Notes on watersports, frozen and unfrozen

Notes on water sports, frozen:

Four teams left in the Stanley Cup finals; here's the recent history on each:

Detroit Red Wings: Last Cup in last year! (also last Cup final); Cups since 1960: 4 (all since 1996)

Pittsburgh Penguins: Last Cup in 1992; last Cup final in last year!; Cups since 1960: 2

Carolina Hurricanes: Last Cup in 2006; last Cup final in 2006; Cups since 1960: 1, three seasons ago.

Chicago Blackhawks: Last Cup in 1961; last Cup final in 1973; Cups since 1960: 1, in 1961!

I sure know who I'm rooting for. But Detroit is so darned good, it's going to be tough for the Blackhawks.

Notes on water sports, unfrozen:

Looking over the results of the Charlotte UltraSwim:

17-year old phenom North Dakotan Dagny Knutson made her mark in the 200- and 400- meter freestyle and the 200- and 400-meter IM (and we're going to need something special in the middle distance freestyles to take on the Brits). Dagny looks like the woman's swimmer of the meet; she was also 4th in the 200 meter fly. That's a tough program.

A 15-year old (Amanda Reason) won the 100-meter breaststroke (and we need some power here, too). OK, I guess we need another teenage breaststroker named Amanda now that Amanda Beard is presently preggers.

On the men's side:

Phelps showed why he was on the men's 400-meter relay in Beijing, coming in second to Fred Bousquet; he also won the 200-meter freestyle and the 100-meter butterfly.

Peter Vanderkaay had a very respectable 3:46 in the 400 meter freestyle;

Aaron Peirsol and Phelps had a nice duel in the 100-meter backstroke (Peirsol by half a second);

Nice to see Eric Shanteau continuing well (actually, spectacularly well) after testicular cancer treatment -- 2nd in the 100-meter breaststroke and winning the 200-meter breaststroke with a WHAT?! time of 2:09.71; that's only about 1.2 seconds off the American record and 2.2 seconds off Kitajima's world record -- Kosuke's got another American to think about now; (Shanteau also had a respectable 3rd in the 200 IM, though Phelps didn't swim it).

Pretty good meet. I'll have to check out more videos of it this week.