Unbalanced
The Unbalanced explores the world of sports and the culture surrounding it; from basketball to baseball, football, hockey, wrestling, and more.
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Stories in Unbalanced that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Lovin’ the PWHL
The inaugural season for professional women’s hockey is well underway and I, like many North American sports enthusiasts, have cottoned on to the excitement of the games and the fanfare. Most of the women playing are relatively well-known through previous media exposure during Olympic games, World Championships and Rivalry matches between Canada and the United States. Yesterday, March 8, being International Women’s Day, I decided that I would pay tribute to the women of the world in my own little sports-minded way, and watch a PWHL game between the teams from Toronto and Montreal. Casually observing the new teams since the start of the season, I had suspected that the Women’s league was somehow different from the NHL and other men’s hockey leagues around the world. Sometimes these differences don’t show up during the Olympic games or World Championships because of the media focus on winning gold medals and the like. However, during a regular season hockey game, be it a men’s game or a women’s game, one gets a chance to really notice what the respective games are all about. I would therefore like to weigh in on what have formerly been suspicions but now are being seen as true differences between men’s and women’s professional hockey.
John Oliver SmithPublished 10 days ago in UnbalancedA Spirit That Fears Nothing
There are many sound reasons to repudiate professional sport in general and NHL hockey in particular. After all, the game has been as utterly defiled by cynical, avaricious late-stage capitalism as every other aspect of contemporary existence. The ordinary fan is incessantly encouraged by marketers and advertisers to gamble, guzzle alcoholic beverages and devour kilograms of fast food, which is a bald oxymoron if you contemplate it for a moment. Salaries are stratospherically inflated, as are ticket prices, and what passes for discourse generated by the participants in, and commentators upon, the game is so full of cliches and verbal false limbs that Orwell’s ghost will never stop screaming.
D. J. ReddallPublished 2 months ago in UnbalancedThe History of the Adams Division
I've followed the NHL in some form for 30 years, but I'm still learning about the league I enjoy watching. A long time ago, I did learn about the old divisions: Adams, Patrick, Norris, and Smythe. These divisions predated the geographical ones that we've known for the last 30 years, and the rivalries were immensely intense during that period. This will be the first of four stories focusing on those classic divisions, and I'll start geographically, even though the names had nothing to do with location. First off, the Adams Division.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 2 months ago in UnbalancedA Look Ahead to Week 18 of the 2023 NFL Season
Week 17 kicks off tonight, but I want to take a look ahead to Week 18, the final week of the regular season. We all love the final week, don't we? We've really loved it since they changed the final week's schedule back in 2010. The final week always completes the league's playoff puzzle, it's do or die for a lot of teams looking to get in and even clinch divisions. However, a lot of games lacked a lot of drama, and even saw teams not give their all when they know that they can't move up in the standings. So in 2010, the NFL decided to make all of the final week's games divisional, because regardless of where a team is in the standings, that team wants to give their all to defeat a division rival.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 3 months ago in Unbalanced63 Strikes, You're Out!
They did it, folks. They finally did it. The Los Angeles Chargers actually fired Brandon Staley as their head coach, with the firing coming after the Chargers suffered a very embarrassing loss on national television. The Chargers were on the road against the Las Vegas Raiders, and it was a game that saw the Raiders absolutely pour it on. 63 points. Nine touchdowns--seven of them by the offense. The 63 points fell just 10 short of the long-standing record set by the Chicago Bears, who scored 73 points in the 1940 NFL Championship Game over Washington. However, the Raiders' 63 points are the most in team history, and marked the second time this season that a team scored 60+ points--the Miami Dolphins scored 70 points in Week 3.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 3 months ago in UnbalancedNFL Week 9 Recap: Nine Months
January 2, 2023. We all remember that Monday evening. The Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals faced each other in what was the final Monday night game of the season. Regarding the game and the storyline, it was two teams jockeying for position in the AFC, as they were both in position to possibly take the AFC's #1 seed. This was an important game for both teams, but before the 1st quarter ended, there was suddenly something much, much more important than the game of football.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 4 months ago in UnbalancedFantasy Football is BACK!
Despite being English, I have found myself becoming more and more enamoured with the sport that the Americans call “football”. Watching American Football in the UK used to be a most difficult proposition, aside from the Superbowl the only way to watch any action was a highlights show at 1am on a Wednesday morning. During the nineties and early 2000’s I was school aged, but after that coverage started to improve. In recent years Sky Sports have added the Thursday and Monday night games, as well as three Sunday matches. Even then, the absolutely baffling decision to host games only on nights when most people have work confuse me no end. But as my interest has grown, I’ve put additional effort into trying to keep up with the games when I can. My wife has since joined me in this interest, but unlike me she is a reasonable person, who goes to bed at a sensible time rather than staying up into the night watching foreign sports and typing up nonsense for strangers to read (4th wall break! Hi, thanks for reading).
Luke FosterPublished 6 months ago in UnbalancedNFL Week 1 Recap: A New York Minute
The NFL is back, and this fan was ever so eager for the season to start. My reasons were simple. One, I had a good feeling about Fantasy Football this year, and two, I'm a Yankees fan who wants to forget about this disaster of a season. With every new NFL season comes new storylines and new questions, and one of the biggest new storylines of the debuting 2023 NFL season had to be Aaron Rodgers making his New York Jets debut on Monday Night Football.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 6 months ago in Unbalanced
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Most recently published stories in Unbalanced.
Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole choose 'potential squad', which includes Arsenal and Liverpool stars
Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole choose 'potential squad', which includes Arsenal and Liverpool stars Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole have named a list of players who were paid for their achievements but did not achieve high levels, including Jack Wilshere and Mario Balotelli
Henry DuongPublished about 2 hours ago in UnbalancedAvalanche Game 67 Recap: Oops, He Did It Again!
My birthday is on March 18, but for the first time in four years, the Colorado Avalanche do not play on that day. With this game landing just two days before that date, this serves as an early birthday game for yours truly, and our opponents: none other than the Edmonton Oilers. Let me say this. I've scoffed at a lot of things regarding the Avalanche's schedule. Our first three games being on the road, that's fine. Even the fact that we've played more games than a lot of other temas in the league is no biggie. However, the fact that I had to wait until Game 68 to see us finally face the Oilers? I'm sorry, I just can't forgive that.
Clyde E. DawkinsPublished 2 days ago in UnbalancedJohn Jay Keeps Skating in 9-3 Loss to Greeley
https://richmonetti.smugmug.com/JJBoysBBvNS/i-bQJrJ7W/A Please see tip, pledge and subscribe button below The last time John Jay faced Horace Greeley, the Wolves jumped out to a four goal lead and ultimately lost. So on Friday January 20 at the Brewster Ice Arena, the tables were turned and the Quakers had a 4-0 first period lead. Maybe on script, John Jay scored first in the second, but a replay was not to be.
Rich MonettiPublished 2 days ago in UnbalancedSomers Can’t Run Back Comeback versus Suffern
Please see tip, subscribe and pledge button below On Friday February 22, the quarterfinal matchup between Somers and Suffern was a game of runs. After Somers went on a 20-4 outburst to go up 20-8, Suffern countered with a 26-4 scoring spree. Leaving the Tuskers trailing 34-24 in the third, the elephants looked on the verge of being stampeding out of the gym. Instead, said Coach James Loughran, “We never quit.” But despite the senior leadership he credited for the team’s resolve, the hole was just a little too deep.
Rich MonettiPublished 3 days ago in UnbalancedAfter Strong Start Bisons Fall 9-3 to Pawling
Please look for tip, subscribe and pledge button below On Friday January 12, the BYSNS Bisons faced a tough Pawling team at the Brewster Ice Arena and skated to a very exciting start. A 3-2 lead late into the first, the Bisons were definitely holding their own. But the Tigers ended the period with a 4-3 lead and the momentum didn’t stop.
Rich MonettiPublished 3 days ago in UnbalancedAnning Aces NCAA 400
After years of toiling on foreign soil, here in the United States, Amber Anning finally got an NCAA gold as a solo act. The Arkansas sprinter from Hove, England earned a championship in the 1,600-meter relay at last year's NCAA indoor meet. Anning appeared in the 400 meters NCAA indoor final in 2021 and 2023 and she also showed up in the preliminary round in 2022. Previously she never recorded a top three finish, but on March 9, Anning was the supreme performer as she scored a first place time of 50.79 seconds.
Winners OnlyPublished 3 days ago in UnbalancedRockin' Rachel gets Gold
On March 8 and 9, the best of the best in the NCAA got together in Boston, Massachusetts. For the first time in the many seasons that we've covered track and field, Winners Only attended the NCAA Indoor Championships. Here's a look at some of our favorite moments from last weekend which was the final collegiate event of the indoor season.
Winners OnlyPublished 3 days ago in UnbalancedEdmonton Was Connor Brown
Last night, something that was simultaneously quite trivial and also monumental took place. The Edmonton Oilers were facing the Washington Capitals. Edmonton was without Mattias Ekholm due to illness, and therefore Troy Stecher, acquired on the cusp of the trade deadline from the Arizona Coyotes, stepped into his role. His performance was lackluster to say the least. Edmonton’s power play performed with considerable gusto to produce the first goal, largely by virtue of the fact that The German Genius, Leon Draisaitl, was granted an improbable trio of attempts to bury his patented one-timer behind Kemper, the Washington gardien de but, and succeeded the third time. That was followed by a goal by St. Connor McDavid, who has seemed more interested in breaking assist records thus far than scoring goals. He was left unmolested by the Washington defense and sauntered in to embarrass Kemper nonetheless. The inscrutable and fickle gods of hockey seemed to be smiling upon Edmonton’s cause.
D. J. ReddallPublished 4 days ago in Unbalanced
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