Jon_Campbell

Haha! Fair enough.

Hasn't been much over/under talk yet. I know the SEC has been scoring some points this year, but 49 seems high to me. Expecting this one to be a scrap.

A little off topic here Sarah but Rocky IV and Top Gun are on back to back right now on AMC, two of the finest Cold War propaganda films of all time. I don't consider myself a geezer but they're a little before your time. Have you seen them and do you have a favorite line?

I'll start things off Sarah - who you like tonight and why? Thanks.

More hypocrisy, wasted tax dollars and injustice for online sports bettors, this time in the state of Maryland.

Great blog here from Freedom At Stake about it.  

Play until the final whistle blows? Russia didn't play from the time the puck dropped. Russia had zero intensity all game and then Semin got pissed and decided he was going to run somebody. If Boyle doesn't stand up for himself there, then he's the pussbag.

It's OK to try to lay somebody out when the game is dead at 7-3 and all the life has been sucked out of it if that's what you feel you need to do, but don't expect to walk away from it.  

I'm surprised at the reaction here. Semin laid Boyle out in a 7-3 hockey game when the game was basically over. You pull that crap and you're going to get yours - and should.

Nothing wrong with Semin's hit from a technical standpoint, but if he wants to pull that garbage in that situation - against Canada especially - he's gotta know he's going to get some and can't just lie there like a victim and cry to the ref.

Semin was invisible all game and then all of a sudden he wants to be a somebody and drive Boyle through the glass in a situation where Boyle can't really protect himself?  

If Boyle didn't do anything there, he'd lose respect on his own bench. Instead, he gains it and Canada finishes the game with a little fire.   

Betting the NBA during the week leading up to the All-Star break is gambling at its riskiest. You really don’t have any clue which teams are going to check out a few days early and leave your money to blow away in the wind.

I usually avoid it like a public urinal. But like a public urinal, sometimes you just have to.

Take tonight. The Wiz opened as 8.5-point dogs on the road at Betjamaica against the Bobbies and I just can’t see any reason why they would give a flying bullet who wins this game.

They are coming off a relaxing 3-day vacation in sunny Orlando because they were storm-stayed over the weekend due to the blizzard in Washington. Their Sunday game in D.C. against the Hawks was rescheduled for March 11.

(Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Penguins managed to make it to D.C. for a 1 p.m. Sunday game despite playing in Montreal the night before.  The Pens got in at 2 a.m. and took a 5-hour bus ride after flying to Newark. )

But I don’t really blame the Wiz for not wanting to play. They suck. And their dressing room is more of an evidence locker these days.

Antawn Jamison proved he’s the Wizard who least wants to be playing basketball when he couldn’t be bothered to show up for Monday’s practice. He used the time off in Florida to skip down to Miami, where he has a home, and he bought a suite for the Super Bowl.

“I’m just going to have a good time,” he told the Washington Post when asked if he had a rooting interest.

He missed his early morning flight back to Orlando on Monday and told his team he’ll see it in Charlotte.  I’d say his teammates would be pissed, but I mostly just wonder if they care enough to get angry.

The Bobcats meanwhile, have two injured players – Tyson Chandler and Ray Felton – whom Larry Brown will have a hard time keeping off the floor tonight. Felton rolled his ankle in practice yesterday and declared that he’s playing tonight, even though the coaching staff says they'll make a decision at game time.

Chandler is a question mark too, but he wouldn’t be blamed if he sat tonight. He’s been out six weeks with a foot injury and it would be easy for him to rest until after the All-Star break if he chose to.

Just an FYI – Covers Expert Teddy ‘Covers’ Sevransky got a nice shout-out yesterday on Bill Simmons’ podcast, the BS Report. You can check it out here and it comes around the 31:50 mark of the podcast.  

I’m sure most of you know Simmons as The Sports Guy on ESPN.com and Teddy’s name came up during Monday’s discussion with Chad Millman. Millman is ESPN’s gambling writer if you’re not familiar and he wrote a book about the Las Vegas sports gambling scene called ‘The Odds’.

Anyway, it’s a good discussion about how the wise guys are looking for a decent middle opportunity with this week’s Jets-Colts game.  The line currently sits at Indy -7.5 at Betjamaica and most other betting shops.

Hopefully the staff at the Air Canada Center has the doors to the penalty boxes well oiled tonight because they’re going to get some use.

The Flyers visit Toronto as -135 faves (BetJamaica) and the Leafs are calling up their top goon, Jay Rosehill, from the minors for the bout, err, game.

There is some bad blood still boiling from when these two clubs met Jan. 6 when Philly’s resident psycho, Dan Carcillo, scored a goal and taunted the Leafs’ bench by skating by and giving mock high fives. (Pretty clever, I thought.) Later he gave the throat slashing gesture to Toronto assistant coach Keith Acton for which he was fined the NHL-maximum of $2,500.

There were 80 minutes in penalties handed out in that affair and the Flyers went 3-for-6 on the power play. They won 6-2 and the eight goals jumped the over/under by two.

Not surprisingly, the total is set at 6 goals again Thursday with -130 juice on the over. I’m taking the over despite the chalk because I’m expecting more penalties and Philly’s power play happens to be on fire right now. Both teams have serious goaltending issues too.

It’s also worth noting that the ‘over’ is 6-2 in games in which Carcillo has at least five minutes in penalties this season. In no small way, that’s because he has a knack for getting under the skin of the other team, which leads to more PIMs and power plays whenever he gets in a scrap.

He’s also sporting a filthy crustache, which really has to be getting on the nerves of his opponents.

Hopefully the NHL has some veteran refs slated for this one and it might be worth watching if you’re into hockey fights. Which you are.