In team sports, athletes who are losing by a lot complain when the other team tries to add to their victory. That doesn't seem to happen so much in individual sports.

When was the last time you heard a track athlete say something like "he didn't have to throw a world record in my face." It pains me to say something positive about golf, buy I don't recall any golfers complaining when Tiger Woods won the Masters by 12 strokes or the U.S. Open by 15 strokes. Boxers don't say "he disrespected me by knocking me out."

I suppose some of it is that in many individual sports there are objective standards apart from the other competitors, so that it's a fair argument that the athletes are competing against themselves as much as against the other athletes, but I think there's more to it than that.

Perhaps there's something about the psychology of team sports that causes people to feel insulted by losing by a large margin.

March of the Penguins

Pirates of the Caribbean

pigeonweather,

I haven't read anything here in Portland about the possibility of getting the Pittsburgh Penguins, so I don't think it will happen.

The one thing that makes it a little more likely that Portland could get an NHL team is that Paul Allen no longer owns the Rose Garden Arena, where the formerly-loved-now-loathed-by-me Trail Blazers play. As long as Allen controlled the arena, it was unlikely that he'd want a team that would compete for fans with his Blazers.

Portland's a good hockey town--the Winter Hawks draw good crowds to see a bunch of kids play. When I was a kid the Buckaroos were the only winter pro sports team in town, so a lot of people grew up as hockey fans.

There's been intermittent talk of an NHL team coming to town, but the belief has always been that the Blazers didn't want a competitor.

Now that the Blazers have lost their luster, it would be a great time for the NHL to come in with a team.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the BSU-OU game proves how badly flawed the BCS is.

I agree that a playoff system makes more sense, but if a playoff system had been in place, it's unlikely the Fiesta Bowl matchup would have occured.

In the last BCS standings, Boise State was ranked 8th, meaning they'd play Ohio State (excuse me, THE Ohio State University...if Ohio Staters are so adamant about the definite article, why don't they call it TOSU?) in the first round in an eight-team playoff. Oklahoma was ranked 10th, meaning they'd be out the playoffs.

I think that a sixteen-team playoff is much less likely, but at least there would be a possibility of BSU playing Oklahoma, but Boise State would likely still have to get past Ohio State.

That's assuming some version of the BCS system was used to determine the teams and seedings.

If it was done strictly by the coaches poll, or the AP poll, it's Boise State that would be left out of an eight-team playoff, as they're 9th in both polls.

Though I think a playoff would be an improvement, it still wouldn't address several problems with college football. One problem is that if the big-time programs (Ohio State, LSU, USC, Michigan, Florida, etc.) want to avoid playing Boise State, they can do so, and there's presently no incentive for them to schedule tough mid-major teams.

Perhaps one way around it is shorten the lead-time of scheduling in college football--pro sports don't schedule the next season until after the present season is concluded. Then require, for playoff (or BCS, or whatever) consideration, that at least two non-conference games are scheduled with top-25 teams from the previous year.

There would have to be systems in place to avoid sandbagging teams like Boise State.

There would be more games between top teams, meaning better competition.

The problem with the the a beat b, who beat c, who beat d, who beat e, etc. who beat z, therefore a is better than z approach is that it assumes that inequalities are transferable.

There's a guy who gained his 15 minutes of fame by bartering, starting with a red paper clip, and he eventually reached his goal of bartering for a house. That doesn't mean that a paper clip is more valuable than a house, it just means that there were transitory inequalities.

In sports, some teams' have strengths that work well against certain types of teams, and not against others. And all teams (and individuals) have good days and bad days.

This is understood in baseball--I've NEVER heard anyone say "The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Texas Rangers, who beat the Baltimore Orioles, who beat theToronto Blue Jays, who beat the Oakland As, who beat the Boston Red Sox, who beat the New York Yankees, therefore the Devil Rays are better than the Yankees." Nobody would even think it was a mildly funny joke.