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02/07/2012 - Montreal, QC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tomas Plekanec scored in the eighth round of the shootout to help the Montreal Canadiens take a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Bell Centre.
In the eighth round, Plekanec beat Marc-Andre Fleury to the glove side with a wrister and Carey Price sealed the win as he kept out a low forehand shot from Jason Williams.
Louis Leblanc and Lars Eller both scored in regulation for the Canadiens, who have won their past two. Price made 32 stops in the win.
"I thought we played well the whole game," said Plekanec. "We tried to shut them down. "We we're able to get two points. That's the most important thing."
Pascal Dupuis and James Neal scored for the Penguins, who have dropped three of four. Fleury posted 28 stops in the loss.
"We were able to get the game even on Neal's goal," said Pittsburgh head coach Dan Bylsma. "Then we had to kill a penalty to get a point and it was a big point. Would have been better to get both points because you don't feel good when you lose a shootout."
The first 20 minutes passed scoreless as Price stopped 11 shots and Fleury made 10 saves.
Montreal, though, got on the board at the 11:21 mark of the second when Leblanc got the puck inside the Pittsburgh zone and from the inside right circle beat Fleury cleanly with a shot.
Pittsburgh tied the game 63 seconds into the third while shorthanded as Joe Vitale's pass from the right wing to the front of the net went off the right skate of Dupuis and past Price.
Montreal took the lead back as Eller's easy shot from the left point fooled Fleury at the three-minute mark.
However, the Pens tied the game 4 1/2 minutes later as Evgeni Malkin sent a pass from behind the net that deflected off the stick of a Hab and went right to Neal, who used the one-timer from the low left side for his 28th of the year.
Game Notes
Montreal plays in New York against the Islanders on Thursday...Pittsburgh has off until Saturday when it will host Winnipeg...This was the last game between these two this season. Montreal avoided the sweep as the Penguins had won the previous three.
<< Edler lifts Canucks over Preds in shootout
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alexander Edler scored in the sixth round of
a shootout Tuesday night, lifting the Vancouver Canucks to a 4-3 win over the
Nashville Predators.
Edler challenged Pekka Rinne from the left side, skating de
<< Elliott tops former team, leading Blues over Sens
Ottawa, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Almost a year after the Ottawa Senators traded
him to the Colorado Avalanche, Brian Elliott made his regular season return to
Scotiabank Place.
Elliott stopped 28 shots and led the St. Louis Blues over Ot
<< Pekovic helps Minnesota down Sacramento
Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nikola Pekovic had a double-double with 23
points and 10 rebounds to lead Minnesota as it defeated Sacramento, 86-84, at
Target Center on Tuesday.
Michael Beasley added his own double-double with 17 point
<< Clifford's goal the difference in Kings' win over Lightning
Tampa, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kyle Clifford scored the eventual game-winner
midway through the second period as the Los Angeles Kings skated past the
Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-1, at Tampa Bay Times Forum.
Anze Kopitar and Dustin Penne
Aves beat slumping Blackhawks >>
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Jones scored twice as the Colorado
Avalanche took down the slumping Chicago Blackhawks, 5-2, at Pepsi Center.
Kyle Quincey, Peter Mueller and Gabriel Landeskog each had a goal for the
Avalanch
Avs beat slumping Blackhawks >>
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Jones scored twice as the Colorado
Avalanche took down the slumping Chicago Blackhawks, 5-2, at Pepsi Center.
Kyle Quincey, Peter Mueller and Gabriel Landeskog each had a goal for the
Avalanch
Rangers lock up SS Andrus with 3-year deal >>
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers agreed to a three-year,
$14.5 million contract with shortstop Elvis Andrus on Tuesday night, according
to MLB.com.
The deal, which is pending a physical, would make him a free agent af
Ellis' 48 not enough, Durant lifts Thunder over Warriors >>
Oakland, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kevin Durant scored 33 points and made the go-
ahead jumper with 14.2 seconds remaining, as the NBA-leading Oklahoma City
Thunder snuck past Monta Ellis and the Golden State Warriors, 119-116.
Durant also
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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