THE ITHACAN

Pan-American Games

By Alex Holt • October 22, 2011

Just can't wait for the Summer Olympics in London this August? If so, you might actually be in luck. As of today, there are eight days left in the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, a quadrennial Olympic-style competition among all the nations and territories in North America, Central America, South American and the…

In defense of the World Series

By Alex Holt • October 22, 2011

Some people may not like this year's World Series matchup between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. As long as you've got a good reason for this sentiment, that's OK. Say you don't like Dallas teams and you don't like the Cardinals' infamously obsessive manager, Tony La Russa. That would be a valid…

Gone too soon

By Alex Holt • October 17, 2011

For all the violent cliches and phrases associated with sports and the talk of battles and opponents and whatnot, we've never really been able as a society to reconcile sports with tragedy. Sudden death in football and actual sudden deaths just don't mix. Nobody expects anyone to actually die in a game of basketball. The…

Home and home away from home

By Alex Holt • October 15, 2011

Unless you've been living under a rock, you might have heard that Fall Break's coming up this week. While it's not quite like the other breaks we get off at Ithaca College in that it's shorter and we don't have to leave our dorms, it's still a good excuse to talk about what I like…

When Lions Win

By Alex Holt • October 13, 2011

Every Thanksgiving, millions of American sports fans, myself included, as well as at least a couple hundred thousand bored Americans with nothing else to do besides interact with relatives plunk themselves down on the couch and watch the Dallas Cowboys , the Detroit Lions and whoever those two teams are playing that particular Thursday. The…

Farewell Al Davis

By Alex Holt • October 11, 2011

Of all the sports owners who've passed away since I became a sports fan, very few have garnered as much attention as Al Davis' death last Saturday, October 8, 2011 at the age of 82. Really, the only other time I can remember people paying this much attention to an owner dying was when George…

Here’s to the WNBA

By Alex Holt • October 8, 2011

So the WNBA season wrapped up last night with the Minnesota Lynx defeating the Atlanta Dream to win the WNBA Finals 2-0. I know the WNBA has its naysayers for not featuring as many dunks as the NBA. It's also true that its most successful franchise, the Houston Comets won four straight titles and still…

So long Sean Avery

By Alex Holt • October 6, 2011

New York Rangers left wing Sean Avery was placed on waivers Tuesday and is now probably bound for Europe or at least the AHL after going unclaimed by any team. It's very possible that he's played his last NHL game and while I never thought I'd say this, I'm actually going to miss him a…

What a novel idea

By Alex Holt • October 4, 2011

If there's one thing that connects all the various playoff systems in modern sports, it's that a lot of people think they last too long and I've got to say it's pretty hard to argue with that. The NBA playoffs last from the middle of April to the middle of June, a span of about…

Blame it on Terry

By Alex Holt • October 1, 2011

A Major League Baseball franchise in one of the East Coast's biggest markets has hit hard times or at least harder times than they imagined they'd be facing for a long, long time. They've set an MLB record by blowing a stunning lead in the postseason race, even though not too long ago, they were…

Weird week, huh?

By Alex Holt • September 29, 2011

As I believe I mentioned in the last post, it's been quite the week in sports. Thing is, it wasn't really shaping up that way at first. Let me back up a bit. On Sunday, I went along on IC Hillel's pre-Rosh Hashanah apple-picking trip to Littletree Orchards in Newfield. I did this partly because…

Freaky sunday

By Alex Holt • September 27, 2011

I don't know why so many bizarre football games were played this past Sunday but things got really weird in the NFL during Week 3. Consider: the previously struggling, injury prone New York Giants upset the Philadelphia Eagles 14-13 and knocked out Michael Vick in the process with what's apparently a bruised hand. The Minnesota…