phelps

c'mon, man! you only have to win against Italy on Saturday to accomplish that mission... even without all those players, I think you can even think of making the quarterfinals...Latvia and Denmark are not such "monsters"...and Germany...well, maybe that match won't be so easy (especially because they play at home), but imho it's still affordable also for this Slovak team... the only question is: do they believe they can do it or not? if they don't have a bit of self-believe, even the game against Italy could become a nightmare (because I'm sure that Italy is weak, but they will play with great pride...and usually our heart is bigger than many of our opponents')... p.s. if you want, here's the ITA vs USA match live now (not sure it's free or if you need a VPN)... http://www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raiSport/dirette/ContentItem-49340f1d-5246-4cf7-931f-75d65af039e7.html

the stadium is almost sold out, but it's very small (less than 4000 seats)... if only our stupid NF made a bit of promotion to this event and if a bigger stadium was available, it would have been a lot more impressive landscape... Milan is a real Hockey Town...we just need "our team" (we don't need a new/other team...we want "our" team) back (and a decent Hockey Arena)... by the way, Italy is so weak...and this US team is even better than expected (with people like Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Eichel, Dylan Larkin, Jacob Trouba etc.)...

if you look at the WSF rankings in the 2 disciplines, those competing in one are not even ranked in the other...

X-games, but not only... but the most important thing is that the Olympic "governing body" is the socalled "Tokyo Skateboarding Commission", a joint venture between FIRS (the Roller Skating Federation) and ISF (Intenational Skateboarding Federation)...meanwhile the best athletes in the World are those competing unde the World Skateboarding Federation... p.s. this sport it's only about USA and Brazil (and very few other exceptions...but medallists in Tokyo will come almost surely from those 2 Countries)... it's a lot worse than Surfing... here a couple of interesting links... the Tokyo Commission: http://skateboarding2020.com/ the ISF site: http://internationalskateboardingfederation.org/ FIRS site: http://www.rollersports.org/ Tokyo 2020 Skateboard page: https://tokyo2020.jp/en/games/sport/olympic/skateboarding/ and, outside the institutional governing bodies, the WSF homepage (rankings in Bowl and Street disciplines show the best specialists in the World, those who should fight for the medals in Tokyo...if they compete there...and that's not so sure): http://worldskateboardingfederation.org/ p.s. US legend Alex Sorgente is in talk with the Italian NOC to represent Italy in Tokyo, if WSF athletes will choose to go (in this case we would have really big chances to get something out of this mess)...

and now for me it's time to switch to the Under-18 Worlds...the second semifinal between USA and Sweden (the Americans are 2-1 ahead after 2 periods)... and then game #5 of the first round of the NHL playoffs between Minnesota and St.Louis... it's a great hockey night!

game over! mission accomplished! HC'05 iClinic Banskà Bystrica are the new Slovak champions!

HC'05 iClinic Banskà Bystrica are on their way to win the Slovak Extraliga title...still a few minutes to go in game #5 of the final series against HK Nitra...and it's party time for them!

Canada names first players - 18 NHLers nominated for Worlds http://www.iihfworlds2017.com/en/news/canada-names-first-players/

Mission accomplished! SC Bern won game #6 by a score of 5-1 and won the series 4-2, retaining their title for the second consecutive year (the first time that a team repeat themselves in many years in the Swiss NLA)...

SC Bern even closer to another Swiss title...they scored another goal and now they are 2-0 ahead in game #6 at the end of the first period...

I just saw that... it looks that tonight you're not gonna be sad at the end of the game...

p.s. today the EHC Red Bull Munchen won their second consecutive DEL title, destroying Wolfsburg by a score of 4-0 (4-1 the score of the final series)... and SC Bern are on their way to repeat themselves in Switzerland...they are 3-2 ahead in the best-of-7 series and at the moment they are also 1-0 ahead in game #6 (even though there are still at least 2 periods to play in Zug)...

yeah, I watched that game (on STV2 ) and it was really amazing... I can't believe that 17/18 years old guys can play that level of hockey... and I was also surprised by the Slovak youngsters...I didn't really think they could put Canada under such pressure as they did... at the end I was so sorry that their effort wasn't enough to get a well deserved win... right now I'm watching part of the SVK vs LAT game, but it doesn't look as entertaining as saturday's (even if SVK are winning - they just scored the second goal to none)... meanwhile, I'm worried about Italy's campaign for the senior Worlds...we just lost 2 games even against the phantom of Austria (which isn't really encouraging)...

Karate 1 Premier League, stage #4 (in Rabat, MAR) No Japan and many Western Countries without their best teams for the forelast event of the K1PL... so, Egypt won easily the Medal Table with 5 Gold Medals, followed by the Host Country Morocco with 4 Golds. Italy took the 3rd place in the standings with 2 Gold Medlas tied with Azerbaijan. The last Gold Medal went to Slovakia. The 8 Olympic Classes have been won by Egypt (3 Golds), Morocco (2 Golds), Azerbaijan, Italy and Slovakia (1 Gold Medal each)... Here are the full results of this K1PL stage: https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/popup_main.php?popup_action=results&vernr=112&active_menu=calendar

really? here in Italy not a single word has ever been written about this chance... We all know (it was even confirmed by one or two officials from our NF) that a few years ago Italy tried to get Aussie Tommaso D'Orsogna and US Nick Brunelli, but both said "no, thanks", but nobody here did even mention the possibility of asking Condorelli to swim for Italy (by the way, it would be a great addition to our team)...

I guess that those who subscribed to the paid service are very, very happy to see that the event is fully available also for free...

yeah...maybe I've been a bit too harsh to the future Olympic Champion... I mean...I'm sure that it would happen something like in Omnium in Cycling or the Combined event in Alpine Skiing...the medallists will be for sure athletes with a Golden pedigree in some of the existing disciplines (at the moment, however, the only guy in the top50 of the World Ranking of all 3 disciplines is the Canadian Sean McColl, the natural favourite for the Olympic Gold for now...meanwhile no girls are in the "triple top50" class right now, but I'd say that the current favourite for the Olympic Gold is the Japanese Akiyo Noguchi)... but the average level of a competition of this kind won't be as good (especially in the female section, where most of the girls can't even compete at the top level in 2 of the 3 core disciplines) as it would have been if we had 2 or 3 special disciplines instead of the newly created combined event... about the combined event being the only chance for Sport Climbing to get in, I can only agree with you...even if that's a pity for the reasons I tried to explain before...

that's not even Sport Climbing...they just created a senseless "discipline" to accomodate the IOC will, but this will not make a good service to the future of Sport Climbing itself... in particular, we will have the most important title in the world of Sports awarded to a mediocre athlete who can have decent performance in 3 completely different events, ignoring the real champions of each of the 3 disciplines that make up this Sport... by the way, I have even worse news... Torrow the new World Cup Season starts in Switzerland (with the first Bouldering event)... and after those stupid guys of Karate, also the Sport Climbing Federation has decided to change their policy and switch from an outstandig Free Coverage of their events on Youtube to a Paid Service named FloPro... so, for the next 3 years at least, who wants to watch the main Sport Climbing Events has to subscribe to this platform, for the not so cheap fee of 150 US $/year (single payment) or, if preferred, 20 US $/month... if this is the IFSC idea of promoting their sport... in any case, this is the related article: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/news/item/909-ifsc-and-flosports-sign-online-streaming-deal and this is the FloPro Home Page: http://www.floclimbing.com/ and here you can find the Calendar of IFSC events for 2017: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition/categories

after the Japanese NPB and Korean KBO started 2 days ago, today's the day!!! in a couple of minutes the new MLB season gets officially under way in Tampa, where the New York Yankees are hosts to the local Rays... I'm so excited...

Karate 1 Premier League, stage #3 (in Dubai, UAE) this time usual suspects Japan and France didn't send their best athletes to the event, so we have a slightly different medal distribution than our normal K1PL stages... Iran was the dominant force in Dubai with 3 Gold Medals (all of them in Kumite...and in Olympic Classes), followed by Italy and Spain with 2 Gold Medals each (for both Countries all Golds came in Kata, with the difference being that Spain got them in the Olympic Individual events and Italy in the Non-Olympic Team competitions)... 7 more Nations (AUT, AZE, CRO, JPN, UKR, USA, UZB), instead, got 1 Gold Medal each (all in Kumite)... the 8 Olympic Classes' Gold Medals this week went to Iran (3), Spain (2, both Kata events), Japan, Ukraine and USA... the not so filled with stars lineup, moreover, gave the chance to medal also to some Countries which normally don't get that high in the final rankings, with special mention to Bulgaria, Slovakia and Switzerland coming just short of full success and taking a Silver medal (for SUI not only that) home... Here are the full results of this K1PL stage: https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/popup_main.php?popup_action=results&vernr=111&active_menu=calendar p.s. Kata is soooo boring to watch...I don't really understand why they picked it up in the Olympic program (Taekwondo and Judo also have Kata competitions, but they don't even think about putting it ahead of any "duel" event), if not to make Japan a gift of 2 Gold Medals just before the Games are even contested...

pitching...pitching...and pitching once again... you can have the best infield in the world and a very powerful lineup, but if you get a bad outing by your staff and an almost perfect effort by the opposing pitcher, there's no chance you can survive... I'm very sad that after 2 very close and exciting semis we had such a poor championship game... and I'm not that happy that the US boys won, too... I mean...they never take this tournament as seriously as the other Nations (even this time, they have a very good team, but still it's more or less a "second row" lineup, especially for what concerns pitchers - just to remember to those who don't follow baseball so carefully...no Kershaw, no Kluber, no Bumgarner...and they still find a night like yesterday's by Marcus Stroman...) and if they still manage to win, it's not so good for the game of Baseball (and in perspective, for its Olympic future)... however, it's always the wonderful game of Baseball that matters the most (and not sport politics)...so, I just can't wait for April 2nd and the start of the MLB regular season...

well, in Baseball Puerto Rico is not so "small"... and their infield is just illegal...Molina, Baez, Lindor and Correa are really amazing... meanwhile their pitcher Edwin Diaz is just an idiot... p.s. but the worst thing of the whole night it's been that f***in' tie-breakin' rule in the 11th inning...I just can't stand it...it always ruins all the previous efforts by the players and managers and takes 98% of possible tactics away from the match... more...it's against the spirit of the game... luckily in the MLB games there's not such game-killer and never will be...

here in Italy that's not a big problem, since our TV will show the games live (with the chance to record them) and also a few replays at a favourable time...

second stage of the Karate 1 Premier League in Rotterdam (NED)... and once again Japan taking the major honors with 4 Gold Medals... France followed in the final medal table with 3 Gold Medals... Azerbaijan, China, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Ukraine and Uzbekistan all got one single Gold Medal... the Olympic classes "as they stand" went to Japan (both Kata events, male and female), France (Men's -67kg and -75kg Kumite), Ukraine (Women's -55kg Kumite) and China (Women's -61kg Kumite)... the "no limits" weights in the Olympic Kumite program (which let's remember will start at +75kg for the men and +61 kg for the women) have been won by JPN (up to 84kg) and GER (over 84kg) in the Men's division and by AZE (up to 68kg) and JPN (over 68kg)... finally, here are the full results of the Dutch tournament... https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/popup_main.php?popup_action=results&vernr=110&active_menu=calendar

and finally, we know the 4 teams qualified for the semifinals... after Japan and the Netherlands in Tokyo, last night in San Diego Puerto Rico and the hosts from the USA got their tickets for the final round in Los Angeles... quite surprisingly, in fact, the Dominican Republic lost their 2nd game in 4 days in Southern California against the USA and were eliminated, losing the chance to repeat themselves after their triumph in 2013... the semifinals are so set: PUR vs NED (Monday night) and JPN vs USA (Tuesday night)... and the winning teams will meet on Wednesday night in the "big final"... hoping to see 3 great games (and maybe the USA losing once again)...