I love it all other times of the year, but hate it during the summer. This is a problem because the majority of baseball season is during the summer. Because it's the summer, and because I'm lazy, I usually end up getting out of bed sometime after noon; sometimes quite a bit after noon. Consequently, most days roughly a third of baseball games are played at noon, 12: 30, 1:00 or whatever. Its worse with games on the west coast, where games are before noon. So, I end up sleeping through roughly a third of my team's games, which leaves me a disproportionate number of games to gain points. To make things worse, its a daily league, so this happens pretty much every day. Oh well, maybe I won't make any roster changes and still win, like I did in hockey.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Stay by the phone
I have two friends, like I have already mentioned, going in this first round of the NHL draft. They are Jake Gardener and Aaron Ness. They're both my boys, and though I don't know them really well, I'm excited for both of them and eager to see them succeed. Now, Ness is headed to the U of Minnesota, and Gardener to Wisconsin. Gardener is NHL ready in my opinion, but if eather of them need any seasoning, the WCHA (which is the best College Hockey conference in the nation) is the place to do it.
Posted by Matt E at 5:41 PM 0 comments
Played golf for the first time this year
So, I swung the clubs for the first time this year today. I had to use my dad's clubs, because my own clubs are too small for me and I'm too poor to buy new ones. I more or less picked up where I left off last year. I didn't keep score, I didn't count strokes- I wanted to give myself a nice, laid back opportunity to have some nice swings, and some not so nice ones. There was more of the latter. I was driving the ball consistently, like last year, I was in the 150- 200 yard range, which is pretty good for me. I wasn't adding much distance, but I hit a good 7 out of 9 fairways. My irons were another story though. Like last year, I didn't hit for too much power, and when I did, my accuracy wasn't good at all. My chipping from say 50 yards on in, though, was money. Putting was ugly as always. I two putted, or more every hole. Yuck.
Posted by Matt E at 5:14 PM 0 comments
Monday, June 9, 2008
So, this is what it's like
So, my graduation was last Thursday night, and then the all- night party at the High School after that. The whole graduation ceremony was kind of boring, honestly. I didn't feel relieved, or happy, or sad; I was just like "so this is it, huh?" The day of graduation was really crappy. It was raining and there was a tornado warning, but we still pressed on. All of my pictures are taken at my house or in the parking garage under Northrop where we got organized. My parents dropped me off a couple blocks from the auditorium because the rain had let up a bit, only to start up even harder when I got out of the car. Oh, what fun. The ceremony itself wasn't too bad. It was like two hours, but sitting in a robe for two hours seemed like nine.
Posted by Matt E at 12:45 PM 0 comments
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Minnesota High Schoolers in the 2008 NHL draft (Rounds 1- 3)
The NHL Central Scouting Bureau's final rankings came out a while ago, and it's time I provided my commentary on the Minnesota High School players in the draft since I've seen all of them play quite a few times. I'll put the CSB final rankings in parenthesis, as well as my comments on the player.
Posted by Matt E at 8:45 AM 0 comments
Monday, June 2, 2008
The Wild, Jake Gardener, and you
According to Mynhldraft.com, The Wild, with the 24th pick, will select Jake Gardener out of Minnetonka High School. Now, I live right by Minnetonka and have seen a bunch of his games. The kid's filthy. He's a great skater who can move the puck real well and has the moves to make any player look silly. To top it off, he's got a cannon for a wrist shot, but I worry about his hitting ability. He isn't as offensive a defenseman as, say, an Aaron Ness from Roseau, but I think he needs to work on the defensive piece of his game.
Face it, the Wild really need a solid blueliner at this point in the game. Carney an Johnsson won't last forever, and who knows how Schultz will respond coming back from that broken leg. Maybe the Wild will go best available in the first round, which might mean Gardener, but I think its time for the Wild to stop playing around and fill some holes, if not at the draft in the free agent market.
Posted by Matt E at 11:38 AM 0 comments