Rich's Sports Beat

*Congratulations to the Boston Bruins for winning the 2011 Stanley Cup last week, their first Cup since 1972. Mark Recchi was on this team and went out in style. Recchi won his first Cup with the Penguins in 1991 but was traded in 1992 in the deal that brought Rick Tocchet, Kjell Sammuelson, and Ken Wregget to Pittsburgh. Recchi went on to win a Cup with Carolina in 2006, and now he finishes his career at 43 years of age with a Cup playing for Boston. *Much of the talk over the last week and a half is the renewal of the Pitt-Penn State football game in 2016 and 2017. It will only be a two game series, so the rivalry will likely not be the one that was back in the late 1970s and into the middle 1980s. Some light needs to be shed on this series and its relevance on the college football landscape. Joe Paterno became head coach of Penn State in 1966 after serving as an assistant to then coach Rip Engle. Of course, we all know Paterno is still coaching at the age of 84. What many m...

Sports thoughts for the week: *By the time this week’s edition hits your mailbox and the newsstand, we will new NBA champions (the Dallas Mavericks were crowned champions after defeating the Miami Heat Sunday night) and new Stanley Cup champions (this past Wednesday night – Bruins and Canucks for all the marbles). What that also means is that two seasons will draw to a close (pro basketball and hockey) for the summer until September and October roll around and those respective sports’ training camps open. For the summer, we will be left with baseball, golf, and auto racing, primarily NASCAR. For the sports fan, this should suffice. However, a great many people, if they haven’t already, will be enjoying the great outdoors. *This was mentioned in light of the fact that the NFL lockout is looking larger as training camps are scheduled to open in a month and a half. When the lockout began, it really wasn’t a big deal. Now, to the football fans, it is becoming a bigger issue. As of...

The NFL Network has some great programming during the offseason, from their live access shows to analysis and such. One of the shows they is The Top 10…..fill in the blank. Last Christmas Eve, the Top 10 Pittsburgh Steelers aired, and it was on again over this past weekend. Anyone who has seen this program had to be intrigued by whom they placed on this list and, even more bizarre, who was left off. Believe it or not, three current or former Steelers from the 2000s made this list. One from the 1990s, and the others from the 1970s. One could make a very good argument that this list could be chock full of Steelers solely from the Super Bowl era of the 1970s without batting an eyelash, and they would be spot on. I am not ready to name any current Steelers as Top 10 until long after they have retired and perhaps secured their spots in the NFL Hall of Fame. Let’s preface this by taking a look at the Steelers from the first Super Bowl era that are in the Hall. Offensively, Terry Bra...

*Last Friday morning, I decided to pull in the Stan Savran show on 970 ESPN streaming online. I consider Stan to be far and away the best and most professional sportscaster in Pittsburgh. He knows his stuff and he’s great to listen to. Just as I pulled in the online stream, he was commenting on the exact same subject I am writing about this week. It had to with James Harrison’s recent tweets about the NFL rules and how it is making it more difficult for defenses to do their jobs. Well, Stan hit the nail on the head with me, as he said the exact same thing I have been thinking with regards to these rules and Harrison’s tweets. I have watched a ton of football in my day and I am still a relatively young man. This is not your father’s NFL, sad to say. Far from it. Tackling is poor, at best, and the talent level is about mediocre and a little above average. Then again, when you have 32 teams in which to stock, not every team is going to get the best talent, the cream of the crop....