KarateKen

The NFL is exploring the possibility of using replacement refs again in 2026. Did we all forget the Fail Mary and the disaster that was the early 2012 season?? There are even conversations about high school officials working NFL games this fall if the CBA lockout extends into the season.

The NHL Department of Player Safety is a joke. AJ Greer gets a mere three game suspension for his dirty and illegal cheap shot on Connor Zary of the Flames. A terrible hit from behind and into the boards against a defenseless player. As I said in a previous post recently, the NHL needs to take a long and serious look at making changes to the department of player safety. First the Austin Matthews hit, and now this one on Connor Zary. These are serious hits that can end seasons and even players careers, and the league continues to hand out soft punishment. The NHL should be ashamed. George Parros should be fired, he has been a disaster, and the league should do a complete overhaul of the department this offseason before someone gets paralyzed from a dirty play. They need new leadership and a whole new team who does a better job. Furthermore, the punishment does nothing to harm the Panthers franchise, who are out of any playoff hopes this year anyway. This is disgraceful. Here they had a chance to send a message and let it be known they are taking these hits more seriously, instead they botched it yet again.

Congratulations @Zaine on 20 years and member of the month.

One of the running jokes online has been "Chuck Norris passed away 15 years ago, but death was afraid to tell him."

Some sad news this morning. Chuck Norris has passed away at the age of 86. Details are not known to the public, but he was hospitalized on March 19 with a medical emergency and died later that day. The family posted a statement on Instagram March 20, noting that his death was sudden and he spent his final moments with family. Just nine days earlier he celebrated his birthday by sparring with his training partner where he posted a video saying, "I don't age, I level up," kind of a play on the old Chuck Norris jokes that have been around for decades. Perfect last words. He died in Hawaii on the island of Kauai.

How about a huge Karate tournament where we all fight each other? All kidding aside, 25 years is a long time for a message board. This site started around the same time I took my first MA class, which was in the fall of 2000. I don't have any ideas right now, but if I think of anything I will let you know. Unless you do want a huge Karate tournament where we all fight each other!

This goes out to @Patrick who lives in Los Angeles and @sensei8 who lives in Las Vegas. Hope you are staying cool in this crazy record heat wave that is happening where you are. Same to anyone else out there who is in the southwest, including Arizona where in Phoenix it has been over 100 degrees! Triple digit temps in March is bonkers, even for Arizona. I mean, technically it is still winter. Stay safe out there!

I've got a sheet of these now and have used a few. They are pretty cool. Bruce is doing a flying side kick on it.

I was in line for them during the PRE SALE and there were still 299,317 people in front of me! I gave up quickly

Without looking, who is in first place right now in Atlantic Division? It is the BUFFALO SABERS! The Sabers have had a lot of tough years but at the moment they have one of the best records in the NHL, second seed right now in the east with 90 standings points. It has been I think 14 years in a row without the playoffs for the Sabers, the longest playoff drought of any team in the history of the NHL. That will finally end this year thanks to some great defense and goalie play. Sabers will be in the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Let's see if they can make a run for the cup. Other teams in good shape for the playoffs are the Hurricanes, Lightning, and Canadians in the east, but it gets really tight after that with teams like the Penguins and Islanders ahead of the pack. Out west the Avs have 97 points, most in the league, and are 20 points ahead of the Ducks who lead the Pacific division. Wow, can't remember seeing such a large gap in points between the first and second seed. In the east the gap between the top seed and the 8th seed is only nine points. The Stars (94 points) and Wild (90) are going to get in, and both have a chance at winning the Presidents trophy. Utah is hanging in there with 76 points, as some teams in the Pacific are fighting it out with the Knights (77) and Oilers (76) very much in the hunt. Kraken, Kings, and Jets are still alive but are on the outside looking in. Teams who have had tough seasons this year and won't make the playoffs include the Panthers, Rangers, Flames, Blackhawks, and the Canucks are dead last, a mere 48 points, putting them 11 points behind the second worst team, the Flames. The Pacific has been the worst division in the NHL this year. Each team has about 15 games left, give or take, so we are in the home stretch, and the playoffs are only a month away!

The Chiefs have traded for QB Justin Fields, sending the Jets a 6th round pick. Rumors are swirling that the Raiders are interested in Kirk Cousins. Raiders are expected to draft a QB with the #1 overall pick, but might want a vet in there for the first year or two or the youngster to learn under.

Auston Matthews is out for the rest of the season with an MCL tear that he suffered against the Ducks on March 12. Matthews is the Maple Leafs team captain and arguably the best American born hockey play in the world right now. The injury happened as a result of a cheap shot by Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas, who collided with Matthews with intent to injure, according to the officials. Gudas was ejected and has been given a five-game suspension. Way too short of a suspension. Gudas has a long history of suspensions, maybe not Tom Wilson long, but long. This was not a hockey play; it was an intent to injure. Gudas should have been suspended for much longer, maybe the rest of the season, but no surprise the NHL department of player safety got it wrong, as they often do. The league should take a long and serious look this offseason for how they hand out punishments like this. Too often the offender gets off easy. It's time for an overhaul.

Maxx Crosby now appears to be staying with the Raiders. NBC Sports reporting the Raiders have announced Crosby is no longer on the trade block. Could it be that Crosby's failed physical made the Raiders believe he isn't tradable? Maybe he would have failed the physical if he had been sent to another team. There were options, the Bears had expressed interest, according to Yahoo Sports. I am guessing they are not the only ones who would consider trading for one of the best defensive players in the league. Srange turn of events. The Vikings have signed Kyler Murray.

The NFL is now considering adding a game on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. The change could be as early as this upcoming season. Hard pass. This is a bad idea for a few reasons. One is that the elements of scheduling it with short rest, and how that will work, since college football is still playing that Saturday. Are two teams going to play on Sunday then on Wednesday night? Or is there going to be a bye week before, and two of the teams coming off the bye will play? Or one team off a bye and the other off the Thursday game the week before? Where is player safety in all this? The NFL always talks about player safety but then they add games and shorten weeks. As usual, it is money before everything in the NFL. Even if all those questions had good answers, I still hope the answer is no. It's too much. We don't need an NFL game Wednesday night, three on Thanksgiving, then another game on black Friday, all in the middle of the week between full NFL days on Sunday's and the MNF game. The NFL continues to spread out the games over more dates and more different services. Network TV, cable TV, and multiple streaming services. It's simply getting too oversaturated for my liking, and too expensive. It is likely that if the Thanksgiving Eve game were to happen, it will be on a streaming service. Sometime in the next couple years the NFL will announce an 18-game regular season, with more games going overseas. The league has scheduled nine international games for 2026, with that number expected to grow in coming years. When the NFL announces, they are going to an 18-game regular season, and they will, it is possible there will be a push for a 20-game regular season, possibly eliminating the preseason all together. Why? Because the ratings and ticket prices for the regular season are much higher than preseason games. The quality of the product will go down while the revenue of the league goes up, which, in the end, is all the NFL really cares about.

If an event has tickets that are not selling, you can often get big discounts the day of the event, as you have experienced. A concert or game ticket that is going for 500 dollars at first, might be 50 dollars three hours before the show, if they are not selling. Ticket prices are flexible depending on demand, and since they can't be restocked, meaning once the game is over the tickets are gone, you can sometimes get much lower prices if you are willing to wait. Of course, the risk is that you miss the event all together, or the event sells out and the cost of tickets will be higher because the only thing available will be the resale market.