Water Cooler – August 3rd, 2010
Here we go with today’s sports water cooler talk. Here, you won’t just find the straight news; you’ll find the stuff everyone is talking about – the ice breakers, the Twitter Sports Picks and topics…well, basically all the stuff you discuss at the water cooler.
Enjoy!
The NHL pops back in the news for the first time in a while today – and it’s the same team stirring up controversy as it has been all summer.
NHL news: Blackhawks let Niemi walk, grab Turco
The Stanley Cup champs continue to crumble, piece by piece. The latest player they cast away is Anti Niemi, the rookie goaltender who backstopped them to a championship. He was awarded $2.75 million in arbitration and, as a result, the Hawks walked away.
Still strapped with salary cap issues, they figured it was smarter to grab Marty Turco on a one-year deal for $1.3 million.
Meanwhile, Anti Niemi is now an unrestricted free agent.
Minor trade to report: the Rangers sent Donald Brashear and Patrick Rissmiller to Atlanta for Todd White. Todd White struggled last season, notching 26 points, but he tallied 73 the year before.
Maybe he can rediscover the magic centering Marion Gaborik.
NFL news: Haynesworth still barred from practicing; Moreno out with hamstring injury; Suh holds out
A pile of news in the NFL today – none of it good. Albert Haynesworth still isn’t allowed to practice with the Washington Redskins at the moment; Mike Shanahan won’t allow it until he passes the team conditioning test.
He failed it Thursday and Friday, didn’t take it Saturday or Sunday because of knee soreness and stopped partway on Monday because of that same soreness.
Fantasy football players probably learned the news on Sunday night but, if case you don’t know, Knowshon Moreno will miss the next three weeks or so with a slightly torn right hamstring. Moreno ran for 947 yards as a rookie, so the Broncos definitely hope he’ll return in time for the season opener on September 12.
Throw another holdout onto the pile. The latest is No. 2 overall 2010 draft pick Ndamukong Suh of the Detroit Lions.
The big defensive lineman’s camp is reportedly working hard to resolve the contract dispute but Suh has already missed three days of practice and counting.
Suh Tweeted a biblical passage yesterday: “Judge not by with appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Good to know, Mr. Suh.
NBA news: Dennis Rodman escapes car crash unharmed; LeBron and Cleveland fans feud
It was the type of crash that rarely results in a clean getaway – but leave it to Dennis Rodman to break that rule. He was riding in an SUV that flipped on Interstate 95 outside Fort Lauderdale on Saturday; the driver was taken to hospital but Rodman escaped with nothing more than a scratch on his finger.
Don’t expect the anti-love fest between LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to end any time soon. Cleveland erected a billboard asking LeBron “how it feels to be a sidekick.”
LeBron took out a full-page newspaper ad in the Akron Beacon Journal to thank Akron but not Cleveland for their years of support.
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