DrJohnEvans's profile

DrJohnEvans
1042
Homepage URL: http://blackiceblueturf.vsport.tv/
Location: Trawna
Member since: March 11, 2004
Last visit: July 03, 2009

DrJohnEvans has posted 67 links and 1294 comments to SportsFilter and 138 links and 960 comments to the Locker Room.

Sports Bio

of DrJohnEvans: scholar, gentleman, SpoFite

In a nutshell
The teams
The platform
The commendations
Great moments in sports journalism


Hot Chat update: Thinking about integrating directly with Twitter. In the meantime, I'm on there, if that's your sort of thing.


In a nutshell

Go Jays. Go Sens. Go Furious George GOAT. Go rouge.

(Lose Leafs Lose.)

In our hearts forever: Andy Peters vs. Rob Ray. Okay, so it turns out that you can't watch that video anymore. Damn. In its place, I present to you Aaron Downey vs Brad Norton—the fight that changed the NHL forever.

Sara Orlesky is cute, but Patricia Boal is always in the right place at the right time.


The teams


Coming real soon.


The platform


There are certain inalienable truths in sports, at least according to me.

  1. "Intangibles" do not exist in any meaningful form. If a player brings something "intangible" to his team, that should be reflected in either his individual stats or the team's stats. If not, then his "intangibles" have no value and are not worth discussing.

  2. The NHL's regular season standings will remain inherently unfair until all games are worth the same number of points.

  3. The pitch-out is the best play ever conceived in any sport.

  4. You are not a unique snowflake: everybody here is a fan of a team. Referring to said team in the first-person possessive does nothing to strengthen your argument or make you stand out. Indeed, a comment beginning with "My Brewers" taints the comment's value by informing me that you're arguing through the blue-and-gold-tinted glasses of a Brewers fan, and not objectively as a sports fan. Be proud, but be reasonable.

  5. Winning breeds relaxation, losing breeds frustration. It is infinitely easier to get along with your teammates when you're winning lots of games. Let's stop gazing at .600 teams and talking about how they're all bosom buddies. (Feel free to do the same with .400 teams, though.)


The commendations

"... an integral part of the Sportsfilter.com experience." — NoMich

"DrJohnEvans … should be reading medicine articles if [he is] really a doctor and stop complaining so much." — LROD

"DrJohnEvans [is] only the median if you give extra weight in the direction of users who have posted more than one comment." — mexican

"... DrJohnEvans is now my new friend." — Kleptophoria!

"Where's DrJohnEvans with a cool scoring table when you need him?" — The_Black_Hand


Great moments in sports journalism

Like most discriminating SpoFites, I'm really picky about the commentators and analysts that I have to watch and listen to. Fortunately, there are a few shining stars which pop up on my television. Included with your basic Rogers Cable package up here is a scrappy small-market sports channel, The Score. Their programming's centred around their near-constant highlight/update reels. They're my favourite in terms of sports news and entertainment: they just have fun with the stuff.

Tell it like it is

Sunday afternoons feature The Score on the NFL, which keeps track of the millions of games going on at once. December 19, they were doing their usual mid-afternoon round-up. The game was Minnesota at Detroit:

[highlight reel running]

"Minnesota gets one late in the fourth quarter to go up by seven, but it doesn't matter, because Detroit marches right back to score the major with eight seconds left in the game."

[boxscore screen comes up]

"It's still 28-27 as we're just waiting for the extra point, I'm just watching it now... and THEY MUFFED THE SNAP! They muffed the snap! Amazing. Amazing. Eight seconds left, the touchdown, and they muffed the snap. Okay, hang on, we gotta get you this picture. Amazing. Amazing."

[highlight comes up]

"Okay, here is it. This JUST HAPPENED, folks. Detroit scores to nearly tie it up, and they muff the snap. Amazing. Amazing. Man. Lions suck."

I love good sports journalism.

How to call a Tampa Bay home run

From MLB highlights on The Score Tonight, Summer 2006:
TIM: Fifth inning, Johnny Gomes at the dish. Now he's a model, if you know what I mean, 'cause he does his little thing on the catwalk.

SID: On the catwalk?

TIM: On the catwalk, yeah.

SID: He does his little thing on the catwalk?

TIM: That's correct.






Recent Links

The 5th Annual chicobangs Memorial SpoFi CFL Pick ’Em: is here and in fine form. The pigs have been skinned, the preseason has been played, and the first crop of MCL injuries has come and gone. Be a part of this grand tradition and make your picks inside.

posted by DrJohnEvans to fantasy at 12:23 PM on June 25 - 23 comments

WBC Confidence Pool Final Standings: Japan needs extra innings to beat Korea in one of the best ballgames I've ever seen. Closer to home, boredom_08 takes the prize with four points to spare. Congratulations are due both to him and to Folkways, who comes away with SportsFilter's very first double Costanza.

posted by DrJohnEvans to fantasy at 01:47 AM on March 24 - 4 comments

Because we're all suckers for athlete bloggers: Leon Boyd, the closer for the Netherlands in the '09 WBC, and recently signed to a minor league deal with the Blue Jays, has a blog. Worth it alone for the account of his save against the Dominican Republic.

posted by DrJohnEvans to culture at 11:00 PM on March 18 - 2 comments

The Classic is back.: That's right, the World Baseball Classic has returned, and with it comes a brand-new WBC Confidence Pool. Step right up and rank your teams... oh, and can someone get ahold of Baseball Prospectus? I haven't seen him around lately.

posted by DrJohnEvans to fantasy at 11:24 AM on March 02 - 36 comments

Corey Koskie’s clear head: In light of recent discussions here and elsewhere which have shown us just how little we know about the effects of concussion, Gordon Edes writes an account of Corey Koskie's recovery process: a small step towards a proper diagnostic and treatment process for head injuries.

posted by DrJohnEvans to baseball at 11:02 AM on February 25 - 3 comments

Recent Comments

New Comment Count When?

Snazzy!

posted by DrJohnEvans at 11:06 AM on July 03

The 5th Annual chicobangs Memorial SpoFi CFL Pick ’Em

Hamilton by 6 Montreal by 14 Edmonton by 9 Saskatchewan by 7

posted by DrJohnEvans at 06:11 PM on July 01

Ashes 2009 Pointscore Contest

Very good, very good. I'm off to do a spot of research before committing any picks.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:57 AM on June 26

The 5th Annual chicobangs Memorial SpoFi CFL Pick ’Em

posted by DrJohnEvans at 03:41 PM on June 25

The 5th Annual chicobangs Memorial SpoFi CFL Pick ’Em

THE PICK 'EM - What we do

Faced with long days of summer idleness, we're left with no other choice but to spend our time picking the winners in the week-to-week action of the world's best pointy-endedball summer sport.

THE SEASON - When we do it

The season kicks off this Wednesday night and runs for 19 weeks through the summer. There are generally four games per week, running from Thursday to Sunday. If you're in Canada, you'll find the games on TSN. If you're in the States, there's a fairly decent U.S. Broadcast Schedule across local networks. And if that's not enough for you, there will be live pay-per-view webcasts of all games available.

THE RULES - How we do it

Here's how she works. You pick who you think will win, and by how much. You then get points based on the result:

  • picked the winner? You get 1 point.
  • picked the winner, and a spread within the Margin of Error? You get 2 points.
  • picked the winner, and you nailed the spread right on? You get 3 points.
  • didn't pick the winner, but nailed the spread right on? You get 1 point.

What's the Margin of Error?

It's a window around the spread that's defined as

spread - round(0.3 * spread) <= Margin of Error <= spread + round(0.3 * spread)

So you can get rewarded for being close to the spread even if you're not spot-on. The bigger the spread, the bigger the margin of error, so you don't have to be as accurate when predicting a blowout as you would when predicting a close game. Here are some examples:

Actual Spread Margin Starts at Margin Ends at
111
435
759
11814
201426

So if you picked Toronto by 15, here's how you'd fare given certain outcomes:

OutcomeYour score
Toronto by 202 points (winner + spread within MoE)
Toronto by 101 point (winner only)
Toronto by 153 points (winner + nailed spread)
Hamilton by 151 point (nailed spread only)
Hamilton by 430 points (and deservedly so)

Any questions?

THE GAMES, WEEK ONE - Where we start

In lieu of attempting to sum up each team's status in a single sentence, for this opening week I'm just linking to season preview pages for each of 'em. If that's not enough, RSN also has at-a-glance previews for the East Division and West Division. All times are EDT.

Toronto Argonauts @ Hamilton Tiger-Cats - Wednesday, July 1, 7:00pm
Montreal Alouettes @ Calgary Stampeders - Wednesday, July 1, 10:00pm
Winnipeg Blue Bombers @ Edmonton Eskimos - Thursday, July 2, 9:00pm
B.C. Lions @ Saskatchewn Roughriders - Friday, July 3, 9:00pm

Good luck!

posted by DrJohnEvans at 12:23 PM on June 25

"Essentially, this site is what I'd have been doing when I was 12 years old had the Internet and Photoshop been available to me in the eighties."

In this game of baseball, there is the Pure, there is the Dirty, and then there is the Rogers Centre.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 06:12 PM on June 24

David Braley, the Toronto Argonauts, and the good old CFL

She's booting up as we speak! Look for a post in the Locker Room next week.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:05 AM on June 17

Yanks Error Free for MLB record 18 straight games

Oooh, that's a good idea. Every home run hit should count as an out against the other team. That would keep most Yankee home games under 4 hours.

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

posted by DrJohnEvans at 06:21 PM on June 02

Yanks Error Free for MLB record 18 straight games

It's easy to play error-free ball when all the balls end up in the stands.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 12:59 PM on June 02

Sunday Flash Fun

There goes my afternoon.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 03:16 PM on May 10

Phoenix Coyotes May Move

You may be right: Balsillie might be able to tie the moving of the franchise to the resolution of the bankruptcy, in which case he'd be circumventing the BoG. I still have to read up on those details, so I'm not going to insist I'm right on this point.

But I still don't think that any sort of general precedent is going to be set here. There are too many details involved which are very specific to the Coyotes' lease arrangement. What other failing franchises are tied to unreasonable venue leases which can be broken only in case of bankruptcy, with a league commissioner who has staked his reputation on that particular franchise being viable in that city?

Even if Balsillie ends up in Hamilton/Waterloo/Chatham next September, that doesn't mean that half of the continent's sports teams are going to declare bankruptcy so they can be sold. That just doesn't make sense.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 02:40 PM on May 07

Phoenix Coyotes May Move

jags, Weedy, I think you're slightly off on a key point here. Balsillie isn't trying to circumvent the Board of Governors for the entire process of buying and moving the team-- just the immediate bankruptcy entanglement aspect.

The bankruptcy declaration is the key thing. The Coyotes can't get out of their iron-clad lease without declaring bankruptcy. So it's in Balsillie's interest that they do, and in Gary Bettman's interest that they don't.

For the past few weeks, before the Coyotes declared bankruptcy, there were reports of the team receiving cash infusions from the league and, in effect, being operated by the NHL. Given that, what Gary Bettman is challenging is the team's right and ability to declare bankruptcy. In other words, Bettman feels that Jerry Moyes already threw the keys on the table and walked away, and thus already forfeited his privilege to declare bankruptcy and/or sell the team.

That's why it's a good thing that this is going into bankruptcy court. It keeps the proceedings of the Coyotes business on the public record. The alternative would be for Bettman to disappear into his office to conduct an "investigation", coming out an hour later and concluding that the Phoenix Coyotes are perfectly financially viable and are in no position to declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the league keeps bleeding cash into propping up the franchise, until another sucker buyer can be found—a buyer who will be paying significantly less than Balsillie, thus short-changing yet another subscriber to Bettman's sun belt dream.

If the court permits the bankruptcy, then the transfer of the team to Balsille and subsequent team move would certainly go before the Board of Governors. It's just the current bankruptcy situation which needs court resolution.

So this doesn't set any sort of precedent for the regular sale and moving of sports franchises, unless of course you can think of another league besides the NHL which would get itself into this sort of mess.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 11:42 AM on May 07

No Handslaps Until You Touch Home!

Actually, it seems like the rule is pretty fairly written:

Offensive team personnel, other than base coaches and runner(s), shall not touch a batter or base runner(s) who is legally running the bases on a dead-ball award until the player(s) contacts home plate. For a first offense, the umpire shall issue a warning to the offending team.

Emphasis is mine. You don't want the entire team out there on the third base line for every single home run.


The problem here is that the rule was incorrectly applied. A warning should've been given (assuming it was indeed the team's first offence that game).

posted by DrJohnEvans at 01:00 AM on May 06

NEW NHL Confidence Pool!!

Yes, the Snow Bunnies. They play out of Kennewick, WA.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 12:56 PM on April 30

NEW NHL Confidence Pool!!

Thanks, BoKnows.

I have absolutely no allegiances in these playoffs, so here's hoping for something young and exciting in the inevitable Chicago-Washington final.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 08:56 AM on April 29