2011-12 winner Max Pacioretty demonstrates how to be awesome

The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is voted on annually by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association and awarded to the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. The writers have their work cut out for them this year, since all three finalists are unquestionably worthy of the award.

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To say that the Los Angeles Dodgers are under-performing would be an understatement. They’re awful. They’ve been hit with a number of injuries to key players, and they continue to masquerade the likes of Juan Uribe, Luis Cruz, and Mark Ellis as viable infield options on a daily basis. The Dodgers are 18-26 today, which is far below whatever expectations a nearly $217 million payroll may have levied upon them.

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Another tumblr. Tip of the that to our Hockey Mastermind Justin Bourne.

Just watch David West here for 30 seconds or so. He hears a question that has nothing to do with him, puts his head in to his shoulder, then wakes with a start once and looks super befuddled once a new question has been asked — as any teacher will tell you, this is a tell-tale sleeping when you shouldn’t be sleeping maneuver.

So was he sleeping? You be the judge. Just remember it was pretty late when Game 6 ended.

(via Tassie and Sean W.)

Projected win totals from Vegas and the various gambling websites which readily provide you with the opportunity to get divorced from the comfort of your living room are largely meaningless for those who don’t partake in such shenanigans.

At best, they’re a loose gauge of the public’s current perception of each team and its chances to win football contests this fall. Bookies aim to make a prospective bettor’s decision difficult, and therefore after doing the required research, they set the over/unders right around where the common man believes each team’s win total will finish. Or at least that’s partly true, as more often they’re playing with your mind and influencing wagers in one direction or another.

I realize it’s some pretty heavy stuff to consider that bookies may not be entirely trustworthy people, so please pause for a moment before taking in the win totals below from Bovada which were released this afternoon.

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We’re now down to the semi-finals of the NHL 14 Cover Vote campaign and it’s down to the final 4: Pavel Datsyuk, Martin Brodeur, John Tavares and Sergei Bobrovsky.

We say farewell to 2 Toronto Maple Leafs who made it far into the campaign. Pavel Datsyuk narrowly defeated Joffrey Lupul in what was the tightest matchup of the last round. James van Riemsdyk made things interesting for Martin Brodeur as they battled for a spot in the semi’s, but Brodeur’s increased social media activity got him the W.

Semi-final voting runs until May 26^th at 11:59 PM ET. The winner of the cover vote will be revealed during the Stanley Cup Finals.

Sergio Garcia would like to remind us that racism still exists. Unfortunately, his method for doing so was not a public service announcement, but a joke aimed at Tiger Woods that referred to fried chicken. There are two things that are awful about this: 1) The public reinforcement of an incredibly demeaning stereotype that the majority of us would love to do away with; and 2) His attempt at irreverence wasn’t even remotely funny.

It all started two weeks ago during the Third Round at The Players Championship at Sawgrass. Tiger Woods decided to take a wood out of his bag – signifying to the crowd that he was going for the green on the par-five second hole – just as Sergio Garcia was taking his swing. The crowd cheered Woods’s decision, causing Garcia to slice his shot.

During a rain delay, Garcia vented some of his frustration while speaking with the Golf Channel:

Well, obviously Tiger was on the left and it was my turn to hit. He moved all the crowd that he needed to move, I waited for that. You do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit and right as I was in the top of the back-swing, he must have pulled a wood and everybody started screaming. So that didn’t help very much.

… and so it began.

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With the bevy of rumours, reports and general speculation over Bryan Colangelo’s job status running rampant over the last few weeks, we’ve already had plenty of time to assess Colangelo’s actions and words recently. On that note, I’m not going to spend any time on Colangelo’s conference call with the media from earlier today after it was announced that he was being relieved of his General Manager duties.

Having said that, new Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke held a much more candid media call on Tuesday morning that is worth talking about, so here are some talking points from that call..

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