All Sport Report

Bode Miller will be a part of the US Slalom team heading in the World Championships in Are, Sweden.

Miller qualified in less than very impressive fashion, finishing twenty-fifth out of a pool of riders tuesday at a World Cup event. It was Miller’s last chance to qualify for the team. He entered the event not having finished a World Cup Slalom in over a year, his last finish coming January 22nd of 2006.

This will give the New Hampshire born skier a chance to make history, if Bode can capture gold in Sweden he will be the first man ever to strike gold in all five ski disciplines.

A success in this World Cup could put Miller on the fast track back to the top as the number on rated American skier and put the criticism of his performance in the slalom to rest.

Well I think it’s going to be more of a “Sleeperfight”. A new promoter thrown into the mix has rekindled the talks again to put Roy Jones Jr, who during much of his career was referred to as the pound for pound best fighter in the world, and the Executioner Bernard Hopkins in the ring.

The two fought fourteen years ago, with Jones narrowly taking the victory, and Bernard (pictured below), has claimed that Roy has been ducking him ever since.

Jones has most certainly lost a step since his prime and suffered three very embarassing losses in a row to Antonio Tarver(twice) and Glen Johnson, before winning his most recent fight against an overmatched opponent.

Hopkins promised his dying mother he would retire before his 40th birthday, but didn’t. Then he did retire and now he’s back, B-Hop simply can’t stay away from the ring despite his promises.

A decade ago this fight would have been incredible, the most anticipated match in the boxing world, but now it’s so long overdue it will most certainly result in disappoinment. You’ll have two aging combatants pitted against each other in a match where both are just trying not to lose. Neither fighter will be willing to take a chance that may leave him open for a clean shot that will result in him getting knocked-out, which is going to result in a very boring fight.

“It’s Barry’s head, we’re just living on it,” a sign held high and proud by a fan on a SportsCenter highlight last season just reminds me of the fact, in my eyes at least, that Barry Bonds is making a mockery of professional baseball.

Say it ain’t so, the San Francisco Giants resigned Barry Bonds last night to a one year contract worth nearly sixteen million dollars. Doctors reportedly examined Bonds extensively before the pen was officialy put to paper.

I was hoping against hope that ‘06 would be Barry’s last season in pro baseball, that Hank Aaron’s historic record would stand. Bonds sits a mere 22 home runs behind Aaron and if he can avoid a long term injury that will shorten his season he should break the mark by August.

Much of the baseball world was at odds with Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s career home run mark, but that was mainly due to ignorance and bigotry. Aaron deserves the record, no matter his race, Bonds on the other hand, in my opinion, does not.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to be a huge Barry fan, the outfield he played with in Pittsburgh was one of the most talented I can recall. But something has drastically changed in Barry over his illustrious twenty year career, for example - in 2001 at the age of thirty seven, a time when most players a beginning the downslide of their career that will carry them into retirement, Barry hit 73 home runs which is nearly as many as he hit in his first four seasons with the Pirates, this isn’t something that happens under normal circumstances.

The “Barry Bonds effect” on the game of baseball is a negative one, as long as he puts on a uniform the allegations of steroid abuse among ballplayers will never quiet down and never go away. Whether Barry is guilty or not, there remains so much suspicion surrounding him that the sport is damaged.

Just say, for arguements sake that Barry were guilty. If he would just come clean about it now and retire leaving Hank Aaron were he belongs atop the career home run list I would forgive him, and I would certainly support him for the hall of fame. Bonds is a tremendously talented baseball player, the list of rewards he’s received that have nothing to do with home runs over the course of his career prove that. But in my mind, if he continues to play and breaks Aaron’s record and the news comes out later that he did in fact take performance enhancing drugs, he’ll be no more than one of the “bash brothers” to me.

After almost nine months of fighting the good fight, four year old Philadelphia area horse Barbaro was put down on Monday. Barbaro’s co-owner stated that they had reached a point where it was going to be impossible for him to continue without pain, there was nothing more that could be done.

After trouncing the competition at the ‘06 Kentucky Derby, the big, powerful colt suffered a tragic injury at the start of the Preakness. An injury that many people thought would lead to the Barbaro’s euthanization before he was even able to leave the park. This event went on to become one of the most heroic recovery attempts ever on a horse.

Doctors, trainers and what seemed like the entire country prayed and pulled for Barbaro as he struggled through what at times seemed to be insurmountable odds. Through the shattered bones in his rear leg and the operation to repair them, through developing Laminitis(Laminitis in itself can often lead to the demise of a horse) and surgery to combat it, and finally through a large abcess in the right rear foot and yet another surgery, the big colt continued to fight.

Fans and well wishers across the country sent cards, contributed and helped raise money for a fund that would be used to pay for equipment to treat Barbaro, for whatever reason people from all walks of life rallied around the Derby winner.

Though not normally a huge racing fan myself, I immersed myself in this story as well. Waiting for the evening news to tell me how well Barbaro was making out today, feeling elated when a few weeks ago there were talks of him being close to the point of going home.

Barbaro will be remembered not just as one of the most impressive specimens in racing in recent history, but as an underdog in a battle against life threatening injury and infection who fought as valiently in his attempt to recover as he had on the track, coming ever so close to beating the odds that would have likely lead to the demise of almost any other horse much sooner.

Unfortunately we’re all going to have to accept the fact that, no matter how much we pull for them, the underdog doesn’t always pull through. This Philadelphia area horse will surely be missed.

Randall Truscott is not your normal everyday sixteen year old, sure he’s like them in some ways - he’s a junior in high school, he’s done some time on the football team, even dabbled in some guitar but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

After a brief discussion with this exciting Canadian athlete a few things struck me about him that definitely weren’t “sixteen”, he’s polite, he’s respectful, he’s got drive and direction. He speaks as if he’s got his head on straight, which I know I didn’t at sixteen and Oh Yeah, he can Squat 600 pounds!

In his last competition Truscott hit a squat of 578 lbs, with no doubt; benchpressed 320 lbs and deadlifted 540 lbs. The squat stands as a Canadian record for juniors, the bench and deadlift are Ontario Records. Below is Randall in the gym pulling well over twice his bodyweight - 530lbs.

Randall stands 6′2″ at a rock solid 225 lbs, he assures me he’s getting bigger and I most certainly believe him. He started lifting weights at fifteen and was turned on to powerlifting by Andy Childs, a competitive lifter and owner of Phoenix Fitness. After training for about ten months at Steel City Powerlifting Club, perfecting technique this sixteen year old took his training to where he lived, literally, getting the equipment to build a gym in his basement, where he still does much of his training.

Randall has still been hitting the road to train a bit, every few weeks he makes his way to a powerlifting gym in Guelph, which happens to be the home away from home for some worldclass and champion lifters. Truscott also told me that upon graduating from high school, he plans to go to the University in Guelph, I wonder if his decision has anything to do at all with the proximity to the gym.

Keep your eyes peeled for changes to the record books coming late in March (29th to be exact), when Randall will compete in the CPU Nationals at 225. He’s looking to up his total from a very impressive 1425 lbs at the Ontario Juniors to 1540 at the Nationals.

Randall attributes a lot of his success to the support of his parents and to having trained with so many elite lifters at the gym in Guelph. I attribute a lot of his success to the tremendous drive it takes to perform all day long in school, then come home and do homework for a couple hours, then still have enough left in the tank to go down to his gym and workout, hard, for a couple hours - lather, rinse, repeat.

If you’re looking for a rising young athlete to follow, Randall Truscott would certainly be a good choice, I’d tell you now about his September plans to move up a weight class to reak havoc at 242 lbs at the IPF junior Worlds, but there’ll be plenty of time for that when we talk about him again in April after he breaks his own records at the CPU Nationals in Halifax.

If you want a little more info on Randall, you can check out his website here

I think the biggest surprise of this year’s Winter X-Games may be the fact that Shaun White didn’t take home the Gold in snowboard Slopestyle. He actually finished third(bronze) behind Norwegian boarder Andreas Wiig(Gold) and Jussi Oksanen from Finland(Silver).

With the streak the twenty year old has been on I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if White had swept Gold in Aspen this weekend.

Lets see what has the Flying Tomato done over the past year to impress: He won Gold in both Superslope and and Superpipe at last years Winter X-Games, he won Gold in the ‘06 Olympics in snowboard halfpipe. He’s been on a load of late night talk shows including Leno and Letterman. He’s been in major magazines, been voted one of the 16 coolest sports figures of all time in GQ and he’s been in TV commercials.(Not to mention this fine piece of press on All Sport Report, sure to be one of the highlights of White’s career, right?).

Now he’s starting off ‘07 in pretty decent fashion, a bronze in the Superslope and a Gold in Superpipe in Aspen. This year will also mark the release of Shaun’s very own playstation game, move over Tony Hawk.

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In case you were worried about Shaun not taking home two X-Game Golds this year, don’t be, he still has the summer to fix that. That’s right, the Flying Tomato has two jobs and neither one of them sucks, in the summer Shaun is a professional skateboarder…I’m guessing this kid doesn’t mind too much getting up for work in the morning.

Did he do it? Did the New Orleans Saints sensation and his family except money and gifts as part of an agreement of representation going into the NFL draft. Allegedly there was upwards of three hundred thousand dollars passed on to Bush and his family in the form of rent, gifts, a car and supposedly there are tapes to prove it.

The big question to me is, Why does it matter? Aside from the obvious fact that it’s agains the rules. I really don’t think it matters much at all. Bush is a tremendous athlete, and whether he was given a car or given use of a car, whether his family was permitted to stay in a better house, doesn’t change that fact.

Lloyd Lake, the man responsible for the recordings in under investigation for extortion. The tapes supposedly have Bush’s stepfather alluding to the fact that Reggie had intentions of paying back the money New Era Sports(Lake’s failed sports marketing company) had given to Bush’s family.

The NCAA and the PAC 10 are also holding investigations regarding the matter, and the nine members of the Heisman Trust are following the investigations closely to see if Bush did anything that may have made him ineligable at the time of the voting.

Like it or not, money makes the world go ’round and the fact that Reggie may or may not have taken some shouldn’t result in him, his family or USC suffering. He was still the best player in college football, extra benefits or not.

I’m sure one million investigators working 24/7 wouldn’t uncover all of the times this has occured throughout the past fifty years. I understand that three hundred k is a good chunk of change, but where is the dividing line when it comes to inappropriate. To ultimately stop this from happening is impossible, as long as there is money, people will be offering to get something they want and others will be accepting it for future favors. The NCAA, the PAC 10, the Heisman Trust, and all the Grand Juries in the world can’t put an end to it.

I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last few weeks, talking with some great people and visiting some wonderful websites and I’m planning on bringing a new weekly addition to the All Sport Report. Starting next week I’ll be introducing a segment called “Iron Man Mondays”, where I’ll delve into the world of powerlifting and strength sports.

Being and avid fan of powerlifting, and having a deep seeded love for moving heavy metal myself it only seemed natural to have a place here for these incredible athletes. The world of strength sports often gets overlooked on many sports sites, shows, and pages and I’m hoping I can help bring that to an end. If a five hundred foot home run or a half court basket at the buzzer are on Sportscenter’s top ten then why not a 1000 pound squat or a 700 pound bench press.

I’m not going to leave out any of the sports I’ve been digging into, I’m still a huge fan of them all. Chase Utley and the Phils, Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs, the snowboarders, beach volleyball players and the always interesting Mike Tyson will all still have a home here. I just want to have a place where strength sport athletes are right alongside the Sidney Crosbys, the Steve Nashes and Derek Jeters, because they deserve the same amount of respect and admiration.

I’ll be doing some interviews and profiles as well as covering some competition results - First on the agenda, we’re going to go across the border to the north to take a look at Canadian wonder kid Randall Truscott.

If you had told me yesterday afternoon that twenty one goals were going to be put up in Wednesdays NHL All Star Game, I would have ventured a guess that Sid the Kid and Alex Ovechkin would have combined for at least four or five of those goals. I would have been wrong. The two youngsters combined for only one point, an Ovechkin goal around midway through the second period, Crosby was held pointless.

The veterans proved to be more impressive in first NHL All Star game in three years. Joe Sakic, the captain of the West had four assists, and there were a total of five players with multiple goals: Yanic Perreault, Rick Nash, Brian Rolsten and Martin Havlat from the West And Zdeno Chara from the east each netted two goals.

But the real story in this installment of the NHL All Star game was the goaltending… just kidding - the Buffalo Sabres Daniel Briere. The eight year veteran who almost didn’t have a job after clearing waivers a few years ago, has found a new spark in Buffalo this year scoring 18 goals with 57 points at the halfway point of the year.

Briere continued his early season success in the All-Star game with one goal and four assists, landing himself the Most Valuable Player while playing amongst the NHL’s best and brightest.

It’s not as if the NHL All-Star game holds any true bearing on the outcome of the season, but this year like almost every other was certainly entertaining. Twenty-one exciting goals split 12-9 in favor of the Westen Conference, but it isn’t really about who wins or loses, it’s about showcasing the tremendous talent today in professional hockey, and the ‘07 version certainly didn’t disappoint.

Iron Mike is in the news again, this time facing jail time. Tyson is accussed of dui and drug possession after police found bags, that’s right not a bag but bags of cocaine in his pocket and his car in December. Tyson pled not guilty on all charges in a court appearance earlier this week. If convicted on all charges Tyson could spend better than seven years behind bars.

I remember Mike Tyson as the hungry twenty year old fighter who handed a beating to Trevor Berbick to capture the heavyweight belt over twenty years ago. He was the most electrifying heavyweight fighter I can remember in all my years of watching boxing. He could dismantle very capable fighters in a matter of seconds with his tremendous punching power. I try my best to ignore the turn for the worse he took in the nineties and all the subsidiary occurances, I wish he would have just disappeared from the public eye after his disappointing defeat at the hands of James Buster Douglas, so I could have untainted memories of the pure power puncher that could simply knock anyone out.

Tyson’s lawyer remarked that drug addiction is a “victimless crime” and one that people shouldn’t be sent to prison for. Well it isn’t as if he bit someone’s ear off, right?

I hope Iron Mike avoids the lockup, but I also hope he goes into hiding for a while and just leaves me to my memories.

Here is Eagle QB Donovan McNabb being carted off the field on November 19th after tearing his ACL in a game against the Tennessee Titans. After starting off the season strong, the Eagles fell to 5-6 after a few tough losses in a row, McNabb would miss the rest of the season recovering from the surgery to repair the torn ligament. Kiss your season goodbye. The Eagle fans surrender to the promise of another dismal season with no playoff hopes. The problem was, nobody told Jeff Garcia.

The former three time pro-bowler suffered a loss in his first start to the Colts, while shaking out the cobwebs, before going on a five game win streak to end the season, propelling the Eagles to a division crown and playoff berth.

Garcia’s storybook takeover didn’t last too long, only one playoff win before getting eliminated by the Saints in New Orleans.

Well now Number five is reportedly unhappy - here’s why (and why he’s wrong).

He didn’t agree with not being able to travel with the team to the game at the Superdome. (he didn’t belong at the Superdome, there are enough concerns and distractions in the playoffs when your an underdog playing away from home)

He’s uncomfortable with the fans’ voicing their opinions of his mother remarks, she implied watching an Eagle win without her son at the Helm was bittersweet.(I’d like to voice an opinion on this too, it’s bull…, I know he’s your son and I feel for his position in all this, but he’s part of a team you should be elated if that team succeeds. If the Eagles had gone on to win the Super Bowl McNabb would have received a ring along with everyone else)

He’s afraid some of the Eagles may want Garcia as a quarterback more than him. (I’d be a bit scared too, this isn’t the first time McNabb has been outplayed by a second stringer following injury, remember AJ Feely)

I have nothing against Donovan, I think he has a lot of talent but if he really wants to come back to the NFL as a starting quarterback in the future he may want to spend the his time rehabbing and figuring out how to be an effective pocket passer if his mobility doesn’t fully comeback after the injury, rather than harboring resentment for a team that has stuck by him through the thick and the incredibly thin. He should embrace Jeff Garcia for having brought the Eagles back from the depths they had sunk to.

Coach Andy Reid has stated that if McNabb is healthy there will be no QB controversy in Philadelphia next year, I agree but I think the starter should be sporting the number seven.

Although Allen Iverson has been a member of the Denver Nuggets for about a month, he hadn’t played in a game with the person everyone wanted to see him interact with until last night.

Carmelo Anthony had missed the last thirty-seven days and fifteen games of Denver Nugget basketball, serving out a suspension due to his participation in what I like to call Slapfest 2006 - a brawl between the Nuggets and the Knicks on December sixteenth in which Anthony was not so “Melo”, striking a Knicks player in what many view as a cheapshot.

The question in the minds of many since the 76ers dealt AI to the Nuggets was “can these two co-exist and still be successful?”

Well the answer appears to be yes, at least when the are up against a sub par Memphis Grizzlies defense. The two combined for 51 of the Nuggets 115 points, Anthony dropping 28 and the Answer adding 23. Iverson was the slightest bit more generous with seven assists to Anthony’s six. I think, the pitiful Grizzlies defense aside, the two played very well together, and as I’ve said before I see the Nuggets making a strong playoff run, provided the two superstars can ward off jealousy or ill will towards one another.

Neither Anthony or Iverson have played NBA ball alongside a player of the other’s caliber until last night and at times it was downright pretty. If the two can get well aquainted on the court and manage to gel their respective styles of play as teammates, the Denver Nuggets are going to provide many entertaining moments and highlight reel plays, and maybe in a few years an NBA title.

French snowboarder Mathieu Crepel began his weekend on Friday by narrowly netting the gold in the Big Air competition. He beat last years champion Antti Autti from Finland(shown below) by a slim margin in a very exciting final. Twenty-two year old Crepel secured the gold by landing a “Switch Backside 1260″, a trick he had never landed in a competition before.

Another Fin, Janne Korpi finished third in the Big Air.

The weekend continued to get better for the Frenchman, on Saturday he captured gold again in the Halfpipe. Crepel didn’t expect a high finish, not having ridden the halfpipe at all between the Olympics and January. He was just able to squeeze past Japanese snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo by one-tenth of a point.

Canadian Brad Martin finished up with the bronze, with Autti and Korpi finishing with fine weekends as well , not medaling in the halfpipe but finishing a very respectable 4th and fifth.

Unfortunately the American men were shut out as far as medals are concerned in the final two events of the Championships.

The Phillies avoid arbitration with second baseman Chase Utley by coming to terms with a seven year 85 million dollar extension. Utley was an offensive powerhouse for the Phils last season batting over .300, with more than thirty home runs, 102 RBIs and 131 runs scored. He was voted to the National League All Star team in ‘06 and had a thirty-five game hitting streak.

Utley is a legitimate superstar and arguably the best second baseman in all of baseball right now and the Phillies have him locked in through the 2013 season. Along with Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard the Phils have what could be the most exciting infield in baseball under contract through 2010.

Consider the off-season trade to acquire ace pitcher Freddy Garcia from the White Sox along with a few other key pick-ups and it appears the Phils may have enough pieces firmly in place to bring their more than a decade long playoff appearance drought to an end and to take finally take control of their division for the foreseeable future.

It happens in every sport, every year, the trade deadline comes creeping up and the teams who are just close enough to smell a playoff berth go on the hunt for a player or players that will help them get over the hump. As a Flyers fan I’m not used to being on this side of things, but it’s time for not only me, but for the team to admit it, the Flyers stink.

The Orange and Black are firmly cemented in last place, holding onto the worst record in all of hockey, and they aren’t getting any better. So what do you do if you’re the GM of the Flyers - you deal Peter Forsberg to the highest bidder.

I’ll admit it, I was one of the guys who acted like a little kid on Christmas morning when the news came down that Philly was going to be the new home for Peter the great, but it just isn’t working out as planned.

There are apparently more than ten teams who’ve contacted the Flyers already with interest in Forsberg. The teams have not been disclosed, but in my opinion the five who are most foaming out the mouth may include: New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, and Peter’s former residence the Colorodo Avalanche. Each of these teams are missing one or two key elements that may keep them out of the hunt for Lord Stanley’s Cup, and a healthy Forsberg may bring the answer to each and every one of them.

There is still about a month to hammer out any negotitions that would have to take place and Peter the Great would have to waive his no trade clause, but I’m getting anxious. There is no getting over the hump for the Flyers this year, it’s time to rebuild, and dealing Forsberg for a few solid prospects and draft picks would be a good start.

I’m also very interested to see if Forsberg’s nagging foot injury heals up when he’s playing on a line with Brendan Shanahan or Sidney Crosby, or if they make a skate that will fit him back in his old home with the Avalanche. Call me crazy but I think he may make more of an effort to get out on the ice if his team is in playoff contention.