Wow, did I have to put up with a brutal night last night. I am not sure which pain was worse. The pain that comes after the freezing wears off after having a wisdom tooth extracted and tooth next to it getting drilled and rebuilt or the pain of having to endure the Edmonton Oilers play their game against an equally inept Columbus Blue Jackets team.

Let’s face it. There are some serious issues with this version of the Edmonton Oilers. What team, (a) knowing their golfing weekend had been cancelled due to lack of effort, (b) having to deal with wives/girlfriends who were looking forward to going to warm California and are probably pissed at them, (c) wanting to prove that they were better than they had been playing and thus making the upcoming mini-camp a little easier on themselves, comes out against an equally bad team who hadn’t won on the road for 13 games and lays an egg like the Oilers did last night. I am sorry to say that the 4 day mini-camp that starts today is not going to make one bit of difference. They might (just might) win the first game or 2 afterwards but the last 37 games will be back to normal.

The team proved last night it doesn’t have the leadership to take this team forward. The leadership on this team clearly showed last night that they don’t have the heart, soul, want or desire to make this team better. Leaders, like Mark Messier, would take the team on his shoulders and show the rest of the team the want, desire and way they needed to play the game. He would also make that you followed his example or you paid the price. The Oilers get none of that from any of the guys who wear the “C” or the “A”. And, the guys not wearing those letters are either too small, too young and inexperienced or not talented enough to lead this team; at least at the present time.

Before the Canada vs. USA World Junior Hockey Championship gold medal game and the Edmonton Oilers vs Phoenix Coyotes NHL games were even started I was already thinking about how this article would look. It had the premise of Canada wins gold for a 6th straight year and the Oilers sucked as usual.

Then when the games started I had to start reconsidering what I was thinking. After the first period with the game tied at 2 it was still going to be Canada winning gold but I was very impressed by the USA team speed and determination and was going to have to add that in somewhere. Over in the other game the Oilers were doing what I expected at this time; losing 1-0.

1 minute into the second period the USA scored to go up 3-2. Just less than 3 minutes later Canada tied it up for the second time. It was at this point that the USA won the gold medal in my opinion. They pulled their starting goalie, Mike Lee, and replaced him with Jack Campbell. That change seemed to buoy the American team and until the last 3 minutes of the third period, Campbell stoned the Canadians at every chance they had. On the other side, Canadian starter Jake Allen was equally as shaky as Lee and finally was replaced after the 5th USA goal at 6:23 of the third period by Martin Jones. With under 14 minutes to go in a gold medal game was too late to be making that change. Canadian Coach Willie Desjardins threw a cold Jones to the wolves so to speak and I think Jones was at least partially at fault on the OT winner by the USA’s John Carlson. Goalies in any sport are coached with the understanding that nothing beats you short side. You have to at least have that covered. The winning goal went short side. I give a hat tip to USA coach Dean Blais for making the change he did when he did. Congratulations to team USA for a great tournament. We look forward to beating you next year when the tournament is on your home soil.

Team Canada played the first semi-final of the World Junior Hockey Championships this afternoon against a very surprising Swiss team. The Swiss found their way to the semi-finals by stunning Russia 3-2 in overtime during their quarter final game on Saturday. To say this was an upset is a huge understatement. I don’t think that when the tournament began there was anyone, other than the odd delusional Swiss fan, that would have predicted they would be playing in the semi-finals.

The game started pretty much as predicted with Canada getting an early goal on the power play off the stick of Edmonton Oilers prospect Jordan Eberle. After that, the rest of the first period was scoreless although the Canadians dominated much of the play but were unable to solve Swiss goalie Benjamin Conz. Conz was one of the main reasons the Swiss beat Russia yesterday as he had 50 saves on 52 shots. Both teams had powerplays throughout the remainder of the first.

Canada came out flat to start the second period and gave the Swiss a couple of early power plays chances to even the score but the Canadians ended up with a great short handed goal by Marco Scandella. This was followed less than 2 minutes later with a great play by Taylor Hall to make it 3-0. Canada continued to play lazy and soon after took their third penalty of the period. The Swiss finally capitalized to make it 3-1. The Canadians still didn’t learn and took their 4th penalty of the period but they were able to kill this penalty off and were able to close out the period with a 3-1 lead.

Manchester United will go a 6th year in a row without winning the FA Cup. In what has to be considered a major upset, Leeds United of the English Football League One stunned Manchester United 1-0 in the third round. 

In a game that will have many second guessing the team that Sir Alex Ferguson fielded, it was the perfect game plan from Simon Grayson that was nearly flawlessly executed by a Leeds team who wanted the victory more. Old Trafford is a tough and often intimidating place for most visiting teams but this seemed to help Leeds more than the home team. It appeared through most of the game that the ManU players appeared to think they were going to have a cake walk with the League One team but learned a lesson the hard way. It is hard to believe that a team with such history is down in League One, however, their heart, determination and tanacity shows why they are leading League One and will most certainly be promoted to the English League Championship next season.

The reasons were different but the result was the same. The Oilers finished the 2009 portion of their season losing to Calgary 2-1 in a game that could have been much worse had it not been for Jeff Deslauriers’ great job goaltending. His 37 saves was the reason it was only 1 goal loss. The rest of the Oilers decided to start their New Year’s celebration early and never showed up to test the Flames back-up goaltender Curtis McElhinney. 22 shots is hardly the kind of work needed to test a second string goalie who plays so infrequently that he has slivers on his butt from riding the pine.

Saturday night the Oilers started the 2010 portion of their schedule with a 4-1 loss to the Sharks in San Jose. Same result, one big difference. Again, the Oilers offence didn’t create the kind of chances that win many games but today they didn’t have the goaltending to give them any chance to win. While he stood on his head to make the saves against Calgary, Deslauriers appeared to be sleeping through portions of the game and 3 of the 4 goals should have been saved. Yes, as usual there were defensive breakdowns but fluff shots should not go in no matter who is in goal. Critical saves need to be made at critical times in order to give your team and chance to win and this happens to infrequently.

Hello again sports world. After 7 months of keeping my thoughts on sports to myself I have decided to start back with my sports blog. I have renamed Sportsguru to EclecticBlogs sports to go with my domain name. If you are interested in any of my posts before 2010 you can find a link to my SportsGuru archives in the right hand column.

So to start off I would like to wish everyone a safe, happy and prosperous 2010.

I have a lot to say about the various sports that I watch and follow so if you want my take on what is going on in my favorite sports or with my favorite teams, keep me in mind and keep watching for my updated posts.