He was the last coach to lead the Boston Bruins to a Stanley Cup title. RIP.
BOSTON (Reuters) – Former Boston Bruins player and coach Tom Johnson has died at the age of 79, the team said on Thursday.
Johnson was an outstanding defenseman with the Montreal Canadiens and the Bruins, later becoming coach and executive with Boston for more than 30 years before he retired in 1998.
A native of Balfour, Manitoba, Johnson played 15 seasons in the NHL, helping Montreal win six Stanley Cups. He won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman in 1958-59.
He coached the Bruins to the Stanley Cup in 1972, their last championship, later serving as the team’s assistant general manager and vice president.
“The Bruins and all of hockey have lost a great person,” said Harry Sinden, the team’s former coach and general manager who is now an advisor.
Johnson was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1970.
ARLINGTON, Va. – Glen Hanlon was fired as coach of the NHL-worst Washington Capitals on Thursday, with the team off to its slowest start in 26 years.
Hanlon, in his fourth season at the helm, was told of the decision a day after loud boos and chants of “Fire Hanlon!” echoed through the arena during a 5-1 home loss to the Atlanta Thrashers, Washington’s fifth consecutive defeat.
He will be replaced on an interim basis by Bruce Boudreau, the coach of the Hershey Bears, Washington’s American Hockey League affiliate.
Boudreau was to run the Capitals’ practice Thursday morning, then make his NHL coaching debut Friday at Philadelphia.
Boudreau, who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks, is familiar with several of the Capitals’ players, having coached seven current members of the roster at Hershey, which he led to the 2006 Calder Cup title.
He takes over a club that is 6-14-1 for 13 points, four fewer than any other team in the league through Wednesday. After beginning the season 3-0, the Capitals have lost nine of 10 games, and 15 of 18, leaving them with their lowest 21-game point total since having 12 in the 1981-82 season.
Expectations among the Capitals — from team owner Ted Leonsis right down to star forward Alex Ovechkin and other players — were high entering the season, because of the addition of a few free agents and the team’s top pick in the 2006 draft.
But other than Ovechkin, the team has had plenty of trouble scoring, and the problems have spread to other areas in recent games. Washington keeps falling behind and failing to recover, going 1-10-1 when opponents score first, and turnovers and poor line changes have been increasing.
Hanlon leaves his first NHL head coaching job with a 78-123-9-29 record.
I think Hanlon is partly the victim of unrealistic expectations. Coming into the season, I thought the Capitals were the weakest team in the Southeast Division.
There’s talk in the South Florida media of Jacques Martin’s job with the Florida Panthers being in danger. Looking around the NHL, coaches don’t have much job security. I still think the Panthers will get on the right track this year.
Cam Cameron attempted to make it clear Wednesday that the Dolphins won’t lose their coach to the college ranks for the second straight year, denying his interest in the University of Michigan’s coaching vacancy.
Cameron’s name has appeared in two Detroit papers in a laundry list of potential candidates to replace departing coach Lloyd Carr, who resigned on Monday.
“I’m the head football coach of the Miami Dolphins. This is the place that I am and I’m committed to getting this place turned around, period,” Cameron said.
Cameron served as an assistant, alongside Carr, at Michigan, working for both Bo Schembechler and Gary Moeller for 10 seasons before breaking into the NFL in 1994 as a quarterbacks coach for the Redskins.
I believe Cameron, which is in stark contrast to last year’s Saban rumors. Cameron could be involuntarily looking for work again when the season is over. If Miami goes 0-16 and draft picks Ted Ginn and John Beck look like busts. I’m betting Cameron will be back in 2008.
Hall of Fame scribe Rick “Goose” Gosselin believes the New England Patriots have a legitimate shot at going undefeated. But he also thinks there’s a better-than-even chance that they won’t win the Super Bowl.
Plenty of NFL teams have looked unstoppable after 10 weeks.
The 2005 Indianapolis Colts started 10-0 in 2005. So did the Miami Dolphins in 1984. Both were dominant on offense, just like these Patriots. Peyton Manning with those Colts and Dan Marino with those Dolphins were both carving up NFL secondaries at a record clip, as is Tom Brady this season. But neither the Colts or Dolphins wound up winning the Super Bowl those seasons.
In the 27 seasons since 1980, the team with the best record in the NFL after 10 weeks managed to win the Super Bowl only a dozen times.
In 1988, the Buffalo Bills were steaming along with a 9-1 record and an explosive offense with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. The San Francisco 49ers were sitting back in the pack at 6-4 at the 10-game mark but wound up winning the Super Bowl that year.
Here’s a look at the 10-game mark since 2000, listing teams with the best records and the teams that won the Super Bowl that season:
Year
Best record
Teams
2000
8-2
Miami, Minnesota, Oakland, St. Louis, Tennessee
Super Bowl champion: Baltimore (6-4 after 10 games)
2001
8-2
Chicago, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis)
Super Bowl champion: New England (5-5 after 10 games)
2002
8-2
Green Bay, Tampa Bay
Super Bowl champion: Tampa Bay
2003
9-1
Kansas City
Super Bowl champion: New England (8-2 after 10 games)
2004
9-1
New England, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh)
Super Bowl champion: New England
2005
10-0
Indianapolis
Super Bowl champion: Pittsburgh (7-3 after 10 games)
2006
9-1
Chicago, Indianapolis
Super Bowl champion: Indianapolis
So there’s still a lot of football to be played. Coach Bill Belichick and his Patriots are right each week when they say in their drab monotone voices that they haven’t accomplished anything yet. It’s not how you start a season that matters. It’s how you finish it.
Quite right. The smart money has to be on the Pats. But, even if they’re healthy, winning three straight games against the best teams in the league isn’t easy.
Forget that Hank Steinbrenner is the new Boss or Joe Girardi is the manager or Derek Jeter is the captain (and how happy does Jeter have to be with the idea of looking to his right every day and seeing A-Rod’s mug?).
The Yankees will be A-Rod’s team, for better or worse. We say worse. If the Yankees were ever planning to get away from the star system – wasn’t that the plan for about five minutes? – that’s over now. It’ll be all A-Rod, all the time, and how has that worked out so far?
Can A-Rod live up to the contract? Will fickle Yankees fans boo every strikeout and cheer ever home run? Will he ever have a sleepover with Jeter again? Will he hit in the postseason? Will he shout “Ha!” at an opposing third baseman? Will he be able to remain faithful to his wife? Will C-Rod wear any more tops with obscene messages on them to the Stadium?
And these are just the questions we know about now. Only a striking soap opera writer would be able to plot out what new distractions A-Rod might bring to the Yankees over the next 10 years. But make no mistake – it will happen. Wins and losses will take a back seat to the A-Rod circus. Championships are out, TV ratings are in.
Like Pamela Anderson remarrying Tommy Lee, A-Rod re-upping with the Yankees is a bad idea, especially once it seemed the divorce was final. The Yankees were moving on, they told us. No chance, Hank Steinbrenner said. We’re looking for a third baseman, Brian Cashman said with no hint of deceit in his blue eyes.
Then A-Rod reached out, and that guy from Goldman Sachs reached out, and just like that the Yankees were falling over themselves to guarantee 10 years to someone who wouldn’t take their calls and quit on them through the evil Scott Boras in a failed effort to start the bidding at $350 million.
Why offer 10 years to a 32-year-old player, even one in such amazing physical shape it makes Boras drool with dollar-signed delight? It would make sense to offer him, say, five or six or even seven years because then you get the bounce from the Bonds pursuit. But 10? Who exactly are the Yankees bidding against? Offer him seven years, tell him to prove his love for New York by “settling” for it, and cut him off like the phony he is when he changes his tune and starts shopping that contract around.
He played 15 years and had a less than unspectacular two seasons as an NFL head coach. RIP.
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jim Ringo, a Hall of Fame center who played 15 seasons for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles, died Monday morning after a short illness. He was two days shy of his 76th birthday.
Former Packers teammate Willie Davis said Ringo, who lived in Chesapeake, Va., had been battling Alzheimer’s.
“One minute, you’re reliving an experience,” said Davis, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame with Ringo in 1981. “And the next minute, he’d be asking, ‘Who’s this?’”
The Packers drafted Ringo out of Syracuse in the seventh round in 1953, and he became one of the league’s best centers despite being undersized at just over 200 pounds.
“But what tenacity he had as a center in the NFL,” Davis said. “Probably, no one was better.”
But Ringo turned his relatively small size into an advantage, leading the way on the power sweep that made the Packers’ offense so effective.
“As Vince Lombardi once observed, Jim epitomized the toughness and determination needed to not only play the center position but to become one of the game’s most dominant offensive linemen of his era,” said Steve Perry, president/executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “On behalf of all of us at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I extend my heartfelt condolences to Jim’s family.”
Ringo played for Green Bay through 1963, but a contract dispute led Ringo and Lombardi to part ways. According to Packers folklore, Ringo had the audacity to bring an agent with him to negotiate a new contract — and Lombardi traded him to Philadelphia on the spot.
“The story goes that Jim came in with a representative to visit with coach Lombardi about his contract,” Packers historian Lee Remmel said. “Vince excused himself, came back, and said ‘You now are a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.’”
As far as Davis is concerned, the story is true.
“Jim was probably not out of place,” Davis said. “But at that point, Lombardi was not prepared to have an intermediary.”
Agents, of course, now are an accepted part of the today’s game, something Davis said Lombardi would have struggled with.
“I don’t think he’d be a very happy camper,” Davis said.
It wasn’t the first time Ringo didn’t see eye to eye with a Packers coach. In fact, his Hall of Fame career almost was over before it started.
Remmel said that as a rookie in 1953, Ringo decided training camp was too tough and simply walked out one day. Then-coach Gene Ronzani sent one of the team’s scouts all the way to the East Coast to pick him up.
“It’s fortunate that he did, because he went on to become a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Remmel said.
Ringo played for the Eagles from 1964-67. He was voted to 10 Pro Bowls and was chosen for the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1960s. He started in a then-record 182 consecutive games from 1954-67.
Ringo later went in to coaching. He replaced Buffalo Bills coach Lou Saban part of the way through the 1976 season, and the Bills lost their last nine games. He returned the following year, and the Bills went 3-11. Ringo was fired after the season and replaced by Chuck Knox.
Ringo’s death comes just a month after the death of former Packers receiver and broadcaster Max McGee, making for a tough couple of weeks in what has otherwise been a joyful season on the field the Packers.
“It does,” Davis said. “While each one kind of has its place, you can’t be oblivious to the McGee and Ringo kind of disasters. As far as I’m concerned, one of the best things that that could happen is for the Packers to go on and get into the Super Bowl.”
Ringo’s wife Judy said her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1996, and the couple moved to Chesapeake about 10 years ago. He lived at home for much of that time until moving to a treatment unit in nearby Virginia Beach, she said, and he had recently developed penumonia.
Cleveland Browns kicker Phil Dawson beat the Baltimore Ravens with what one Digg user aptly describes as “The Craziest Field Goal in NFL History.”
A 51 yard field goal was attempted by Phil Dawson of the Cleveland Browns with no time left on the clock to tie the game and force overtime. It bounces off the pole, then comes down and hits another part of the goal post and bounces back onto the playing field after going completely through the uprights.
It was originally ruled No Good but that decision was quickly overturned. Here’s the video:
I’ve been watching the game for nearly thirty years and have certainly never seen anything like it before.
The 303-game winner returned to the Atlanta Braves on Sunday, agreeing to an $8 million, one-year contract.
The agreement between the two-time NL Cy Young Award winner and the Braves was hammered out during weekend talks, said Glavine’s agent, Gregg Clifton. The pitcher already has taken a physical for Atlanta, the final formality in the deal.
The Braves needed less than a week to lure Glavine back after an acrimonious split in 2002 that led to him spending five seasons with the New York Mets. His old — make that new — team was expected to formally introduce him at a news conference Monday at Turner Field.
“While Tom is disappointed to be leaving New York and all of his friends and teammates there, he has an opportunity to go back to Atlanta to continue his career with the Braves,” Clifton told The Associated Press. “Ultimately, as everyone knows, Tom’s decision was tremendously influenced by the importance of his family being paramount in his life.”
Glavine, who is married and has four children, kept his primary home in suburban Atlanta even after he signed with the Mets, and it was clear the crafty left-hander wanted to finish his career with the Braves when he turned down a $13 million option to return to New York in 2008, taking a $3 million buyout. He then gave the Braves a bit of a hometown discount, something he wasn’t willing to do five years ago. The contract includes no performance bonuses.
Excellent news for both the Braves and Glavine. This is a very young team, except in its starting pitching rotation, and on the surface it’s a bit odd to add yet another guy at the end of his pitching career.
But Glavine is not just another guy. He’s still a premium pitcher and, at $8 million, is actually a bargain in this ridiculous market. If Glavine, John Smoltz, and Tim Hudson can all stay healthy — and, if by some miracle, Mike Hampton can pitch, too — this will be one awesome lineup.
As for Tommy, clearly, the man doesn’t need the money at this point in his life and the ability to see his family every night they’re not on the road is a huge plus. Hopefully, the fans who still hold his leadership role during the 1994 strike against him will welcome him back in a manner befitting one of the greatest players in the team’s history.
The Dolphins lost again yesterday. The result didn’t surprise me but the game left me feeling hopeful.
*- Much maligned DB Jason Allen intercepted two passes. One should never have been thrown, but the first INT was totally legit. Allen also made five tackles in the game.
*- John Beck was only 9 for 22 for a little over 100 yards. He threw no INT and wasn’t sacked. Beck did make several nice throws, particularly to Ted Ginn. No question, Beck has legitimate arm strength to stretch the field.
Beck on 2nd and goal from the 1 in the fourth qtr, almost got his first TD pass. Only a great breakup by a Eagle defender kept TE Aaron Halterman from hauling in the pass.
*- Ted Ginn has his most productive day as a WR. 4 receptions for 52 yards.
*- The defense still can’t stop the run, but they harried Eagle Qbs Donovan McNab, and after he left the game for an injury, AJ Feeley. Neither QB had a good day at all, throwing 3 INTs and being constantly pressured.
Other than the run defense, the worst part of the game for Miami was…..
*- Cam Cameron’s play call on 4th and 1 from the Philadelphia one yard line in the 4th Qtr. What was the coach thinking of? A pitch back to where the running back needs to go 10 yds for a TD. I don’t blame Cameron for going for the TD, but the play call was absolutely idiotic.
At this point the most I expect from Miami is 2-14 or 1-15. Getting Beck and other young players experience in the NFL, and landing next year’s #1 pick to me are the real goals for the rest of the 2007 Miami Dolphin season. Right now I see some hope for the Dolphins future.
Yesterday’s CBS broadcast(I taped it while attending the golf) should be shown to all future football announcers to demonstrate what not to do when play is occuring on the field.
On third down, Philadelphia QB Donova McNab failed to complete a pass in the light rain. Seconds after the play was over, CBS cut to the booth and have Gannon and Harlan talk about how hard it is to throw a wet ball and what teams try to do to make it easier. While this is going on Philadelphia lines up to punt from their own 40.
Dolphin WR/KR Ted Ginn hasn’t done a great deal this year, but he has had two kick returns for touchdowns taken back by penalties in the last five games. You’d think the announcers would concentrate on Ginn.
No Gannon and Harlan are still talking wet footballs as Ginn fields the punt at the 13 yard line. Ginn takes off, Gannon and Harlan keep rambling on(Mostly Gannon), Ginn runs past the entire Eagle special teams unit. It isn’t till Gannon is talking about dryers and Ginn has reached the fifty yardline, that the bozo announcer notices there is a punt return in progress for a touchdown.
“This is Ted Ginn.” Gannon stops to say as the punt returner races to the endzone.
Seconds after the play was over, Harlan mentions a great block that freed Ginn by Michael Lehan that freed Ginn. Lehan made a block but it was totally inconsequential to Ginn’s return. Both were out of the play. Though the person Lehan blocked tried running down Ginn afterwards.
Was Harlan watching the play when it happened, then why didn’t he break into Gannon’s monologue? I make a bet the block was told to Harlan by someone in the production booth.
Here’s the video
You screw up the live call and then can’t call the replay properly either. Great job CBS.
Update- The video is from the Dolphin game, but that is not the CBS announcing crew.
