What a difference a year makes

A year ago, the United States World Junior Championship team was getting ready to play in Ottawa with dreams of unseating Canada as the top U-20 team in the world. Colin Wilson, Eric Tangradi, James van Riemsdyk, and Thomas McCollum comprised one of the more talented teams that this country has sent to the showcase, but things unraveled quickly. First there was the mess that was the New Years Eve game against Canada in which the Red White and Blue led 3-0 before blowing the lead and getting their doors blown off. After that mess the team then went out in the quarterfinals and ended up finishing up fifth place. Not the result a team with that must talent should have.

After the tournament USA Hockey had to take a long look in the mirror and figure out what happened. One of the things that came under attack was the US National Team Development Program. The National Team Development Program, based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is made up of a select group of players that have tried out and been selected as the most talented in the nation. The NTDP consists of two teams; the U.S. National Under-18 Team, and the U.S. National Under-17 Team. The criticism was that the program produced good players, but players that did not play for the front of the shirt.

Fast forward a year and their is a different tone surrounding USA Hockey. First the U-18 goes out and wins the title in the age group. The U-17 teams goes out and wins the title in that age group. Then on Tuesday night, the biggest of them all the Junior Team goes out and beats five time defending champion Canada in the final. Sure the Canadian team was more talented but this USA team had something that the team last year did not have: heart and toughness. Sure they blew a two goal lead in the final, but this team would not take no for answer and came back and won won in OT.

The best thing about all of these titles is that they beat Canada or some type of Canadian team in the final. So much for being the a step under Canada, the United States has all of the trophies now.

With the Olympics a couple of weeks away, I hope the men's team shows that the heart that the junior team did this week, if so maybe they can shock the world like the kids have done over the last couple of months.

The Cover Story: Oh Say Can You See

Last night a spunky group of kids from the United States took down the big bad hockey power. No this is the not the Miracle on Ice, but it might be just as important the national Junior Team defeated five time defending World Junior Champion Canada in epic 6-5 overtime game. Newspapers north of the border are not taking the loss well.

Here is how the newspapers in Canada covered the epic game:

The Windsor Star

Ottawa Sun

The Gazette

The Calgary Sun

The Cover Story: The NHL Winter Classic

Over the last couple of years the National Hockey League has started to steal the spotlight away from college football bowl games and to theirselves with the Winter Classic on New Years Day. This year the Bruins defeated the Flyers in a classic at Fenway Park, the best one of the series so far. The game featured a fight (the first in Classic history), hard hitting and a game played with a passion.

Here are how some of the papers in the Boston area covered the action from Fenway Park:

Boston Globe

Telegram and Gazette (Worcester)

Should the NFL follow the Premier League

The final weekend of the NFL regular season is here and there are still a bunch of things to figure out, like who is going to win the NFC East, the wildcard spots in the AFC, and seeding. During the final Sunday of the season, games will kickoff at 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Some teams might know that their games means nothing as they take the field because of earlier results.

In know this is going to sound euro centric, but maybe the NFL should look at changing the way that they do the final weekend of the season. Instead of having three different start times maybe they should have all of the games start at the same time, like they do in the Barclays Premier League. During the final day of the Premier League season all of the games start at 4 p.m. . This assures no funny business between the clubs. This makes for fun for all of the fans at the stadiums. All of them are on the cell phones and have radios in their ears to make sure they know what is going on at other sites around the league. At one point your team could be in at another point with results going the other they could be at. But at the end of all of the games there is no more waiting.

Sure the final weekend of the NFL season will be great, cause it always is, but starting every game at 4 p.m. would make for classic drama.