I hate the word “random,” so let’s call this “unrelated thoughts,” shall we?

- Stephen Curry’s ball-fake on Shannon Brown last night was perhaps the most entertaining thing I’ve seen all season from a Golden State Warrior. Even made Kobe lean over to the soon-to-be-in-Europe Adam Morrison and said, “Motherf—–’s got moves.” At least that’s what it looked like, anyway.

- As my buddy Carp texted to me last night, “I think Monta’s hearing footsteps.”

- After watching the Magic/Bird show on HBO (excellent of course, like we’d expect anything else), something about March Madness suddenly became clear: the same people who hate Duke today would have absolutely HATED the Boston Celtics of the 1980’s.

- Not surprised Tiger Woods is playing in The Masters. I knew he would from the moment I found out he wasn’t going to die from the epic car crash Ray Woodson breathlessly described the day after Thanksgiving. However, I figured Tiger would do one of those $3M-appearance-fee deals in Dubai or Thailand first, before playing in Augusta. Shows that either he’s really worried about what people think about him, or the economy has put a damper on multi-million dollar appearance fees. Or both.

- I put this up on Twitter this morning, or something similar anyway: if Tiger rolls it in on 18 to win at The Masters, Jim Nantz might say, “He may be a dog in the bedroom, but he’s still A TIGER IN AUGUSTA!!!!”

- I don’t think I’ve ever had a harder time filling out my bracket than this year. Picking Kansas to win it all is never a good idea unless Danny Manning is involved, and John Calipari’s teams “refuse to lose” all the way until the Final 4 when they start shooting free throws even worse than they read. I’m one of those guys who hates Duke (self-hating white people are extremely common, apparently), and the only way a team can win a title with Jim Boeheim at the helm is if they have an uber-star like Carmelo Anthony there to counteract Boeheim’s gloomy aura. So much for the top seeds…

- Here’s what usually represents my (uggh) bracketology (besides “blogosphere” there aren’t many worse words, in my opinion):

1. Go Pac-10 heavy (doesn’t quite work this year, but they’re usually overrated in football and underrated in basketball…this year they’re a huge conference without one skilled guy over 6′7″)

2. Pick Michigan State to go far (I’m gay for Tom Izzo, like Steve Mariucci)

3. Study who did well in their last 10 games, and who has the best guard tandems (which didn’t help me AT ALL last season)

4. Do whatever Barack Obama does (OK, I didn’t do this last year, but we all should have…it’s actually a good thing to invite Andy Katz over to your house — who knew?)

Since none of those are good ideas, you know what I’m going to do this year? I’m going upset-city, baby! Oh yeah, I’m going to pick St. Mary’s to go all the way! Omar Samhan’s awesome, with a CAPITAL “A,” BABY!!!!

Ha. I am not going to tell you what I’m going to do. You’ll have to wait and see my bracket on Thursday like everyone else. No way I’m giving away the secrets that will lead me to a glorious orgy of cookies and truffles. And yes, I can win my own contest. When you start writing snarky comments about sports that are only slightly related to each other, then YOU can start your own pool and give away all the junk food you want.

Related posts:

1. Will the Warriors add a veteran free agent?
2. Are the Warriors so petty they’d pass on Ricky Rubio?
3. NCAA Pool’s done; go Spartans!

After calling out the players’ “fat little girlfriends” in the past, these videos should amuse, but they’re hardly shocking. And with Leach suing Texas Tech for wrongful termination, videos like this might not be what the ex-coach of the Red Raiders wants the entire world to see. Leach is an intense guy. There’s a lot of swearing in these two videos, and Leach tells the players that their “living situations are going to change,” and pokes fun at those religious players who live by “the book.” But if this country has become so P.C. that Division I football coaches, in the state of Texas no less, can offend people with a curse-filled postgame speech, we’re going to hell in a cute little pink handbag.

As for me, Leach has now become my favorite coach to listen to. Forget, “I’m a man, I’m 40.” You have to go through a lot of whiny garbage to get to that quote. Everything Leach says, to me anyway, is hilarious. His team did rest on what Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree did, leading to a disappointing season in 2009. And he wasn’t saying his God-squadders couldn’t pray, just that he hoped they were paying as much attention to football as they were to their on-field prayers. If the Raiders had any brains at all they’d immediately fire Tom Cable, replace him with Leach and slide right into what would be the most anticipated seasons of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” ever.

Finally, some Bay Area News Group controversy that doesn’t involve Tim “that’s not true” Kawakami

- Poor Raj Mathai. The erstwhile (and well-gelled) sports anchor fell for CC Times scribe Gary Peterson’s joke about JaMarcus Russell being in “treatment for lethargy addiction” and SPORTSbyBROOKS was right there to post the video evidence. I was confused by Peterson’s column from the first time I heard about it on F.P. Santangelo’s show. You see, I’m from Humboldt County, more people are getting treated for “methargy.” Being lazy, slovenly and overweight aren’t really seen as bad or abnormal characteristics up there. At least not bad enough to necessitate rehab.

- Adios, Shaun Hill. Sorry it had to be you, but if the 49ers kept your duck-throwing behind and dropped Nate Davis, everyone would swarm in front of the team’s Santa Clara headquarters, burning their Cody Pickett, Ken Dorsey and Tim Rattay jerseys in anger.

- Have to say I’m a little nervous about the Giants’ hot start to Spring Training (their record went to 8-2 after today’s game, which they won 9-2, concludes). It always seems like the teams that dominate either the Cactus or Grapefruit League end up starting the season 4-15 or something.

- Another person who should be nervous about his chances of becoming arbitration-eligible ASAP: Madison Bumgarner, after Todd Wellemeyer’s start today: 4 innings, 0 ER, 2 hits allowed.

- But with MadBum’s fastball reminding us of Kirk Reuter lately, the fearless leader of McCovey Chronicles hopes the Giants are “leaning toward Todd Wellemeyer, Joe Martinez, or Steven Johnson.”

- Shockingly (sarcasm implied), Mychael Urban doesn’t agree with the tone being set today at McC. In Urban’s MLB Mailbag, he had this to say about MaddyMaddyBumBum: “So everyone needs to relax about Madison. His stuff is good enough, and his command sharp enough, that he’d be successful at 87-88 mph, anyway — he’s never been a pure power pitcher. But he’ll be back in the low 90s by the end of camp, and all of this negativity will seem like exactly what it is: spring training filler for the glass-half-empty set.”

- I wonder if McCovey Chronicles will change the site’s name to “Glass-Half-Empty Chronicles.” I have to say, at least it’s a more apt description of Grant Brisbee’s community than “lunatic fringe.” Could use more Star Trek references, though.

- My thoughts on Bumgarner? (What do you mean, “I didn’t ask?”) If the 20-year-old can still get guys out with his noodle-arm, great. Is velocity overrated? Certainly. However, the fear Giants fans have about Bumgarner’s not-getting-any-faster fastball is that after Freddy Sanchez received two, um, inaccurate clean bills of health from the Giants’ training staff over a very expensive 5-month span, nobody’s ready to just take what the organization says at face value and figure everything’s going to be OK.

- Put it this way: if Tim Alderson’s Major League career comes even close to Bumgarner’s, Sabean will never, ever, ever hear the end of it. Especially if Freddy’s as fragile as Brandan Wright over the next couple years.

- Speaking of the team without a training staff, the Warriors absolutely have to win tomorrow at home against Toronto. Screw Nellie’s record, this is just so their losing streak (currently at 6 games) doesn’t stretch to 14. After Toronto, the Warriors play the Lakers, the Hornets (OK, they COULD win this game), @San Antonio, @Memphis, then at home against Phoenix, Memphis and Dallas.

- The Dubs have the 3rd-worst record in the league, but only the 8th-worst scoring differential (-4.00 pg). Fitz would say this is because the Warriors are a “scrappy team that never quits.” I’d say it shows that the Warriors are a semi-talented team that has absolutely no idea what they’re doing in the 4th quarter. They’re like an NBA Summer League team that decided to play an entire regular season, or an AAU team coached by J.R. Smith.

- When you have such a vast number of things to blame for the Warriors’ suckage this year (injuries, Don Nelson, salary-dumps, etc.), some reasons slip by the wayside. Like how in 7 fewer games with the Warriors, Anthony Tolliver has more 100 more points and has made 40 more free-throws than Andris Biedrins, and 98 more points, 6 more rebounds and 14 more made FTs than Ronny Turiaf (both Turiaf and Biedrins have played in 33 games this year, compared to 26 games for Tolliver since joining the Warriors). Tough to have that kind of center production on a team that doesn’t even have a real power forward.

Related posts:

1. Let’s hope for different talking points in 2010
2. Will the Warriors add a veteran free agent?
3. Everyone really trusts Larry Riley…What am I missing here?

For instance, I’ll never jinx my favorite team, even if they have the most insurmountable lead in the history of insurmountable leads. Quite the contrary, I’ll vocalize exactly what I don’t want to happen, hoping that the Sports God(s) will hear me and think, “Well, that’s no fun. BASG is expecting Nate Schierholtz to swing at a pitch that hits him in the ribs. I guess I’ll let him hit a homer here.”

So instead of posting stupid crap like, “I wonder if the Warriors would trade Monta if they got John Wall,” or, “Perhaps it will soon become illegal to drug test Aubrey Huff and Edgar Renteria,” let’s do something useful. That’s right, we’re going to go through a few worst-case scenarios that might have happened had we not already pondered them first.

1. 49ers WCS: The rumors that Mike Singletary has separate crushes on Tim Tebow and Taylor Mays are true, and the 49ers plan to draft them with picks No. 13 and 17, respectively. That sucks. I’d rather have Golden Taint than either of those two toolbags.

2. Giants WCS: Pablo Sandoval will always be a third baseman, Buster Posey will always be a first baseman and “Life of Brian” will have an uninterrupted 15-year run on Comcast Bay Area. PANDA IS A FIRST BASEMAN, AND WHILE ALL OF YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT TIM LINCECUM’S BACK FAT ICHIRO WILL TEAR HIS GROIN INTO THREE PIECES (gross).

3. Warriors WCS: Don Nelson will be back next year as coach of the Warriors, only he will cede the responsibilities of “lineup making,” “gameplanning,” “communicating with the refs” and “sitting on the bench” to Keith Smart and Stephen Silas. Nellie will take over as head athletic trainer, however.

4. Raiders WCS: Al Davis will not only live forever, he will become a Raiderette.

5. Athletics WCS: Ben Sheets will meet the same fate as every other injury-plagued player on the team over the past 5 years. He’ll be forced to wear ugly batting practice jerseys while watching games from the dugout every other day.

6. Sharks WCS: The 2010 NHL Playoffs will look exactly like the Olympics did for Evgeni Nabokov.

Related posts:

1. Tim Lincecum provides comic relief, and some links
2. 10 Things I’m thankful for
3. NBA Tuesday: Warriors ownership needs Cialis

Because I sure have. I couldn’t tell you what Alex Smith’s QB rating was in 2009, but I can tell you that Walter Football has the 49ers taking Joe Haden and C.J. Spiller in the first round. I have no idea how many points Anthony Randolph scored this year before tearing up his ankle, but I know that most outlets have the Warriors taking Wesley Johnson with the third pick. Great, the Warriors NEED another swingman. Maybe since he’s older than Randolph, Nellie will play him next year. Oh God, Nellie’s totally going to be back next year. Shudder.

Sure, NBA mock drafts are inherently stupid because the Warriors will probably end up getting shafted in the draft lottery and end up with the 6th pick or something, but it’s the future that gives us comfort in times like this.

Why even play the games anymore? Let’s just simulate every season like we’re playing Madden and wait until the superstar we’ve all been waiting for pops up in the next draft, like three cherries in a row on a slot machine.

You say “mock that,” you homes, mock this. I’m the king Ad Wiz and you’re Dick Butkus.

- Ladies in gentlemen, the award for the keenest grasp of the painfully obvious goes to this Bleacher Report writer.

- You REALLY have to check out this writer’s other posts:

- “Don Nelson is Older Now Than he was the First Time he Coached the Warriors“

- “Stephen Curry’s Dad is Dell Curry“

- and my personal favorite:

- “Basketballs are Made of Leather“

- Reason No. 8,716 why the 49ers haven’t been relevant in over a decade: their infatuation with backup quarterbacks on the NY Giants that’ll have more productive careers as broadcasters.

- I haven’t really touched on Bill Simmons subjects because of the name of this site. That’s what happens when your fiance buys www.thesportsguy.com for you as a Christmas present two years ago. You get that ESPN guilt, which somehow is very similar to Jewish guilt. Who knew?

- An aside: Really Simmons? You couldn’t spend the $20 to reserve the URL that contains the name that you’ve been known as for over a decade? Of course, working for a corporate mega-giant myself these days, I can understand how someone can assume the corporation he/she works for would cover their ass when it comes to SEO, then be surprised when they find out that the corporation they work for has no interest in protecting the content they sell.

- Anyway, after convincing SGL to also spring for “www.bayareasportsguy.com” and a few other BASG-related URL’s, I figured that while I owed Simmons a little debt because I hadn’t gotten rid of the “sports guy” portion of my name, the fact that I really don’t write like Simmons at all and never took unnecessary pot-shots at him meant I could go by BASG and not be considered a complete and total parasite.

- OK, now that we have that settled, some Simmons talk that I can’t won’t avoid any longer:

- The guy’s been long overdue for a pounding from the people who’ve been reading him. There hasn’t been a writer in the history of the published word who’s been read more often by more people over a 10-year span. The fact that all you have to say is “Karate Kid” and “Rocky” and you’ve already made a Simmons- joke shows that the Sports Fella has had made a nuclear impact on the world of sports-nerdery. Simmons-backlash was inevitable, and, as his writing has gotten more detached from the “everyfan” persona which made him so popular, the backlash is certainly deserved.

- Yes, the “Ali-Tiger chat” made me do a double-take when I first read it in one of the more disjointed chat sessions I’ve ever read on ESPN.com (if I were Simmons I’d make a “Two Coreys” joke here).

- No, it didn’t surprise me that guys like Charles Pierce and Keith Olbermann jumped on the chance to revel in Simmons’ retardedry.

- And after all of this, I have one question: what do I need to say something stupid about to get this kind of attention? He’s in a contract year, you idiots! Saying something half-baked about the most salacious story of the year (Tiger Woods) while bringing up the biggest star alive (Muhammad Ali) in the same process is so, so obviously a publicity stunt. Even a Bleacher Reporter should be able to figure that out.

Related posts:

1. Does blogging burn calories? God, I hope so
2. Our server = Bob Howry
3. Are the Warriors so petty they’d pass on Ricky Rubio?

Last night I did something that made my girlfriend, SGL, scream and ensured that the next six months or so are going to be by far the busiest in both of our lives: I proposed. And at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I’m going to give the guys out there a list of dos and don’ts when it comes time to pop the question.

Do: a ton of research before you actually go anywhere where engagement rings are sold. Because let’s face it, we’re all dudes (unless we’re chicks, right bro?). The last thing we want to do is go to a ring store and walk away without buying something, prolonging the process. But you also don’t want to end up buying some ugly ring that a pushy salesperson thrusts upon you, a ring that after you get home you realize is actually a piece of aluminum with a half-eaten Jolly Rancher as the gemstone. Sure, that’s a tasty ring, but your girlfriend won’t be hungry. And my girlfriend doesn’t even like Jolly Ranchers (which is insane, I know).

Don’t: buy a ring in the middle of flu season. I purchased mine at a store in downtown SF (two blocks from where I work: score!), and planned to propose two or three days later. Then the girl’s stomach pains turned into a full blown virus, meaning I had to pretend I had come home from work early in the afternoon to make her vegetarian chicken noodle soup, when in fact I had planned to surprise her with a dinner of crab, sourdough and champagne, with a diamond ring for dessert. Tough to propose to someone who can’t hold down solid food.

Do: take Emergen-C, Airborne, Zicam and whatever else you can think of to prevent getting sick yourself. I had planned to wait out the lady’s flu bug, then as she started feeling a little better got slammed with a wicked cold and bronchitis that floored me for four days.

Don’t: wear a shirt you care about when proposing. After I got down on one knee, my girlfriend screamed, and either her body got flooded with more adrenaline than Patrick Swayze had going in Point Break, or I squeezed her too hard, because she got a bloody nose. And not just a minor one, either. SGL’s face looked like a vampire crying in True Blood. It was awesome. Talk about a blood diamond, you know what I’m saying?!?! Anyone? Hello?

Do: charge your phone. If you’re like me and you keep your phone conversations short and infrequent, the amount of time you’ll spend on the phone after getting engaged will boggle your mind.

Don’t: tell your girlfriend to show the ring to her friend who’s married but never got an engagement ring. Because the friend will say something like, “Oh, that’s a nice ring. But you should see Tina’s ring! IT’S THE HUGEST ROCK I’VE EVER SEEN! HER MOM’S A JEWELER! YOU SHOULD COME WITH ME TO LOOK AT IT!”

Do: remember to eat in between bouts of celebratory post-proposal drinking.

Don’t: end any night of drinking with champagne. Just don’t. Trust me.

Do: get your ring at a unique place in the city.

Don’t: buy the ring from a street vendor.

Do: buy a ring that has a band made of platinum or gold.

Don’t: buy a ring with a band made of hemp. Even if your soon-to-be fiance went to UC Santa Cruz or Humboldt St., she’s probably not going to be impressed.

Do: get down on one knee when you propose. Women like this. Even women who say it isn’t necessary. Can’t even count know how many times SGL or I have been asked if I got down on bended knee like Boyz II Men.

Don’t: write a self-indulgent post about proposing to your girlfriend on your sports blog. It’s unbecoming.

No related posts.

Me: wearing pajama-like clothing and thick socks, underneath two warm blankets.

The dog (AKA Lincepom): lying patiently next to me, wishing I was mobile enough to throw her favorite ball across the apartment.

Yep, this week marked the longest illness in recent years, a nasty cold/fever/bronchitis combination which caused me to miss work for three straight days. In fact, I’d probably still be home today if missing more than three days consecutively weren’t so taboo in the corporate world. But yesterday I was in full rest mode, looking for something to nap to.

Should I choose the Capitals/Sabres game on Versus? Nah, Alex Ovechkin is too interesting, and my post-Olympics hockey high hasn’t quite dissipated quite yet.

How about one of the league networks (MLB, NFL, NBA, etc.)? No, because they’d surely start talking about spring training, the NBA draft or some sort of hypothetical player transactions that would no doubt grab my attention.

The perfect answer for a late afternoon/early evening snooze? The Golden State Warriors on the second end of a Florida back-to-back in Orlando.

Oh, I stayed awake for a little while. Long enough to see Ronny Turiaf make a layup while getting fouled, followed by some sort of Antoine Walker-esque shimmy-shake by the Frenchman. I also remember hearing Jim Barnett implore Stephen Curry to concentrate on passing rather than forcing up shots (translation: please, for the love of God, stop ballhogging). But soon, the dulcet tones of Bob Fitzgerald describing Dwight Howard jump-hooks had me in a deeper sleep than Felipe Alou in the bottom of the sixth.

I had some dream where it was halftime, with Matt Steinmetz complaining that Howard goes to his left hand too much, and Garry St. Jean mentioned that Anthony Morrow’s turning into a “real good player.”

About an hour later, the dog finally decided she couldn’t take it anymore. She jumped on my shoulder, pawed at the blankets surrounding my face and licked my nose, which in dog language means, “Hey lazy ass, I need to take a piss and I can’t exactly open the door and run down three flights of stairs without your help.” It was the fourth quarter, and the Warriors were down by 20+.

Nap: successful.

Warriors: suck-sess-full.

The Dubs may not be able to field (court?) a legitimate NBA roster, and they may be the most irrelevant and oddly dysfunctional franchise in the NBA other than the New Jersey Nets, but they sure can help a guy sweat out a cold when paired with a healthy serving of cough syrup.

Related posts:

1. Groundhog Day: Stephen Jackson wants off the Warriors
2. NBA Tuesday: Should the Warriors go after Rajon Rondo?
3. NBA Tuesday: Warriors drafting for their lives

Really, why is everyone so enamored with curling? Entire cable networks are devoted to it right now. People can’t stop talking about it. Pregnant ladies are competing and nobody blinks an eye, mostly because they’ll miss catching a glimpse Cheryl Bernard, the Canadian curling SMILF (she’s a step-mom). I still don’t get the appeal of watching televised shuffleboard on ice. What’s next, croquet in the Summer Games?

Still, even though this country seems to get more and more Canadafied by the day, there are a lot of interesting Olympiad-related things going on. Also, I’ve interspersed some things I’ve noticed on my daily walking commute from Alamo Square to 4th and Market (that’s right, I dare you to find me and unmask me for good one of these mornings) and other stuff. Lots of non-column-length things to talk/laugh about. Let’s get to it:

- One of the best subplots of this Olympics, and the entire NHL season, is Mike Milbury’s hatred for all things Russian. Usually he saves his illogical diatribes for Alex Ovechkin, but calling a team “eurotrash” on NBC, as he did the Russians after their suckalicious performance against Canada, was surreal.

- C’mon Milbury, it’s not like the Russians were wearing man-capris!

- There are ads in parts of San Francisco that actually show side-nip right now, thanks to Diesel’s Be Stupid campaign (click “view the campaign” if you’re really curious…it’s the chick flashing the security camera). Makes me feel like I was in Europe.

- I think we learned yesterday why the Sharks won’t go any further than the second round of the playoffs: Evgeni Nabokov.

- See, that’s the difference between the NHL and the NFL. In the NFL, you can win the Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer as your quarterback. In the NHL, you can’t hide a regular season goalie in the playoffs.

- Good thing Scotty Lago isn’t taking the whole banishment from Vancouver thing too hard. So a girl was photographed pretending to blow his bronze medal? The IOC should just be happy he didn’t turn his new prize into the first ever medal-pipe and hotbox a Subaru with Michael Phelps.

- A couple weeks ago I was walking through the Tenderloin and saw a cop chasing a guy on foot. The dude almost got away, until he tripped over his saggy pants in the middle of the Leavenworth-and-Eddy intersection, after which the cop tackled him, rubbed his face into the ground and cuffed him, all while an oncoming Lexus that had been traveling 45 mph toward the intersection screeched to a halt. Seven police cars were on the scene with 45 seconds, and some guy in a suit with a badge strolled up to the scene a minute later, looking like Peter McNulty from The Wire. I’m never taking that route to work again.

- This isn’t about the Olympics, but the Warriors really should have traded Monta Ellis when they had the chance. I wonder if his public trade demand will come before or after the next draft, and how long it will be before Ben Gordon and Don Nelson are finally brought together. You know it’s coming.

- And now it’s also too late to trade Andris Biedrins, who seems to have gone into an “emo phase.”

- I think O.J. Mayo would work much better with Stephen Curry than Montizzle, and at a much cheaper price, but maybe the Warriors shouldn’t be slammed to harshly for rejecting that trade with the Grizzlies, who today sent Hasheem Thabeet to the D-League.

- Back to Olympic soap operas, led by the whole VonnCuso dustup. I guess I’d care more about the whole Lindsey Vonn vs. Julia Mancuso thing, except they both seem like bitches and their respective attractiveness levels sunk around the 8th time I saw either of them crying on TV. Girls crying: not a turn on. That’s why I hate Claire Danes, who makes that same scrunched-up crying face in every … single … thing she’s in.

- I know Johnny Depp is supposed to be the Mad Hatter in those Alice in Wonderland posters I see at bus stops all around town, but to me he just looks like Elijah Wood.

- And since the Olympics are all about drug testing, let’s move to the world of baseball … sort of. Jay McGwire is out trying to make some Canseco-money with a book about his roided-out brother. Who cares. But I had no idea how much juice Jay had flowing through his system when he was a bodybuilder. That picture of him halfway down the article is stunning in its grotesqueness, isn’t it?

- Everyone’s all excited that NBC decided to treat all of us like adults and show us the US/Finland game live at noon tomorrow. But before we all start patting the GE network on the back, remember that tomorrow’s Friday, when nobody watches TV in the evening besides senior citizens who can’t make out the puck on their TV screens. I would have been watching it live anyway … on my computer, where we’re all going to get all of our TV programming within the next 10 years. Hopefully my boss doesn’t walk by and wonder why instead of writing riveting job-seeking articles for accountants, I’m watching Zach Parise and Ryan Miller.

Related posts:

1. Groundhog Day: Stephen Jackson wants off the Warriors
2. The Warriors better be watching the Olympics
3. Amare Stoudemire will “be a Warriors”

I’ll let your imagination tell you which 4-letter word I censored there.

But today, the BASG penthouse was awash in hip checks, empty-net goals and white guy beards (and this time, I’m not just talking about mine). Russia/Czech Republic was the appetizer, and USA/Canada was the best meaningless game any of us have seen since the Patriots went to 16-0 in 2007 with their 38-35 win over the Giants. So without further ado, here’s 10 thoughts about all that crazy hockey.

1. The Russian team is surprisingly likable. Alex Ovechkin is great, and we all know that, but isn’t it easier to like Russians now than it has ever been? I give all the credit to Andrei Kirilenko and his wife.

2. NBC execs have been in full o-face mode all evening, even though the American hockey team beat Canada for the first time since 1960 ON MSNBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. The NBC forgoing USA/Canada in favor of ice dancing tonight was the sports equivalent of All My Children interrupting all their normal storylines in favor of “UFC Week.” (NBC, after the Conan/Leno fiasco and a near-decade of shoddy non-Thursday night programming, if you don’t start showing USA hockey games on the network starting Wednesday, we’ll know for certain that you are trying to sabotage the peacock brand for eternity.)

4. It always makes me feel old to see Chris Drury score goals, whether it’s in the NHL or in the Olympics. When you remember watching a guy pitch in Little League World Series as a kid yourself, and then you see the same guy have a decade-long hockey career that seems like it won’t end, you start counting the gray hairs on your own playoff beard.

5. Weird scene between periods when Russia played the Czech Republic: Jeremy Roenick and Mike Milbury having a “Crosby vs. Ovechkin” argument, and Milbury goes with Ovechkin while Roenick, who just days ago took Milbury to task for failing to give Ovechkin his due, says he’d take Crosby. In other words, studio shows are even more bullshitty than we thought.

6. Ryan Kessler’s empty net goal was one of the most amazing athletic feats I’ve seen in years. Too bad the only replay NBC showed was from a camera that was behind the puck.

7. At least they showed the group of “happy humans” that the color commentator described. Really? Happy humans? As opposed to happy marsupials? Happy elephants? Alliteration isn’t always your friend.

8. What are the odds that Gary Radnich goes on the air on Monday morning, starts talking about college basketball and answers another Dibley squawk-fest with, “Name four players on Team USA!”?

9. One thing Canada might want to work on: their constant three-man-weave FAILs when on the power play. Sure, it’s nice to hold the puck and pass it amongst three teammates all within 20 feet of the crease, but if the passes are robotic and the defense has been set longer than a “box and one” zone in basketball, you might want to try a different tactic, like moving.

10. Most of all, I’m shocked about what happened tonight in terms of my own interest level. What am I missing about the NHL? Is it this exciting all the time? Ever? I was completely transfixed the entire afternoon and evening, and it was like I was a born-again hockey fan. I was explaining the power play, lines and shifts to SGL. I yelled during multiple American and Russian goals (I’m such a communist). I’m going to have to start paying attention to the NHL, at least a little, once this whole Olympics vacation is over. Hell has frozen over. Pigs have flown.

Related posts:

1. The Olympics soap opera rolls on…
2. USA Olympic Basketball: a look ahead
3. The Giants got a lot younger while I was in Canada

I don’t know about you, but “I’m sorry” only worked in combination with moderate-to-severe punishment with my parents. Either a nice groundation sensation or a few spankings (just kidding mom and dad … not really) were what it took to make “I’m sorry” count. But athletes are so spoiled, so entitled, that the simple act of admitting wrong makes them feel like they deserve love, compassion, forgiveness and that all-important second chance.

Fine. I don’t care about what Tiger did to his wife, I never thought he had much of a personality anyway. And that assertion certainly didn’t change today, when he handled his V.I.P.-only press conference with the same sharp wit and crisp delivery I saw from Bobby Jindal’s response to Barack Obama’s first speech to congress (yes, sarcasm implied).

Its not what you achieve in life that matters … it is what you overcome … Achievements on the golf course are not what matters … decency and honestly are what matter.

Americans can do … anything!

This is what happens when people who’ve been deemed powerful public figures can’t be trusted to give anything other than prepared statements when the world’s watching. You know why everyone supposedly lusts for apologies from celebrities and politicians? Not because it makes anything they did OK, but because we’re all just looking for some humanity in these people. And we aren’t looking for a simple way to connect with those who are untouchable, but so it’s easier to live vicariously through them.

Sure, it would have been a total shit-show to have everyone from Jeremy Schapp to TMZ asking him questions today, but how about speaking extemporaneously for once? How about talking as if English is your first language — at a normal speed and without pauses after every contrived, marketing team-produced thought? Tiger doesn’t owe any of us an explanation for what he did, it’s between him and his wife (blahblahblah). But he’s the one who brought the world’s attention to this little shindig today, and he didn’t even tell us when he’s going to golf again. Crass as that might have been, at least the press conference would have provided a nugget I’d remember besides some awkward references to Buddhism.

Tiger will never grow up to be John Wooden, giving sage advice to everyone via the wisdom that living/coaching for decades provides. Tiger is never going to be the world’s wonderful golfing superdad, and that’s fine. He’s a robot who smashes golf balls, delights in mentally torturing opponents (and Swedish women, apparently) and doesn’t know how to properly lock his Blackberry. And for me (and most of us, I assume), that’s fine. No apologies necessary. And in cases like today’s stilted, prepared “I’m deeply sorry” speech, maybe things would be better without a Tiger mea culpa.

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I tried to go through this interview and cut out most of the hardcore videogame stuff, since nobody really cares about a game that was released over a year ago. However, since the guy is a great talker and is now clearly one of the best athletes and most famous persons on the planet, I figured a lot of the things he’d have to say here were interesting. After all, I got no direction on where to take my 10-minute interview with him, other than the Ubisoft PR woman telling all of us that we were forbidden to call him “The Flying Tomato.” You know, because he hates that. (Not that I blame him, since tomatoes are used to throw at people, making fun of gingers has become trendy and most tomatoes don’t even taste that good.)

Anyway, if you watched his amazing runs last night in the Winter Olympics halfpipe competition, where he nailed a trick nobody else could probably even think of, you know how ridiculous this ginger is at snowboarding. From this interview, he’s also pretty good at snowball-throwing, gambling and getting girls into his hot tub.

BASG: This game is pretty realistic but there’s a lot of humor in it, too. It looks like that’s an important part of your personality that you wanted to come through in the game.

Shaun White: Yeah, you can snowball people, you can make wagers against them about winning money, and if you win you get to buy new jackets and boards and whatever. It’s fun, it’s a challenge and you get to challenge your friends. You can go complete the whole quest if you want but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. You can really choose what you want to do and that’s what’s fun. You’re not forced down one run, you can go anywhere.

BASG: Are you a good snowball chucker?

Shaun White: Have I snowballed my friends in real life?

BASG: Yeah.

Shaun White: Oh man, it gets bad! It’s a war out there.

BASG: The “friends” part of it seems like it’s one of the biggest angles of the game.

Shaun White: I love the wagering, that’s just so funny.

BASG: Do you wager when you’re actually snowboarding?

Shaun White: Oh, man! My friend can’t land tricks unless I put something up for grabs. He cannot do it! He was sitting there trying this easy trick the whole time, and right when you’re like, “Alright, I bet you that you gotta put pink stickers all over your board,” you know. But we actually were skateboarding so the wager was that you gotta put pink grip tape on your board, for like two weeks.

BASG: No wonder he made it!

Shaun White: Yeah! He’s like oh, boom! And he sticks it. It’s funny, he just needed that little extra motivation to get it done.

BASG: Have you talked to Tony Hawk about his experience with a signature game?

Shaun White: Yeah a bit, but I don’t know, I mean Tony’s rad, he’s just one of those dudes where in a way my game sort of competes with his. Not straight up, but he’s been doing his own thing for a couple years now, which is awesome. He’s got a great game, he’s got a great product. For me, it wasn’t so much game play advice or anything like that, I’m sure he can’t even talk about that anyway, or would want to [laughs]. I called him up and was like, “Dude I’m getting my own game, like yeah, it’s crazy.” And he’s excited for me, so it’s cool to be in a sport where somebody’s not mad at you. My friend will win an event and I’m like wow, I’m bummed because I didn’t win, but you know what, it’s a good friend of mine, so I’m stoked.

BASG: Why do you think that is different in what you’re doing, than in say basketball, where you hear about players getting mad at each other?

Shaun White: I don’t know. There’s just a different mentality, there’s rivalries and it all comes down to like the old schooling and what school you used to go to, you know, there’s such deep roots there. It’s like people have been in feuds for years, like Boston and the Yankees, it hasn’t been for the past couple of years, it’s been for years. So if you’re from Boston you grow up going, “I don’t like these guys,” not like that it’s all lighthearted it stays on the field, I’m sure. For our sport, it’s such a new sport.

We don’t have those deep roots yet, we don’t have those things. But I would say within our sport, more than that, it’s a lifestyle, that’s why it’s so popular. It’s a fun sport and it’s backed around a certain lifestyle, and the lifestyle is having fun, being relaxed and being casual and kind of doing your own expressive stuff. You go up on the hill and you’ll see people wearing some of the craziest stuff you’ve ever seen, because they got their own style and their own thing. Some dude’s in crazy-tight jeans and like a raccoon hat and no shirt on, there’s a kid with the craziest tall t-shirt rap style you’ve ever seen and it’s just funny, it’s expressive culture. It’s cool, he’s got his friends and they all hang out together, ’cause it doesn’t matter.

BASG: Obviously you’ve positioned yourself pretty well, is there anybody maybe outside of action sports or snowboarding who you look up to in the business world as a model for you?

Shaun White: You know, it’s funny because the only guy I can really relate what’s happening to me would be Tony Hawk because it’s a similar sport and stuff, but then I realize it’s a whole different thing that what he’s kind of received because I went to the Olympics it’s a whole different spectrum of what’s going on. I definitely think times have changed since Tony first started skating. Skating was peaked, and then it went to nowhere and now it’s back, all of a sudden. He’s seen a lot of different changes and for me to pick up not really where he’s leaving off, it’s just join on that and extend it, is really cool. Sky’s the limit, so I’m doing whatever I want to do.

BASG: You’re a star athlete obviously, clothing line, videogames, you even have an episode of “MTV Cribs”…

Shaun White: Oh, God. I was 16, man, they keep showing that! People are like, “I saw your Cribs,” and I’m like, I look 12 in that footage.

BASG: You also had girls waiting for you in the hot tub though, that was a good part of it…

Shaun White: You know, [laughing] young guys have crazy needs.

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