12/02/2008 - Tampa, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Lightning have recalled center Paul Szczechura and left wing Radek Smolenak from Norfolk of the American Hockey League.
Szczechura, 23, leads Norfolk in scoring this season, racking up 11 goals and 13 assists in 23 games. Szczechura, who was signed as a free agent by the Lightning on April 24, 2008, has not played a single game in the NHL.
Smolenak, a 6-2, 180-pound winger who turns 22 on Wednesday, was selected by the Lightning in the third round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. He played two junior seasons with Kingston of the Ontario Hockey League from 2004 to 2006, tallying 74 goals and 144 points in only 65 games.
This season, Smolenek has recorded eight goals, 18 points and 93 penalty minutes in 23 games with Norfolk. He played in 56 games with Norfolk in 2007-08, scoring 15 goals and 26 points for the season.
<< 76ers wrap up home-and-home set in Chicago
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The scuffling Philadelphia 76ers will try and right the
ship in the back end of a home-and-home set with the Chicago Bulls in the
Windy City on Tuesday.
Rookie star Derrick Rose scored 18 points, dished out a care
<< Nuggets welcome Raptors to Pepsi Center
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Northwest Division-leading Denver Nuggets continue a
three-game homestand Tuesday when they welcome the Toronto Raptors into the
Pepsi Center.
The Nuggets, who are tied with Portland atop the Northwest, won the
<< Jazz, Kings meet up at ARCO Arena
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Utah Jazz aim to get back on the winning track Tuesday
when they arrive in Sacramento to face the struggling Kings at ARCO Arena.
The Jazz suffered a rare loss in Salt Lake City Saturday when New Jersey's
Devin H
<< Around FCS: Signature Moments
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - You never know when the crucial play in an
NCAA Division I Football Championship playoff game will come. For some teams
in Saturday's first-round, the signature play was on the opening kickoff. For
others, it
Stars visit Calgary in search of season's first win streak >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fresh off yet another milestone, Mike Modano will try to
lead the Dallas Stars to consecutive wins for the first time this season, as
they visit the Calgary Flames tonight at Pengrowth Saddledome.
Dallas has yet to put tog
Coyotes welcome Kings to the desert >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It didn't take too long for the Coyotes to find their way
back into the loss column. Phoenix will try to rebound tonight against a club
it enjoyed success against last year, as it hosts the Los Angeles Kings at
Jobing.com Are
Lightning aim to turn the page versus Flyers >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Lightning will try to put a tumultuous month
of November behind them when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers tonight at the
Wachovia Center in the first December outing for both clubs.
The Lightning went just
Wilson returns to San Jose as Leafs visit Sharks >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Toronto head coach Ron Wilson makes his return to San Jose
tonight, as the Maple Leafs visit the Sharks at HP Pavilion.
Wilson took over as head coach of San Jose during the 2002-03 season and then
helped engineer a quick
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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