Even more updates on Juventus and Phoenix...

Juventus lost yesterday, again in dramatic fashion and again by a score of 2-1.  This time, it was to nemesis Inter Milan in the quarterfinals of the Italian Cup. Appropriately, the winning goal was scored by Mario Balotelli, the target of Juventus fans' racist chants. More importantly, practically every news source reporting on the game made mention of the banning of Juventus fans from yesterday's game in Milan.  So, that was an improvement over last weekend's game.

Inter Milan's San Siro Stadium, sans Juve fans

Inter fans with an creative birthday salute to their head coach, Jose Mourinho

The Yankees of Italian football have now lost nine of its last twelve games and are no longer in the running to win the Champions League, Italian Cup, or the Italian Scudetto (league championship). As a result, the team's head coach was fired today.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A second update with an eye on the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. Of course, I've mentioned the bankruptcy and attendance issues, but I caught the following from their shootout victory at home on Thursday:

Note the writing on the dasher boards on the top right

Those are ads for the Coyotes on Facebook and Twitter

So far as I know, Phoenix is the first NHL team to place their Facebook and Twitter pages on their home arena dasher boards.  Most teams do have FB and Twitter accounts, but the Coyotes feature theirs prominently on their home web site:

Credit to the Coyotes as well as the NHL.  Just a couple years ago, the NHL conducted a fan analysis that showed that the NHL fan demographic is the most technologically savvy/connected in all of sports.  As a result, I think the NHL has done such a great job with access through team websites, highlights, and video, that the lack of highlights and information on the World Wide Leader isn't such a big deal.  Frankly, it seems that watching ESPN offers so little valuable information/analysis for any sport these days, that I'd rather use my computer to go straight to the source.

And when you have Coyote players starting flip-cup games in bars on road trips, as they did last Sunday after a game against Washington at Georgetown's Rhino Bar, well you just can't beat that kind of access to NHL players.  As the bar manager, the crowd gathered, and a group of defeated Georgetown undergrads found out, NHL players are some of the coolest athletes in sports.