CanadianChris

Hedberg's going to be eaten alive if he starts tonight in Ottawa. I haven't heard who the starter is yet.

Is there a less sympathetic figure in the league than Brian Burke?

With Castro, his death will count whenever it's announced, unless it's announced that he's been dead as of some other date. Also, you don't have a BEST BET.

If Seattle was the visiting team, absolutely.

The really bizarre thing about this year is that I'm leading in my straight-up money pool with three weeks to go. New Orleans Tampa Bay Baltimore Cleveland Green Bay Jacksonville New England Seattle Tennessee Indianapolis San Diego Dallas N.Y. Giants Minnesota

It's mid-December, which can only mean it's time for the fourth annual TSM Death Pool. I've added a few new twists to the scoring for this year's contest. Last year was a pretty bad year for anyone not banned from this site. Hopefully, next year will be good for us, and bad for celebrities. Here are the rules: Pick any 20 celebrities who you think will die between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. I will be the sole arbiter on who is a celebrity and who isn't. The main rule -- if a major news organization reports on someone's death, that person is generally considered a celebrity, although there may be exceptions. New eligibility rules for this year: Anyone picked must be at least 18 years of age as of December 31, 2007. Anyone executed by the state will receive zero points. Scoring Each dead celebrity is worth a base of 10 points. Additional points will be allocated as follows, according to age at the time of death: 18-34: 75 points 35-49: 50 points 50-59: 40 points 60-69: 30 points 70-79: 20 points 80-99: 10 points 100+: 0 points Bonus points 25 points will be awarded for any of the following: - If a dead person on your list appears on your list and no one else's. - If a person on your list dies during the month of December. - If a person on your list dies of unnatural causes (suicide, murder or accident), other than through a state execution. The BEST BET You may select any ONE of your celebrities as a BEST BET. If your BEST BET dies during the year, ALL points for that person are DOUBLED. Whoever has the most points at the end of the year will be the winner. In case of a tie, whoever had the most people on their list die will win. In case of a further tie, whoever has the lowest total age of all dead people on their list will win. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2007. No exceptions. Once you post your list, it is final, except if someone on your list dies before January 1, 2008, in which case you may post a replacement no later than 11:59 pm on December 31, 2007. Anyone found guilty of murdering someone on their list will be disqualified. Good luck to everyone!

Denver - 24 Broncos Bengals

Just heard that Mac-Andre Fleury is out 6-8 weeks. As if the Pens didn't have enough problems in goal. Nice defensive effort by the Sens tonight, currently shutting out Carolina 3-0. Emery went out with some kind of injury 5 minutes in, though.

I played the one on their website three times, and the three winners were LSU, Kansas, and Illinois (?!?).

Wow, I am stunned that I forgot about these.

Most liked: - Ottawa makes the Stanley Cup finals (ldo) - Boise State beats Oklahoma in the game of the year - Padraig Harrington beats Sergio Garcia in a playoff at the Open Championship - Alexei Yashin gets run out of the NHL Most hated: - Sports media/talking heads. It's gotten to the point where the media now makes the news more often than just reporting it, with Kirk Herbstreit's "exclusive" of Les Miles' supposed agreement with Michigan being just the latest example. - fox college football coverage. Awful. - Rory Sabbatini. Just shut up already. - The Suns/Spurs series. A great series forever marred by a pair of unnecessary suspensions. I hated David Stern's sanctimonious posturing after the fact, too.

Not much of a Thursday night game, unfortunately. The Broncos need to win to have any shot at making next week's game against the Chargers meaningful, while Houston is all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention already, being behind three other teams and having a very poor conference record. Look for Denver to try and run the ball down the throat of one of the league's poorer rushing defences, while keeping the Texans' pass-oriented offence at bay.

I hate cheering for Baltimore. But how perfect would it be that the '72 Dolphins see someone go 19-0 and see their own team be the first to go 0-16 in the same year?

Vader was told by the English speaking producer to 'ham it up' when the host asked the "Is wrestling fake?" question. He did, and apparently it went too far for the hosts liking, and he filed charges. In that respect, it started out as a work, but it turned very real, including the arrest and detainment. And as WWE 24/7 is now remidning me, it lead to Ken Shamrock cutting "incredible" promos where he called Vader a bully, then called out Mike Tyson for God knows what reason, citing he was a bully too. Was this before the Tyson/Holyfield bitting incident. Didn't WCW want to bring in Tyson before that fight and WWE mocked them after the fight? It was about two months before the bite fight. Funny that WWE would mock WCW for that, then bring Tyson in themselves six months later.

Is anyone besides Ripper watching this game? And by that, I mean in America, not just TSM.

Second one I thought of, after Hampton. Others: Chan Ho Park (5yrs/$65M), Larry Hughes (5yrs/$60M).

I'm actually more surprised Al's only 26 than I am that Czech's only 21. Happy birthday, boys.

Nah, the Colts are just going to run it from here on out. I think they might not even make 55.

That wasn't really drama, and they picked really shitty flights besides. Seconded on Vyxsin's rack.

Dunno about that, but I know he's salivating at the proepect of finally having a team sack up and finish off an 0-16 season.

Neither of those two teams was playing a truly dreadful team the week they lost. And, for anyone looking ahead to the Giants game, there's a pretty decent chance the Giants will have locked up the fifth seed by then, with no chance of moving up or down, and will have absolutely nothing to play for themselves.

Then there is no hope.

I don't think I need an answer any more detailed than, "Because Eli Manning is at quarterback."

I guess they figured they could have about a minute left if they held the Browns without a first down, since they still had all their timeouts. Or they could miss about 6 tackles and let Lewis waltz into the end zone.

WTF kick a field goal down 5??