I just was looking at the Stanley Cup future odds. The Chicago Blackhawks are at 12/1. They are obviously a long way from a lock, but I like that price. At least in comparison to the other power teams in the conference I do – the Sharks and Wings have both looked vulnerable at time (San Jose is in the tank right now), yet they are at 3/1. I like the young talent that Chicago has, I love their coaching, and I think that they are ready for a deep run. In the East I think it will be either Washington (9/1) or Boston (11/2) that makes it through.

I’m not a big NASCAR guy. I pay attention to what is going on, and I’ll watch a few laps from time to time, but I have rarely sat down to watch a whole race. Still, I can’t imagine that this was what the sport’s powers that be were hoping for from the Daytona 500. A nasty wreck caused by Dale Earnhardt, the sport’s biggest if not most deserving star, knocked nine cars out of the race including Kyle Busch, who had by far the fastest car on the day and would likely have cruised to a win. On top of that, rain caused the race to be shortened by 48 laps, giving the win to Matt Kenseth. Kenseth is pretty much the most boring guy in the world, and he had started the race in 39th, so he isn’t likely to energize a sport in desperate need of a boost after so many car-industry induced headaches recently. It was interesting to see A.J.Allmendinger finish third. He had a controversial search for a new ride this offseason , and didn’t qualify for the field until Thursday. This is more proof of what is becoming very clear – the guy has real talent. 18 year old super rookie JoeyLogano survived just 79 of the 152 laps.

I only watched a bit of the NBA all-star game. I’m glad I missed most of it, though – the pictures of the Shaq-Kobe lovefest are enough to make me puke.

Terry Porter may go down as one of the worst coaching hires ever. He took over a decent team and ran them into the ground in just half a season. Good riddance. He could have been successful if he thought anyone in the world was half as brilliant as Terry Porter.

Chocolate Candy, one of the horses I talked about in my first Kentucky Derby preview last week, had a big win in the El Camino Real Derby on Saturday. He looked as impressive as I hoped he would. So far the horses I like have done extremely well. I hope I don’t use my luck up too soon.