Sunday Special

Two more NFL Wildcard games took place tonight and with no real surprises to speak of.
Philadelphia just finished off the Giants with a game ending field goal, in a game that was fairly back and forth with hi and lows for both squadrons. The J-E-T-S Jets! Jets! Jets! L-O-S-T Lost! Lost! Lost! to the New England Patriots. Say what you will about the build up and the ‘hatred’ or ‘disgust’ that Belicheck has with Mangini, but it all comes down to the W and Belicheck again gets it done. Yea, I suppose that some of the credit could be given to Tom Brady and the Pat’s Defence that iced the game in the final 5 minutes with a pick off of Chad Pennington for a TD. Yesterday’s contest had the Colts slowly but surely beat the KC Chiefs. Then of course there was Tony Romo’s blunder that cost the Cowboys their playoffs. The funny thing is that he was the placeholder at the beginning of the year before he took Drew Bledsoe’s job. It wasn’t Romo’s first time as the placeholder but now there is a report that a different ball was used, which was a reason that the ball slipped out of his hands and resulted in the botched field goal attempt.

Now no need to analyze or think about any of this. The better teams won and move on. That and I have not been paying much attention to NFL this season and am a lil lost in some storylines and statistics. The only thing is that next week’s match ups will be ones to watch. In the AFC, the divisional games have the San Diego Chargers taking on the New England Patriots, and the Baltimore Ravens will take on the Indianapolis Colts. The NFC picture has the top seeded Chicago Bears taking on the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints are home to the Philadelphia Eagles. Good games and if I pick em now there will be San Diego taking on the Indianapolis Colts for the AFC crown and Chicago and New Orleans will meet for the NFC crown.

So as a true Canadian there was NHL hockey on TSN featuring the New Jersey Devils and the Montreal Canadiens. Martin Brodeur facing off against the Montreal Canadiens sounds about right. The new NHL was suppose to get rid of the trap and make it harder for those teams to win games by 1 goal. It is also meant to expose weaknesses in a goalies skill set. Have you looked down Martin Brodeur’s career statistics? Lets take a quick look 1993 Calder Trophy, 1996-7,2002-3 Jennings Trophy winner for fewest GAA and 2 Vezina Trophy’s. and 3 Stanley Cups. Now for personal stats, 5 years of 40+ wins, 470 Wins 86 Shutouts 2.20 GAA. Pretty impressive.

Brodeur is 34 and has about 6 years left to earn 80 odd games to be the winningest goalie of all time. And about 20 shutouts to be the all time shutout leader. No matter what happens in his career, you cannot deny that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. The one question is that does he deserve to be called the greatest goaltender in Hockey history. Since Brodeur started his career with the New Jersey Devils in 1993 the Devils have played the trap system, think about Patrick Roy and the Canadiens, they never played the trap and were always in a run and gun offence which would either work beautifully or it would leave Roy hi and dry. Now there are many highlights of Brodeur’s career but if you think about how he won all the games is he really deserving. Or did he just play a system that allowed him such success as long as the Devils got the first goal of the game or got a lead. No matter what I still believe he is a great goalie and his only real losses in life comes from his divorce settlement. But that is life. 2 Vezina’s 3 Cups, and will soon be number 1 on the all time wins list. Mover over Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur is claiming your spotlight. Now wouldn’t it be great if he owned and coached a QMJHL team and coached head to head against Roy. Hey it could happen.