I said all along that Sidney Crosby should have been on Team Canada, and was it any more clear after yesterday's quarter-final elimination against the Russians? While, Crosby sat at home on the couch and watched (presumably), his Russian counterpart was flying all over the ice and scored the decisive goal. I'm talking of course about Alexander Ovechkin. Team Russia had no problem putting him front and centre on their team (I suppose their depth of talent was a little "less" than Canada's). But really, there's no excuse for him not being on the team. As well as other young players like Eric Staal, Jason Spezza and Bryan McCabe.

I understand "why" they went with the team that they did -- experience, past success, and to some degree loyalty. That's all fine and good, and it worked in Salt Lake City. But a lot of the same players were put on the team -- for the same reasons. Problem is, these players are now four years older. It's hard not to think of a player like Mario Lemieux not still being one of the best players in the game. But he took himself out of the running for the Team because he knows he's not. He even went a little further... he retired from hockey altogether.

Yzerman turned down a chance to play on the Team. Wayne Gretzky and the executives that picked the roster should have followed that lead. They need players with fresh legs, and who are the players whose stardom is now-and-in-the-future -- and not in the past-but-"hopefully"-still-now.

I wonder if all the people who said, "There's plenty of time in the future for Crosby to make the team." still hold to that now. That doesn't do us much good today. I guess there's plenty of time in the future for Team Canada to win more gold medals. But they could have done it in Torino.

And I hope all the negative talk and questioning about Todd Bertuzzi's selection doesn't get going again. He actually played well, and the penalty he took which led to the Ovechkin goal on the power play was not as bad as some are making it out to be. In fact, I think it was just a bad call by the referee. He was hustling to get into position, and ended up colliding with another player. They called it interference on a "pick play" but I watched it on replay on my recorder, and it just looked like incidental contact. No, you can't hit a player that doesn't have the puck, but if a bunch of players a fighting for the puck -- and for position in the vicinity of the puck -- incidental contact should not be called as interference.

At any rate, it certainly wasn't a "bonehead" penalty, or another instance of "thuggery" on the part of Bertuzzi. But I have a feeling he's going to be made the scapegoat here -- if he hasn't already been.

It's interesting how in the course of a few weeks, the image around Bertuzzi has wavered all over the place.

First, he was a "thug" who in some people's opinions should not represent Canada.
Then, his part on Team Canada was overshadowed by a bigger scandal, that being the team's braintrust being involved in a betting scandal (with his assistant coach in Phoenix, Rick Tocchet, who by the way used to be my favorite player during his playing days in Philadelphia.)
Then, he was gaining sympathy after Steve Moore filed a lawsuit against him the day before Team Canada was to play their first game at the Olympics. People started losing all sympathy and respect for Moore for the timing of his filing, which seemed to be meant to upset Team Canada's shot of being successful. They also said he and his parents were just going for a "cash grab." Well, I thought that he has every right to file a lawsuit -- though I don't think he should get what he's asking for -- but I thought the timing of it was just a bad idea for even his own sake. If I'm in his case, I want to have as much sympathy my way as possible, and he's got to realize that doing it when he did would take some away from him, even if it wasn't his intention to be a distraction.
And finally, after Bertuzzi what turned out to be the decisive penalty, the negative light will shift back on him, and we'll just have to see what happens from here.

My thoughts were a little jumbled here today, but I wanted to get them out the day after Team Canada's loss and while I had a little time -- and before the loss becomes a distant memory. As if that will ever happen.

Well, that Super Bowl pretty much went exactly how I thought it would -- at least, the way it started out.

See I had Seattle winning (sure, I’ll admit it). I just felt that their offence was too good and Hasselbeck would be able to move the ball and score early. I just didn’t account for the seemingly pro-Steeler officiating and the complete ineptitude of the Seahawks coaching staff at managing the clock. I’ll deal with the first part first so it I can quickly assure you that this is not sour grapes (hey, as you know I’m not a Seattle fan, but an Eagles fan -- the similarities in name, logo, colours and uniform notwithstanding.)

Okay, I’m not really saying that I think the refs were biased. But if the Steelers players/fans thought the refs were pro-Colts in the Indy game, they certainly couldn’t think similarly about this game.

There’s no way that was offensive pass interference in the end zone. At first I thought, the ref was convinced by the Pittsburgh player to throw the flag, because he didn’t throw it right away. But on the replay it just looked like he had trouble getting the flag out initially. But also on the replay, it was clear there was no real contact, just incidental while he changed direction. I’m not saying it would have changed the outcome. But I expected the Seahawks to come out and Hasselbeck get an early TD pass, and he did.

And of course there was the Roethlisberger touchdown. That’s not a really big deal, even though I don’t think the ball got in, because I don’t think the refs could have – or should have – overturned the call. But the Steelers can’t say they didn’t get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

It also seemed the Seahawks got a lot of holding calls against them in crucial spots (when they would have had first-and-goal from the 1 trailing 14-10 for example), while the Steelers got away with some (when they made their last first down to essentially ice the game).

And finally, that was a bad call on the Hasselbeck block on the interception. That gave the Steelers even extra field position to go on to score.

Now onto clock management. Clearly the blew the final seconds of the first half. They should have been able to come away with at least three points.

And they probably should not have punted on fourth-and-13 with less than five minutes left.

But the final 2 minutes was the worst display of clock management I’ve ever seen. With 40 seconds left they had no business trying for more yards. They needed to kick the 41-yard field goal right away.

When there were 27 seconds left and the clock stopped, it was ill-advised to try and run a play. They would not have time even if they went for and got a touchdown, to then kick and recover an on-side kick, then throw into field goal range, then kick the field goal.

There was only enough time to kick a field goal, then kick and recover an on-side kick, then throw into the end zone for the tying touchdown. (That’s one less play.)

So the only logic I could fathom for them to run a play in that position was if they were planning on not going for a field goal at all – and go for the win with touchdown passes either time.

But no, they did the only thing that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, which was to try to gain a little bit of yardage for a shorter field goal!!! Even if the player had gotten out of bounds, it still would have basically guaranteed no chance at tying up the game (apart from a Hail Mary).

Brutal.

But congratulations to the Steelers. I’m happy for Bill Cowher, Jerome Bettis. And I suppose if Philadelphia couldn’t win, at least it went to a Pennsylvania team.

There’s no doubt Pittsburgh played well and deserved to win. But they did have a lot of big plays. While the Seahawks had a lot of drops, in addition to the bad breaks.