Best bets for hockey

Joe Ellison

If you appreciate intense, physical, skillful, fast action, there's nothing like the great sport of hockey. But fans should enjoy the National Hockey League while they can, because the collective bargaining agreement expires Sept. 15, and it is possible a subsequent lockout could cancel the 2004-05 season.

As for those people who would love to see the elimination of fighting from professional hockey, I have these thoughts: Show me a person who wants to get rid of the fighting, and I'll show you a person who is not a true hockey fan. Fighting has been a part of the pro game since its inception, and only real fans understand its purpose, so please don't try to change this great sport now.

To figure out which teams have been the best and worst against the spread, since they need to win by only one goal to cover, simply look at the standings.

Going into Wednesday night's games, the best teams were Philadelphia, Ottawa, Detroit, Colorado and Toronto. The clubs at the bottom of the standings were Pittsburgh, Columbus, Chicago, Washington and Carolina.

The best teams at home were Detroit, Philadelphia, Ottawa, the New York Islanders, Dallas and Nashville. The only teams with losing records at home have been Pittsburgh, Washington, Phoenix, the New York Rangers and Carolina.

The strongest road warriors are Colorado, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver and New Jersey. The weakest on the road are Columbus, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Anaheim and Washington.

The hottest teams lately: Tampa Bay, Dallas, San Jose, New Jersey and Florida. The coldest: Wednesday night Pittsburgh captured its first win since Jan. 12, snapping an 18-game losing streak. Columbus, the New York Rangers, Colorado and Phoenix are also struggling.

- Here are predictions for the bettable college basketball conference tourneys that begin before next Friday. It is highly unlikely that any of these schools will receive at-large NCAA tournament bids, so each must win its tourney to be invited to the Big Dance.

Ohio Valley - Chants of "Let's go Peay!" should be heard in this year's NCAA tournament, because Austin Peay is undefeated in conference and deserving of the league title.

Southern - East Tennessee State is also undefeated in conference play, but with the games scheduled in Charleston, S.C., my pick is College of Charleston.

Horizon - Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the team to beat, but this one's wide open.

- Did you hear about the West Virginia sixth-grader who was suspended for three days for bringing the Sports Illustrated 40th anniversary swimsuit issue to school? If you're waiting for the punch line, sorry, but this is no joke. It really happened.

This was a magazine that the kid could have walked into a store and bought himself, not pornography, so suspending the boy clearly was excessive. If the magazine was causing such a commotion, it should have been confiscated and picked up by one of his parents, or a meeting should have been scheduled.

Unnecessarily sending the kid home for that was like giving him a vacation, and only reinforced his behavior. Parents almost always take the side of their children, and if this was my kid, I'd be slapping the school with a lawsuit.

- If you want to read an excellent article about the Super Bowl halftime show, take a look at "The Hypocrisy Bowl" in the Feb. 16 issue of Time Magazine.

- This is not a prediction, but Seabiscuit was a tremendous sports movie, and Sunday it should win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

- Note to Nevada Appeal auto racing correspondent Roger Diez regarding last Sunday's article: Unfortunately the United States is not like England where there's a sports book on every corner in which people can bet on such things as elections and whether or not it will rain tomorrow. In local books, betting propositions are limited strictly to competition results, so you'll never see an over/under line on how many times television announcers will screw up by still calling the "Nextel Cup" the "Winston Cup."; Furthermore, if anybody could be easily bribed into fixing something, it would be underpaid media personnel, not highly paid athletes. (Bribes and suggestions will be accepted at the Nevada Appeal, care of Joe Ellison, 580 Mallory Way, Carson City, NV 89701).

Joe Ellison is the Nevada Appeal Betting Columnist. Contact him at editor@nevadaappeal.com.