A view for the chair

I’m really getting into the NBA finals this year. The Lakers are a great team; Kobe Bryant has taken over the game. Magic is the team of the future. In my opinion Dwight Howard of the Magic is the future of the NBA but needs some more work before I call him a superstar. A lot of the Magic success is because of coach Stan Van Gundy who, I think, is an extremely underrated coach. He made the necessary adjustments needed after game one and the blowout by the Lakers to continue in this series and to help make it competitive. Two of the games have gone into overtime, the Magic should have won these games but they blew it in OT.

I think ABC is doing a great job on the telecast of the games. Mike Breen is the best play-by-play man in the business. Jeff Van Gundy (Stan’s brother) is a great analyst. He is a former coach but talks the fans language. Mark Jackson is also very good he comes up with some funny lines but his voice is very monotone.

My question about the NBA Finals is, why do the weekday games start around 9 P.M. and weekend games start around 8 P.M.? Last Thursdays game did not end until after midnight, to late for me! Should it be revised? Just a though!

Last weekend was the finals of the French Open. Roger Federer won a career Grand Slam and is now tied with Pete Sampras for the most all-time Grand Slam singles titles with 14 championships. Roger is the greatest tennis player I have every seen. Wimbledon in two weeks will be very interesting. Can Roger regain his crown he lost last year to Rafael Nadal? Let’s talk about NBC’s telecast. I think Ted Robinson is the second best play-by-play voice in tennis behind Dick Enberg. John McEnroe is the best in the business behind no one. Mary Carillo is very good too. These three combined may be the best announcing team in all of sports.

Last Friday as Roger Federer was outlasting Juan Martin del Potro in the French Open Semifinals, we in the United States did not see it live until that afternoon on Tennis Channel. Here is an explanation from NBC Sports via Richard Deitsch from Sports Illustrated. NBC Sports’ contract with the tournament allowed it to air only one of the semifinals and they gave NBC a “blackout window” after the broadcast of the NBC taped match ended. NBC’s window was 10 A.M. to 1 P.M. because it wanted to protect the “Today Show”. By the way I thought the “Today Show” went to 11 A.M.? I would like to know why there was no live tennis on NBC the first weekend (May 30 and 31) of the French Open? As Richard says in his Monday column, the three network partners (NBC, ESPN, and the Tennis Channel) need to figure out how to air live coverage on the first weekend and last Friday in 2010.

Last Saturday, June 6th was the season opener for the WNBA Connecticut Sun. It was one of the worst games I have every witnessed. I hope this was just season opening jitters. On Sunday, June 7th they beat New York, so we will see how they do in their next game, Sunday, June 14, 2009 at home versus Atlanta. I won’t be there!

Now on to hockey for a minute, why are some of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals games on the same night as the NBA finals games? Just asking?

Last Sunday TNT took over NASCAR coverage from FOX. I think play-by-play announcer Bill Weber is good but no Mike Joy. I don’t like Wally Dallenbach, I think he is too laidback and comes off as arrogant sometimes. Kyle Petty was a good diver in his day but is no good in the booth. He speaks diver language but for the most part I can’t understand him. After just one week, I miss Darrell Waltrip. Larry McReynolds is part of TNT coverage but just trackside but he’s not on enough to be effective.

Last Sunday night Mike Brown and Urijah Faber put on a great show for the WEC on Versus. Mike Brown won the fight by unanimous decision to retain the WEC Featherweight Championship. Faber broke his hand in the frst round of the fight, but still fought all 5 rounds @ 5 minutes each. Just incredible, in fact, I missed the overtime of game 2 of the NBA Finals to watch this fight. Versus needs to find a new announcer because Todd Harris was just awful. He should not do any sports, he is bad at everything he does. Kenny Florian was great as the analyst. He has been an analyst on ESPN internet show MMA live, but I did not know how he would do on live TV. After his fight career is over Kenny has a furtue in TV.

This Weekend
The big event this weekend is UFC 99 from Cologne, Germany on pay-per-view. There are no championship fights on this card, will have some great matchups, like former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich “ACE” Franklin fighting fomer Pride Middlewight Champion Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva in a 195 lb bout. The other headliner is the return of Mirko “Cro Cop” to the Octagon. “Cro Cop” is a former Pride Openweight Grand Prix Champion. Should be fun.

The other big event is the start of the FIFA Confederations Cup from South Africa on Sunday. The good news for soccer fans in the U.S. is that all of the games will be on ESPN and ESPN2. Here is next weeks schedule:
Su 6/14 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 South Africa vs. Iraq
2:25 p.m. ESPN2 New Zealand vs. Spain
Mo 6/15 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Brazil vs. Egypt
2:25 p.m. ESPN USA vs. Italy
We 6/17 9:55 a.m. ESPN2 Spain vs. Iraq
2:25 p.m. ESPN2 New Zealand vs. South Africa
Thur 6/189:55 a.m. ESPN2 USA vs. Brazil
2:25 p.m. ESPN2 Egypt vs. Italy

Enjoy, I know I will!

See you next week, if not before.
Jamie Lazaroff

A view for the chair

Hi folks

I’m back and better than ever. We are diligently working on the audio podcast; I hope to have it up by the end of next week. I’ll keep you posted.

Enough about me, on to the sports.

There is a lot going on in the world of sports, so let’s go. Rance Mullinicks was in the booth this weekend as the Red Sox were in Toronto to play the Blue Jays. New England Sports Network (NESN) has been using different analysts since May 6, when Jerry Remy took a leave of absence so he can fully recover from the effects of cancer surgery. Rance has been the best sub NESN has had; he was clear and did not use baseball jargon. Please come back soon Jerry, we miss you.

Breaking news: Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison are the new analysts for NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Rodney and Tony worked for NBC at the Super Bowl in February and were very good. They are replacing Cris Collinsworth, who is leaving the studio and replacing John Madden in the game booth and Jerome Bettis who was let go by the network. I cannot believe Tiki Barber as the only holdover from last season and Jerome was let go. Jerome you could tell loved the game and it showed. He had passion and Tiki is seems like he’s just going through the motions. Tony and Rodney has that passion and I think they will do very well.

For the past two weeks, ESPN has been sharing converge of the French Open with the Tennis Channel on weekdays and NBC Sports on the weekends. This past Sunday 4-time defending champion Rafael Nadal lost to 23rd seed Robin Soderling. NBC had all the matches on the day taped for the afternoon; remember that Paris is 5 hours ahead of New York. Next time something big happens please NBC, let ESPN (as they are in more homes than the Tennis Channel) show the match live. The finals this weekend will be live, the women are Saturday and the men are Sunday.

There is big news in the mixed martial arts world this week. The Ultimate Fighting Championship has announced that former eliteXC fighter Kimbo Slice is a part of season 10 of there reality TV show the “Ultimate Fighter” that will start airing on Spike on September16. UFC President Dana White, at one point last year, called Kimbo “not a real fighter”, a “fraud”, and that he would not let him in UFC. Dana has stated the only way Kimbo will fight in the UFC is if he wins the Ultimate Fighter contract. The other fights announced for the show are all former NFL players…will be a fun season and I can’t wait for September.

I have one question, why are games 3 and 4 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals on Versus? I don’t know any major sports league other than the NHL that has their championship series on cable TV. For a league that needs showcasing, the NHL does a terrible job at being visible. Just a thought.

This weekend

This is a huge weekend for sports. The crazy French Open wraps up with the Women’s Final Saturday morning and the Men’s final on Sunday morning, both live on NBC.

It is a huge weekend for mixed martial arts with events on both days. Saturday is Strikeforce on Showtime. The main event is Robbie Lawler versus Jake Shields, but the fight I want to see is Nick Diaz versus Scott Smith. These will be two very entertaining bouts but there are great fighters up and down the card. Should be fun…wish I had Showtime.
On Sunday night is the WEC on Versus at 9 P.M.. The main bout is a rematch for the Featherweight Championship with defending champion Mike Brown fighting Urijah Faber, the man he beat for the title.

Saturday is the Belmont stakes on ABC at 5 P.M. Calvin Borel will be looking for a jockey triple crown, as he won the Kentucky Derby on Mine That Bird, and the Preakness on Rachel Alexandra and he is back on Mine That Bird for the mile and a half “test of the champions.” Will be very interesting, I don’t think he can do it. The Belmont is the longest Triple Crown and perhaps the longest race the horse will run in his entire career. Calvin Borel is a jockey made for shorter races.

Besides all this, the WNBA starts its season. I will be at the season opener this Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena when the Sun take on the Washington Mystics. I will have a report next week. Should be fun.

Also, can the USA Men’s national soccer team rebound after a 3 to 1 lost to Costa Rica Wednesday night in World Cup qualifying? Saturday the U.S. host Honduras at Soldier Field in Chicago at 8 P.M. on ESPN. With only two home games left in qualifying I think we need to win this game. The national team has a big month ahead of them as they head to South Africa for the FIFA Confederations Cup and play some of the best national teams in the world. Their first two games in South Africa will be against Italy and Brazil; these two teams combine for 9 world cup titles. Will be some good matches, I hope.

Talk to you next week if not before.

Jamie Lazaroff