Jack Johnson DEFCON Back to Five

The Official Jack Johnson DEFCON is back to five, thanks to an interview in the Detroit Sports Rag, posted by MHNet to The Wolverine. MGoBlog is not a DSR fan. I haven't really read it much so I have no opinion, except that this interview was really enjoyable. MGoBlog is right though...Hopefully this will be the last "For real this time. Jack's staying." post. Though I think that no matter how many times we say it, Michigan Hockey Summers have conditioned us to be paranoid, and we will not truly believe Jack's coming until practice starts. In the DSR interview, Jack confirms once again that he's coming to U of M, but the interview as a whole is a great read. The relevant parts:

Spiro: It was reported in the Ann Arbor newspapers that you have opted to attend the University of Michigan for at least 1 season, though you have not publicly confirmed this yet. Is the report true, and why did you make the decision that you did?

Johnson: The report is true. I simply do not feel ready at this point in time to make the jump to the professional level. I committed to Michigan at age 14, and I've been looking forward to wearing the UM sweater ever since. Plus, I want to win a National Championship.

Excellent news. But, as my USCHO friends so graciously pointed out, Jack may be saying he'll come to U of M, but once the Carolina brass emphasizes to him that they want him in their organization, he'll sign right? The Ann Arbor News article was written before he actually got a contract offer from them. Once he got that, he'd have to take the money right, being that he was getting the rookie max? Jack puts that idea to bed.

Spiro: How hard did (Carolina Hurricanes GM) Jim Rutherford push you to sign with the Hurricanes organization immediately?

Johnson: He felt that I was ready, but acknowledged my desire to sharpen my game at UM. Though he wanted me to sign right away, he made a point to say he understands how beneficial it will be to have Red Berenson as a coach. The program at Michigan is just phenomenal.

Good times. Speaking of putting things to bed....

Spiro: Now that you've chosen to attend college, you must answer a very important question: Who will be the bigger ladies man at UM; Jack Johnson or Michael Phelps?

Johnson: Phelps? The swimmer? Swimmers don't put fans in the stands here in Ann Arbor. I hope that answers the question sufficiently.

Now I'm not sure about that one (Nor am I sure about his answer that he'd rather win a national championship than a Stanley Cup). A bunch of girls at Michigan made a group on The FaceBook called "I'm Getting With Michael Phelps Before I Leave Michigan" (I think you might have to have an account to view the link). Jack will do fine for himself, but until he can ask someone if they'd like to come back to his place and see his six gold medals...I think Phelps wins out. Jason Dest may have some competition for team playa though.

Jack also goes on to say in the interview that he'd rather break someone's jaw with a check than score a goal. Just so long as...ya know....the goal wouldn't win a championship and the hit was clean. Drew Miller, I can't wait til you get to Yost this year. If only Chris Kunitz was still in college.

The USA Under 17 Select team which is playing in the Under 18 Junior World Cup, but in the article is called the USA Under 18 team (don't ask, I hate USA Hockey's website) beat Switzerland to move to the 5th place game against Slovakia. They narrowly missed the medal round (thanks to a loss when they did not have Billy Sauer in net). Sauer hasn't been great in the tournament, but he was named the Player of the Game for the game against the Swiss.

Kevin Porter has had a great Take All of Michigan's Players Away For the GLI Camp National Junior Evaluation Camp, tallying 2-3--5 in 4 games. Chad Kolarik also put up a pair of goals and an assist. Phil Kessel actually went a game without a point. Wow! Johnson's not in attendance because of dental work. I can't believe that USA would be so dumb as to not put him on the team this year after that debacle last Christmas.

Scott Sharp drove to a victory in the IRL race today and now sits fifth in the points. Not sure how that happened since he's terrible and all. AGR had a rough day with Franchitti and Kanaan having wheel bearing issues again and Herta dropping out because of a faulty gearbox. Wheldon extended the streak of races with an AGR driver on the podium to 34 however.

Tony Stewart won his fifth race out of the last seven. I turned it off before I got to see if he'd climb the fence again, or if he'd cry about how rough of a race that was for him first. Poser. Jeff Gordon rallied from a cut tire to finish 15th and keep his hopes alive of making The Chase. That was a decent finish, despite protests from The Girlfriend That Yost Built that "That's not good enough!!!!" He sits 67 points back of 10th place with 4 races to go.

Harvick is 70 points back, and he managed a decent finish despite not being on the screen for the last 70 laps. Dale Jr. only wrecked one person today, which is progress (The Blog That Yost Built called him an assclown roughly 85 times today. It's hard to hate your own favorite driver). He came in with a top 10 finish but is still 163 points back of The Chase, and stands almost no chance of making it. If Gordon, Harvick, and Junior are all shut out, it's going to be really tough to watch the last ten races. Jimmy Johnson would be my favorite of the top 10 and I really don't like him all that much. Ugh. I bet you could've made a ton of money in Vegas before the season if you bet that none of those three would make it to The Chase.

By the way, if anyone is in the market for a computer, I just bought a Dell Media Center PC with a TV Tuner and it's quite possibly the coolest thing ever. I can watch TV on my monitor and essentially TiVo it (only with the TV Tuner, "TiVo" is free). Then I can burn it onto a DVD. Haven't tried it yet, but supposedly it'll even work with normal DVD players, which is sweet. I just edited the commercials out of the IRL race that Bryan Herta won. I'm really looking forward to it during hockey season, when I can tape the Michigan games off of Comcast Local and rewatch em when I get home. Might be able to make quite the highlight tape by the end of the season. Also, when Red Wings/Pistons games conflict with the shows I watch (Lost, Alias, Boston Legal, ER, House MD) I'll be able to tape em without scrambling for a tape every week. So awesome.

Now Playing: Richard Ashcroft "C'mon People (We're Making it Now)"