"Don't call it a comeback..."

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's been much too long since my last update - but since bills need to be paid, daily life & family responsibilities, vacation (and watching the Summer Olympics - haha), things can get hectic as you all know - I'm sure you'll forgive me. It's now October, which means the Baseball Postseason is in full swing. No disrespect to any of my readers who are baseball fans, but you won't find much MLB love in my posts...click here for the reason why in case you forgot, or need to know.

NFL: Is in full swing!

Boy oh boy, the Tennessee Titans are 5-0 and the San Diego Chargers are 2-3 to start the year...if anyone predicted that, I sure hope you had some quality chips laid down in Vegas or with your local bookie. I gotta point out that the New York Football Giants haven't missed a beat since earning their Super Bowl XLII rings - no 'Super Bowl hangover' so far! Depsite Michael Strahan retiring, losing Osi Umenyiora for the season to injury, and Plaxico Burress getting suspended for this past week - they have just kept on rolling and, like the Titans, are undefeated sitting with a 4-0 record.

The league is WIDE open this year, leaving no shortage of excitement each week. The parity in the league is incredible - enjoy it my friends...enjoy it! We'll talk a lot more about the 'No Fun League' in my entries through the rest of the season.

NHL: 2008-2009 Season has begun!

My beloved New York Rangers are 2-0 to start the regular season thanks to two back-to-back wins over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Prague, Czech Republic last weekend. I'm quite happy with the Rangers' ability to put the puck on the net, now they need to get the power play clicking! They lost former captain Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, and Brendan Shanahan - but added Markus Naslund, Nikolai Zherdev, and Wade Redden - in addition to having Chris Drury (the newly named team captain) & Scott Gomez in their 2nd season with the Blueshirts. If they can build on the chemistry they've started through training camp, pre-season, and these first two regular season games Rangers fans like myself have a lot to look forward to!

Now, I would be remiss to leave the rest of the league out - especially with SOOO many moves this off season (welcome to the age of the Salary Cap!) both on the ice and behind the bench. Yahoo! Hockey blogger extrodinaire, Puck Daddy (aka Greg Wyshynski), brought my attention to an NHL cyber analyst, who goes by the name SteveDangle.

He has a YouTube channel set up were you can watch and listen to his unique delivery method of breaking down each team for the upcoming season. He also has his own site, HockeyTube.com, that will launch on October 9th.

Talk about a refreshing take on the upcoming season, team by team analysis, delivered in a comedic yet clearly knowledgeable manner. I look forward to the video updates SteveDangle will provide throughout the season. Check him out, I think you'll appreciate it.

Vancouver 2010 - 15 months away:

My girlfriend and I have been seriously thinking about going to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics for quite some time, and earlier last week (Oct. 3rd, 2008) the Ticket Request process for Canadian residents was announced by VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee):

VANCOUVER 2010 TICKETING INFORMATION

The great thing is that during this 'Phase I' timeframe all ticket requests are all considered with the same priority so that prospective spectators have time to co-ordinate with friends and family without worrying about scalpers. If the demand exceeds the availability of any of the single sessions or ticket packages VANOC will put all of the requests into a lottery. Ticket Request submitters will be notified in early 2009 if they were successful in attaining tickets. If not, there will be additional opportunities to try and get tickets after 'Phase I' is complete.

If you're interested, be sure to submit your Ticket Request by the 'Phase I' deadline of November 7th, 2008 for your best chance to get tickets.

NBA: I love this game!

The Boston Celtics are the new defenders of the Larry O'Brien Championship trophy, and the 'Redeem Team' came back from Beijing sporting new bling - in the right variety of precious metal this time, not to mention all of the Player and Coach movement throughout the Association. The past six months have certainly been an exciting time in the world of basketball, and I don't expect that to change over the next nine!!

I've teammed up with my boys Romes & U-E this year to contribute to another blog called 'Hoop Heads North' - a blog especially for you NBA addicts and basketball enthusiasts. Romes kicked off the blog nicely this past summer with some fun stories and tidbits from the offseason. I plan to drop a couple jewels in there this week - so be on the look out for that, and as always feel free to subscribe to that blog as well.

Of course, I'll drop my usual NBA musings here at 'Off The Dome' as well - but two heads...I mean, THREE heads are better than one right?!

Until next time my fellow pro sports fanatics (I promise it'll be MUCH sooner!)

- San Fran