In 1975, Cope created the Terrible Towel by urging fans to bring yellow dish towels to the game to wave in support of the Steelers as they took on the Baltimore Colts. Not long after the Steelers began selling the golden towels with the words "Myron Cope's Terrible Towel" emblazoned on them. Since then, the sale of Terrible Towels has raised millions of dollars for charity.
Blazers
The bad news continues with the Blazers who have fallen to 29-28 by losing 9 of 12 in February and 8 of their last 9. The biggest culprit seems to be shooting, or lack thereof, as displayed by last nights 96-83 loss to the Lakers. Even without Brandon Roy(sprained ankle), the Blazers started out hot, and led by as much as 15 in the first quarter and were up by 7 at the half. But they came out cold in the second half, shooting barely 25% in the second half(36% overall). Even with the poor shooting, the Blazers were able to hang in the game by playing inspired defense and were only down 1 after 3, but in the last 5 or 6 minutes, the Lakers pulled away.
Brandon Roy will also miss tonights games against the Clippers, but my return Friday when they take on the Lakers again, this time in the Rose Garden. James Jones should also return Friday after missing several weeks with a sore knee. Jones' strong shooting(2nd in the NBA from 3 pt range) will be a welcome addition. During the Blazers outstanding December and January, Jones could always be counted on to make big shots to get the Blazers back on track when they hit a shooting slump. If they want any chance at all of making the playoffs, they're going to have to play lights out ball for the next month and a half as they are currently 5.5 games out of the final playoff spot in the West.
Penguins
Finally some good news. The Penguins have been continuing to play great puck(how come you never hear that term? If football and basketball players can play ball, I say hockey players play puck. While we're on the subject, instead of balling, hockey players puck. It's our job to make this mainstream). Despite playing without Sidney Crosby for the last several weeks, the Pens are just one point out of the lead in the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference. They geared up for a run at the Stanley Cup yesterday by acquiring Marian Hossa from the Thrashers yesterday before the trade deadline. The move signified to the league that the Penguins aren't looking to win a Cup sometime in the next few years, but are going balls out for it this year. They had to give up alot to get Hossa, as they sent the Thrashers Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, last years 1st round pick Angelo Esposito, and a 2008 1st round pick. The fact that Hossa becomes a free agent in July makes the move even gutsier as they will probably have to have a strong playoff showing if the want to convince Hossa to resign.
Hossa will add another scoring threat to already formidable Pittsburgh offense, which in Crosby's absence has been led by another young phenom Evgeni Malkin who has used Crosby's absence to show the league what he can do and with a goal and an assist in last nights 4-2 win over the Islanders, now leads the league in scoring.
Unlike last year, this years defense is also strong. Ty Conklin has used Marc-Andre Fleury's injury to his advantage as well and been playing outstanding defense. He has gone 17-4-5 in Fleury's absence and is going to make it tough for Fleury to get his starting job back if he keeps playing like he did in last nights win when he had 50 saves.
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