Fridays With Chuck

How exactly does the car blow up?

Halfman of the Day – Vincent Jackson

Today’s Halfman award winner has to be Vincent Jackson.  Last night Jackson recorded his first ever three touchdown game and the first three touchdowns of the season in the Chargers 34-7 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.  Jackson’s effort kept the Chargers in the AFC West race by pulling them within a half game.  Jackson’s clearly proved to be the Halfman of the day.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Halfdog of the Day – Yao Ming

Today’s Halfdog award goes to Yao Ming.  Ming didn’t win the award today because he is out indefinitely with yet another foot injury, but rather his response to it.  When asked about the injury, Ming responded by saying: “I haven’t died,” he said. “Right now I’m drinking a beer and eating fried chicken. What were you expecting, a funeral?”  Can anybody picture Yao eating chicken or drinking beer? If you are like me, I can only picture sushi and sake.  What an incredible response like that lands Yao Ming our Halfdog award of the day.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Halfman of the Day – Nicklas Lidstrom

For the first time in Nicklas Lidstrom’s 19 year career, he recorded a hat trick against the St. Louis Blues.  Lidstrom had recorded 19 games of having two goals before recording the illustrious hat trick goal last night.  It seems only fitting that we give our Halfman of the day to him.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Halfdog of the Day – Tarvaris Jackson

After Brett Favre ended his historical consecutive games started streak at 297, Tarvaris Jackson ended his own at 1.  Jackson finally got a chance to start since the arrival of Favre and promptly ended his season with a turf toe injury and a trip to the season ending injured reserved list.  Sadly enough Jackson, you have to be today’s Halfdog, but just like your starting streak, it won’t last long.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Up to Speed with Aggie Basketball

The Utah State basketball team is nine games into the 2010-2011 season and have managed to attain a record of 7-2.  A big core of players are returning from last year including preseason WAC player of the year Tai Wesley. Other key players returning include Pooh Williams, Brian Green, Nate Bendall, Tyler Newbold, and Brady Jardine.  New players on the team include highly praised Brockeith Pane and speedy James Walker, who both play the point guard position.

Tai Wesley has definitely proven that he was a worthy pick for WAC player of the year.  Wesley is averaging 14.7 points and 8 rebounds a game, both career highs.  Along with Wesley, Jardine and Green have stepped up their game as well.  Combined they are averaging over 20 points a game.  Jardine is just about averaging a double-double at 9 points and 9 rebounds.

The key loss from last season’s team was point guard Jared Quayle.  Quayle averaged 12 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists per game, very hard numbers to replicate especially the rebounding numbers from the point guard position.  The newcomers Pane and Walker are doing their best to fill the void by averaging a combined 10 points, 3 assists, and almost 6 rebounds per game.  The only void they seem to have trouble filling is Quayle leadership.

Like  mentioned before, the Aggies record is 7-2.  Those two losses? At currently ranked 15th Georgetown and 16th ranked BYU.  We all have murmured about the Aggies schedule, and not playing big time schools, and finally we got a game.  Unfortunately we didn’t compete  in the 68-51 loss to Georgetown, but it’s still going to go a long ways for a team who year in and year out need RPI and strength of schedule help.  Currently the Aggies are 28th in the RPI while BYU sits at number five and Georgetown is at number two.  It will be really interesting to watch how that all shapes out once the Aggies get into conference play with the WAC being pretty weak this year.

It should be once again, another great season for Utah State basketball.  One thing they need to fix is their field goal percentage which uncharacteristically has them ranked 106th in the country.  The Spectrum will be popping like always as the Aggies get ready to win another WAC title.

Written by: Matthew Flygare

HMHD team

Youtube Video of the Day

Collection of Hockey Players and Fans Fighting

Halfman of the Day – New York Knicks

I never thought that I would give a Halfman Award to the Knicks.  But with Amare Stoudemire on board and an 8-game winning streak, its hard to look past the Knicks and their 16-8 record.  Yes they will most likely to lose tonight to the Boston Celtics, but until they do, enjoy the winning streak, enjoy being relevant again, and enjoy being the Halfman of the day.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Halfdog of the Day – Sal Alosi

Sal Alosi, strength and conditioning coach for the New York Jets, has won today’s Halfdog Award in a landslide.  As you can see in the video above, Alosi stupidly tripped a Miami Dolphin player while running by on a kickoff coverage.  The Jets initially suspended Alosi for the remainder of the season, but today changed that suspension to indefinitely.  I hope someone would trip Alosi on his way to the podium to accept his Halfdog Award.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our daily awards, email us at suggestions@hmhdsports.com.  Please send us your halfman and halfdog nominations.

Up to Speed With the Jazz

This current three-day break seems a perfect time to give an update of the Utah Jazz season.  The Jazz, as of yesterday, were tied with the Miami Heat for playing the most games in the league, 26. Of those 26 games, 14 games were against teams with a .500 record or better including the aforementioned Heat, Dallas Mavericks, and Orlando Magic twice.  The Jazz currently hold a slim lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder by a half game in the Northwest Division with a record of 18-8, and are due for a few days off. No Boozer? No problem! We all knew that Carlos Boozer was not going to stick around in Utah.

Do we all miss his All-Star play? Of course.  Do we miss the person? Of course not.   The addition of Al Jefferson has definitely helped most of us forget the Boozer days.  It took some time for “Big Al” to start playing.  Showing up out of shape, learning the Jerry Sloan system, and clearly pressing early on slowly dissolved over the first few weeks.  Along with Jefferson, filling the void is Paul Millsap.  Millsap, in a starting role, has come up big in key wins this season including a career high 46 points against the Heat in that most epic comeback. So far the duo is averaging around 34 points and 17 rebounds a game.

Without a doubt, C.J. Miles has been the most impressive player of the Jazz team so far.  Finally they found a perfect role for him, coming off the bench as the 6th man.  Miles is averaging a career high 12 points per game, and has 5 games of over 20 points.  Almost as much as impressive is Deron Williams.  Williams, who wont the October/November player of the month, is averaging a career high 23 points per game and currently is sitting on three straight games of over 30.  D-Will was voted before the season as the best point guard in the league, and has been clearly living up to that.

The least impressive player is Gordon Hayward.  Yes he is a rookie, but I’ve never seen a player so timid to pull the trigger.  One game, yes he did throw down a dunk, but while Raja Bell has been out three games with an abductor injury, Hayward has tallied an astronomical amount of one single point as the fill in starter.

The Jazz do have a better team this year than last, and they may just make some noise this year.  Mehmet Okur is on the trail of coming back from his torn achilles tendon, which will offer depth to a bench that is already pretty solid.  Once all the pieces fall into place and the Jazz have a few more months to gel, it may be a special season.

Written by: Matthew Flygare

HMHD team