Once again, I’d guess that 90% of your workplace conversation today (if you are one of the unlucky bunch that actually has to work today…like me) is going to be centered on one thing: Super Bowl XLIII. The teams were decided yesterday and let the battle begin! For the next two weeks expect to be completely bombarded with trivia, facts, stats, players names, meaningless information and a whole lot of football words and terms (don’t worry my Girl’s Guide to the Super Bowl will be up shortly to help cope).
1. The Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers are heading to Tampa!
Arizona Cardinals-Philadelphia Eagles:
Do you know how happy this win makes me? Kurt Warner will be here in two weeks! Whoo hoo! Maybe I’ll get to stalk touch grab his ass coincidentally bump into him at the bar and meet him. Anyway, I’ll have some recaps of the game up before noon today but here are the facts to get you until then:
- The Arizona Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Eagles 32-25
- Cardinal’s QB Kurt Warner is one of the oldest QBs to go to Super Bowl!
- Cardinal’s Wide Receiver Larry Fitzgerald was the star of the game. He had 152 yards receiving on nine catches. If you don’t know what that means like I do, just remember try to memorize it. 152 yards/9 catches. Trust me, it will totally impress people!
- The Cardinals have never played in a division championship game. They have never been to the Super Bowl!
Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers
- The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens 23-14
- The Steelers dominated almost the entire game but the Ravens made two comeback attempts, at the end of the second quarter and in late in fourth. Clearly, neither worked.
- In the two other post-season games, Raven’s rookie hottie QB Joe Flacco had no interceptions or sacks. In this game he had three interceptions and sacked three times by the Steelers.
For more information, check out my recaps of the games, posting shortly
2. Blockbuster Saturday was a sneak peek into NCAA March Madness
I may have lied when I said that “college basketball is the sport to watch because unless the guy is a die-hard fan of a specific team, you only have to tune into it for one month a year, in March.” Because Saturday was a huge day in NCAA basketball. The day was filled with key match-ups of the top ranked teams–and the teams that hope to be ranked (I don’t get the ranking thing either. No one does, don’t worry).
I’ve already recapped the games once and that was boring educational and fabulous enough, so I’m just going to do a really quick scoreboard and you can check out my Blockbuster Saturday Recaps for more details. There are a TON of teams that played. These are just the ones I happen to know about! Don’t try to memorize them all! I starred a couple to get you through the day!
- Wake Forest 78 Clemson 68 **
- Arizona State 61 UCLA 58 OT
- Louisville 69 Pittsburgh 63 **Pittsburgh was undefeated before this game
- Duke 76 Georgetown 67
- UNC 82 Miami 65
- Syracuse 93 Notre Dame 74
- Oklahoma 69 Texas A&M 63
Wish I could cover more but until March Madness, I usually just stay on the outskirts of college basketball. I did do some player profiles of guys you need to know, that you probably don’t. That was fun!
3. The Inauguration and the NBA
I really was going to give you nine sports things this week! But I remembered the other hugely significant things that are going on this week and figure that other than Super Bowl talk and a little college ball recaps, more of the conversations will be centered on the Inauguaration of President-Elect Barack Obama on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. I did however find a big sports tie-in for ya!
Go ahead and scold me but I’m saying right now that the NBA was a bit boring last week. I really didn’t see any major news that I could bring you.
I really liked this piece that I found on NBA.com The Meaning of Obama: NBA Embraces New Leader’s Message. In the article, there are quotes from Obama about basketball that really struck a cord.
“And I could play basketball, with a consuming passion that would always exceed my limited talent …”
–Barack Obama, president-elect of the United States, from his autobiography Dreams from My Father.. I had watched the players in warm-ups, still boys themselves but to me poised and confident warriors, chuckling to each other about some inside joke, glancing over the heads of fawning fans to wink at the girls on the sidelines, casually flipping layups or tossing high-arcing jumpers until the whistle blew and the centers jumped and the players joined in furious battle. I decided to become part of that world …
– from Dreams from My Father
Again, it’s something I’ve already written about so I’m not going to be redundant. You can check it out here: The Miracle on the Hudson
That’s about it. If you have any other suggestions, I’ll totally add to this but that’s really all I have! On to the recaps!
About the author: Jennifer Taglione is the owner of this fabulous website Stiletto Sports. Despite writing well over 500 posts, she still maintains that she is not a sports writer! She is however a huge fan of Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Mark Sanchez, the Celtics, and totally kicks butt on March Madness brackets! Connect with her by following her on Twitter @StilettoSportsJ and subscribing to her weekly newsletter. For more info check out the About the Editor page!
Comments & Feedback
2 Responses
There are several teams I can think of that Barack Obama would help out — starting with the Washington Wizards.
[Reply]
Posted on January 19th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Ummm….Okay. Not quite sure how to respond to that! Thanks for the tip? Think we kinda jumped in like mid-thought on your comment there! I know what you are saying, just think you may have needed another line to kinda introduce it
Maybe I’m just being silly! But I will check out your link!
[Reply]
Posted on January 19th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Leave us some love!