Unbalanced
The Unbalanced explores the world of sports and the culture surrounding it; from basketball to baseball, football, hockey, wrestling, and more.
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Stories in Unbalanced that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Super Bowl LX Recap: A Team Called Hawks
Sixty. The Super Bowl turned 60! Still amazes me that this was the sixtieth Super Bowl played in NFL history. It seems like yesterday that I watched Super Bowl XXVII, the first SB I ever watched. The QB who won Super Bowl XXVII has since called a few SBs, and will call next year's game, but that's another story. Super Bowl LX took place at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the home stadium of the San Francisco 49ers. However, it was one of their division foes who represented the NFC, as the Seattle Seahawks faced off against the New England Patriots.
By Clyde E. Dawkins2 months ago in Unbalanced
Wild Card Weekend Recap: What Happens Now?
I think I figured out why I love Wild Card Weekend so much. It's because it's the first playoff anything of the calendar year. The NFL season starts in the fall, and once upon a time, the champion was crowned either on or slightly before New Year's. The evolution of the NFL schedule has resulted in the playoffs starting just into the New Year, and currently, the final week of the season falls on the first weekend of the New Year, with Wild Card Weekend coming a week after that. So yes, chronologically, the NFL's Wild Card Weekend serves as the first playoff anything of the calendar year.
By Clyde E. Dawkins3 months ago in Unbalanced
What Went Wrong: We Still Own You, Boston
A familiar saying comes to mind in this case: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." First off, let's talk about the fact that this was the best Wild Card Series round ever. Yes, we're only four seasons in to this format, but still. In the first three years, there were 12 series. Only two went the maximum three games: Mets/Padres in 2022, and Brewers/Mets in 2024. This year saw three deciding Game Threes, and the last one was between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.
By Clyde E. Dawkins6 months ago in Unbalanced
It All Comes Down to This...
The 2025 MLB season has been filled with outstanding catches and moments. Now, the following teams are fighting for Wild Card spots and as the regular season winds down, every game matters. For context, I'll be focusing only on the American League in this story. I'll check in the following week to see how the records of the teams I'm about to talk about have changed. Also, next week, I'll be going over the Wild Card hunt in the National League.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 7 months ago in Unbalanced
NFL Week 11 Recap: About Damn Time
For the 52nd straight season, the 1972 Miami Dolphins can pop the champagne. The Buffalo Bills defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the central game of Week 11 of the 2024 NFL season, doing so by a score of 30-21. This was a game were the Chiefs were lost for the most part, which had been the case in a lot of games this season. However, unlike past weeks, the Chiefs could not stumble their way out of this, especially with Travis Kelce being a ghost in this game, and Patrick Mahomes adding two more interceptions to his total for this year.
By Clyde E. Dawkinsabout a year ago in Unbalanced
Lovin’ the PWHL
The inaugural season for professional women’s hockey is well underway and I, like many North American sports enthusiasts, have cottoned on to the excitement of the games and the fanfare. Most of the women playing are relatively well-known through previous media exposure during Olympic games, World Championships and Rivalry matches between Canada and the United States. Yesterday, March 8, being International Women’s Day, I decided that I would pay tribute to the women of the world in my own little sports-minded way, and watch a PWHL game between the teams from Toronto and Montreal. Casually observing the new teams since the start of the season, I had suspected that the Women’s league was somehow different from the NHL and other men’s hockey leagues around the world. Sometimes these differences don’t show up during the Olympic games or World Championships because of the media focus on winning gold medals and the like. However, during a regular season hockey game, be it a men’s game or a women’s game, one gets a chance to really notice what the respective games are all about. I would therefore like to weigh in on what have formerly been suspicions but now are being seen as true differences between men’s and women’s professional hockey.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Unbalanced
A Spirit That Fears Nothing
There are many sound reasons to repudiate professional sport in general and NHL hockey in particular. After all, the game has been as utterly defiled by cynical, avaricious late-stage capitalism as every other aspect of contemporary existence. The ordinary fan is incessantly encouraged by marketers and advertisers to gamble, guzzle alcoholic beverages and devour kilograms of fast food, which is a bald oxymoron if you contemplate it for a moment. Salaries are stratospherically inflated, as are ticket prices, and what passes for discourse generated by the participants in, and commentators upon, the game is so full of cliches and verbal false limbs that Orwell’s ghost will never stop screaming.
By D. J. Reddall2 years ago in Unbalanced
The History of the Adams Division
I've followed the NHL in some form for 30 years, but I'm still learning about the league I enjoy watching. A long time ago, I did learn about the old divisions: Adams, Patrick, Norris, and Smythe. These divisions predated the geographical ones that we've known for the last 30 years, and the rivalries were immensely intense during that period. This will be the first of four stories focusing on those classic divisions, and I'll start geographically, even though the names had nothing to do with location. First off, the Adams Division.
By Clyde E. Dawkinsabout a year ago in Unbalanced
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NBA Playoff Push 2026: Seven Days
This is it, folks! We are down to the final seven days of the NBA season. The season ends on Sunday with all thirty teams playing, and after that, the next day is a day off to breathe, and that's followed by the Play-In Tournament, which will start on Tuesday, April 14 with the 7-seed game between #7 and #8 in their respective conferences. On Wednesday, April 15, it's the elimination games between #9 and #10 in their respective conferences, and finally, on Friday, April 17, it's the 8-seed games between the 7 vs 8 losing team and the 9 vs 10 winning team. After all of that, the actual NBA Playoffs start on Saturday, April 18.
By Clyde E. Dawkinsabout 21 hours ago in Unbalanced
Unholy Shenanigans
The Colorado Avalanche were coming off a huge win; a 2-0 victory over the Dallas Stars on the road. That win reduced our magic number from six points to just two; just one win away from not only winning the Central Division, but also getting the #1 seed in the Western Conference. In this game, the Avs were up against the St. Louis Blues, one of a number of teams locked into an insane logjam in the Western Conference's Wild Card race.
By Clyde E. Dawkinsabout 24 hours ago in Unbalanced
La Suite: Canadiens Return to Playoffs with Expectations
Last year, there were three playoff berths that truly shocked the hockey world: the Ottawa Senators, the St. Louis Blues, and the Montréal Canadiens. The Sens were ruined by that Matt Duchene deal in 2017, and the Blues crashed and burned after winning the Stanley Cup in 2019, but they both got in. As for the Canadiens, they had a 2021 run to remember. Not expected to win a single game in that year's playoffs, Les Habitants won thirteen of them; falling just three wins shy of the Stanley Cup.
By Clyde E. Dawkins2 days ago in Unbalanced
Stanley Cup Playoff Push 2026: If Three's a Crowd, What's Five?
We are almost a week into the month of April, and we are down to the final dozen days of the regular season. Time is definitely running out for a lot of teams. It ended up running out for a few others. More teams were eliminated this past week, and one of them was the Toronto Maple Leafs. It will not be 10 in a row for the Leafs, and for team captain Auston Matthews, it's the first time in his career that he'll miss the playoffs. It's almost like the Leafs shouldn't have traded Mitch Marner. Oh wait, they shouldn't have!
By Clyde E. Dawkins2 days ago in Unbalanced
Serving Humble Pie Since 1995
On March 18, 2026, the Colorado Avalanch hosted the Dallas Stars on national TV. It was very extra special for this Avs fan, as that day was my birthday. The game was close throughout; Avs led 1-0 after 20, game tied at 1 after 40, after 60, and even after 65. Game to a shootout, and the Stars won it. Stars moved within two points of the Avs in the Central, and boy were Stars fans pounding their chests. If you ask them, it was a foregone conclusion that they would overtake the Avs in the Central.
By Clyde E. Dawkins3 days ago in Unbalanced
Sabres' 15-Year Itch is GONE!
April 24, 2011. On that day, the Buffalo Sabres hosted the Philadelphia Flyers in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. The Sabres were up three games to two, and led 3-1 in Game Six, but the Flyers bounced back. Game was tied at four after sixty minutes, and the Flyers won in OT to force Game Seven. Game Seven took place in Philly on April 26, 2011, and the Flyers were victorious, 5-2, advancing to the second round. However, Sabres fans figured that it would be a matter of time before they're back in. So they waited.
By Clyde E. Dawkins3 days ago in Unbalanced
Have the Rumors of the Lightning's Demise Been Greatly Exaggerated?
The penultimate Saturday of the regular season featured 15 games, a lot of them with playoff implications. Already, the first of the 15 games could affect two teams. The New York Rangers, who are long eliminated, hosted the Detroit Red Wings, who needed something to go right. Fans of the Tampa Bay Lightning had their TVs to ABC for this game, and it was going very well in their favor. Rookie Gabe Perreault picked up his first career Hat Trick, leading the Rangers to a 4-1.
By Clyde E. Dawkins3 days ago in Unbalanced
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