NHL Power Rankings: Ducks rise from dead to No. 1 - SI.com

1. Anaheim Ducks

• record: 31-19-8
• Maybe the pundits were right about the Ducks after all. The preseason favorites to win the Stanley Cup have reeled off five straight wins and are 12-1-1 in their past 14. The change? An offense that’s finally living up to its paper. Anaheim has scored 68 goals in its last 17 games (4.0 per game), including five-or-more in four straight.  
• Last week: 3-0-0

6. Los Angeles Kings

• record: 34-20-4
• No Anze Kopitar. No Marian Gaborik. No wonder the Kings are having trouble scoring. Los Angeles has mustered just three regulation goals over the past four games, heightening expectations that GM Dean Lombardi will be a busy shopper ahead of the deadline. 
• Last week: 1-1-1

8. San Jose Sharks

• record: 32-21-5
• How about a little love for Joe Thornton? With a four-point night in Monday’s win over the Blues, Jumbo has gotten on the board in 25 of his past 28 games. He now has 41 assists, fourth-most in the league, and 55 points, good for 10th in the scoring race. Not bad for a guy who’s supposed to be on his last legs at the ripe old age of 36.  
• Last week: 3-1-0

(SI.com)

 

Weight A Minute

Apples, Oranges, Weights and Measures

There are two primary units of weight measurement that carmakers typically use when they are talking about a vehicle’s mass – dry weight and curb weight.

In simple terms, dry weight is the weight of the vehicle on its own with no fluids. Curb weight is the weight of the vehicle “ready to drive” – with all oils, coolants, fuel and other liquids. If you want to dig deeper, there are weights that we, as manufacturers, are legally obliged to declare as part of the Type approval process. For the EU, we use ‘Mass In Running Order’, which is curb weight plus 68kg for the driver. In the US, we have to declare the ‘Gross’ weight, which is curb weight plus 300lbs.

Some manufacturers don’t calculate curb weight with a full tank of fuel, but with a “nominal” fuel level (e.g. 50%). Various requirements define different amounts of fuel to be included.

As you can see, it can be difficult to compare apples to apples.

(Koenigsegg.com)

Oh, Bob

(CarThrottle.com)

There's Some Truth To This

(CarThrottle.com)

There's Several Surprising Vehicles Listed Here

(Road&Track.com)

New School Logic

(Bits&Pieces.us)

This Is A Top 5 Problem

The Problem with Modern Teaching? Too Much Data

Over the last 20 years, I've witnessed the emergence of a troubling trend in swing analysis: an overabundance of reliance on numbers. Launch monitors tell us way more than we need to know. Clubhead speed, attack angle, ball speed, launch angle, spin rate—and a lot more. Recreational players are beginning to treat this data like golf's Holy Grail, and their pursuit of perfect Tour-player numbers is not only stifling their improvement, it may also be destroying their bodies.

For 400 years or so, golf was played with the left heel coming up on the backswing and the left knee releasing behind the ball, with the hips and the torso turning freely. All of a sudden, around 30 years ago, the modern swing decided that was all wrong. Now you're told to keep your left heel down on the backswing and resist with your lower body to create torque and separation in the hips and shoulders. There is no real reasoning behind this philosophy, other than the fact that the "reverse C" swing of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson was thought to cause back problems. Well, I'm here to tell you that this "modern" swing has caused more back problems than ever before.

(Golf.com)