Junior Hockey Blog

Most of you know that John Madden is the Hall of Fame Football announcer who just recently went from Monday night football to NBC's Sunday night football. But when he was head coach of the Oakland Raiders back in the 70's he was invovled in something where he was one hell of a nice guy.

In August of 1978 The Patriots were playing the Raiders in Oakland in a preseason game. Darryl Stingley of the Patriots was paralyzed in that game. He was taken to a local hospital and the Patriots were boarding a plane to go back to Boston. John Madden asked the Patriots coaches and management if anyone was staying behind to be with Daryll, they said no. Madden couldn't believe it so he himself, the coach of the other team went to the hospital and sat with Daryll that night and made visits up there in the coming weeks. Daryll's family was in Chicago and his teammates were in Boston so he had nobody else to talk to.

I couldn't believe this when I read it -- it shows how things have changed in today's NFL and it also shows what a nice guy John Madden is!

There has been a lot of discussion lately about steroids -- Good, bad, and undecided. There has been a lot of accusations about so and so did or did not take steroids, but one thing is fairly certain -- Manute Bol ( Seven foot six inch tall 150 pound center from Sudan who played in the NBA for several teams in the late 80's and early 90's ) probably did not take any steroids it is safe to say.

Former Bozeman high school football player Travis Dortsch was cut by the NY Giants yesterday where he was trying to get on as a punter. He played his college ball at Purdue and had previously spent one season on the Cincinnati Bengals practice squad.