We need Isaac Hayes to record these lyrics to the "Theme From Shaft"! If Isaac isn't available, how about a great local band like The Metric System or The Mellotones?
Who's the dapper man
That rocks a fedora at all the games?
(Andre!)
You're damn right.
Who is the man
That would risk his neck for his team The Rainmen?
(Andre!)
Can ya dig it?
Who's the cat that won't cop out
With ABA madness all about?
(Andre!)
Right on!
They say this cat Andre is a bad mother--
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about Andre!
(Then we can dig it)
He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
(Andre Levingston)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Curiouser and curiouser
I am feeling a bit literary today. The above quote from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" seems appropriate to the ABA Playoff SNAFU. Apparently, Joe Newman didn’t want the NCAA to have the most March Madness. I have personally set up playoffs that weren’t this complicated or ridiculous.
At least the Rainmen get to go to Quebec, at least for one game. I am sure they would have rather hosted that game for the revenue and not have the travel costs for a game that may be their only one in the playoffs.
I truly wonder who gets paid to make these decisions. Perhaps Maywood’s owner paid someone a bit extra to get his playoff game. Another literary quote, from George Orwell's "Animal Farm", “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
P.S. Congrats to Eric Crookshank for being named to the league All-Star team. Only the ABA would play an All-Star game the week before the playoffs, risking injury to their self-described All-Stars.
At least the Rainmen get to go to Quebec, at least for one game. I am sure they would have rather hosted that game for the revenue and not have the travel costs for a game that may be their only one in the playoffs.
I truly wonder who gets paid to make these decisions. Perhaps Maywood’s owner paid someone a bit extra to get his playoff game. Another literary quote, from George Orwell's "Animal Farm", “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
P.S. Congrats to Eric Crookshank for being named to the league All-Star team. Only the ABA would play an All-Star game the week before the playoffs, risking injury to their self-described All-Stars.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head
So the Rainmen will not get to host a playoff game en route to Quebec. Chris Parsons and I agree in the speculation that the New York area teams (Jersey and Westchester, who both cancelled games against Halifax) refused to travel to Canada if they won their preliminary games. If Montreal wins to face the Rainmen, maybe we should host the game anyway? The way I see it, the ABA should grow some and tell the teams that refuse to travel that they will forfeit the game, in regular season as well as the playoffs.
The playoff format, as reported by the ABA, was that the higher-seeded team would be the home team. The fact that 4 teams must play off to match up against the Rainmen tells me that we are the highest-ranked team of these 5, otherwise we would not get a bye in this preliminary round.
While the iconoclast in me says, “Yeah! Leave the ABA!”, the realist in me says, “If there are no other viable leagues that will have teams within a day’s travel by road, then it doesn’t make sense to cut off one’s nose to spite the face.” The PBL only has future expansion teams (Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo) that are anywhere near Halifax. The CBA’s nearest team is in upstate New York. The IBL has no teams east of Michigan. The USBL has a couple of New York teams, but the others are south and west of there.
Unless a group of Northeast teams makes a move, I don’t see how the Rainmen could make a go of it.
Other than the playoffs being a complete SNAFU and a couple teams cancelling away games on us, I don’t see how the ABA is ruining our enjoyment of the Rainmen. The haters will always find some reason to no attend the games, the ABA is the obvious scapegoat (and rightly so). Mr. Levingston and his team have gone above and beyond all expectations to bring a full slate of home games to Halifax, for which I am grateful, as possibly the first retail season ticket holder. Just look at the travesties that are some of the other teams in the league (those that are still existing). We Halifax fans are truly fortunate to have a committed organization like the Rainmen who have provided 18 entertaining games, along with the teams who filled in for lesser organizations who either folded during the season or refused to travel to Halifax.
While I sincerely hope that the Rainmen find a better league (fingers crossed for NBA-D League), I wonder if the problems of the ABA are symptomatic of minor professional leagues, like PBL, CBA, IBL, USBL, etc. The teams in these leagues play in small markets that cannot support a more expensive franchise. Quite often, the city population of these minor league teams is insufficient to really support a team, or the management skills of the team front offices is lacking. Neither of these seem to be a problem for the Rainmen.
The movie Semi-Pro is funnier because it is based on the facts of minor-league teams:
1. The team owner often has delusions of grandeur, e.g. the Corning Bulldogs and Georgia Gwizzlies
2. The owner does not has enough money to see the team through the difficult times, usually the first few years
In short, they are poor businessmen who don’t realize that professional sport is a business. Again, neither of these situations appear to be the case with Mr. Levingston. By all accounts, he is a self-made man who wants to help make a difference wherever he can.
I will continue to support the Rainmen and root for them, despite that they are in an abusive league. I hope they can get out of this relationship, because it hurts me to see them hurt. OK, that metaphor has gone far enough. Anyway, let’s show the Bahama Pro Show what a stadium full of fans looks like, while our guys proceed to dunk, lay-up and rain 3-pointers on the way to two victories to end the regular season.
The playoff format, as reported by the ABA, was that the higher-seeded team would be the home team. The fact that 4 teams must play off to match up against the Rainmen tells me that we are the highest-ranked team of these 5, otherwise we would not get a bye in this preliminary round.
While the iconoclast in me says, “Yeah! Leave the ABA!”, the realist in me says, “If there are no other viable leagues that will have teams within a day’s travel by road, then it doesn’t make sense to cut off one’s nose to spite the face.” The PBL only has future expansion teams (Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo) that are anywhere near Halifax. The CBA’s nearest team is in upstate New York. The IBL has no teams east of Michigan. The USBL has a couple of New York teams, but the others are south and west of there.
Unless a group of Northeast teams makes a move, I don’t see how the Rainmen could make a go of it.
Other than the playoffs being a complete SNAFU and a couple teams cancelling away games on us, I don’t see how the ABA is ruining our enjoyment of the Rainmen. The haters will always find some reason to no attend the games, the ABA is the obvious scapegoat (and rightly so). Mr. Levingston and his team have gone above and beyond all expectations to bring a full slate of home games to Halifax, for which I am grateful, as possibly the first retail season ticket holder. Just look at the travesties that are some of the other teams in the league (those that are still existing). We Halifax fans are truly fortunate to have a committed organization like the Rainmen who have provided 18 entertaining games, along with the teams who filled in for lesser organizations who either folded during the season or refused to travel to Halifax.
While I sincerely hope that the Rainmen find a better league (fingers crossed for NBA-D League), I wonder if the problems of the ABA are symptomatic of minor professional leagues, like PBL, CBA, IBL, USBL, etc. The teams in these leagues play in small markets that cannot support a more expensive franchise. Quite often, the city population of these minor league teams is insufficient to really support a team, or the management skills of the team front offices is lacking. Neither of these seem to be a problem for the Rainmen.
The movie Semi-Pro is funnier because it is based on the facts of minor-league teams:
1. The team owner often has delusions of grandeur, e.g. the Corning Bulldogs and Georgia Gwizzlies
2. The owner does not has enough money to see the team through the difficult times, usually the first few years
In short, they are poor businessmen who don’t realize that professional sport is a business. Again, neither of these situations appear to be the case with Mr. Levingston. By all accounts, he is a self-made man who wants to help make a difference wherever he can.
I will continue to support the Rainmen and root for them, despite that they are in an abusive league. I hope they can get out of this relationship, because it hurts me to see them hurt. OK, that metaphor has gone far enough. Anyway, let’s show the Bahama Pro Show what a stadium full of fans looks like, while our guys proceed to dunk, lay-up and rain 3-pointers on the way to two victories to end the regular season.
Friday, March 7, 2008
ABA 2008 Playoffs
Latest news on the playoffs from ABAlive.com
5 out of 8 teams will receive byes!?! OK... Anyway, the teams getting byes are Vermont, Manchester, San Diego, Texas Tycoons and the host team, Quebec.
Beijing has 5 players trying out for the Olympics, so they are not participating.
Unfortunately, the other 12 teams still in contention will have to battle for only 3 regional spots. No one said the ABA made sense.
Below are the respective press releases for each division playoff and my thoughts on them:
South Division
Three teams in the South division: West Texas Whirlwind, Georgia Gwizzlies, and Atlanta Vision. West Texas (3-6) will play Georgia (1-7) -- what a clash of the Titans!
The winner will go on to lose to Atlanta (6-2), who is pretty much guaranteed a spot, even though they have only played 8 games, beating such notable teams as the aforementioned Gwizzlies and the incomparable Bahama Pro Show (1-5, to be 1-7 after next week in Halifax).
I reiterate my protest that a team like Atlanta, who has so far played only 8 games of an 18-game season does not deserve to be in the playoffs against teams like Halifax, who have laboured to play as many games as possible.
West Division
Four West division teams:San Fran (5-10), OC (14-12), Maywood (3-23) and Long Beach (10-7) will play off to send their representative to Quebec.
My guess is that the doormats of the league -- Maywood, as if I had to say their name, which should be Maywouldn't -- and San Fran will fall to OC and Long Beach, who appear to be fairly good teams. Both OC and Long Beach have recently beaten higher-ranked teams, so they are both feeling good. Their matchup should be a good one.
Long Beach pretty much owns OC, winning all five of their matches this season, although the margins have been getting closer over the past few games. I'm going to say Long Beach goes to Quebec.
Northeast Division
Five teams from our Northeast division will play for the chance to play in Quebec. Jersey (7-10) will play Boston (8-16) and Montreal (8-17) will play Westchester (8-6). The winners of those games play off to see who will go against Halifax for the Northeast spot in the Awesome 8, or whatever they call it.
You may not remember Jersey or Westchester. They both cancelled games with us (which should have been forfeits for the record books, but I am not the league statistician).
Jersey appears to have a defensive game, with most of their opponents scoring an average of only 108 points per game. Unfortunately, Jersey has an average score of 103 points. They lost big to Vermont (but who hasn't?) and luckily they had First State to beat up on, to help Jersey's record with 4 of Jersey's 7 wins coming against the Fusion.
Westchester has beaten Jersey 4 out of their 5 matches of the season, with close scoring margins in 4 of the games (between 1 and 9 points), so Jersey is probably a weaker team than their record shows.
This is a bit of a toss-up, given the lack of exposure to Westchester or Jersey, but my guess is Jersey will win over Boston (Jersey did beat the Kebs, after all) and Montreal should beat Westchester. Montreal whupped the Phantoms in their only match-up this season, 130-96.
In the play-off, I think Montreal will win over Jersey, based on Montreal's record versus Jersey's record against common opponents, as well as Montreal's experience against a variety of teams, rather than Jersey's history of only playing a few teams who happen to be within an hour's drive, except for getting trounced in Vermont and Beijing. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Jersey doesn't travel much, they get destroyed away from home.
Our game against Montreal should be a good one. Even though they won the season series 3-2 against us, our team is by far the strongest it has ever been and we are riding a high of wins (assuming the Bahama Pro Show don't stack their team with Vermont players). If Montreal plays their scheduled end-of-season games in Beijing, I think they will lose to us in the playoffs, either because we will play better than them, or they will still be suffering from jetlag or depression after probably losing both games in China. Getting past Westchester will likely empty Montreal's gas tank, just in time for our well-rested players to run up and down the court against them on the way to victory.
So there you have it: we have a playoff game, probably at home, since the other teams are playing off to get to us, and probably against Montreal.
Looks good for us going to Quebec!
5 out of 8 teams will receive byes!?! OK... Anyway, the teams getting byes are Vermont, Manchester, San Diego, Texas Tycoons and the host team, Quebec.
Beijing has 5 players trying out for the Olympics, so they are not participating.
Unfortunately, the other 12 teams still in contention will have to battle for only 3 regional spots. No one said the ABA made sense.
Below are the respective press releases for each division playoff and my thoughts on them:
South Division
Three teams in the South division: West Texas Whirlwind, Georgia Gwizzlies, and Atlanta Vision. West Texas (3-6) will play Georgia (1-7) -- what a clash of the Titans!
The winner will go on to lose to Atlanta (6-2), who is pretty much guaranteed a spot, even though they have only played 8 games, beating such notable teams as the aforementioned Gwizzlies and the incomparable Bahama Pro Show (1-5, to be 1-7 after next week in Halifax).
I reiterate my protest that a team like Atlanta, who has so far played only 8 games of an 18-game season does not deserve to be in the playoffs against teams like Halifax, who have laboured to play as many games as possible.
West Division
Four West division teams:San Fran (5-10), OC (14-12), Maywood (3-23) and Long Beach (10-7) will play off to send their representative to Quebec.
My guess is that the doormats of the league -- Maywood, as if I had to say their name, which should be Maywouldn't -- and San Fran will fall to OC and Long Beach, who appear to be fairly good teams. Both OC and Long Beach have recently beaten higher-ranked teams, so they are both feeling good. Their matchup should be a good one.
Long Beach pretty much owns OC, winning all five of their matches this season, although the margins have been getting closer over the past few games. I'm going to say Long Beach goes to Quebec.
Northeast Division
Five teams from our Northeast division will play for the chance to play in Quebec. Jersey (7-10) will play Boston (8-16) and Montreal (8-17) will play Westchester (8-6). The winners of those games play off to see who will go against Halifax for the Northeast spot in the Awesome 8, or whatever they call it.
You may not remember Jersey or Westchester. They both cancelled games with us (which should have been forfeits for the record books, but I am not the league statistician).
Jersey appears to have a defensive game, with most of their opponents scoring an average of only 108 points per game. Unfortunately, Jersey has an average score of 103 points. They lost big to Vermont (but who hasn't?) and luckily they had First State to beat up on, to help Jersey's record with 4 of Jersey's 7 wins coming against the Fusion.
Westchester has beaten Jersey 4 out of their 5 matches of the season, with close scoring margins in 4 of the games (between 1 and 9 points), so Jersey is probably a weaker team than their record shows.
This is a bit of a toss-up, given the lack of exposure to Westchester or Jersey, but my guess is Jersey will win over Boston (Jersey did beat the Kebs, after all) and Montreal should beat Westchester. Montreal whupped the Phantoms in their only match-up this season, 130-96.
In the play-off, I think Montreal will win over Jersey, based on Montreal's record versus Jersey's record against common opponents, as well as Montreal's experience against a variety of teams, rather than Jersey's history of only playing a few teams who happen to be within an hour's drive, except for getting trounced in Vermont and Beijing. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Jersey doesn't travel much, they get destroyed away from home.
Our game against Montreal should be a good one. Even though they won the season series 3-2 against us, our team is by far the strongest it has ever been and we are riding a high of wins (assuming the Bahama Pro Show don't stack their team with Vermont players). If Montreal plays their scheduled end-of-season games in Beijing, I think they will lose to us in the playoffs, either because we will play better than them, or they will still be suffering from jetlag or depression after probably losing both games in China. Getting past Westchester will likely empty Montreal's gas tank, just in time for our well-rested players to run up and down the court against them on the way to victory.
So there you have it: we have a playoff game, probably at home, since the other teams are playing off to get to us, and probably against Montreal.
Looks good for us going to Quebec!
Rainmen and AUS Final 6
Good article by Chris Cochrane of the Herald about Mr. Levingston and the Rainmen’s contributions to the basketball community.
Although I can’t make it this weekend, I recommend everyone go to the tournament at the Metro Centre this weekend. It is a chance to see good local teams vying to be our regional rep at nationals.
Schedule:
March 7 Quarterfinal games: 6 PM and 8:15 PM
March 8 Semifinal games: 6 PM and 8:15 PM
March 9 Final game: 2 PM
The prices are ridiculously low: $48 for adults, $30 for students/seniors & $15/youth FOR ALL 5 GAMES! Prices for each day are $18, $12 & $6. This gets you both games on either Friday or Saturday, or the final on Sunday.
Here is the AUS website for full details:
Although I can’t make it this weekend, I recommend everyone go to the tournament at the Metro Centre this weekend. It is a chance to see good local teams vying to be our regional rep at nationals.
Schedule:
March 7 Quarterfinal games: 6 PM and 8:15 PM
March 8 Semifinal games: 6 PM and 8:15 PM
March 9 Final game: 2 PM
The prices are ridiculously low: $48 for adults, $30 for students/seniors & $15/youth FOR ALL 5 GAMES! Prices for each day are $18, $12 & $6. This gets you both games on either Friday or Saturday, or the final on Sunday.
Here is the AUS website for full details:
Rainmen Have Little Trouble Handling Quebec, 130-120
Really good game for the Rainmen, I think the recently-added players round out the team that needed more size and forwards. This momentum will serve us well in the playoffs, which are fast approaching.
Maybe someone should smack Brian on the nose before every game; he was the man against Quebec, draining 7 of 8 three-pointers. I like when he goes to the hoop too, because he usually draws a foul, which is like giving him 2 extra points.
Coach Lewis is improving with this new line-up, with good subbing all through the game, versus the 5-on, 5-off routine. Having more than a couple plays helps the team play better and is much more interesting for fans to watch. Plus, the guys win more games because they are not so predictable to defend.
Good passing, although a few got away. I truly think Jimmy’s experience as a Globetrotter is rubbing off on his teammates, with that great set-up bounce off the glass for Eric to absolutely crush into the net. Nice no-look passes and fast passing too, even though a couple errant attempts led to turn-overs.
Considering Quebec is a strong team, we seem to have little trouble with them, as shown by last night’s performance. Let’s hope we play them in Quebec City!
In other news, I was really disappointed by the DND turnout at the game. Considering the tickets were half-price or so, there should have been 1,000 more people there. Maybe it wasn’t promoted soon enough?
The entertainment is the weakest part of the evening, with between three (THREE!?!) and eight WG’s still performing their handful of routines and the lamest game I have ever seen of Keep-Away. That game has got to stop. I felt bad for the contestants, bad for the crowd and bad for me because I could have gone for a walk or something. I say bring back the Dizzy Bats and Oversize Trikes!
I will say it again: the WG’s need to start leading some cheers and distracting the opposition’s free throw attempts. Use those pom-poms, ladies!
Maybe someone should smack Brian on the nose before every game; he was the man against Quebec, draining 7 of 8 three-pointers. I like when he goes to the hoop too, because he usually draws a foul, which is like giving him 2 extra points.
Coach Lewis is improving with this new line-up, with good subbing all through the game, versus the 5-on, 5-off routine. Having more than a couple plays helps the team play better and is much more interesting for fans to watch. Plus, the guys win more games because they are not so predictable to defend.
Good passing, although a few got away. I truly think Jimmy’s experience as a Globetrotter is rubbing off on his teammates, with that great set-up bounce off the glass for Eric to absolutely crush into the net. Nice no-look passes and fast passing too, even though a couple errant attempts led to turn-overs.
Considering Quebec is a strong team, we seem to have little trouble with them, as shown by last night’s performance. Let’s hope we play them in Quebec City!
In other news, I was really disappointed by the DND turnout at the game. Considering the tickets were half-price or so, there should have been 1,000 more people there. Maybe it wasn’t promoted soon enough?
The entertainment is the weakest part of the evening, with between three (THREE!?!) and eight WG’s still performing their handful of routines and the lamest game I have ever seen of Keep-Away. That game has got to stop. I felt bad for the contestants, bad for the crowd and bad for me because I could have gone for a walk or something. I say bring back the Dizzy Bats and Oversize Trikes!
I will say it again: the WG’s need to start leading some cheers and distracting the opposition’s free throw attempts. Use those pom-poms, ladies!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Agony of Defeat
That old clip that started off The Wide World of Sports has a new challenger. Be sure to listen to the audio, especially the commentator.
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