Lohensports

 This rivalry has always meant so much to me. It sounds silly when you put it like that, but if I look back it's honestly the truth. Since I started watching football I was a Steelers fan. Back in 2005 I had a Madden game for my Gameboy Advance. When wanting to choose a team I asked my cousin who won the Superbowl, I was told the Steelers. I chose the Steelers and the rest was history. I learned every player's name and played that game every day. I started watching on TV and seeing the players in real life. I was hooked, this kid from Toronto would never cheer for another NFL team again.  Cheering for the Steelers comes with a certain responsibility. You have to hate the Ravens. I spent years disliking the Baltimore Ravens to the point I was hoping they'd lose irrelevant games. It was deeper than even the rivalries with the Bengals and Browns. For my entire life it's felt like the Steelers and Ravens have been very evenly matched. The numbers check out too, since I star...

 Football is (almost) back! I couldn't be more excited to sit on the couch every Sunday watching this glorious sport. My favorite team, as you'll be able to tell reading this blog, is the Pittsburgh Steelers. The past few seasons for the Steelers have been middling and underwhelming. The offense has been somewhat putrid since the days of Big Ben ended and it has led to some hard to watch games. Despite this, the Steelers still haven't finished a season below .500 since Mike Tomlin took over as head coach and I still haven't fallen out of love with watching this team every week. If you're looking for a reason, any reason at all to pay attention to the Steelers this upcoming season well then you're in luck because below there are 3.  1. New Quarterback  Oh man I really miss having a team where you know who's going to be under center every season. For Roethlisberger's entire career this was the case for the Steelers. You knew if you got down, Ben had a come...

 Yesterday was my fantasy football draft, I got to pick first overall! It was a good time as fantasy drafts typically are. No I didn't pick George Pickens first overall, calm down hardos. I of course went with Christian McCaffrey. George Pickens did however find his way onto my team, and despite the QB battle in Pittsburgh, I believe he will end the season as one of the top wide receivers in football.  George Pickens slipped to the second round of his draft despite his immense talent, due to behavioral concerns. He is a bit of a hot head and a diva, but what great wide receiver isn't? I mean seriously, isn't that a massive part of what makes the game great? Wide receivers have attitudes, I personally love it. Pickens is no different. Multiple times over his first two seasons you could see the high and low emotions of the game impacting him. When George was involved in the offense, he would play hard, block his assignment and run the routes even if the ball wasn't going ...

I gotta say, I am starting to run low on ideas. The basketball season feels so far away from now and it being the sport I am now the most knowledgeable (if you can call it that) about, I am in a bit of a dryspell. That being said the NFL season starts next week and once I lock in and start watching those games I am sure I'll be able to muster up a bunch of Steelers reaction content for you readers (Puneet). While we wait for that, lets rank the top 10 players on the Raptors roster heading into this season. Obviously these can change in a hurry based on improvements these guys make in season. All we have to go off of here is past performance and maybe some video from other tournaments and scrimmages the players have taken part in this summer. Take it all with a grain of salt, and as always please feel free to argue with me in the comments if you disagree.  10. Jamal Shead Ok, maybe I am stretching here. I just wanted a chance to write a little bit about Jamal Shead, is that so bad? ...

 Yesterday I wrote about my predictions for the Eastern Conference. It was pretty hard, some bold takes in there that are sure to make me look foolish in April. Today I'm embarking on the even more difficult task of projecting the Western Conference. As always readers, if you have a problem with these lists please let me know in the comments!  15. Portland Trailblazers  This is the only "easy" one on this list. The Blazers were not a good team last season. They have since traded one of their best players in Malcom Brogdon. They did however swing for an intriguing young player Deni Avdija that should help them out this year. They aren't a completely hopeless program. Former first overall pick DeAndre Ayton could have a resurgent season, "Timelord" Robert Williams may be healthy, Scoot Henderson in year two could show more flashes of being a productive NBA player. There are some things to be excited about for sure. In a stacked west however, it is hard to see ...

 Ah August. What a time for me to start something like this when content is slim to none unless you're avidly following baseball. Something fun though might be predicting the NBA's standings for the upcoming season. Today we'll start with the Eastern conference. I think it'll be fun to do a retrospective at the end of the year and see how good I am at this prediction thing. Anyway, without further ado, here are your 2024-2025 Eastern Conference Standings:  15. Brooklyn Nets The Nets weren't the worst team in the league last year but this season will prove to be different. After trading Mikal Bridges to the Knicks for draft picks and scraps, then recovering their first round pick from the Rockets, The Nets are in tank mode. Unless Ben Simmons has a massive return to form, Cam Thomas takes a step with his playmaking and defense, and the front office decides they don't really care about incoming draftee Cooper Flagg, the Nets are going to be a bad basketball team t...

 Yeah this is personal opinion, so what? I wanted to write a bit about 5 athletes who have provoked joy in my life. Sports have been my favorite escape since I was a child. The players that made me want to spend hours in front of the TV or shell out hundreds to see them play live deserve a little love on this humble blog. Today I present to you readers my top 5 favorite Toronto sports athletes. I feel as though there might be some recency bias as well as bias towards the only team I ever saw win a championship but screw it, it's MY favorite athlete's not everyone else'. If you have a problem with this list, please leave a comment I would love to engage.  5. Matts Sundin As you continue reading this blog you'll come to realize that I am an extremely casual hockey fan. After years of disappointment and heartbreak, I've turned into a full time Raptors fan while dabbling in hockey when the playoffs roll around. Never the less, it wouldn't be fair to leave Sundin off...

 As a Raptors fan, every time I try to compliment Jalen Suggs to my friends I get blowback with people screaming at me that Scottie Barnes is better. I don't even disagree, I think Scottie is a really great talent and has the potential to be a superstar in the league. For those who don't remember, in the 2021 draft, the Raptors, picking 4th, were universally expected to select Jalen Suggs. The team went another way surprising everyone in picking Scottie Barnes. So far Scottie has looked like the correct pick and in a redraft, Scottie might even go first overall. This is all fine and well, but today I want to talk about how good Jalen Suggs has become. He may not have been the clear cut #4 pick like everyone thought, but he has turned himself into a flat out awesome NBA player.  Crack-head energy. There's few guys in the league that play with such an abundance of energy that it is felt by everyone on the floor. Suggs has absolutely no problem getting right up into an offensi...

Short one today, it's Friday and I don't really feel like typing all that much. I did promise myself that I would write something every weekday, even though it is just for me to read so why not dive into RJ Barrett.  I am a huge fan to say the least. In his first 3 seasons with the Knicks, there were mixed opinions of RJ. I can't say I really watched many Knicks games at the time, so when he was traded to the Raptors in 2024, I expected what fans told me he would be: an inconsistent volume scorer who is a bit of a black hole on offense with his poor decision making. With the Raptors he has been anything but that. In every RJ Barrett game I was waiting for the big drop-off that was promised to me. It never came. RJ consistently provided scoring at the rim, timely cuts and surprisingly accurate catch and shoot 3s for his entire tenure with the Raptors so far. Silly comparison, I know, but I want to look at Pascal Siakam's 2023/2024 stats with the Raptors compared to RJ Ba...

Yeah, he's been retired for a while now, so what? This is my blog and I get to write about whatever I want! Shut up non-existent reader just let me do my thing! (in the tune of that soccer song) Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose. Where to even begin? I think my first sports love was the Toronto Blue Jays. I used to spend summers watching a middling team struggle in the toughest division in baseball and I loved every minute of it. My earliest sports memories were watching Roy Halladay take the mound every 5 days and be dominant. Vernon Wells in center field and Alex Rios in right. My dad would take the family to at least 5 games a year, I knew every players' batting average, homeruns and RBIs off the top of my head. Yeah I was a nerd.  In 2008 the Jays signed long time journeyman Jose Bautista, as a 10 year old child who was an avid follower of the team at the time, I thought nothing of it, neither did most people. Then came 2010 a season that cemented my fandom in the team for...

 Never waste a first round pick on a running back. A mantra that has been repeated by pundits for years and pretty much always rings true. A running back's shelf life is typically very short with primes lasting sometimes only 5 years. It is also a very replaceable position, new star RBs are born every season and a lot of the time it is a function of the offensive scheme or blocking. So in 2021 when the Steelers selected Najee Harris with their first round pick, you could say I was cautiously pessimistic.  Look, Najee doesn't suck. He has had to deal with some pretty putrid offenses run by Pittsburgh public enemy number 1 Matt Canada. He's had shaky offensive lines and a non-existent passing game to help boost his running profile. All that being said, he hasn't been the elite talent promised with a first round pick. He's had over 1,000 rushing yards in all 3 of his seasons and some flashy show stopping moments but never really seemed like even a top 10 back in the le...

 I can't believe this wasn't my first post. This blog as of right now is pretty much just a public diary where I write about my sports heroes and thoughts and nobody in the world had a bigger sports impact on me than Kyle Lowry. Growing up as a white kid in Toronto, we watched hockey. I remember my dad used to call the Raptors "the craptors" and he wasn't entirely off-base. For pretty much my entire childhood, the Raptors stunk. We had some nice stories here and there, Chris Bosh was a home grown all-star, but mostly they weren't worth paying attention to. Basketball wasn't culturally engrained in me and so a struggling team was just not going to get my eyeballs on the screen.   In 2012, everything changed. The Raptors, after striking out on aging Canadian superstar Steve Nash, went to their backup plan: the "lockeroom cancer" Kyle Lowry. Lowry had a history of attitude problems coming from the Houston Rockets. Not a lot of teams wanted to take a...

 Hey readers, this is my first ever blog post on anything and first time attempting to write an article.  I don't really know what I want my voice to be on here, and I don't really know what I want to write about but that's why we're on a free blog just messing around right? I wanted to start with a team that is very near and dear to me, the Toronto Raptors.  The Raptors finished up the 2023-2024 season at 25-57, a pretty putrid record.   If you just glance at their stats you would be convinced that this isn't a very good basketball team, and many people in the mainstream media agree with this stance. ESPN shows their Vegas over/under wins at 30.5 indicating the betting public doesn't expect much improvement from the team this year. I believe not only will they surpass this, but they will finish with a top 6 record in the East locking in a playoff spot. Immediately after the Raptors pulled the trigger in trading elite wing defender OG Anunoby last season, they b...