Lohensports

 If you've been following the Jays this year, congratulations it's been a really fun season! You also may know that the Jays magic number for the division sits at 6 after a narrow victory against the Rays last night. 6 is coincidentally the number I always chose when playing sports growing up so I've had a unique bond with the number my entire life. With that in mind, I thought I'd pretty much just list guys in Toronto sports who I remember wearing 6 to celebrate the magic number being down to 6. These are all going to be guys from my lifetime who I can actually pull a memory or two from. It's a slimmer list than you'd think, the Leafs retired number 6 for Ace Bailey, some dude who played in the 30s and the NBA retired number 6 league wide in honour of Bill Russell.  Before we get into that though, the Rays last night got gifted maybe one of the worst calls I've ever seen in an MLB game. In the 3rd inning Brandon Lowe hit a ball deep to right field, Nathan L...

 Wow today for the first time in a while I actually have a few genuine random thoughts that aren't big enough for their own post but are definitely worth thinking. It helps when the Jays game was fun last night, despite the loss. Lets get right into it! Bobby Webster is the Head of Basketball Operations  Some Raptors news in August! This one came through yesterday morning as a nice surprise. After the Raptors let Masai Ujiri go in a move that I came on here and hated on, they said they would be looking for a new president of basketball operations to work alongside Bobby Webster as the GM. I thought that sounded discouraging. Bobby had been around for a while as the GM and if Masai was going to be let go, I was hoping we'd keep some kind of stability at the top and just let Bobby run the ship. Yesterday they announced that Webster will be the Head of Basketball Operations and they will stop their search for a new president, at least for this season. My initial reaction was good...

 It just occurred to me last night that I was probably getting close to my anniversary of starting this blog. Then I checked this morning and it was August 12, I missed it! So happy anniversary to Lohensports! I haven't really marketed this blog or tried to make it pretty, it's been more for fun and to just see if I could get better at writing about sports. After a year of doing this, I can confirm that it is fun! Maybe one of you can tell me if I'm getting better haha. In seriousness though, if you're a consistent reader here then thank you that's pretty cool! I have a lot of sports takes so having an online diary to share them has been pretty nice. Ok now to the random thoughts. I am going to make these up as I go because I honestly don't have many today! I skipped yesterday with a busy day and today I am going to the Jays game in the afternoon so I don't have much time to pump this out either. It'll be a quick one I just didn't wanna miss too many...

 Fun and silly one today! I am going to The Weeknd concert tonight, my favorite artist, and I couldn't be more excited. I thought a fun way to celebrate this would be to compare all of his albums to a Toronto athlete and provide my reasoning for that comparison. This is an imperfect exercise, but I think I'll have a good time with it. The Weeknd has 8 projects that I'll consider for this exercise, one of them being a trilogy of 3 albums but we'll merge them into 1 for brevity's sake. I've realized now that there are no Leafs on this list. Sorry Leafs, I am just not as tapped in to you guys as I am the Raptors and Jays.  Trilogy (House of Balloons, Thursday, Echoes of Silence) - Jose Bautista Hear me out on this one! This was the Weeknd's first studio project, and a fan favorite. Like Jose Bautista, fans of the Blue Jays of course know who he is and hold him in very high regard. Fans of The Weeknd obviously know Trilogy and hold it in high regard as well. Acr...

 You know the drill by now! I've got a few things I want to talk about but nothing worthy enough of its own post. The Chris Boucher one comes close, but I've written pretty extensively about Chris Boucher on this blog so I don't feel the need to go too crazy here lol. Without delaying any further, here's some random thoughts! Chris Boucher Signs with the Celtics In my last random thoughts Tuesday I had a whole section pleading with the league to get Chris Boucher signed. Obviously the monkey's paw curled because Chris Boucher ended up getting signed by the Boston Celtics on a 1 year $3.3m deal. I had a lot of thoughts all at once. The first one was damn it, the last member of the 2019 championship team is now on the Raptors fans most hated rival, the Celtics. My next thought was damn, only $3.3m, the Raptors really did Chris Boucher dirty! I really believe if he was able to showcase his skills at the end of last season that he'd have better offers on the table f...

 By now in the Summer time I pretty much think of a good idea over the weekend, blow it on Monday and am left grasping for something by Tuesday. Which does lead me to just catching up on some odds and ends that I have kicking around in my head. Covering multiple sports today lets just dive in.  Someone Please Sign Chris Boucher By the end of last season, it was clear that Chris Boucher's time with the Raptors was most likely coming to an end. At 31 he was too old to "develop" with the young guys, and too good to put on the floor when the team was actively trying to lose games. Don't get me started on tanking again, this isn't about that. As a result, I feel really bad for Chris! He's a good player who can help teams in the regular season, especially in like an 11th man capacity. The big gripe with Chris in years past was that he wasn't a very smart player. He'd bite on every pump fake and shoot it every chance he got. This past season, Boucher really r...

 As you may now know, every now and then I have a collection of random sports thoughts that are too small to make a whole post about but are still things I want to get out there. Today is one of those days! Bouncing around sports today before getting into Jays mode for tonight when I go to the game. I haven't seen people this excited about the Blue Jays since 2015, I can't wait to see it live.  Damian Lillard Goes Back to Portland This one really caught me off guard! I will be the first to say that I was a Dame hater after his time with the Trailblazers ended. I am not naive, I understand player movement happens and for a player as good as Dame, usually a team has to show a certain level of competitiveness or else they'll ask out. Many players have done this in the NBA without me bashing on their decision, and even sometimes me understanding their decision. The issue I took with Damian Lillard was that in Portland he made his entire personality about loyalty. Any chance he ...

 Today is just a big hodge podge of a post because I have a bunch of little ideas but no idea big enough for its own post. For the first time in a while I actually didn't even watch the home run derby last night, completely forgot that was going on. I guess without a Jay in the competition it's hard for me to get into it. Anyway, here's some things that I've been thinking about all combined into 1 post:  Steelers Trade for Jalen Ramsey I wanted to do a fully flushed out reaction to this, but then I realized I'm maybe not knowledgeable enough to break down cornerbacks and safeties the way I'd like. With that in mind, we're going to do a quick emotions driven reaction! It's now been a couple of weeks since the Steelers traded free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick for CB Jalen Ramsey and TE Jonnu Smith. Initially my reaction was sweet we got Ramsey! Jalen Ramsey at one point was the best cornerback in football and he had the personality to go with it. Say what you...

 Welcome back! I feel like the NBA finals game 4 was a million years ago but it was just this Friday. Another thrilling game. If you ignore all the chatter from ESPN or the internet at large this has been one of the best finals I can remember. So many close games and clutch plays from the big players on each team. I think OKC takes the game tonight but I'm hoping Indiana forces game 7 when they head back home. Anyway, a couple of trades this weekend in baseball and basketball that I can't help but talk about here! Then I wanted to take a small section to shout out Father's day, which to me feels relevant on a sports blog.  Rafael Devers Trade The big one in baseball! I was at my parent's house for dinner when I got the notification that Devers was traded from the Red Sox to the Giants for primarily Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison. I am so out of touch with the MLB outside of the Blue Jays so my analysis here won't be as detailed as the NBA trade coming up below, but ...

 I was very grateful for the Thunder putting that game away after the first half last night. I had an MRI appointment early in the morning yesterday so by 10pm I was wiped, thank goodness the Thunder let me sleep. As a result, there's not much to say about that game and I have talked extensively about that series! I need a small section to congratulate a Canadian legend winning semi finals MVP and advancing to the finals but besides that I am going to just have a quick post where I talk about a couple of Jays that popped into my mind randomly this week. The Jays thing might turn into a bit of a series, you know how sometimes you have totally random athletes pop into your memory? This is as good a place as any to write those down and so I will! Congrats Thunder Real quick, the Thunder are simply the best team in basketball. The fact that the Nuggets series went 7 is more a testament to Jokic' dominance than it is to the Thunder's struggles. Right from the start of the series...

 This is more of a mixed bag post, need to get all of my sports thoughts out before the weekend. Hopefully it's a weekend with multiple game 7s after the Thunder lost last night sending their series to 7. We just need the Leafs to somehow get in the win column again to make it a reality. Enough preamble, lets get into it:  Leafs  When I got to high school everyone was a Raptors fan. Up until that point I had been mostly watching the Leafs with the Raptors as my secondary team. I got more and more into basketball and it helped that the Raptors got good around the same time as my first year of high school. What does being good mean in sports? Generally that means you're going to get your hopes up and your heart broken at some point. The 2013/2014 Raptors in their first playoff run went up against a more experienced Nets team and lost in a hard fought 7 game series. Massive success of a season if you ask anyone, but after you make it once the expectations start to roll in. T...

 Fast post today, just wanted to get some thoughts out on the weekend in sports. I had a lot of confidence in my Leafs in 5 take, and honestly even after game 3 I was still rolling with it. So many weird bounces in game 3, they played great, surely they'd come out with something to prove in game 4 right? Shows what I know. The basketball has been fun too, although I barely got to watch any of it this weekend. So with me catching only glimpses of the basketball and barely knowing anything about hockey, we're going to have a short one today.  Leafs in 6 Ok! I watched game 3 in a bar with friends which was a good time. They got up 3-1 early which is when I boisterously started talking about how the Leafs might win in 4 and how Bobrovski is washed and the Panthers will never overcome a 2 goal lead. The Panthers proceeded to score 3 goals in a row to take the lead. At this point the bar crowd got a little quieter until the Leafs got an incredibly lucky bounce off a Panther's ska...

 There's no let up in the sports schedule right now it is absolutely insane. Last night the Leafs played a thriller against the Florida Panthers and while that was on the Celtics allowed something like a 22-2 run to blow a big lead for the second straight time at home. At least the Thunder dismantled the Nuggets to get me to bed at a reasonable hour. If you have evening plans at any point in the next month, it's practically a guarantee that you're going to miss something exciting in hockey or basketball. What a time to exist in. I'm keeping this post short today, I've had some long ones this week already so I need some recovery time.  Leafs in 5 I so don't know the Xs and Os of hockey like even a little bit, but just purely off of vibes this Leafs team looks different. The Leafs got down 1-0 early in the game after the Panthers scored within 5 seconds of their first powerplay. The Leafs responded with a Max Pacioretty power play goal just before the period ended...

 Won't have time today for a longer post like I made yesterday, but still needed to hop on to recap some of the awesome games I saw yesterday! The playoffs are relentless, any time I have plans during the evening in May I am missing at least 1 game that I really want to watch. It's a blessing and a curse, I can't look away! Anyway, big ones on last night with the Leafs taking an important first step to winning in 5 and the Celtics and Thunder each blowing leads in respective stupid ways.  Leafs Take Game 1 What a crazy game! I turned away from this one when the Leafs went up 4-1 going into the third period in favor of watching the end of Knicks Celtics. I was messaged and informed that the lead shrunk to 2 and so I tuned back in to watch a hectic third period. As soon as I tuned back in the Panthers netted another one to make it 4-3 and really ramp up the pressure. The period went back and fourth with each team getting some good looks while my heart pounded until Matthew Kn...