Brendan Shanahan: The Atypical Hockey Player
Brendan Shanahan shouldn't have been a hockey player. He should have been tasting wine, or taking in the theater. Or maybe he should have been in the aisle behind you at the bookstore, helping some pretty young thing pick out a title for her dad on Father's Day.Instead, he elbowed, bulled, and plowed his way into goalies' nightmares. He put his movie star good looks on the line every night, until slowly his face got that Etch-a-Sketch look that befalls all hockey players, if they play long enough.Shanahan played long enough. He said so, retiring yesterday at age 40, which in the NHL is the new 30 anymore.Before Shanahan, power forward was a basketball des

Last Night on "The Knee Jerks": Icing the Puck with MLive.com's Ansar Khan
First, a semi-major announcement: "The Knee Jerks" will be moving up a couple of hours!Beginning December 14, you'll be able to get your jerkosity two hours earlier. The show will debut its new 9:00-11:00 ET time slot, so everyone can get some sleep on Monday nights!The first quarter of the Red Wings' season is almost done with, so on "The Knee Jerks", my weekly gabfest with Big Al Beaton, we figured it was time to get a perspective on the team from someone who covers it, day in, day out.Our guest was

TONIGHT on "The Knee Jerks": Red Wings Crazy, with KHAAAAN!
It's a hockey-centric episode tonight (Monday) on "The Knee Jerks," my weekly gabfest on Blog Talk Radio with my co-host, Al Beaton, as we talk all things Detroit Red Wings and NHL with Kahn. Ansar Kahn, that is. Khan has been the Red Wings beat writer for Mlive.com and Booth Newspapers since the 2000-01 season, and for several years prior to that for the Oakland Press. You can get the latest Red Wings insight from Kahn online at Mlive. After getting the scoop on the Wings and NHL, the

Lions Pour More Losing Concrete in Minneapolis Stinker
The Lions proved once again that they have a losing foundation.The mix that was poured to create it includes an impressive blend of poor blocking, miserable tackling, and obscene pass rush and coverage.It's rock solid, this foundation, and the trouble is, their coach has been thwacking away at it with a hammer, when he really needs a medicine ball swinging from a chain.On top of this foundation, the Lions play football and show us various ways every Sunday to come out on the losing side of things. It's really quite an art, like David Copperfield showing us how he can make different things disappear.But below that surface is the foundation---th

Wallace Giving Pistons Great Minutes, But Maybe Too Many of Them?
Ben Wallace is a 35-year-old NBA big man who is playing like he's 25. For now.There's been a lot of ballyhoo over Wallace, who the Pistons snatched from the jaws of retirement last summer and signed for a league pittance.The signing was decried, but not by me. But that's because I figured Wallace could come off the bench when some energy was needed, maybe block a couple of shots, grab a few rebounds, and then sit back down, his night done after 10, 15 minutes.I had no delusions of grandeur about him. No idea that he'd even be considered for a starting position, let alone be granted one.But my blessing of the signing came with a ca