But now I’ve realized I must give in. I’m shutting her down.

Thanks to all the readers, writers, and commenters. You will not be forgotten (thanks to Google’s cache.)

(And by the way, hockey is probably the best sport to witness a championship in person. In all other sports the teams celebrate on the field, but they’re in a hurry to get to the locker and really celebrate. When a team wins the Stanley Cup every single player skates around with it as the fans cheer for him. It’s such an authentic and meaningful interaction between player and fan.)

As the 20,000 Red Wings faithful stood on their feet waiting for the cup, Max Talbot put the puck in the back of the net. (Speaking of Talbot, he’s only 24 but you can already tell that when he’s old, young playoff teams will constantly be trying to acquire him at the trade deadline to bring in veteran leadership and toughness. He’s already that solid of a player.) When Talbot’s shot went in a unique gasp bubbled up from the crowd. It was part “Damn, my wife is gonna be pissed I’m coming home late,” part “Damn, I had $1,000 on Detroit winning,” part “I wanted to see the big shiny cup,” and part “I don’t like Marc Andre Fleury.” Two hours later, thanks to Peter Sykora, in was just another Stanley Cup loss.

Of all the predictions made by players over the years, Peter Sykora’s has to be the craziest. It’s one thing for a player to guarantee a win or great performance in a big game. But to declare you’re going to score a goal during the second overtime of a Stanley Cup game in which your team is getting crushed is completely ridiculous. What were the odds on the Penguins scoring? Sykora scored about 12% of the Penguins goals during the regular season but there was only about a 25% chance the Penguins would score. That means it was at least a 25-1 one shot Sykora would score.

There’s also the possibility Sykora was just joking around with Pierre McGuire. Maybe McGuire was joking that the game was so long and he had to go sleep and Sykora just said something like “Don’t worry, I’m gonna score.”

Though Sykora’s goal came on a legitimate power play, the referees are still getting a lot of shit for the two questionable goaltender interference calls they made earlier in overtime. Here’s the thing. They were the right calls. In both cases a Detroit player skated into the crease and knocked over Fleury without the assistance of a Penguin. If Detroit scored off either of those scrums it would not have been a fair goal. Since the referees can’t wait and just waive off the goal, they have to call a penalty.

Finally, you can’t say enough about Marc Andre Fleury. The save he made on a 2-1 late in the 2nd period is the best save you’ll see in hockey. I’m not saying its the greatest save of all time, but you can’t argue that there’s a tougher save.

Fleury leveled the playing field. He took over the game. He’s the reason the two teams will pay again tomorrow night.

…because you’ve decided to disassociate yourself from your suspected co-conspirators.

The truth is, O.J. Mayo is smart to cut ties with Bill Duffy. As long as Duffy remained his agent, the accusations and questions would continues to pour in.

But now that Mayo has severed the relationship he can play the “it’s in the past card.” Whenever anybody tries to bring up the scandal he can talk about how he just wants to move on with his career. He’ll make sure to mention he did nothing wrong, and that his focus is now on being the best NBA player he can be.

This new development should remove any doubt that Mayo and Duffy engaged in some sort of wrongdoing. If Mayo and Duffy were innocent they would have stood on stage together, proclaimed their innocence, and chastised the media for attacking an upstanding young gentleman. That would have been the savvy PR move…if they were innocent. Instead they did the opposite. They ended their relationship in an effort to sweep the whole thing under the rug. That’s the savvy PR move of the guilty.

Clearly there are other factors which played a roll in the decision. Did Thurman’s past drug suspensions put him on a short leash even for an offense like a bereavement absence? Did the team think the story about Thurman’s grandmother wasn’t the “whole story” (a la Zach Randolph)?

On the other hand, it’s possible to team used Thurman’s absence a way to cut ties with a player who’s had a checkered past. The one word that repeatedly jumps off the page of the AP story on Thurman’s release is “voluntary.” As in the “voluntary” workouts Thurman was released for missing.

Sometimes in sports things happen and fans never know the real story. This is one of those transactions where there’s likely more than meets the eye—a transaction whose purpose falls into the gray area between improving the team and disciplinary action. The decision might have come down to something as trivial as Thurman’s attitude on certain days or a particular interaction he had with coaches.

Rather than make a big deal and fight over who has the moral high ground, both parties seem content to part ways and find a fresh start. Fans will now have to wait for Thurman’s memoirs to find out what really happened.

—When will people start talking about the NHL Playoffs? The two most dominant teams in the league are about to meet for a championship. When was the last time that happened in any sport? Lakers-Pistons in 2004? Yankees and Diamondbacks in 2001? (Yes, maybe the 2007 Rockies and Giants, but I’ll consider them postseason wonders.) Right now the Penguins are 11-1 in the postseason. The Red Wings are 11-3 and have looked even more impressive than the Penguins. All of America is going to miss a good series.

—The officiating in the Jazz-Lakers series has been atrociously inconsistent. In game 5 ticky tack fouls were being called on the perimeter, but in the most important sequence of the game Paul Gasol shoved Mehmet Okur out of the way, grabbed the rebound, and scored. It’s so hard to enjoy the NBA when almost every close game is decided by the referees (it’s yet another reason to love the NHL.)

My question is, why? As far as I can tell the contact crackdown has two main consequences and both of them are bad.

First, the borderline flagrant fouls are leading to more jawing, chirping, and shoving than ever before because the delay caused by referees deciding whether to call a flagrant only builds the tension. Instead of quickly sending the players to the line and have the game continue, there’s a two minute break for the crowd to get rowdy and players to jaw at each other.

In the cases where a flagrant is called, the other team then has to play the rest of the series thinking “they got one of our guys, we have to get them back.” Obviously blatant flagrant fouls should be called (like LeBron’s elbow to Andray Blatche in their playoff opener. Wait, what? A flagrant wasn’t called on that play? Interesting…), but calling flagrants on clean hard fouls just riles teams up.

The second consequence of these flagrant fouls is that the post-season is being refereed different than the regular season. In general, that’s bad for a sport. The weird thing is this crackdown on hard fouls should eventually lead to better basketball games. When a guy is going in for an uncontested layup you shouldn’t just be able to grab him. Every single foul should be a legitimate block or steal attempt. If a game were called this way (and any kind of intentional foul was called a flagrant) there would be fewer fouls, fewer stoppages, more scoring, and a more fluid game.

David Stern should be working on providing this kind of product, but he should be working on it during the regular season, not during the playoffs (the time when teams are supposed to play tough and games are supposed to have more contact). Clearly Stern didn’t want these NBA playoffs to turn into a string of UFC fights, but a better way to accomplish this would have been cutting down on the hard, intentional fouls during the regular season.

Hopefully the league will continue the intentional foul crackdown next season. At least then some good will have come out of this debacle. It seems like a dream, but perhaps someday, sometime, a poor foul shooter will blow by his man and not get bearhugged on the way to the basket.

–Demanding a congressional hearing in which his client was repeatedly railed by the democratic members of Congress for being an arrogant liar—Somehow Hardin failed to foresee that the U.S. Government wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to clear the name of one of baseball’s most upstanding gentlemen. Additionally, Hardin let Clemens testify without any material beyond the “I worked hard” line he’d been peddling for the previous six weeks.

–Filing a defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee without knowing whether there was any information that could prove Clemens’ name was already defamed—Either McNamee was so naive he didn’t believe Roger Clemens’ copious extramarital affairs would effect the suit, or he didn’t bother to find out all the pertinent information about his client. Whatever the case, that’s not good frivolous lawsuit management. On the plus side, Mindy McCready’s mom say she thinks Clemens is clean—you know, because her underage daughter definitely would have told her if the married man she was having an affair with was using performance enhancing drugs.

–Representing both Clemens and Andy Pettitte, the man who’s testimony contradicts that of Clemens—Yep, there’s nothing like representing the star witness for the other side. That’s a conflict of interest you can take all the way to the bank.

Barry Bonds and Kenny Lofton are unsigned free agents. The MLB Players Association is so flabbergasted at this development they’ve launched an investigation. After all, why would nobody would be interested in a disgraced steroid user and a 41-year-old, zero-tool centerfielder?

Think about it. Bonds’ walks would more than make up for the biggest fan backlash in league history, and Lofton’s .300 slugging percentage would be a small price to pay for a guy so old you would need Torii Hunter to play the other two outfield positions.

Frankly, I’m surprised the MLBPA is stopping there. Why aren’t they also investigating how Mike Maroth remains a free agent? He had a 6.89 ERA last year and a 12.91 ERA in three Triple A starts this year.  Who doesn’t need that kind of production?

It’s obvious there’s some kind of owner collusion that’s designed to keep unproductive players out of baseball, and it’s nice to see the MLBPA has taken a break from fighting steroid testing in order to address it.

Granted they are not the same thing (the goal of a dogfight is for the dogs to be harmed, the goal of a horse race is for no animal to be harmed). But that doesn’t change the fact that in the end, both sports force animals to do something which might leave them dead just so humans can gamble. That’s the bottom line. It’s a point which cannot be disputed.

Another point which cannot be disputed is that if dogfighting fans and its participants were rich white people with political connections, and horse racing participants were poor, urban “lowlifes,” the two sports would be looked at in a different light.

I’m not a fan of PETA. I think there are much better things to fight for in this world than getting animals equal (or in some cases) better rights than humans. But it’s time that horse racing stopped getting a free pass.

serenade LeBron with their best impression of a 2-year-old’s tantrum

Ideally, an unique taunting sound will emerge—something along the lines the old Larry Murphy “Whoop, Whoop” turkey call. Every time LeBron steps foot in Washington I want his ears to let him know exactly what city he’s in.

Is LeBron actually acting like a baby? Only slightly. But when a guy lightly hits himself in the face with Darius Songaila’s arm and staggers backward like he just took a haymaker from Clubber Lang, he deserves more than just boos.