It’s been a while, and I may tattoo myself to remember to do this more often, but here are my picks for tonight’s NHL games – many of which will be crucial when we look back at how things shook out down the stretch come April. In two tweets, I relayed my score line predictions:
Today’s NHL Game predictions: NYR 3 – NJ 1; PHI 2 – NYI 1; FLA 4 – WAS 3; MIN 3 – CLB 2; PIT 3 – MTL 1; OTT 4 – STL 2; LA 3 – TB 2 …
For what it’s worth, I’ve been better this year picking games straight up than the Over/Under or whatever else you may be throwing your money down on. In terms of official picks which have been posted on this blog/twitter I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of 17-11 (slow nights, eh?), though I should really make a spreadsheet or something to keep better track of these things. (*Opens Microsoft Excel)
Way back in the beginning of January, Kobe Bryant said his New Year’s resolution was to stop cursing in interviews. ‘Twas a noble gesture for a dad with two growing daughters, especially since his late period cussing period was starting to win him back some fans.
It seems like he’s holding true to his word, giving this hilarious response to an email asking if he’s the reason Dwight Howard doesn’t want to sign an extension with the Lakers. From the New York Post:
“omg! I’m not getting mixed up in this kiddy drama spit, bro. too old for that spit,” Bryant responded via email.
Too old for “kiddy drama spit,” but apparently not too old to use the term “kiddy drama spit.” Real Catch-24 situation right there.
If Dwight Howard didn’t want to sign with the Lakers, I’m not sure how he’ll feel after seeing this response. Maybe this is Kobe trying to convince him that he wants him in Los Angeles while also trying to make it seem like he’s not on the downside of his career, kind of like a dad buying a really sweet pair of jeans to seem cool to his kids. Dwight seems in to wacky, childish things so maybe it’ll work.
Props to Kobe for doing his best to not swear — though, I guess, Peter Vescey could be doing a little editing for Kobe to make him look good but let’s just chill with the Kobspiracy theories and also the bad Kobe puns — but it came out hilarious. This is one of the most competitive professional athletes we’ve even seen and he’s typing “omg!” and “kiddy drama spit” like he’s a teenager who doesn’t want his mom to see him swearing in text messages. This is pilgrim hat funny.
This morning, the Giants paraded down the Canyon of Heroes to celebrate their fourth Super Bowl victory. But in the process, one fan reminded us that poor Eli Manning still doesn’t get any respect in NYC…
In her defense, she’s celebrating hard and has another human being on her shoulders, so maybe she just lost focus. Or maybe she thought she was at a parade honoring the San Francisco Giants, inexplicably in Manhattan and delayed by about 15 months, for their 2010 World Series title, and she simply wanted to see Jonathan Sanchez.
Okay, I’m reaching. But us blondes have to stick together in moments like these.
The fate of Carlos Condit, and possibly the future of Nick Diaz in MMA, hinges on one fellow: UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
Speaking to The MMA Show with Mauro Ranallo, Condit’s agent Malki Kawa said that he’s open to the idea of a rematch between the UFC interim welterweight champion and Diaz, who said after the razor-close decision loss at UFC 143 he will retire from the sport — but only if St-Pierre is out longer than anticipated.
“If we decide to take a fight between now and (when St-Pierre returns), I guarantee you it’ll be Nick Diaz,” Kawa said. “(But) the truth is there’s only one big money fight out there and its St-Pierre. We’re not interested in fighting Jake Ellenberger if he beats Diego Sanchez next week since Condit already fought him and beat him. I’m not interested in any other opponents.”
With St-Pierre still rehabbing his knee and not expected to start MMA training until June and return to the cage until November, Condit is expected to be sitting on the shelf for quite a while. And after fighting only once in 2011 due to injuries to himself, injuries to opponents, and general line-up shuffling for reasons beyond his control, it’s not easy for Kawa to encourage his client to sit out yet again, this time for another nine months while St-Pierre heals.
But the fact of the matter is St-Pierre is one of the biggest names in the sport and, as Dana White has said on numerous occasions, the UFC’s marquee pay-per-view draw. Kawa realizes that, and now has to weigh whether it’s better for Condit to stay active and risk losing his interim title by granting a rematch to Diaz, or to sit and wait for the big-money ticket that is St-Pierre, a fight that could literally change his life.
“I’m not against fighting Nick Diaz again. If we beat him once, we can beat him twice, right?” Kawa said. “What I’m trying to get the fans to understand is that there’s only a few big money fights where these guys can earn money to support their families for the rest of their lives. St-Pierre is that guy. If Condit can beat St-Pierre, he’s now bigger than life. That’s why we’re contemplating waiting for him.”
You see it on THE FOOTY SHOW every Wednesday on theScore. This is the segment driven by you! Each week you come up with some great suggestions for ‘Avin It or Not ‘Avin It. We’re looking for more!
What are you ‘avin or not ‘avin this week? Come up with the statements and Dunlop will read the best ones on-air to James & KJ. As always, VOTE for your favourite goal of the week on our facebook page! Man, there’s some seriously good ones this week.
We’ll hit you with the ‘Take Your Kick’ Podcast Wednesday afternoon, as TFC defender Adrian Cann joins us. Then get your visual fix on THE FOOTY SHOW at 6pm EST on theScore (replay 11pm EST & Thursday at 12:30pm & 3pm EST).
Just in case Toronto Blue Jays fans didn’t already know that if Brett Lawrie played for the Boston Red Sox, they’d hate his guts with a previously unforeseen fury, this is the good ‘ol Canadian boy having a laugh at the expense of a rather unfortunately dressed Phoenix Coyotes fan. Ugh.
From the Twitter feed of his lady friend Paige Brendel.
Daniel Bryan’s self-centered attitude inside the ring may not be the one for kids to emulate, but nobody will disagree that his vehement dedication to the ethics of veganism outside of it is at least admirable.
The WWE’s World Heavyweight Champion was the recipient of PETA’s Libby Award, a fan-voted honor given to the most animal-friendly athlete. Recently, he has taken his plight to the airwaves, making a point of constantly reminding viewers that he is a staunch vegan, even going so far as to plead with the audience to not eat meat, and to hop on board with his diet.
“I’m stronger and healthier than ever, and I feel good about doing something positive for myself, animals, and the planet,” claimed Bryan in a PETA press release.
Bryan is certainly not the only high-level athlete operating on a plant-based diet. Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley and Baltimore Ravens running back Willis McGahee were among other Libby Award candidates, and future NFL Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez has been “green” for many years.
But for a variety of reasons, very few athletes are full on vegans, meaning that they would not consume any animal products whatsoever. Some of those reasons are purely mathematical, as statistics suggest less than 1.5% of the American population is vegan, and meat products are by volume easier to find than their veggie alternatives. However, some are due to the fact that science isn’t all the way convinced that being a vegan is the path of least resistance to peak performance for an athlete.
Dave Scott won six Ironman titles on a plant-based diet.
One of the first high-profile athletes to publicly declare the use of a plant-based diet was legendary triathlete Dave Scott. For the majority of his career, which included a record six Ironman titles, Scott strayed from meat and relied primarily on plants to fuel a caloric need of up to 6500 daily, due to a 35-40 hour exercise week.
“Back in the 80s, I think I gravitated from eating bologna sandwiches when I was in college. I said, well I don’t think this is very healthy, I think I should get rid of those,” remembers Scott, who is known in endurance sports circles simply as The Man.
While he admits to eating poultry over the holidays, and still ate dairy, Scott cut out beef entirely, and stuck to a plant-based diet up until 1992.
“I think from an overall health standpoint, it was a pretty good choice. My caveat on this is that I needed a lot of calories, because I was burning a lot of calories,” said Scott. “At that time in the 80s, the craze was ‘you need carbohydrates,’ and you just need carbohydrates because that’s what your body uses. That’s what we were told, that’s what the athletes were told, and that’s what the information was available out there said. The science back in the 80s wasn’t very good. “
Sports nutritionists in the 80s weren’t concerned with where the carbohydrates came from, whether it was through Bryan’s declared favourite late-night snack of black liquorice or elsewhere, because knowledge of unrefined and refined carbohydrates was not yet prevalent.
The other popular theory was that the less fat you ate, the better off you’d be as an athlete. This led Scott to a less than 10% fat intake diet in order to get a leg up on rivals Mark Allen and Scott Tinley who weren’t quite as regimented in their culinary choices. Scott even went so far as to strain and rinse his cottage cheese at the suggestion of nutritionist Nathan Pritikin, something he jokingly says he’ll “go to his grave with.”
“I didn’t gravitate to the good polyunsaturated fat. I didn’t have avocados, I didn’t have coconut, I didn’t have a small amount of nuts. That was nonsense,” said Scott, who also has a degree in physiology.”I have that in my diet now. My diet is much healthier now than when I was on a vegetarian diet, primarily because I just had too many simple carbohyrates.”
The addition of avocados and nuts to his current diet is particularly important because of the protein they contain. This is something Bryan, who is in a profession demanding of muscle strength and resilient bones, must be acutely concentrated on when plotting his daily meals.
Vegans have plenty of options when it comes to protein-dense foods, including peanut butter, lentils, quinoa, and beans of all varieties. All proteins are comprised of nitrogen, and based on the NNU scale (net nitrogen utilization), in layman’s terms, are measured on their efficiency and usefulness on a cellular level (building muscle, promoting hair growth).
The most well-known and popular protein source is tofu; a soy product often used to imitate meat products, or at least behave as“filler” in otherwise light meals.
According to Scott though, not only are there better options available, but tofu could be holding the athlete back. Particularly one who lands on his spine for a living more than 250 days a year.
“Soy yogurt, soy milk, soy ice cream, tofu, don’t buy them,” said Scott. “People think gee, if I have soy, it’ll help my calcium stores, it’ll help my bone density, it’ll help my electrolytes. And it’s really false. The soy actually negates the calcium absorption. Soy has phytoestrogens. It throws off men and women’s hormone levels. The amount of phytoestrogens is staggering in soy-based food. The unfermented ones, which are tempeh and miso and natto are the best ones. People should eat those.”
Tempeh in particular contains a whopping 41 grams of protein in just one cup, which is more than the common whey protein powder offers, even though it doesn’t turn into a chocolate or vanilla shake for the morning.
A recent blog on PETA’s official website quips “if anyone you know needs convincing that tofu scramble is the real breakfast of champions, you can remind him or her that vegan WWE superstar Daniel Bryan has been awarded the world heavyweight title. Then break a chair across his or her back just to get the point across.”
Non-vegans have the luxury of consuming eggs, which have a 50% NNU score, as opposed to relying purely on items such as beans, which score somewhere in the 20% range.
The Ironman master maintains that he does not disapprove of vegan diets, and finds them to be a healthy choice for most people. However for elite athletes, ethics aside, without the ability to devour protein and nutrient kings like cold-water fish and eggs, it takes vigorous effort and lots of supplements to get what they need to perform.
In addition to good supplements, which Scott says “everyone should take,” he suggests that vegan athletes such as Bryan sit down to meals such as a salad with almonds or walnuts, red bell peppers and broccoli topped with olive oil, and munch on a whole avocado as a snack.
“(Bryan) has really got to do his homework,” said Scott. “You have to be very diligent, if you’re an athlete, if you travel and have a stressful life, about getting good quality protein every day and at each meal. And also pre and post exercise if you can as well.”
By all accounts, Bryan is meticulous in his consumption of the right nutrients, but if he really wants to make sure he has his hand raised at Elimination Chamber, he might want to order a second helping of tempeh at his favourite vegan spot in Milwaukee.
And if you’re a Daniel Bryan fan and want to become a ripped 210 like him, maybe replace the popcorn with a bag of avocados while you watch the pay-per-view.
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