The view for Jamie's Chair

Hi all, Hope all of you are doing well. The last weekend of February was very uneventful. Saturday was a very boring day. I felt ill and slept in my chair most of the day. Sunday was again, another boring day but I was pleasantly surprised to see ESPN on ABC televising the USA 7’s Rugby Tournament taped last month in San Diego. Rugby 7’s is the short version of Rugby Union, it’s played with 7 players compared to Rugby Union’s 15. Rugby 7’s only has 7-minute halves (10 minutes in championship games) compared to 40-minute halves in Union. The field is a lot smaller than Rugby Union so there is a lot more scoring in 7’s games. You can imagine how fun it was to watch! I hope ESPN does more Rugby 7’s events, at the end of the program announcer Dave Sitton did say “See you next time on the ESPN family of networks.” I hope this is true and it’s on ESPN in the United States and not on ESPN International, which I fear because; as you probably know we can’t get ESPN International.

The big news of this past weekend was the return of Tiger Woods to the PGA Tour at the Match Play Championship in Arizona. I think this is a bad move to come back at the Match Play Championship as it is one of the hardest tournaments in golf, the event starts on Wednesday (most tournaments start on Thursday), if Tiger gets to the weekend he may have to play the equivalent of one tournament in just two days. The PGA Tour defiantly needs Tiger, as ratings are down by 50 %. It’s great excitement for golf and I’M defiantly looking forward to it. The Match Play Championship is one of my favorite tournaments of the year because it’s one on one and just like the NCAA Basketball tournament it is loose and go home.
UPDATE #1: Tiger lost in the second round on Thursday to Tim Clark. Oh well, NBC is not pleased but what are you going to do, my advice to NBC is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It was not a given that he would get to the weekend, it’s Match Play, anything can happen. There are still some great stories in action, like 19-year-old Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland, and, is it possible for Phil Mickelson win this title?
UPDATE #2: No Phil can’t win he was knocked out by Stewart Cink on Friday. Still it should be great golf.
UPDATE #3: Well it’s over and Geoff Ogilvy is the champion. This is his second Match Play title; he won it back in 2006. The other big story was that 19-year-old Rory McIlroy lost in the quarterfinals to Ogilvy. The next World Golf Championship is in two weeks in Miami. We will see.

Big news to me, NBC’s Universal Sports Channel covered the US Olympics Curling trials this weekend. The winning men and women's teams will be nominated to represent the United States at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Also Universal Sports will have coverage of both the Men and Women’s World Championships Curling this month. Curling is a great sport that is like shuffleboard on ice. You just have to watch to know what I mean.
UPDATE: I watched, and I enjoyed it very much. Curling is a sport that combines strategy and execution of shoot. This was the first live coverage of curling in the United States out side the Olympics. I’M really looking forward to the World Championships.

This week I’M off to Washington D.C for a Special Olympics meeting. I will talk to you and give you my take on the Jim Calhoun Press Conference ambush when I come back.

Good-bye and good luck
Jamie Lazaroff