poor Kawhi Leonard, and Chalmers’ early contributions.

All that, plus unopened free beer, hairy arms, and a whole lot of Zaza “Game 7″ drops.

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Toronto Maple Leafs v Florida Panthers
On June 4th, in what has to be one of the most safety-conscious competition committee meetings in its history, the NHL decided to begin experimenting with hybrid icing. The move was long overdue. Touch icing is probably one of the most broadly unpopular features of the NHL brand of hockey. Nobody likes it. I’m pretty sure there are more supporters of the instigator and the puck-over-glass penalty than there are of touch icing. Unlike most safety issues, it wasn’t only tender-hearted New-Age fans who hated watching players race at full speed into the back boards just to end the play. One of the greatest opponents of the practice was Don Cherry, representing a whole faction of old-school, traditionalist, good hard hockey fans who were similarly appalled by this dangerous practice.

This is odd, because Cherry and his ilk are definitely not against hockey players getting hurt. We are speaking of a man who opposed visors for years and holds up Scott Stevens as a model body-checker. He’s all for hockey players getting hurt in all kinds of ways, including many that normal human beings would consider stupid and unnecessary. He’ll advocate for guys getting punched in the face for saying something mean, yet when it comes to touching the puck for an icing call, that’s too much. That’s the one thing in hockey that’s not worth the injuries it causes.

Why? What makes touch icing an unacceptable cause of harm, in a game with thousands of acceptable and even beloved causes of harm? It’s not how bad or frequent the injuries are. Although the potential is certainly there, there’s never been an epidemic of careers ended by touch icing. If the concern was purely player safety, we’d be revamping bodychecking standards rather than experimenting with hybrid icing.

This is another place where we see aesthetics at work in hockey’s attitude towards violence. The difference between touch icing injuries and other sorts isn’t the harm itself, it’s the storyline that goes with them. The Don Cherrys of the world don’t just want pain, they want aesthetically satisfying pain. They want pain that means something. Touch icing is an overwhelmingly anticlimactic phenomenon. It’s players running a great risk in pursuit of a completely deflating whistle, and even on the rare occasions it’s beaten, there’s seldom much dramatic payoff. Icings are boring, period, and adding a footrace element doesn’t make them any less so. It’s not the danger itself that turns people off. It’s the dullness.

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The narratives about the rise and fall of Reggie Bush have long been written. He was supposed to be the next Barry Sanders, an electric and explosive ball-carrier who could do anything at any time he wanted to. Any time he touched the ball with running room, he was a threat to take it to the house. Coming into a league transitioning to more “satellite” players, he was the ultimate satellite.

And then he wasn’t.

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Michael Ballack - Farewell Match

Tomorrow is the Rapid Fire podcast, and as ever, we need your help. Please submit your questions to counterattack@thescore.com, or leave them below, or bug us on the Twitter with the hashtag #CApodQ. Please get them in no later than 8 PM today.

Thanks in advance!

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It appears as though Manny Ramirez is finished with baseball in Taiwan. Devoted Manny in Taiwan blogger Brandon DuBreuil relayed a series of reports early this morning, noting that Ramirez is expected to leave the country on June 21.

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Yasiel Puig fans rejoice as a new roster update for MLB 13: The Show is out, and this update feature Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig. Though the Dodgers are in last place, Puig is off to one of the best rookie starts in MLB history.

Puig has an overall rating of 87, “A” potential, and a 92 arm strength. Be sure to download the update for your PS3’s.

Washington Wizards v Toronto Raptors

As Tim Leiweke stressed the need for improvement for an organization that wasn’t good enough and Masai Ujiri talked about building his own small staff here in Toronto, many of us were able to foresee the organizational house cleaning around the corner. So when guys like Ed Stefanski and Jim Kelly were let go, I don’t think anyone around the team was exactly floored.

But I don’t know how many people saw this coming, as fans and media alike were surprised to hear the news on Monday that former fan-favourite Alvin Williams had been relieved of his duties as a scout. In addition, Doug Smith reports that CEO Tim Leiweke made the decision and that General Manager Masai Ujiri never spoke to Alvin.

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Justin Rose Wins The U.S. Open

U.S. Open - Round FourComing into Sunday at the 113th U.S. Open, the story was all about Phil Mickelson and his pursuit of his national championship. With five runner-up finishes, the most in the history of the event, Mickelson had some unfinished business with this tournament and the USGA. As is the case usually on U.S. Open Sunday, the winner would be crowned on Father’s Day, and with Mickelson seen as the ideal family man and loving father, the golf media worked itself into quite the lather leading into the final round. Did I mention that Sunday was also his 43rd birthday? You couldn’t write this stuff. The problem is, nobody told Justin Rose that he wasn’t supposed to win.

Even for the most ardent of golf fans, Rose has been a bit of an enigma. He first appeared on the national stage as an amateur in the 1998 Open Championship, where he ended up tied for fourth place at 17 years old. He turned pro the next day but struggled with his game, going winless until the 2002 Dunhill Championship. His father Ken, who had been fighting cancer, passed away soon after that victory. A few more wins and inconsistencies followed until Rose hired Sean Foley at the end of the 2009 season, leading to victories at huge PGA Tour events like the Memorial, AT&T, BMW and WGC-Cadillac, but the major championship still eluded him.

Highs and lows are common on the golf course, even for the professionals, but it’s magnified at the U.S. Open, where the USGA does it’s very best to manipulate the course in a way that protects par, as if the best players in the world breaking it would cause some kind of cataclysmic event. The list of players who missed the cut on Friday was littered with some of the game’s best, including twelve major champions. Another nine major winners who made the cut never threatened the leaders on the weekend.

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