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Peterson: Change on the way

I’ve never claimed to a be a seer of the future. Or even a modern day Nostradamus. But I do believe that there are changes coming on the sports scene in 2020. High school football figures to be the most obvious area for changes. Shrinking enrollment at many Michigan schools has led to the increasing number of programs adopting 8-man football. Munising, for one, has already opted to go that route this coming season. And it seems almost certain that Lake Linden-Hubbell will have to take a very close look at doing the same. The Lakes were the smallest school in the state to ...

Peterson: My top sports movies

It used to be there was no choice when it came to choosing a sports movie to watch. There was William Bendix playing a very poor rendition in The Babe Ruth Story. Or Jimmy Piersall playing himself in Fear Strikes Out, also not an Academy award winner. But the last couple of decades have brought out a flood of movies about sports figures or events that have been average at best. But there a few that were very good. Here’s a few of my favorites: 1. “Miracle” Based on the 1980 Olympic hockey upset of the USSR by a young United StatesTeam. I was curious to see how they would ...

Peterson: Packers have a coach, Lions don’t

Contrary to what propaganda the Ford family is putting out these days, they don’t have a football coach running the Lions. Matt Patricia has clearly shown that he belongs on the long list of Motown coaching/front office failures — people like Marty Morhningweg, Darryl Rogers, Matt Millen, Monte Clark etc. Patricia’s method of coaching is to stand on the sidelines with a pencil in his ear and basically ignore what’s taking place on the field. He doesn’t know when to call timeouts or challenge a bad call. Those two misgivings have been displayed many times. For a guy who ...

Peterson: Weather has final say on sporting events

I used to have a saying that you can always tell a newcomer to our area by his/her reaction to the first heavy snowfall of the season. Someone who had never been to the Copper Country between late November and early April would always talk abut the volume of snow. But to local residents, the amount of snow we can get here comes as no surprise. They’ve literally seen it all when it comes to Mother Nature. The one thing I’ve learned about weather up in this neck of the woods is that it always has the final say. There are many instances when weather did just that in a sports ...

Peterson: Too many bowl games

It’s that time of the year for good cheer, family get-togethers, sales and, of course, the football bowl season. Every business, from Chuckie Cheese to Los Dos Amigos has a name in its so-called honor between next week and some time after New Year. There are a total of 52 bowls in all. Of course, any self-respecting sports fan knows the only bowl that really counts is the one they play for the mythical national championship. Now, the national championship game at least decides who really is No. 1 in the nation … and it has produced some really good games since it started five ...

Karnosky: We need to talk about this

The sport of hockey is at a crossroads much the same way the entertainment industry was about a year ago. With the resignation last week of Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters, the NHL, and really hockey in general, has had to admit it has a problem. In case you have been living under a rock, Peters was accused by a former player of using a racial slur against him. Another player accused him of hitting or kicking a skater on the bench. These are difficult, complicated times for hockey. In mid-November, former NHL coach and long-time hockey commentator Don Cherry was fired from his ...