Hockey & Football Threes

There were eight games on the NHL Monday menu and the number three was prevalent:

• Buffalo 3 Toronto 0
• Washington 3 Carolina 2
• Colorado 3 Tampa Bay 0 - Craig Anderson made 33 saves for his third shutout of the season. Matt Duchene, the 18-year old taken third in this year's entry draft, was the first star of the game with two goals.
• Atlanta 4 Florida 3

These three games were decided by three goal margins:

• Pittsburgh 5 New York Rangers 2
• Columbus 5 St. Louis 2 
• Detroit 4 Dallas 1 

Calgary 5 Nashville 0 - This one didn't have a three theme but Miikka Kiprusoff was perfect for his 33rd career shutout (third this season).

I am currently third in my Hockey Pool - just three points out of first!
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What an amazing display on Monday Night Football for Drew Brees (18 of 23 passes for 371 yards and five touchdowns) and the New Orleans Saints! They beat New England 38-17 to remain undefeated at 11-0.

Number three for the Saints is kicker John Carney. He played in his 300th career NFL game tonight. Only five others have done that. Number one on the list with 382 games played: 
-- Kicker Morten Andersen, who was with New Orleans from 1982-1994. He was with four other teams too in his career.
-- Number two on the list with 353 games played was another kicker, Gary Anderson, who was with Pittsburgh from 1982-1994. Like Morten, he played with four other teams.
3)  347 games and counting for Jeff Feagles, who is still punting for the New York Giants
4)  George Blanda played 340 games between 1949-1975
5)  Jerry Rice played in 303 games over twenty seasons (1985-2004) finishing as the most prolific receiver in NFL history with 1, 549 receptions.  
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Canada's championship football game, the Grey Cup, was played on Sunday and became the most-watched program on Canadian TV this year. As I predicted last Monday on this blog, Montreal won. 28-27 over Saskatchewan. It was an UNBELIEVABLE finish! Have a look:

Hockey voicing X 3

Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. friends!

Ladies first...
Congratulations to Sherry Ross, who became the first woman broadcaster to provide play-by-play for a full 60-minute NHL game in English!
It happened last night in New Jersey. Hear a voice clip and more here.

I feature many Buffalo Bills flashbacks on this blog so I thought I would throw one in from the Buffalo Sabres. This one opened their game one
year ago today on MSG-TV against the Boston Bruins:

That makes three blog posts in a row mentioning Boston...

I will be doing the PA (public address) at tonight's Westside Warriors game. On behalf of Warriors ownership, staff and fans, I would like to wish the U.S. born Warriors a Happy Thanksgiving!

• Matt Maher of Avon, Connecticut
• Jason Nash of Oxnard, California
• Izaak Berglund of Little Falls, Minnesota
• Kyle Singleton of Portland, Oregon
• Tyler Brickler of Riverwoods, Illinois. He will make his debut tonight against the visiting Salmon Arm Silverbacks.

The top scorer in the BCHL is Salmon Arm’s Mark Zengerle, a 20-year-old from Rochester, New York He will be joining West Kelowna’s Justin Schultz at the University of Wisconsin next season.

The fabulous Flutie Factor

One of the most memorable plays in college football history took place
25 years ago today. Thanks to Curt Harding for reminding me about
the Doug Flutie Hail Mary to lead Boston College to a 47-45 victory
over the Miami Hurricanes. Here is the 1984 call from Brent Musburger:


Not to be outdone, we featured a little "Flutie magic in Florida"
on this weekend's edition of the "Thurman Thomas Show":


Doug Flutie's best pro football years were spent in Canada.
He was named Most Outstanding Player in six seasons: 1991 - 1994, 1996 and 1997. But yesterday, two teams he formerly played with here lost in the playoffs. Sorry Doug!

• The BC Lions were blown out in Montreal 56-18! 
• Saskatchewan beat Calgary, 27-17.

So the Grey Cup Championship game goes next Sunday in Calgary
(host city) and I will go out on a limb and predict Montreal will win.

Two more sporting 100's!

Congratulations to:

• Tim Lincecum, who's 100 votes snagged him his second straight Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the National League. It was a close vote - with a couple of St. Louis Cardinals within 10 votes of him.
• Milan Michalek, who got his 100th career goal tonight for the Ottawa Senators as they beat Pittsburgh, 6-2.

As I googled 100's, I learned the North American F-100 Super Sabre was a jet fighter aircraft that served with the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1954 to 1971 and with the Air National Guard (ANG) until 1979. So, we end with a reference to 1979 - just like yesterday's blog post.

Were the Buffalo Sabres super in 1979? Not quite - but they were above average, finishing second in the Adams Division with 88 points. Ahead of them with 100 points in first were the Boston Bruins. These two teams meet Friday night in Buffalo. The Sabres have been super so far this season with a record of 12-5-1 while Boston is just 9-8-4 and out of the playoff picture. By the way, the Montreal Canadiens won their fourth straight Stanley Cup in 1979 - beating the New York Rangers. The New York Islanders would win the next four Stanley Cups.

Easy as 100!

Congratulations to:

• Washington Capitals' coach Bruce Boudreau, who picked up his 100th career win last night, becoming the fourth-fastest coach in NHL history to reach that milestone. Washington sits in first in the Eastern Conference, five points up on Buffalo, who have three games in hand.
• Kobe Bryant, who recorded his 100th 40-point game last night. His Lakers beat Detroit 106-93. Only Wilt Chamberlain (271) and Michael Jordan (173) have more 40-point games in their careers. 

NO congratulations to Dick Jauron - FIRED yesterday as coach of the Buffalo Bills. The writing was on the wall as you could see in my last blog post. Jauron has had only one winning season in ten as a head coach. That was a 13-3 record in 2001 with the Chicago Bears. His Bills' record over four seasons was 24 wins and 33 losses.

Jauron was the Defensive Coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars between 1995 - 1998. The Bills play there this Sunday while our 50th Season Moment on this weekend's "Thurman Thomas Show" will feature Jauron and the Jags. Too many J's? If you want more, here is some classic J.J. from "Good Times":

This final episode of "Good Times" in 1979 saw J.J. get an offer to a comic company while Keith's bad knee was miraculously healed and he was offered another football contract. A young Janet Jackson was also on the show.

Easy as 1-2-3?

Going into yesterday's game against the Tennessee Titans, the Buffalo Bills had scored 123 points. That was an average of only 15.4 points per game (8). But Tennessee had surrendered the most in the NFL with 238, so you figured the Bills could rack up some points. They did get 17 through three quarters and it was a tied game. Hopes were high!

But Tennessee intercepted two passes late in the fourth quarter and returned both for touchdowns in a 90 second span. The final was not flattering: 41-17. The Bills were flat in the fourth in their previous game too as Houston scored 22 unanswered points to win 31-10. The Bills may want to try and lobby for games to be just three periods like in the NHL...

The 3 stars of the week in the NHL included Buffalo's Ryan Miller at #3! Only better? Zetterberg and Kovalchuk.

The voice of the Buffalo Sabres is Rick Jeanneret. There is a limited edition Holiday Card available from the Sabres with Rick and pre-recorded audio holiday greetings and more Christmas goodies. Listen to all 3 here.

Other 1-2-3 blog posts you may enjoy:
1, 2, 3 on Friday the 13th (March 13, 2009)
Voice 123 and 23andme (November 23, 2007)

Voice Anniversaries!

Congratulations to DB Cooper! Five years ago today, she launched
the Voiceover Bulletin Board. It is a tremendous resource for experienced voice talents and those just starting out. Read some of the well wishes here. Thank you for all you do Deirdre!
I have posted there 147 times while this blog post is number 149!

Last Friday I voiced a script for Basetwo Media in Vancouver. It was exactly two Novembers ago that we worked together for the first time. In fact, it was for the same client but the product name changed from Forever Post and Board to EcoCrust Post and Board.

"Sesame Street" is 40 today! 

Ed Olczyk is a great hockey voice. He is the game analyst for the Chicago Blackhawks TV broadcasts. Olczyk is also the lead game analyst for the NHL on NBC, and a studio and color analyst for the big league games on the Versus network. Ed Olczyk's son, Tom, was born 19 years ago today. He plays for the Sioux City Musketeers. The funny thing is his dad was traded from Toronto to Winnipeg as he was in the delivery room...

No average Joes/Awesome Grandma!

This weekend on the Bills' 50th Season Moment:
a 1980 visit to San Francisco. Go Joe! (Not Montana)

San Francisco hosts Tennessee today while the Bills are off until they meet Tennessee next weekend.

I love stories about people overcoming the odds.
San Francisco's tight end, Vernon Davis, is one of those.
BIG thanks to his Grandma! Have a look and listen here.

PS There are 28 NFL players with the last name Davis.

Soccer commercials Beckham would approve of

Hass thanks Faas for this soccer link.

Michael Grabner of the Vancouver Canucks fractured his ankle during a pre-game soccer warm-up Sunday and could be out until Christmas. I mentioned I sprained my ankle two weeks ago. I believe I will be back on the basketball court next week. This past Monday I was able to go for a walk for the first time since the injury.

This weekend on the "Thurman Thomas Show", we will have footage from a classic Bills game where the quarterback played with a severely sprained ankle. I will post it here on Sunday morning.

SportS StatiSticS

Tonight's Shaw TV broadcast does not approach the magnitude of the sixth game of the World Series between the Yankees and Phillies - or next Monday night's football game between the better known Broncos of Denver hosting Pittsburgh.

But, there are ten S's in this 15 second promo of mine. The 30 second promo had 17 S's - if anyone is tracking that StatiStic:)

The NHL team with the most S's in their full name? The San Jose Sharks with four. Only three NHL teams do NOT end with an S:

• Tampa Bay Lightning
• Colorado Avalanche
• Minnesota Wild

All 32 NFL teams end with an S. Only two major league baseball teams do not end with an S:

• Boston Red Sox
• Chicago White Sox

The Hockey Hall of Fame will induct a star-studded cast on November 9 when Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Brian Leetch and Luc Robitaille are inducted as players and Lou Lamoriello is inducted as a builder. Just one S among all those letters. Ten L's though...LOL...

Remembering THE Comeback and The Mask

The Texans' Ryan Moats had the game of his life today and the Bills' Ryan Fitzpatrick did not. "Ryan the runner" had three touchdowns and 126 yards while "Ryan the passer" had only 117 yards. Houston 31, Buffalo 10. With a bye next week, the Bills will not have a chance to come back from this catastrophe until November 15 against the winless Tennessee Titans (the former Houston Oilers).

As I promised at the end of my last post, this weekend on the Bills' 50th Season Moment: the greatest comeback in NFL history.
The Bills were down 35-3 in this 1993 playoff game against the Oilers:


Fifty years ago today, the goalie mask found its way into the hockey world. I wonder if a football helmet could have worked...