January 8

A few quick links...

Bruins

The Boston Bruins host the Carolina Hurricanes tonight. Gametime is 7 PM and can be seen on NESN. In the Globe's Notebook Fluto Shinzawa has Andrew Alberts still suffering from post-concussion syndrome, while Aaron Ward and Glen Murray are much closer to returning.

Soccer

Major League Soccer has received a transfer bid from a second division English Club for the Revolution's Taylor Twellman. The league has rejected the $1.6 million offer from Preston North End, (don't feel bad, I'd never heard of them either) and word is Preton North End may increase the bid to $2 million. Here's hoping Twellman remains in a Revolution uniform for many years to come, or at least until they finally win the MLS Cup.

Boston College

First, the good news. The football team finished the season tied for 10th place with Texas in the final AP Poll, and 11th in the final Coach's Poll. Notice that in the AP Poll Division 1-AA team Appalachian State finished with more votes than both UConn and Rutgers, and tied with South Florida. So much for the Big East being better than the ACC.

Now, the bad news. The mens' basketball team lost to Robert Morris last night, 57-51. The Globe's Michael Vega has the game recap. BC seems to have at least one of these losses every year, and this is a young team. Hopefully play improves for the conference schedule. The Eagles have to play North Carolina twice, and have road games at Virginia, Clemson, Duke, and Florida State.

In other College football news, Bob Ryan thinks that the bowl games themselves, particilarly the Rose Bowl, are the biggest stumbling block to a playoff system. I agree with most of what Ryan said, except when he says the BCS conferences aren't motivated by money in their stance against a playoff system. The current system guarantees the biggest bowl bids, and as a result biggest payouts, go to the biggest conferences. The excuses of academics are laughable at best. It's all about money.