Summit found themselves trailing 1-0 after the first half of the contest, and their undefeated season was in jeopardy. But the girls showed great resolve, scoring two goals in the second half and holding on for the dramatic victory.

Maria Mellis pulled the game even with a great effort to beat the keeper early in the second half. After the goal, Summit gained confidence, but both teams battled hard to break the tie. Mellis added her second goal of the day for Summit on a corner kick with about 10 minutes remaining, and the goal would stand to be the winner.

It was the final scheduled game for both teams. Summit played a sixteen game schedule which included tough Division 4 opponents such as Auburn Hills Oakland Christian, Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest, and Macomb Lutheran North. Summit finished the season outscoring opponents 59-11.

Summit will now look forward to the Homeschool State Tournament, which will be played at Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing next weekend (June 4th and 5th). They won the State Championship last year.

WARNING: If you haven’t given up on the Red Wings yet, you might want to stop reading here.

Okay. Let’s assume that Detroit has a fifty-fifty chance of winning every game. That would give them a 1-in-16, or 6.2% chance of winning 4 games in a row. But that’s generous. Historically, NHL teams in their situation have done even worse.

Teams down 3-0 have gone 56-103 in Game 4 (regardless of site) (35.2 win %).

Teams down 3-1 have gone 98-140 in Game 5 (regardless of site) (41.2 win %)

Teams down 3-2 have gone 129-174 in Game 6 (regardless of site) (42.6 win %)

Given these numbers, the Red Wings have a 6.2% chance of even advancing to a Game 7. That’s still generous. The most realistic statistic is the 2-157 series record for teams who have been down 3-0.

On top of all that, it seems like overkill to say that the Red Wings, in four attempts, have never won a Quarterfinal without home ice advantage.

But let’s imagine that the Red Wings beat impossible odds to even make it to Game 7. It would be played at HP Pavilion in San Jose, which was recently deemed by a poll of NHL players as the toughest place to play for an NHL road team.

In conclusion–well–pray for the Red Wings.

But this game, which sent the entire nation of Canada spiraling into a severe state of depression, was replaced on the main American network by–wait for it–Ice Dancing, the middle of three rounds, in conjunction with an exhilarating combination of tape-delayed Bobsled, Skiing, and Speed Skating.

NBC moved USA vs. Canada to the far-less prominent cable channel MSNBC, which is available to less than 70% of the households who have access to the main network. Even then, 8.2 million people tuned in to the game. Logically, we can say that the game would have seen at least a 30% increase if it was played on NBC, bringing the number up to 10.7 million viewers. And remember, that’s just the hockey fans that went looking for the game. That means 2.5 million hockey fans who wanted to watch the game, missed out.

It gets worse for NBC. Based on a formula I developed using TV Rating information for programs played simultaneously on both networks, I determined that had USA vs. Canada been played on NBC, it would have attracted about 18.5 million additional viewers, bringing the total to approximately 26.7 million viewers, which bests the 25.4 million posted by NBC during the 8 o’clock time slot Sunday night.

Perhaps most importantly, that also means 16 million casual viewers (or as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman sees them, potential hockey fans) who would have seen some of the NHL’s biggest stars competing on an International stage in one of the most exciting hockey games in recent history, did not.

The prospect of increasing the hockey fan base is the only reason the NHL allowed their players to participate in the first place, and now it’s going to take quite a bit more effort to get them to participate in the Sochi games in 2014.

Thank you NBC.

But according to Jimmy D, the Red Wings would need a “miracle” to end up among the elite of the league in the 2009-10 season. He has decided, just 13 games into this year, that “it’s going to be a grind,” and that “we’re competing with bread and milk.”

To be fair, the Red Wings are dealing with some big off-season losses (Hossa, Samuelsson, Hudler, and Conklin). But as Wings’ General Manager Ken Holland will tell you, they are certainly not in a rebuilding or transition year.

“Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are two of the best players in the world and they’re in the prime of their careers,” Holland says in response to Devellano’s comments.

Their supporting cast isn’t bad either.

Justin Abdelkader, Ville Leino, and Darren Helm are still developing, but all three have proven that they are capable of posting solid numbers. Then there’s off-season additions Jason Williams, Todd Bertuzzi, and Patrick Eaves, who have all impressed (me at least). They are excellent role players and are very capable of filling the gaps left by a flurry of early-season injuries. You can also throw in hard-workers like Daniel Cleary and Thomas Holmstrom, who’s 8 goals lead the Red Wings.

Once injured stars Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula return to the lineup, the Red Wings could easily be one of the top offenses in the league.

Holland adds, “Our top four defensemen (Lidstrom, Rafalski, Ericsson, and Stuart) rank among the best in the league and Chris Osgood (who made 29 saves in a shutout of Boston just two nights ago) has shown what he can do in goal.”

So maybe the Red Wings started slow, but this is definitely not something to panic about. In fact, this has happened before, and more than once. The 2006-07 team started 3–4–1 on their way to an 113 point season and a Central Division title. In October 03′ (a year even more comparable to this one, featuring an injury-plagued team, and a Red Wings patented “goalie controversy”), Detroit went 5-5 in October on their way to a 109-point finish and a Presidents Trophy for most points in the regular season.

Look for the Red Wings (who are 4-1-1 at Joe Louis Arena coming into play tonight) to extend their 2-game win streak, and eventually return to the top of the division. They will play San Jose (#2 in the Western Conference) at home tonight, followed by a Saturday night showdown at their Original 6 rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

On that note, we’ll look at our next number of interest: 4,959, the number of news articles and blog posts published in the past month analyzing and debating Marian Hossa’s “controversial” decision to jump ship from Pittsburgh after last year’s final loss, and move to the team who “gave him the best chance to win the Stanley Cup.” This is the story-line everyone’s talking about. Hossa will have to step it up for Game 7, he’s netted 6 goals in the entire playoffs, but in the finals, only 3 assists. Tonight will more than likely define Marian’s career, and possibly make up Ken Holland’s mind on the tough choice to either let Marian go, or work some more cap magic and bring him back long-term. Wings’ fans can only hope that when the puck drops, his mind will rush back to last year, when he came so close, but it didn’t matter. Hossa has proven he knows how to lose. Now, in what could be the most important game he ever plays, he needs to step it up, or be remembered as the forward who was almost elite, almost a Champion. He has 60 minutes to prove that’s not him.

It’s been 373 days since Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin watched Detroit celebrate on Pittsburgh ice. 373 days they’ve been waiting for tonight, when they have the chance for revenge. To make us feel as they did last year. To make Hossa regret his decision to leave. A chance for Sidney Crosby to finally prove himself to his hundreds of thousands of critics.

For Wings’ fans, it’s been 104 games of yelling at the TV. Those 6,240 minutes thousands of us spent on the edge of our seats, mean nothing if we lose this game. Because now there’s one game. Winner takes all.

A loss for either city, especially Detroit, would be crushing. In the last 10 months, we’ve seen our football team make history by going 0-16, we’ve seen our once unshakable auto industry all but die, and recently, the complete demolition of Tiger Stadium, a Detroit landmark that meant so much to so many people. Detroit needs this win.

It is also the number that the Detroit Tigers–the team picked for the 2nd year in a row as not only a competitor, but a favorite–has been chasing all season. That is until now. Finally, on Saturday, June 28th, 80 games into the yearly recurring roller coaster we call Major League Baseball, the Tigers have finally clawed their way back to .500.

It was an electric atmosphere at beautiful Comerica Park tonight, and the rowdy crowd of 42,729 certainly got their money’s worth. The Tigers broke the game open in the 4th inning as Ryan Raburn unloaded on a two-strike pitch with two outs and hit a majestic grand slam over the wall in left. But Colorado battled back, scoring four runs off Todd Jones in the ninth inning to take the lead, and just when it looked like the Motor City Kitties would fall short again, the Tigers delivered an exhilarating 9th inning comeback, capped by a two-run walk-off double by Miguel Cabrera.

Call it what you like, but the last 20 games for the Tigers, I describe as magical. In a twenty-game stretch that may have saved their season, they went a cool 15-5 , with four wins in heroic walk-off fashion.

It all started on Saturday, June 7th at Comerica Park against the Tigers division rival, the Cleveland Indians. The Tigers had dropped the opener of the series the night before, but the loss was overshadowed by the news that came shortly after; “Jeremy Bonderman Will Likely Miss Rest of Season.” Bonderman’s jersey was hung in the dugout on Saturday night as the Tigers dispatched of the Tribe behind a six-run rally in the 8th inning. The Tigers went on to split the Indians in the four-game set, followed by a three-game sweep of the division-leading Chicago White Sox, and a four-game sweep of the playoff-bound Los Angeles Dodgers. The Tigers went on the road and took four of six in an exciting pair of Inter-league series’ in San Fransisco and San Diego, then continued their recent tear at Comerica Park, winning four of their last five games and finding themselves sitting in the lap of Mr. 500.

The Tigers will go for the sweep of the Colorado Rockies Sunday afternoon behind Kenny Rogers, and then start an extremely important stretch of games with Minnesota, Cleveland, and Seattle leading up to the All-Star Break.

Don’t be surprised to see the Old English D in October, 2008.

It was recently featured in a Yahoo sports article, which is pretty exciting! As of April 26th, it has over 20,000 views.

I have been all over the internet advertising this petition in an effort along with avid Wings fan and season ticket holder Ryan Morin to reverse this highly illogical NHL ruling.