Sports this 'n' that

The sun will set on Troy High's soccer season, at least for the boys, before the week is over.

Inexplicably, the winless Flying Horses are entered in the Class A sectionals, and will have a rematch with Ballston Spa in the first round. Troy has been shut out in 4 of their last 5 games, and 7 of the last 8. What were they thinking when they accepted a bid?

Conversely, the women, who were shut out in back to back games over the weekend, go across town to Lansingburgh tonight in a first round Class A matchup. A win here, and the Lady Horses would have a 3rd go-round with Averill Park, which beat them, 3-0, on Sunday.

For what it's worth, while Lansingburgh is a B school in football, they're an A in soccer, and I'm not sure about other sports. Trying to make sense of that gives me a headache.
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El Cheapo Media's Joe Boyle gets a Dunce Cap, retroactive to Sunday, for some errors in his game report of Friday's Troy-Averill Park football clash. He miscredited AP's Carl Nitz with the Warriors' final TD (which was actually scored by QB Anthony Childrose), and apparently had trouble hearing the archaic public address system at Picken Field, else he'd have been able to properly credit Joe Milanese with his first quarter TD.

Now, I realize that the PA system needs to be upgraded, and that should've been done already, but the school board has other priorities.....
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The Evil Empire of the NFL, the New England Patriots, made sure that the Kansas City Chiefs wouldn't embarrass them in Foxborough a second time, but had to sweat out a 43-40 shootout on Sunday. The problem I have? New England was not penalized. I didn't see the game, but I can guess that there were the usual suspects getting away with fouls because the refs were instructed to give them a free pass. New England QB Tom Brady won his 200th career game, but I don't want anyone ever again referring to him as the greatest of all time. He's not.

Patriots owner Bob Kraft, as we've noted, is on some influential committees in the league, and had to have arranged for this game to be played in Foxborough for the 2nd straight year, just to avenge what happened the last time the two teams played at Gillette Stadium. This shouldn't be permitted ever.

In high school leagues, such as the Suburban Council, for example, teams will alternate home field for matchups on a year-to-year basis. Granted, they've gotten away from that a bit, as Shenendehowa's women's basketball team will visit Troy for the 2nd time in as many seasons, but normally, it would be the other way around, with the boys at home vs. Shen.

Back to the Patriots. Since the league has slapped them on the wrist twice in the last 11 years, the appropriate punishment for them in the wake of those scandals would be to reduce the number of home games per year to just 4, the 3 games vs. divisional rivals, and one game vs. a non-conference foe, preferably not a sub-.500 club that the Pats could walk over and run up the score.

As for the league itself, it's past time to end the coddling of star players and call all penalties correctly. If you see it, call it. Don't hold your flag, especially in Foxborough.
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This may actually be the earliest the NBA has started their regular season in recent memory, as the season starts tonight. The Albany Times-Union's Pete Dougherty reported last Friday that Atlanta, which drafted former Shenendehowa star Kevin Huerter out of Maryland in June, will only have 13 nationally televised games. That the Hawks were among the dregs of the league last season is a big reason why. Huerter's presence, however, ensures the Hawks will get some nightly highlight coverage here in town.
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Reality has set in for the 2nd year Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL. At last check, last year's Stanley Cup runners-up are 2-4, one of those losses being in a rematch with Washington last Wednesday. Tonight, the Knights host Buffalo. It's still a long season, though, with plenty of time to catch up.
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WWE is taking some heat for, at the very least, hesitating about pulling out of Saudi Arabia and rescheduling their November 2 Crown Jewel show in the wake of reports that the Saudi government had a lot to do with the death of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in Turkey. Other businesses have wasted little time cutting ties with the Saudis, but WWE, which signed a 10 year deal with the Saudis earlier this year, is moving forward, deleting any mention of Saudi Arabia in their promotion of the event, and while that leaves the door open to relocating the show, the heat is really on Chairman/CEO Vince McMahon for placating his bottom line, and not the health, both mental and physical, of his troupe, as there are also reports some of the troupe are a little skittish about a 2nd trip to Saudi Arabia in less than a year.

Crown Jewel would be the starting point, really, for the company's fall European tour, which has them doing television in England on November 5-6.

Maybe someone should strap Vince into his chair in the board room and make him watch the Clash's "Rock The Casbah" video in an endless loop for a month......