One of the great features of Google Calendar is that you can create separate calendars and view them independently from your own calendar. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to import the events straight into your calendar. I kind of like to have some sporting events on my calendar so that I know they are there when making plans. For example, I might choose to do dinner with friends a different night if I notice that the United States is playing Canada in the World Junior Hockey Championships that night. This is why I have created a Google Calendar for this event, yet I want it to appear on my own personal calendar as well so I don’t have to actively check other calendars to make sure I’m “free.”
In order to add this into your Outlook calendar, you simply need to get the ICAL address of the calendar you wish to copy to your personal calendar. It’s easiest if you right-click on it and choose “copy shortcut.” Then, in Outlook, go to File > Import and Export and choose “Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file” and click “Next.” When it brings up the box to locate the file, simply paste the URL you copied into the “file name” box and click “open.”
You will then get a prompt to “Open as new” or “Import”
If you choose “Open as New” it will create a new calendar with just these events on it. If you choose “Import,” it will place all of the events on the new calendar on your personal calendar (which is what I chose to do for this particular event).
I have created a Google Calendar with the schedule for the upcoming WJHCs in Regina and Saskatoon. If you wish to use it, subscribe to it, etc., here are the appropriate links.
Ethan Skolnick says the Florida Panthers have become a punch-line.
This is what happens when an organization misses the postseason for two full presidential terms, when it has endured enough in-house drama to capture a daytime Emmy, when its team-building strategy has had all the consistency and coherence of the average Moammar Gadhafi speech. That organization becomes a punch line. In recent years, the U.S. government politely asked that the BankAtlantic Center remove the American flag for fear that the Panthers would start trading off its stars after they were done dealing their own. (You never know when some other country would offer a broken sickle and a broken-down left wing.)
Read the rest of the insightful and entertaining article. Do you think Mr. Skolnick has let his guard down? I’d say he has. I don’t think this team has the talent they had, even last year. Then again, maybe they have the character.
Iain MacIntyre, in the midst of the revisionists’ accounts of what happened the last two seasons in Calgary, hits the nail on the head with his post at The Sporting News. When Sutter was asked, a couple of years ago, why he brought Keenan to Calgary, Sutter basically scoffed at the question and quipped that all he wanted to know is if Keenan still wanted to coach.
But in May, Darryl fired Keenan after another first-round playoff flop. He then hired little brother Brent, who bolted from New Jersey for the chance to coach closer to his cattle ranch 90 minutes north of Calgary.
The most remarkable thing Darryl Sutter achieved with Keenan was transforming a coaching pariah into a sympathetic figure.
It wasn’t Keenan who had mismanaged the Flames’ salary cap to the point that a spate of late-season injuries, financial restrictions and a 3-6-0 finish cost the team first place in the Northwest.
Sutter has a far better, and much deeper team to work with this time around. He has four legitimate top-four defensemen, Olli Jokinen for an entire season, and more of the grit that Keenan loves in guys like Nigel Dawes. Still, this is the beginning of the end for the Sutters. When you hire your brother, there are generally only two ways out: you both quit, or you both are fired. My personal hunch is that Keenan will be redeemed by the results of this brotherly situation.
As the Minnesota Twins season winds to a close, either barely eeking into the playoffs or barely missing them, there is a lot of discussion about the second-half struggles of Justin Morneau. This idea has taken on legendary proportions about how Morneau is Harmon Killebrew-like in the first half, and Scott Stahoviak-like in the second half. I wanted to look at whether this was really the case, and whether Morneau really was significantly worse in the last 81 games than in the first 81. What I found will surprise many. I think these numbers speak to two points:
1) Morneau isn’t as bad in the 2nd half as people like to think. While his power numbers drop off in the 2nd half over the last four years, he’s still a .283 hitter averaging more than 10 HRs, more than 40 runs scored, and more than 50 RBIs in the last 81 Twins games of each of those four seasons.
2) Those numbers include this year, a particularly bad one, and it goes to show that this year was very likely a result of his back injury.
3) The Twins playoff hopes are fairly independent of a slight decline in production from Mauer and Morneau. Pitching is truly to blame or credit for the ups and downs from year to year, as we’ve seen the gamut run on good and poor years (by their standards) for Mauer and Morneau, and the Twins hopes have not correlated very well.
I provide you with the spreadsheet I put together (numbers as of early in the week). Just for reference, there is a tab on the spreadsheet (bottom left) that has Mauer’s numbers as well. While Morneau’s 2nd half production has dropped 18 points and a fair amount of power, Mauer’s decline has been even worse, dropping 33 points and, until this year, completely lacking the power numbers in the first half or second half. That’s not a commentary on Joe Mauer, but it does provide some perspective.
Heading into next season, here are five things that the Twins could do to make their team stronger.
Get Mauer some reps at 1B. Mauer is the kind of hitter that doesn’t come along very often and even if the Twins are determined to have him stay behind the plate to some degree, we need to start decreasing his time back there immediately if he is going to have a long, sustained career. There simply are no catchers who maintain a huge offensive presence while catching for 12-15 years. My solution would be to have him catch the 3 best starters he works with and play some 1B and DH the other days. On top of that, it seems clear that Morneau is going to need a little more rest to maintain his performance over the course of the year. They are probably going to need to find 10-12 games during the season where he sits, outright, and if Mauer is sufficient at 1B (Cuddyer is NOT) then Morneau can do some DHing as well. Kubel would be fine to play LF for 50-60 games during the year, so this wouldn’t be at his expense.
Sign Pavano. We started the season with something like Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, Liriano, and Perkins. Only Baker has pitched well enough and been durable enough to give us hope for next year. Who knows what we are going to get out of Slowey after the injury? Blackburn, Perkins, and Liriano have been dreadful, and there’s no reason to expect anything different given their sustained poor performance.
Sign an ace. Maybe a guy like Halladay or Harden is a pipe-dream, but I’m not necessarily talking about a guy like that (though it would greatly improve their chances of winning the division and the championship). I’m simply talking about a guy who is better and more consistent than their best pitcher (which is probably Baker right now). This, with #2, would give them a top 3 of Ace, Baker, and Pavano. That’s a better starting 3 than we’ve had for several seasons, and would give us a good shot at winning the division again.
Upgrade something in the infield. Crede is gone. You simply can’t have Buscher, Punto, and Casilla in most of your lineups and put any kind of scare into opposing pitchers. I’m not terribly excited about Orlando Cabrera, but if it’s him or nothing I will take him.
Cut your losses with Delmon. The guy is young, granted, but the organization hates him. From the players through the coach to upper management, it’s difficult to find someone with a favorable comment about him. Practically speaking, we have too many strikeouts in the outfield and not enough power. Cuddyer, with his huge salary, isn’t going anywhere. Span and Gomez don’t exactly knock the cover off the ball. If you are going to have a formidable lineup going forward that can compete with the big teams (and not just skirt through the Central), you are going to need to add some offense in the outfield. We’ve already addressed this a bit in #1, by putting Kubel out there a bit, so it’s mostly important that we get a good right-handed stick who can play 120-130 games in left field, and especially take the games vs. tough lefties.
The Twins will have a short new-stadium-induced honeymoon with their crowd sizes. The Tigers, however, proved that it also matters what kind of product you put on the field. Remember their first few season with that bum team? That says nothing about the worst Toronto crowd ever — the other night against these very Minnesota Twins. And there’s nothing wrong with the Rogers Centre…
Melanie Oudin is this year’s darling of the United States Open tennis tournament and it couldn’t have come at a better time. As CBS, ESPN2, and The Tennis Channel pan across massive, record crowds of tennis fans roaming the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, it is apparent that there is renewed interest in tennis in this country. Perhaps this is due in part to the increasing number of American contenders in the men’s side of the tournament, but the sustained interest will be without thanks to Andy Roddick, James Blake, Sam Querrey, or Robby Ginepri. In fact, none of these four hopefuls were the last American man standing in the tournament — it was big John Isner — and yet all of them played a part in being the first group of American men in the history of the tournament to fail to send a member to the quarterfinals. Still, the USTA and the television rights-holders will take huge comfort in the fact that this darling of the tournament — 17-year-old Melanie Oudin — will still be alive on Thursday to keep her dream, and the dream of so many fans, alive for at least one more match. Here’s to hoping that the men will be ready to do their part next year.
If I were the Twins, I’d have Mauer catch for a few more seasons, until we can be rid of Cuddyer’s over-the-top salary. Unless Cuddyer is prepared to sign on at a significant discount, let him go and move Mauer to right field. At this rate, Mauer is going to be one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. There is simply no reason to shave 2-3 years (or more) off of his career by leaving him behind the plate, I don’t care how good of a catcher he is.
Jeremy Roenick, on of the game’s all-time greats, gives high-praise to Mike Keenan.
“Mike Keenan was one of the craziest sons of bitches I’ve ever seen,” Roenick said to chuckles. “He scared me into adapting the way I play. I was at Kalamazoo and he grabbed me by the throat and said if I didn’t hit the next guy I saw, I wouldn’t play a game in the National Hockey League. I saw the look in his eyes, and I really believed him.”
His eyes starting to water, Roenick continued, “I really believe because of him. … He’s why I played the game the way I played it.”
Roenick was a goofy son-of-a-gun, himself, but the guy played extremely hard and will be missed in the NHL.
