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T he Sports Edition: Highlighting the Major Sports Topics Today

Gibbons Kicking the Game Winner in Overtime

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MICHIGAN BEATS VIRGINIA TECH ON FIELD GOAL Missed field goals for Virginia Tech results in a loss in the Sugar Bowl Special teams played a critical role Tuesday. Virginia Tech used kickoff specialist Justin Myer -- the third-string placekicker -- for field goals and extra points. Why? Because starter Cody Journell was arrested Dec. 21 in connection with a home invasion. Last week, backup kicker Tyler Weiss was sent home for missing curfew. That left Myer, whose only two field-goal attempts this season had come from beyond 50 yards.

Myer had an excellent night, making four of five field goals. But he picked the worst possible time for his first miss. Moments after officials overturned an apparent diving touchdown catch by Danny Coale in overtime, Myer missed a 37-yarder. At first, Hokies fans seated behind the left upright cheered as the ball floated toward the posts. Then Michigan fans, seated behind the right upright, began to cheer as the ball faded to the right. "I just didn't get through the ball, and I pushed it," Myer said.

The most clutch kick came from Michigan's Brendan Gibbons, who made his 37-yarder in overtime.

And what did Gibbons think about during the timeout the Hokies called to ice him? "Brunette girls," Gibbons said. "Every time we were struggling in kicking, coach tells me to think about girls on a beach or brunette girls. So that's what we did. Made the kick."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/andy_staples/01/04/ michigan.virginia.tech.sugar/index.html#ixzz1iUyDqxx8

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NFL PLAYOFFS Improving Helmet Safety ARE BACK The Battle for the Super Bowl is Back The road to the Super Bowl begins this weekend with the Wild Card rounds of the 2012 NFL playoffs. The games kick off Saturday afternoon with a battle of AFC teams, followed by a battle of 2 NFC teams.

The playoffs then continue on Sunday and then the weekend following this weekend.

There are a few returning teams to the field of 16, including last years Super Bowl winning Green Bay Packers.

They are back again this year, trying to win back to back titles for the first time in team history.

They have a bye this weekend

modern helmet is stronger than the clubs warriors beat each other with in the Middle Ages.

As you may be aware, concussions are on the rise in the sport of football. Helmet to helmet hits are causing serious damage to the brain, and most players have taken a hard head on hit in their If football wants to make life. It does not take a hard hit to a fundamental change in your head to hurt the brain, it can protecting players from just take a soft hit to the right part neurological harm, and to avoid of your head. Improving the design being regulated out of business by and the padding of the helmets Congress, tinkering rules won't do. that we wear on our heads during Radical change is required. our sports, we can minimize the What's needed is to head injuries and protect our rethink the helmet, making it safer players even better than before. for both the player who wears it So, NFL, Â if you really and the player being hit. Here's care, as you claim, about reducing how: Put padding on the outside of head trauma risk, require that outer the helmet, so the helmet stops padding be added to all helmets being a weapon. beginning in 2011. Colleges and Pick up any recently high schools will follow suit, since manufactured football helmet from adding padding is not expensive. high-quality names Riddell and Mainstream helmet manufacturers, Schutt, or from Rawlings, which who have shied away from outer will re-enter into the football helmet padding on fears that players won't market next year. Slam it down on wear it, will jump in with all-new, a workbench and your arm will safer designs if the NFL takes the vibrate. The polycarbonate outer lead with a mandate. shell of a modern football helmet strikes like a sledgehammer. The

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because they are the top seed, but then their playoff run will kick off the next weekend, in their road to the Super Bowl.

Riddel Speed Helmet http://www.google.com/imgres?q=green+bay

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Costly Error Costs Wisconsin its Second Straight Rose Bowl Loss Last year, Wisconsin prepared to play in their first ever Rose Bowl game. Their opponent; the TCU Horned Frogs. That game did not turn out in Wisconsin’s favor, as they were downed by the Frogs 21-19 in a hard fought game by both teams. But then Wisconsin came roaring back this year, and made the trip to California again for the Rose Bowl game that was played on January 2nd. This year, the opponent was the Oregon Ducks, and yet again, this year, suffered a heartbreaking loss.

Just a few days ago in the Rose Bowl Wisconsin was playing Oregon. It was a hard fought game by both teams battling back and fourth the whole game. All was good for Wisconsin until one “Booffed” play. Those who don’t know what the word “Booffed” means, it means messed up or screwed up badly.

It all started on the last drive of the game and Wisconsin had the ball. They were loosing to Oregon 45-38 and just needed a touchdown and an extra point to tie the game and make it go into over time. Oregon kicked them the ball deep and with not a lot of time left on the clock. Wisconsin Completed 2 bombs in a row and were out of time outs with about thirty yards to go. The time was almost out so the Badgers tried to spike the ball and stop the clock.

Everybody knows that a spike is a fast and routine play that every team knows how to run.

Well Wisconsin tried to run this play so they could get one last shot at the end zone. Wisconsin hiked the ball with 2 seconds left and by the time the ball hit the ground the time had already ran out. This shows that every play should be treated like the game making play because even the easy ones can screw it up for you.

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Cutting Down on Steroid Use The Major League of Baseball and all of its fans hope that in the near future the game will totally get rid of its problem with illegal performance enhancing drugs such as Steroids. There is a problem with drugs in every sport at the professional level. Baseball, however seems to have an ever growing problem. Let a baseball player such as Barry Bonds break the lifetime home run record of a sports icon such as Hank Aaron with ease and then he goes from a great to a legend that will be spoken of for years to come. That is certainly the case with Barry Bonds, however, his record-breaking all-time homerun record of 2007 and his single season record of 73 in 2001.

Barry Bonds, however, is also under the cloud of suspicion because of the Balco scandal. He was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the matter of his testimony in the Balco steroid affair. That Barry Bonds took steroids there is no question the court has documents and tests stating that three types of performance enhancing substances were found in his tests. His response is that he took these on the advice of his trainer and had no idea they were steroids.

For all the kids out there Steroids is a bad thing to do if you want to improve your athletic ability. Even though it makes you stronger it does more harm and good. It also is Illegal!

But at what point do these unwritten rules overlap too much with a player's desire to win?

In other words, as fans of a particular sport, we love to see players who possess that "win at Unwritten rule. It's a all costs" mentality. Going above phrase that compares only to and beyond what needs to be "jumbo shrimp" as far as done in order to win commands a oxymorons are concerned, yet great deal of respect, and it is often failing to obey such a sacred what differentiates legends of a formality can create limitless particular sport from the rest of the hostility and angst. pack.

Sports are especially big We often label such on unwritten rules. Any player who players as "winners" and claim that breaks one is immediately thrown they have great "intangibles" or under a microscope and criticized that "it-factor" -- all of which for compromising the integrity of possess positive connotations. the game. Baseball players, who Yet, even in an age in play a sport built on such rich which we should be praising those tradition, are particularly mindful of who want to win above all else, such unwritten rules. there are still those instances when You don't steal your a player's actions are questioned opponent's signs. You don't steal a because they tread upon those base when you're up by a bunch. "unwritten rules" -- even when the You don't yell at an opposing player is simply trying to win a player on a pop up. The list goes game. on.

Separating the Dirty Players From the Winners

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Bad Call Turns Into Nightmare For anyone who has watched or played baseball, any sport for that matter, from the littles to the majors, Wednesday was a very difficult day. And a worse day still for Jim Joyce.

As Tyler Kepner writes in Wednesday’s Times, with two outs in the ninth inning in Detroit and Armando Galarraga working on a perfect game, the Cleveland Indians’ Jason Donald bounced a ball to the right of first baseman Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera fielded it and threw to Galarraga, who was covering first. The ball beat the runner — and Galarraga would have been the 21st pitcher to throw a perfect game.

But Joyce, the first-base umpire, ruled Donald safe, saying he beat the throw. The Big League Stew blog called it a “bang-bang play that left two victims dead.”

The perfect game seemed secure when Austin Jackson made a sensational catch of Mark Grudzielanek’s drive to deep left-center field to lead off the ninth.

After the game, Joyce was reported to be in tears, and said, “I just cost that kid a perfect game.” The play set off calls for the umpire’s head, for expanded instant replay in baseball and even for Commissioner Bud Selig to overturn the call. But the night’s events may have illustrated once again the beauty of a game that remains perfect for its imperfections.

Writing on ESPN, Curt Schilling wrote that his heart broke for two reasons: because the perfect game was ruined by a bad call and because Joyce “does not — and will not — deserve 99 percent of the stupid things people will say about him in the coming days.”

Of course, 99 percent may be a tad high.

Predictably, writers have used the umpiring error to call for the expanded use of instant replay, which currently exists to double-check home run calls. Jeff Passan, writing on Yahoo, called it the perfect time to expand instant replay. As did Bob Klapisch on Fox Sports, who reminded readers that Don Denkinger, who helped cost the Cardinals the World Series in 1985 and lives with the regret of a famous blown call, is now a proponent of instant replay.

Keith Olbermann, writing on his blog, called for Selig to “overrule Joyce’s safe call and give Galarraga what he in fact accomplished, and only the arrogance of authority is denying him.” And Jon Paul Morosi, on Fox Sports, writes, “it’s time for Bud Selig to take a standand prevent Armando Galarraga’s brilliant night from becoming one of the biggest embarrassments in recent baseball history.”

It is hard to see the harm in scrubbing the infield hit and groundout of the final two batters and awarding Galarrago the perfect game. The umpire presumably would like the right call to stand, and would welcome not becoming “Bucknerized.” Galarraga, a picture of grace during and after the game, would get his perfect game — he actually retired 28 straight batters. Jackson’s catch retains its importance. Tigers fans, all baseball fans, are rewarded for what they saw.

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Cracking Down on Dirty Hits The sport of hockey is very physical.

From Bantams all the way through the rest of your hockey career, checking becomes one of the biggest problems in hockey.

When you are a little kid, checking is not allowed in hockey, and many people feel much safer having their kids play hockey when you can’t hit someone. But then when you reach the age that hitting can start, and the kids are getting bigger, hockey becomes much more dangerous.

Although you have a stop sign on the back of your jersey saying stop, meaning that you can’t hit someone from behind, when you are going in for a hit on someone, you don’t think of that stop sign and not hitting them from behind, you just hit them.

Checking has become a big problem in the sport. With the kids becoming bigger, stronger, they can hit much harder, and it

doesn’t take that hard of a hit to do damage to a persons body.

We need to start cracking down on this big problem in a fun sport., We need to start protecting our players and kids even more than we ever have before. Hockey officials need to start cracking down on malicious hits, and not stand for any hit that can be from behind, or to the head.

Whenever a person is turned away from you, or you can only see their back, that is a huge no no. Don’t hit them, especially if they are by the boards. Yes, not every hit that is delivered is meant to hurt someone or injure someone. Most of the time a hit is not even meant to hurt anyone, it is just meant to separate the person from the puck, but sometimes the way the person hits another is dirty, and that is not acceptable.

There needs to be big changes in hockey, they have to enforce the rules even harder than they are now, so that our kids do not keep on getting injured. There

needs to be big changes in the sport

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What it Takes to Make a Perfect Team There are many players in the NHL that are standout athletes. Many of these players have been to multiple all star games in their lives before, so many would argue that you can’t pick out one player who is the “best” in the league.

Every athlete is a standout in their own ways, maybe they don’t score a lot of goals, but maybe they are someone who sets up the goals.

Many players in the NHL today are good at their own position. Yes, there are some standout players in the league, but many players go unrecognized for all that they contribute to the team. Few people tend to look at what some of not the big name players do game in and game out, they only pay attention to the big name players, but deep within the heart of the program there are less standout players that may contribute the most to the team.

Should the NHL Allow Fighting All the fans love seeing a fight when they come to a hockey game. It gets the fans, and players rushing with adrenaline. It is one of the best parts about hockey, being physical. But should their be a crack down on fighting? Many can say yes, and many would say no.

Fighting can help these men get off all of their anger towards a player, and when you need momentum, fighting lifts up your team and gets them all “pumped up.” But also their are huge risks in fighting. Not only can you cause damage to your body in a fight, but also you can cause damage to other people’s bodies.

In a fight, you throw off your gloves and try to punch the other person with your bare knuckles.

Many times in a fight the other person still has on their helmet, so when you punch them, your hand is smashing into their hard helmet, causing damage to your hand.

Then, if you hit them in the face, you can also cause damage to the other person, because you can hit them in the wrong spot, and seriously injure them, like concussions or something like that. Yes, Fighting is fun to see, and for the people not involved in the fight, you love watching it, but trying yo protect our players should be the main goal in the game. And to protect our players, we need to make a change, and crack down on malicious hits,

Thanks to all

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of the people

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done without you.

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and all the other dirty things players do that can harm another player.

THE SPORTS EDITION EDITION: 12 JANUARY 11, 2012