Now I wasn’t expecting that one. New Jersey were not one of the teams a lot of the rumor mongering types were putting on their shortlist of team that would trade for Kovalchuk but last night good ‘ol Lou Lamarello came up with the goods to grab one of the games top snipers. The Devils are defensive first team and have been for years, but they once traded for Russian Alex Mogilny a number of years back and he won a cup with them so no reason this cannot work again by getting Kovalchuk.

To get Kovalchuk the Devils parted with John Oduya, Nic Bergfors, prospect Patrice Cormier (the kid suspended for the rest of the year in the QMJHL for a dirty elbow just a few weeks ago) and a 1st round draft pick.

While the Devils were already a contender, this really puts them in a good position to go all the way. Whether he stays on there past this season remains to be seen but I think this is worth the risk by NJ.

For what its worth, Kovalchuk never really meant what he said by saying he wanted to stay in Atlanta if the deal was right, he supposedly turned down a 12 year $101-million contract and if you turn that down either your incredibly greedy or you never wanted to stay at all … I think its the later because he may be greedy but he isn’t stupid and he’ll do well to better 12 years at $101-million anywhere in the summer. Kovalchuk clearly wanted to save face with the fans and didn’t want to come out and verbally say that he wanted to leave.

I think Atlanta were hoping for more but when a player this good is only potentially going to be a short term rental there is only so much a team will pay. If he’d been upfront with them earlier in the year they could have got more for him earlier in the season, perhaps even late last year when they’d have got a ton in return.

Teams need to learn that if you take your stars into the final year of their contracts without a renewal you run the serious risk of losing them for little return. I don’t know what some GM’s think but if it were me I’d be making sure to lock up my stars at least 15 months prior to their contract expiring and if I couldn’t then I’d look to deal early when I could get maximum return.

Think I’d ignore this story altogether? Yes I am late but I’m not in it for the juicy gossip, just the Football side of it, though both have become intertwined so much the last lot of days it is hard to discuss one without getting caught up in the other. Much like trying to write about how Golf would be affected by the Tiger Woods scandal or more-so what would happen next with Tiger Woods in a Golfing context. Yep, this John Terry affair with his team-mates ex-girlfriend and then getting her pregnant and paying for an abortion is Britain’s very own Tiger Woods scandal and the tabloids are going for the throat on this one, hoping to dig up more woman, more gossip and more to bring Terry down with. The guy should never have got the injunction and pissed off the British hacks to this degree. Even in a World Cup year when these same writers profess their undying love for all things English Football with their full support are they willing to risk it all by bringing down the clubs captain.

That isn’t to say Terry is innocent, after all he made his own bed and in the end, he gave them something to write about by acting the fool in the first place, but I have always said the private lives of anyone, regardless of the money they make or the fact they are a celebrity should remain private and what they do behind closed doors, is none of our business. But it is in our faces now and that is the reality and questions must be asked about whether it is right for him to go on as England captain?

Personally, now that it is all out in the open I really think the guy should be stood down. His team-mate Wayne Bridge whose ex-girlfriend Terry is alleged to have had an affair with could well be in the dressing room with him at the World Cup and for Terry to be standing there with the captains armband on saying, “Right boys, follow me into battle, I’m your leader and I’m going to win you the World Cup,” you have to imagine would leave one half of the dressing room backing Bridge and then you run into all sorts of problems. Some experts argue that this won’t hurt the dressing room, and it may not, but then there is the moral issue also. Sports stars shouldn’t be looked at as roll models, but the England manager has said that he expects his players to be stand up people and remember what they are representing. As captain, John Terry represents his entire country on the football scene and these latest problems won’t sit well with a lot of people.

I personally couldn’t care less, if I was English and busting for England to win the World Cup I’d only care if I thought it would tear the team apart so close to the event itself, but while it may or may not, is it worth Capello taking the risk? Taking the risk that the team fall out, that Bridge and Terry have issues and England’s best shot at glory in many years is destroyed by some non-footballing issue. Many team mates over the years have hated one another off the field but when they cross the white line they act professionally and get the job done because it benefits them as well to be successful, but is it worth the risk? Of course if the answer to something like that is yes then a new can of worms opens - stripping Terry of the captaincy wouldn’t be enough, you’d have to banish him from the squad altogether. Of course Terry is a much better player than Bridge but what kind of message would that send if Capello left Bridge out of his squad to avoid controversy.

No doubt about it, this is Fabio Capello’s toughest decision of his England managerial tenure. It’ll be much tougher than deciding his squad and if he gets it wrong the media will, unfortunately, come down on him. John Terry should have done the right thing and took the problem out of his managers hands by volunteering to step down. Throw in an apology and suddenly, with five months still to go until the World Cup, there is plenty of time to heal the wounds and focus on Football. Depending on what Capello does it could go wrong every time just as easily as it could go right:

1. He keeps Terry as captain and the dressing room revolts throwing the WC dreams into tatters.

2. He drops Terry as captain but keeps him in the squad and England don’t win and the media point to this decision as the pivotal moment.

3. He drops Terry from the squad and… (see above).

4. He doesn’t pick Bridge and the press go wild that he ditched the innocent guy in all of this just to keep the balance of the team even though Bridge’s place in the squad is not guaranteed anyway.

Oh to be Fabio Capello (though the headache might be worth it for the salary!)

In a sporting context, what makes this much worse than the Tiger Woods affair is that Football is a team sport and so many other players dreaming of World Cup glory could have that left in jeopardy thanks to John Terry’s private lift turning public.

On a side note away from Terry but on the subject of sport stars under 24/7 scrutiny comes another reality in the modern society that we live in; With mobile phones with built in cameras that have instant access to Internet uploading, the superstars we love to watch are under the eye more than ever … one bad photo of a footballer, generously taking a photo with some female fan with his first beer of the night in his hands but caught blinking as the photo is being taken is on the net in seconds and it looks like he is a drunken mess picking up random woman at the bar. Sports stars aren’t that open to their fans that much as it is, but this sort of stuff drives the fans away even more. There are plenty of sports stars out there who refuse to have their photo taken in public with fans because of what may be implied, and that is a shame.

And on a final note I want to refer to the word Scandal. I will use in a tag of this post and I used it on some of the Tiger Woods articles a month or two ago. What a shame that a sportsblog is forced to tag some borderline sports story with words such as Scandal. Another one I’ve had to use over the years that I wish I didn’t is Drug Cheat and Steroids etc.

It’s an unconfirmed record but I am willing to bet it is indeed a record for a forth owner to be taking control of a professional football in just one season. Yep, Portsmouth the in-debt club with more owners coming in and out in a season than player transfers has got yet another owner and this time you couldn’t write the script better in a cheesy soap drama.

The owner this time is Balram Chainrai, a Hong Kong businessman who literally seized control of the club when it failed to repay debts to him when he had loaned the club £17m a number of months back. The loan was made against the ground and the ownership of the club and when repayments failed to materialize, Chainrai’s patience expired and he moved in to take control. Unbelievable.

I wonder if this guy actually has the money to run the club properly because the other lot didn’t and I’m willing to be this is far from the white light of hope and security Portsmouth fans were hoping for. This club is in serious trouble and the future doesn’t look bright. And do you know what the saddest thing of all is when reading articles about this and seeing names such as Balram Chainrai, Sacha Gaydamak, Sulaiman al-Fahim and Faraj is the lack of British names in there. Football teams are clearly best owned and run (baring perhaps a few rare occasions) by British owners who have an assossiation with the clubs and a true love for them

Seems Ilya is set to leave Atlanta. A contract agreement cannot be reached and GM Don Waddell today informed Ilya he’d be traded in the coming hours or days. Rumors have it that the following teams are in play:

Calgary: Since ruled out

Chicago: Since ruled out

LA: The favorites and would be an excellent pick up if they can re-sign him

Boston: Kovalchuk beside Savard suddenly makes Boston better again.

Philly: Carter + Coburn + Prospect + pick? Might get it done. I’d love it, but only if we could sign him though he wants 10 odd years and I wouldn’t want to give him that.

Rangers: You never can tell with the Rangers but he’d be purely rental I’d imagine.

The other belief is that Atlanta have just said this to really generate interest from other teams and maybe make one or two others a little bit desperate in what they are willing to throw at the Thrashers for their star winger.

Well tonight was the night that everyone had their eyes on the Leafs/Devils game to see how Brian Burke’s big shakeup of the roster would begin to play out. And if you were to judge on one night only you’d have to score it 10 out of 10 though maybe that is a bad thing for the Leafs because now the fans will truly believe the corner has been turned and this is the start of many big wins. Could it be? Well the Leafs could well improve to a point but this won’t suddenly make them a top team in the NHL over night, there is still work to do and tonight they came up against a very sub par Devils teams. But I shouldn’t be all harsh, the Leafs did all they could and got service from all three new players straight away to shut out the Devils 3-0.

New boy Dion Phaneuf, the one everyone was looking at played a strong game. He had hits, he had shots and he even dropped the gloves in a decent scrap. Playing slightly under his shadow, which is rare when a Stanley Cup winning goalie comes to Toronto was JS Giguere but he was perhaps the best player of all on the ice turning away 29 shots to pick up his first shutout as a Leaf … the last man to pick up a shutout for the Leafs on his debut was Eddie Belfour. And last but not least was Ferdrick Sjostrom who grabbed an assist on the Leafs first goal and featured all night long on their penalty killing unit.

So there you have it, the deal after one game is a success story and everyone is content. How it’ll look in ten games time is anyone’s guess but while I don’t think it’ll make them a brilliant team just yet, it looks like it might be a step in the right direction. If anything Phaneuf looks like he’ll be fun to watch.

I am not Brian Burke’s biggest fan, but you have to admire him for not sitting on a bad thing and admire him for being very aggressive in trying to tackle the problem that is the modern day Toronto Maple Leafs. Burke has threatened changes from the get-go but as time went on the threats to send veterans to the minors and make trades appeared to be looking like idle threats until Sunday when Burke pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it into the Leafs dressing room blowing it to pieces.

By the time the dust settled a staggering 30% of the teams line-up had gone and three good players plus a prospect had come back in. Tonight they will take to the line-up for the first time and everyone will anxiously tune in to see what happens.

I don’t expect a miracle, I certainly don’t expect the Leafs to soar up the standings but something had to change and overall, while losing Ian White isn’t easy (he’s having a better year than Phaneuf), the Leafs have improved to a degree. I say degree because they are now left desperately short in the forward position but can now look at young players and see what forward positions they need to address in the off season. Actually, Burke said he isn’t done trading some some of those positions could yet be finished by trading out some defensemen, a position the Leafs can trim down on.

If only Liverpool, my beloved Liverpool Football Club, could address their own problems and lack of talent un-worty of wearing the Red shirt in a similar way to the Leafs. To many times this season I have watched them fall well short of standards and wished Benitez had the guts to ditch 30% of the line-up. Sure we haven’t the money to buy but we could certainly sell and buy in replacements, perhaps even give some younger players a run out who actually want to be there. But then, that’s a rant for another day.

Winter testing for the 2010 Formula One season is officially underway and the greatest sight of all is that of Michael Schumacher back behind the wheel of an F1 car regardless of the fact that it seems strange not seeing him in a Red Ferrari. Actually, I wonder how many people look at the Ferrari garage waiting for him to emerge only to catch themselves on?

The session at Circuit Ricardo Tormo also marked the comeback of Felippe Massa who returns from a serious head injury that at one point was not just career threatening, but life threatening and he proved there is no rust by setting the fast time of the day at 1 minute 12.574 secs.

Schumacher was on the pace from the get go, getting used to the latest brand of Formula One car and finished the day with the third fastest time of 1 minute 12.947 secs after 40 laps completed.

“In a way it’s like 91 again,” said Schumacher, “I felt like I had a toy in my hands. For the first day, the team have done a superb job.”

Still, you cannot read too much into the times set by drivers on the first days of testing. Many drivers are running many different set-ups and fuel loads and so the timings can be off for various reasons. An example of this is the fact that Pedro de la Rosa in his Sauber (great to see that name back) set the second fastest time and he has been out of the F1 racing game since 2006 (and he ain’t no Schumacher).

Often smaller teams use these tests as a chance to lighten up the car and put in a few quick times to potentially pull in sponsors while other more stable teams will immediately get ready for race type situations which this year will include no re-fueling and therefore very different handling cars compared to previous years. Don’t however expect it to take long for the runners and riders to get used to the new styles of the cars, these guys adapt very quickly as has been seen in previous years when rule changes have changed the dynamics of the cars.

Seven of the expected 13 teams took part, none of the four newcomers put in an appearance.

It’s been a long old hockey season for those that like their trades … Until today. I was sitting watching TV this morning when someone pointed out to me the names of some Leafs players on the news ticker and that it looked like there had been a trade. I turned on the net and was indeed informed of the blockbuster deal that had taken place between Toronto and Calgary and later Toronto and Anaheim.

The trades:

Toronto acquire defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie along with forward Fredrik Sjostrom from the Calgary Flames in return for forwards Jason Blake, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and defenseman Ian White.

Toronto acquire goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere from Anaheim Ducks in return for goalie Vesa Toskala and forward Jason Blake.

Thoughts:

Well the Toronto media have proclaimed their city the winner of this deal before a shot is fired in anger by any of these players at their new teams simply because Phaneuf is the biggest name in the deal. They have a point to a degree, the Leafs gave up some players on big salaries who were not producing as much as they might have liked and with the team sitting at the bottom end of the standings and losing on a nightly basis, it makes sense to make changes going forward. Losing a bunch of forwards frees up space for the Leafs to give young players a shot to prove their worth for the rest of the season and getting back a young star like Phaneuf never hurts.

More»

Canada’s greatest and most successful cyclist ever Steve Bauer has formed a professional Cycling team made up mainly of Canadian riders with the hope of one day getting them into the Tour de France. The team, backed by Blackberry billionaire and failed NHL owner Jim Balsillie and named SpiderTech, hopes that it can compete in big time pro races by 2011 and in the Tour de France itself by 2013. Bauer is the teams Director Sportif and is no strange to Tour de France races. He competed in 11 Tours in his time finishing a Canadian-best fourth overall in 1988.

This would be incredible for Canadian Cycling if this took off. Cycling is big in Canada but not as big as it could and should be in a country with as many roads, people and mountains as it holds. The TV coverage of pro-cycling is almost non-existant. Only the Outdoor Life Network provides the Versus feed of the Tour de France but no other events. It would be wonderful if this thing got big and big Sports networks like TSN, Sportsnet or even The Score got involved and started showing some of the Grand Tours and big classic races. A few more Canadian riders and perhaps a few Canadian wins would go along way to helping towards this.

After all, one look at what some of these sports channels show during the day anyway - poker for example - and you have to wonder why they haven’t got onboard and gave Cycling coverage a go?

Arsene Wenger has the full backing of the Arsenal support, and rightly so given what he has already achieved, but it’s been a while since the support had something to celebrate about and so it is understandable that questions are starting to arise about the approach being taken to building a winning team. Arsenal play the best Football in the league but when they are allowed to play the best Football and today against Manchester United they forced Arsenal into a game they couldn’t handle and it lead to the 3-1 thumping that has put them in a hole in the Championship race.

In the middle third of the field Arsenal are brilliant to watch, they control the ball well and they pick out the short sharp passes and even that was evident today but in the final third they could offer nothing. They lacked the finishing touch that mattered in the outcome of the game and were left to watch Manchester United hit them hard on the break and score three well worked goals. Wenger has said before that the money is available to improve the team, in fact he said it again just this afternoon, but has also said he is not sure that he will make any changes. Is he being stubborn? Does he really believe his current crop can get the job done? They can certainly come close but until he gets a man who really can out muscle opposition defenders and put away the chances put on a platter to him by the creative boys in Arsenal’s midfield then I think they will continue to come up short in the title race.

Splashing out cash isn’t Wenger’s style and he is out to prove that the title can be won by growing a team rather than buying one, but if he was to throw the money at someone like David Villa it really could make the difference for the Arsenal team.

And what about United? I hate to give credit to United whether it is due or not, but you cannot help but be amazed by the player Rooney has become this season. He has gone from a very good player to a world class superstar this year and has adapted to being the loan striker United crave. With Nani on the right wing, were he looks much sharper, United cut Arsenal down. Nani’s move in from the wing to score the first goal was beautiful stuff and Rooney’s powerful run up the middle of the field to get onto Nani’s pass for the second goal was the stuff you only see from someone like Rooney.

Unfortunately the win puts United closer to the title race than I hoped they would be after today, but the deserved the win. Arsenal controlled the ball for a lot of the game but when it came down to it they could do nothing with it and were duly punished for their inability to play physical and finish off their chances.

It’s a new decade and many in Britain hoped it would be a new era to come with that new decade in British Tennis. Andy Murray was playing in his second major final of his young career but was again coming up against the undisputed master of men’s Tennis, Roger Federer.

The game was on in the wee hours of the morning so I hit record last night and got up this morning to watch it before the Football game. The first shot that came in from the live broadcast was of the two players standing in the tunnel before the game and one look at their body posture and their eyes and you could tell who was going to win. Murray looked nervous, perhaps even worried, while Federer had a look of a many wondering how long it would be before he picked up yet another trophy. Even in the stands the comparison was so different. The Murray family were leaping up and down with every point their boy scored while Federer’s wife sat there and simply applauded his each and ever point with an expression of ‘been there, done it and just another trophy to be won.’

It seemed that before I had even finished my breakfast that the first set was over and that by the time the kettle was boiled and I was sipping my first tea of the morning that the second was down as well. Murray was in a hole having dropped the first two sets and it was only a matter of time. Falling behind at all to Federer is a huge problem but never has the great man blown a two sets to love lead in a major final and lost.

Murray was clutching at his leg from time to time, wincing with pain at something at appeared to be hampering, but how refreshing it was to have a non-British commentator calling the game when the American in the booth duly noted that it’s interesting how players often pick up these little injuries when trailing in a game.

Murray fought hard in the third set, trying desperately to get something from the game and delay the inevitable. He took it to a tie break which seen Federer fail to take a couple of tournament winning chances as both players held serve and followed a break on one with a break on another to keep things level. Finally Federer took his serve and broke Murray and the announcer called what I could see coming from the first moment I seen the players in the tunnel before the match, “Game, Set, Match, Tournament Federer.”

You know things are getting grim as a professional sports team when you can no longer afford to run your website and the following day you are due to pay your top flight players. That is the situation Portsmouth find themselves in as their financial predicament gets worse and worse. The team has changed ownership what seems like two or three dozen times already this year with one not-actually-rich-at-all owner following another with promises of glory being broken the first time he has to pay the players. Ali al-Faraj is the latest foreign owner to come in and do his best to destroy the once stable club. How the F.A. - in fact, the British Government for that matter - can allow such owners to come in and mess with the hearts and minds of so many loyal fans is beyond me.

Portsmouth will likely get relegated this season and the way the finances are at the minute that only spells seriously bad times ahead. Their fans may enjoy what is left of the Football itself this season - if that is possible - because it could be a long time before they see Premier League Football again.

Arsene the perneial whiner Wenger last night called Aston Villa’s game a “long ball game” that he believes typifies the English style of play and that is stopped his team getting the ball on the ground and playing their game, hence forcing the 0-0 draw. The comment didn’t sit well with O’Neill who described it as “an appalling insult.”

Does Wenger ever just accept it when he doesn’t get the result? I feel even if his side had been beaten 9-0 last night he’d have found a reason as to why such as the referee’s performance or that the other team didn’t play to Arsenal’s style and as such giving them the best chance to win.

Seriously Arsene, what do you expect Villa to do? Gift you the result? And that is if they did indeed play such a style, which having seen how they have played this year doesn’t seem like it would be the case. Wenger realised this was two huge points dropped in the title race, and as always, tossed the toys out of the pram. Wenger is a gifted manager and has put together a very skillful and slick team, but when the going gets rough it appears his kids, along with him, fold like a cheap tent in the wind.

Andy Murray, the great Scottish hope of British Tennis is just one win away from his first Grand Slam title, an achievement that will ensure his victory as British Sports man of the year 2010. Considering no British man has won a singles grand slam in 70-years and you get an idea of the pressure on Murray!

A final of a Grand Slam though isn’t a new experience for Murray who reached the final of the US Open in 2008 were he lost to Roger Federer. Murray has got to the final of the Australian Open by going through Marian Cilic in the semi-final and will play either Roger Federer or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Sunday’s final.

I must admit I have seen very little of the tournament due to the time it is on and being in work but I will be sure to set the PVR and record the final if I cannot put aside time to actually watch it.

There is a wonderful rumour doing the rounds that Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez may be approached by Juventus to be their new manager. If there is even a sniff of truth in this then I hope Liverpool get all over it because not only will it allow them a fresh start with a new manager but they won’t even have to pay off his contract to get him away. Actually, Juventus might well have to pay Liverpool compensation.

Following tonight’s dismal 0-0 draw with Wolves, Juventus cannot come calling sooner.