For Fans of Grudge Matches

Across the pond this weekend is a grudge match that has been nearly a year in the making happening. On Sunday Liverpool will travel to Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England to play last year's Premier League Champions Manchester City FC.

Manchester City players celebrate with the Cup after a win over West Ham clinched a second Premier League title in three years. Photo: AP

This is a grudge match on many levels, but most of all because last season was Liverpool's to win for a majority of the year. They dominated the competition in most every match behind fantastic attacking play by a group of young strikers and now-departed fan of mastication Luis Suarez. With that group of offensive talent plus a veteran mid-field led by Team Captain Steven Gerrard, Liverpool had what seemed like the perfect combination of youth and experience to finally bring a league title back to Anfield.

Liverpool's Daniel Sturridge, center, scores his side's first goal during the English FA Cup fifth round soccer match between Crystal Palace and Liverpool at Selhurst Park stadium in London, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

However a series of blunders let the title slip away from Liverpool and Manchester City, who had laid in wait in the second spot, snatched the title away, Sunday has had a red circle around it in almost every Premier League fan's calender.

The team's might not look exactly the same with both teams acquiring new players over the summer and old players leaving either through transfer or by retirement, but expect everyone in the stadium and especially the players to know just how important this game is to both team's seasons.

For the curious but clueless about the Premier League and just what the big deal is about English soccer, this is a game to watch to see what all the true rivalry is about. In a earlier post I suggested you watch Champions League soccer, which is the biggest international tournament in club soccer, but if you want to see real passion and pageantry that rivals what we see on Saturdays in the fall with college football, you should pay attention to the Premier League.

For fans of cold weather and fiery tempers

Every Wednesday since 2012 has come to be known as Wednesday Night Rivalry for a sport that I hold near and dear to my heart, Ice Hockey. Now being from the land of Thunder during the winter, hockey does not frequently grace our airwaves unless you are lucky enough to have expanded channel service on your television sets. That's why the year 2012 is so important to myself and any other hockey fans. Because that is the year that NBC announced a 10 year extension of it's television broadcasting rights with the National Hockey League and the formation of their new sports channel, NBCSN, that will come standard with any sports package for television providers.

With the formation of NBCSN the NHL has at least 90 different nationally-televised games each regular season, with most of them showing on either Mondays, Tuesdays, or my favorite, Rivalry Night.

This Wednesday is no exception with two teams that have a hatred only familiarity can brew taking the ice when the Pittsburg Penguins travel to the nation's capital to take on the Washington D.C. Capitals.

Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin, left, of Russia, and Winnipeg Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba, right, eye the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015, in Washington. The Capitals won 5-1. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

For those of you that might not know a single thing about hockey, this is a game you would want to watch. This game will give you all the intensity and emotion that makes any hockey game great, not only just rivalries, and also give you nationally-known brand-name players to root for.

That's because every time these two teams meet, two of the most recognizable names in hockey go head-to-head in Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. These players are offensive juggernauts that light up the scoreboard and the crown every single time and always make what is otherwise just a physical slugfest also a offensive shoot-out.

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby, left and Columbus Blue Jackets' Brandon Dubinsky are seen through the dasher board glass as they exchange blows in a fight in the second period of an NHL hockey game, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015 in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

With no other major sports event happening in Oklahoma, why not sit and try and experience the favorite sport of our North American brothers from above the border. Who knows? You might like what you have to see.

A case for the round football

Schalke's Felix Platte, left, and Real Madrid's Daniel Carvajal go for the ball during the Champions League round of 16 first leg soccer match between FC Schalke 04 and Real Madrid in Gelsenkirchen, Germany on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Here in America, we are currently in the bleak wasteland known as Football's off-season. The Super Bowl has been played and won. Calls have been debated over and over again to the point of pointlessness and it has finally started to set in even for the most hard-core fans that football is done until late summer at the earliest.

However there is a much more recognized version of football still being played right now, with one of the most important sought-after tournaments entering into it's final phase. I'm of course speaking of the world's game, soccer, and of organized football's biggest club event, the UEFA Champions League.

Used with permission from billsportsmaps.com

 The UEFA Champion's League is an event held every year that hosts the best club teams from around the world who play each other throughout the season in order to find one "true champion" of the club soccer world. This event while playing throughout the season so far and already now entering it's sixth round of competition, is only today starting to heat up however.

Starting yesterday, the 16 remaining teams who have survived the World Cup style round-robin that starts the tournament play each other in a two-leg tournament style format. That means that while there is a normal bracket that the last sixteen teams play through, with teams being seeded based off of their performance through the round-robin stage, every team is guaranteed a home game every round of the tournament. Teams starting this round play a home-and-home two game series with the team that scores the most goals over the two games advancing.

I'm not saying that soccer will all of a sudden fill that oblong shaped hole left in your heart after the Super Bowl was finally over, but if you are willing to try and give international soccer a chance, and want to see what the absolute best players in the world, playing on the best teams in the world look like, then give the UEFA Champions League a try. You might like what you find.

Don't disrespect the Clippers

Tonight Chris Paul and company travel to Cleveland to face King James and the Cavaliers. This is a nationally televised broadcast against to powerhouse opponents and should be must-see television. But some of the national media have already seemed to call this game for the King and his cohorts.

There is a decided bias forming against one of the most electryfiing teams in the league in the Clippers. They have possibly the purest passing point guard in the league, a true center in DeAndre Jordan who is big a strong enough to even keep his lordship from posting up, a power forward who I'm fairly sure could jump from standing still and sit on top of the back board with Blake Griffin and one of the best spot-up shooters to have ever played the game in Jamal Crawford, yet for all of their weapons, the national media still hasn't taken the bait.

Los Angeles Clippers guard Jamal Crawford (11) goes up past Brooklyn Nets guard Darius Morris (14) and guard Bojan Bogdanovic during the first half of NBA basketball game, Monday, Feb. 2, 2015, in New York. The Nets won 102-100 (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

In a league that is more fascinated by the day with point guards that shoot the ball more and more with the likes of Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose attacking the rim with reckless abandon and Stephen Curry showing off his silky shooting stroke behind-the-line like he did last night, writers have given the Clippers a death-knell to any sort-of hype a true championship contender should receive. The Clipper have officially joined the Spurs as a team so good at doing the ordinary jobs it takes to win, that they are not interesting to write about.

That is what makes this matchup with Cleveland on a national stage so important. Against a re-invigorated Cavs team that seems ready to take that next-step as the Eastern Conference favorite to make it to the NBA Finals, a truly spectacular performance from any of Los Angeles' stars would bring some much needed media attention to a team that seems to feed off of that type of exposure.

Class assignment (2/3/15)

For class today we were asked to read over some articles talking about how exactly to write an interesting blog post. Most of the tips offered in these articles were fairly self-explanatory and thankfully I've heard most of them as a part of our training for website writing on ucentralmedia.com.

One of the biggest tips that stood with me went against what most people have told me about online writing however. In this Writer's Digest piece there is a tip about not being afraid to write longer posts if you feel you need to.

It seems like almost everywhere, writer is told that an online reader does not want to read a long post and that it is a waste of time and effort. I however feel strongly that if you have something to say and your outlet is here on the world wide web, you should not be afraid to express your thoughts, even if they don't fit into the 140 character limit attention-span of today's web-browsing public.