Central champion 'Hawks cool off Flames

Hockey Betting Lines

04/04/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Patrick Kane registered a goal and an assist, and the Chicago Blackhawks added to their first division title in 17 years with a 4-1 victory over the playoff-hopeful Calgary Flames at United Center.

Troy Brouwer, Dustin Byfuglien and Tomas Kopecky all scored for Chicago, which claimed the Central Division title when the Red Wings lost to the Flyers earlier Sunday. It is the first division championship for the team since 1992-93, when it played in the Norris Division. Also ending on Sunday was Detroit's run of eight consecutive division crowns.

Antti Niemi stopped 25-of-26 shots for Chicago, which tied the franchise record for single-season wins with 49. It also swept the season series from Calgary for the second consecutive year, winning its eighth straight regular season game against the Flames.

Ian White posted the only goal for Calgary, which had a three-game win streak snapped and its playoff hopes diminished. The Flames are still tied with Colorado for the eighth spot in the West but have played two more games and do not hold any of the tiebreakers. The Avs play Sunday against San Jose.

Miikka Kiprusoff allowed all four goals on 31 shots in defeat.

The Blackhawks wasted no time getting on the board, taking advantage of a fortunate bounce.

Chicago's Niklas Hjalmarsson fired a slap shot from the slot that went wide to the left, but the puck bounced all the way to the front of the net on the right side, where Kopecky was able to tap it in at 2:56 of the opening period.

Brouwer doubled Chicago's lead with 54 seconds left in the frame when he beat the Calgary defensemen to a rebound out in front and backhanded the disc into the wide open net.

Both clubs traded goals in the second, with Kane's 29th putting Chicago ahead by three at 15:32 before White fired a quick wrister past Niemi at 16:34 to make it a 3-1 game heading to the third.

Niemi stopped all 11 shots he faced in the last 20 minutes to preserve the lead, and Byfuglien put the game away with a shot from the right circle with 2:46 remaining.

Game Notes

Calgary's Rene Bourque had his three-game goal streak snapped...Chicago also won 49 games in 1970-71 and 1990-91...The Blackhawks have outshot their opponents in 67-of-78 games, including 31-26 on Sunday. No other team has outshot its opponent more than 46 times this season...Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville was also the head coach of the last team other than the Red Wings to win the Central Division -- the 1999-2000 St. Louis Blues...The last time Chicago swept the season series from a West team for two straight seasons was also the Flames -- in 1992-93 and 1993-94...The Hawks are one point behind San Jose for the top spot in the West.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.