The Lake Show Championship and the World Cup

On the latest edition of the Jared from Jersey Show, Jared and Crush talk about the NBA finals and the World Cup!

And in honor of the opening of Toy Story 3, here are my rankings of Pixar's 11 great films:

1. Toy Story

2. Finding Nemo

3. Toy Story 3

4. Toy Story 2

5. A Bug's Life

6. The Incredibles

7. Monster's Inc

8. Wall-E

9. Ratatouille

10. Cars

11. Up

Chi-town gets the Cup

After 49 years, the best and most coveted trophy in sports, Lord Stanley's Cup, is back in Chicago.

The Chicago Blackhawks win was a result of a game 6, overtime goal that almost no one saw. Patrick Kane went down the left side of the ice, threw it at the goal, and then went crazy. Kane threw off his gloves, sprinted to the other end of the ice and jumped on his goalie as everyone at the Wachovia Center in Philly was stuck in a state of confusion. The announcers didn't even know if it went in.

But after a review, the goal that only Patrick Kane knew was good at first, was confirmed to be the game winning goal of the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals.

It's always a good feeling to know that the best team has won, and in this case the Chicago Blackhawks were the best team. From Kane to Byfuglien to Toews, the Chicago stars outperformed the Philly stars and in the end the Flyer's goaltending proved to be a fatal weakness.

You gotta feel good for Marian Hossa. After losing in the finals two years in a row with two different teams, he finally found redemption with the Blackhawks. Hossa nearly cost the Hawks game 6 with a huge turnover in the neutral zone that gave the Flyers a breakaway early in the game, but thanks to a huge Antti Niemi save, Hossa's mistake was eradicated. After Captain Jonathan Toews took his skate with the Cup, the first person he handed it to was Hossa. Hossa was finally able to touch the hardest trophy in the world to win.

And the Chicago goalie Antti Niemi. He was wildly impressive. I'd be lying if I said I knew who he was before this year, but in the playoffs he performed like exactly what he is now, a champion.

So, the Blackhawks become the first Chi-town team to win a championship under the presidency of Chicago native, Barack Obama. while I doubt though, that Obama knows too much about hockey, maybe the joy felt in his city will help ease the struggles that he's going through now. Probably not, but maybe. By the way, Chicago pizza is only second to New York pizza.

Now every player on the Blackhawks gets to spend a day with the Cup which is one of the coolest things about winning it. I'm looking forward to hearing some funny stories about what the players do with it.

Congratulations Chicago. Well deserved.

No one's perfect, except cameras

Armando Galaragga pitched a perfect game. period.

I have never been this angry about something to do with sports in my life. Every North American pro sports league uses replay, except for MLB. Baseball is the sport that needs it the most!

MLB has to get out of the dark ages and move into 2010 where we have the technology to get the calls right. SCREW THE HUMAN ELEMENT. HUMANS ARE WRONG.

Why are important calls in important situations in important games being left to a guess? A simple replay showed that Galaragga has indeed pitched a perfect game, but since MLB is so intent on pleasing baseball purists and is basically just stupid they won't use replay to make calls.

Look, Bud Selig is the worst commissioner in sports. He screwed up steroids, he doesn't market the game well at all, and lacrosse is going to be more popular than baseball in 10 years, but he could do one positive thing now...

Implement instant replay to get close calls right and give Galaragga the perfect game. Knowing Selig, he's not gonna do either of those things. Selig Sucks. Galaragga's perfect.

But, this whole ordeal has provided a world class example of sportsmanship from both the Tigers and the umpire Jim Joyce. No one feels worse than Joyce who apologized and has been brought to tears, while the Tigers have handled the situation to well, perfection.

As for Galaragga, he has been incredible, offering support for Joyce and staying all smiles. This "perfect game" will go down as the most infamous of all time, so Galaragga doesn't belong to the club of 20 pitchers to pitch official perfect games, but a club of one.

Galaragga knows he was perfect, so do the fans and so does everyone else. So in the end, what does the record book actually mean. Hell, half the records in the official record book are false anyway (steroids) so it only makes sense for baseball to leave out a record that is real.

Just talkin' some sports on Memorial Day Weekend

I seem to go back and forth on the Kobe vs. LeBron argument all the time, but after last night's masterful performance in game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, I think I'm gonna be going with Kobe for awhile. I don't care if people say Kobe's getting old and he's not what he used to be, number 24 is still the most dominant scorer in the NBA. If I'm playing a game of pickup basketball, I'm the captain, and I have first pick, I'm picking Kobe Bryant.

The bottom line is Kobe is a ring away from filling up an entire hand, while LeBron is still looking for his first.

Kobe scored 37 points to advance LA past Phoenix in game 6, to set up what is sure to be an epic finals between two rivals that seem to be competing for an NBA championship every single season. There have been 63 NBA championships, 32 have been won by either the Celtics or the Lakers (that's more than half).

Due to the ridiculous NBA finals schedule, game one doesn't get played until Thursday, so the NBA has plenty of time to amp up the rivalry. You're not gonna be able to go a day until the end of the finals without seeing an image of Magic vs. Bird.

Not only did the NBA luck out with their finals this year, but the NHL also got a great Stanley Cup finals. Chicago and Philly are two huge hockey markets, with teams rich in history, and both are enduring a seemingly interminable Cup drought. Game one was played last night with the Blackhawks winning 6-5. Hopefully people will watch because this Stanley Cup is going to be a perfect example of great hockey, much like the Olympics was.

And even with the Flyers in the Stanley Cup, the biggest sports story out of a city I hate, Philadelphia, took place on a baseball diamond in Florida. Roy Halladay, always dominant but stuck in Toronto, threw MLB's 20th perfect game in its history. And second this season, only three weeks after Dallas Braden's. Halladay has always been one of the best pitchers in baseball without achieving much celebrity playing in Canada, but now he's carving up

the National League like he's a killer in a horror movie.

Speaking of baseball, seeing A-Rod smack that ball right back into that Indian's pitcher head was extremely frightening. It's really amazing that doesn't happen more often actually. I would never wanna be a pitcher in MLB, and yesterday's incident just shows how stupid it is for any level of baseball to be using metal bats. If A-Rod hits that ball with a metal bat, the pitcher might have been killed.

And then not as important as someone's life, but still...how the hell did the Yankees lose that game?!?! Obviously it's just one game and it doesn't mean that much but the Yankees bullpen is really, really shaky. The thing that concerns me most is Joba Chamberlain. When he goes out to pitch, you have no idea what to expect. He is the most inconsistent relief pitcher I've ever seen. But there's still 113 games left for the Yankees to play, so no need to panic, right? Nah, it's New York baseball, every game is cause to panic.

The End

Ok, I'm not gonna lie, I cried last night. No, not because the Yankees lost to the Mets, although I am getting a bit worried, but because the greatest television program of all time came to an end.

Titanic, The Lion King, and Lost. Those are the three works of film or TV I have ever cried at while watching and none more than last night's series finale of Lost.

Screw the haters! The Lost finale was brilliant. Lost has never been about answering questions, its been about the characters and their journeys, and the conclusion for these characters was completely emotionally satisfying. If you didn't like the end, you missed the entire point of the show.

Just as in life, with Lost, many questions remain unanswered. But I think that's exactly the point. Not all questions can get answered.

Sure, it was confusing as hell and doesn't really make sense, but who cares? I loved Lost from beginning to end and the great thing about this show is that it will continue to be debated forever. The show is open to interpretation. You have to think, and that's a good thing.

Lost, I will miss you. Thank you for the best six years of television of all time.

Ping Pong Balls to get John Wall

As if 70 losses weren't bad enough.

The New Jersey (for two more years, then Brooklyn) Nets suffered another loss tonight in earning not the first or second pick in the NBA draft, but the third. Not even the presence of new owner Mikhail Prokhorov could get the ping pong balls to fall the right way for the Nets.

No John Wall, no Evan Turner, no playoffs.

I don't care that Prokhorov promised the Net fans he would give them "plenty to cheer about" and that he expects a championship in a "maximum of five years," the 2010-2011 season will be another terrible year for New Jersey. I don't doubt that Prokhorov wants to win and will do everything in his power to make the Nets win, but without Wall or Turner, it'll be interesting to see which will be lower, the Nets attendance or their win total.

The Nets just can't catch a break.

Prokhorov is a fascinating person and will threaten Mark Cuban for the title of most interesting NBA owner, but unlike baseball, being one of the richest men in the world doesn't help in the NBA. Good luck getting Lebron without John Wall.

The Washington Wizards, who had a 10.3% chance to get the first pick, won the lottery. The Washington owner was immediately asked if he was going to draft Wall and responded, "I have no idea." That would be complete BS on the Sportsnation BS Meter. Of course Washington is drafting Wall, they'll just have to make sure he doesn't get shot in the locker room.

Steve Nash and His Eye

On the Jared from Jersey show, Jared and guest-host Crush Donnybrook talk about the NBA Playoffs, Dallas Braden, and Tiger Woods.