Jets wrap road trip against Canadiens

Hockey Betting Lines

02/05/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Luckily for the Winnipeg Jets, they got a day of rest before wrapping their six-game road trip.

The Jets hope to break even on the swing this afternoon in a meeting with the Montreal Canadiens, who are still searching for their first victory since the All-Star break.

Winnipeg is 2-3 on its second-longest road trip of the season -- it had a seven-game swing from Oct. 27-Nov. 8 -- and picked up a big win over Tampa Bay on Thursday. However, the Jets were in action again the following night and dropped a 2-1 test to the Panthers, falling to 0-9-0 in the second half of games on consecutive nights.

Chris Mason made 28 saves and Bryan Little had the goal for the Jets, who were looking to win three straight on the road for the first time since Dec. 4-13, 2010. Instead, the 10th-place club in the East fell five points behind Florida for first place in the Southeast Division.'

"Our team can't give up 20 minutes of free play and expect to win the game," Jets head coach Claude Noel said. "If we would have played the first 20 minutes, there's the one goal they got, you still have a chance to win the game."

The Canadiens have yet to do any winning since the All-Star break. They looked to have picked up some much-needed momentum with a big 7-2 win over the Red Wings before the hiatus, but have been outscored 11-4 in three games since. That includes yesterday's 3-0 loss to the visiting Capitals.

Former Montreal goaltender Tomas Vokoun made 30 saves for Washington, while Habs backup Peter Budaj made 20 saves. He also faced a pair of penalty shots in the game, stopping one of them.

"The intensity was in the right place," said Montreal coach Randy Cunneyworth. "We were doing the right things, but unfortunately it resulted in our third loss this week."

Montreal's Scott Gomez remains without a goal through his first 22 games of this season and he hasn't scored in a year, since Feb. 5 of last season.

The Canadiens lost the opener of a three-game homestand and have dropped five of their last seven as the host.

The Habs have won four of their last five versus the Jets franchise and responded from a 4-0 shutout loss in Winnipeg in late December with a 7-3 home win on Jan. 4. Lars Eller posted his first career four-goal game in the Montreal win.

The Jets have lost two straight and six of their last eight in Montreal.

Baskteball Hockey Betting News

<< Rangers, Flyers meet for first time since Winter Classic
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Rangers are enjoying a solid run of success as of late over the rival Flyers. After all, in the past year they have beaten them in New York and Philadelphia as well as indoors and outside. New York seeks a sixth straig

<< Streaking Devils, Pens clash in New Jersey
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A pair of streaking Atlantic Division rivals square off this afternoon as the New Jersey Devils try to match their longest winning streak of the season against the rolling Pittsburgh Penguins. After dropping their final th

<< Bruins hope to get on track versus Capitals
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Bruins hope to avoid matching their longest losing streak of the season this afternoon as they visit a Washington Capitals club that has its eyes set on first place in the Southeast Division. The Bruins haven't

<< Russia beats Spain to reach Fed Cup semis
Moscow, Russia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Svetlana Kuznetsova outlasted Silvia Soler- Espinosa in the fourth rubber to give Russia an insurmountable 3-1 lead over Spain in their best-of-five Fed Cup quarterfinal. Russia entered Sunday's action with

<< Lawrie pulls away for Qatar Masters title
Doha, Qatar (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paul Lawrie staved off challenges from Jason Day and Sergio Garcia on Sunday to win the Qatar Masters in comfortable fashion. Lawrie, the second-round leader, fired a seven-under 65 on Sunday.

Kvitova sends Czechs into Fed Cup semis >>
Stuttgart, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova won her singles match on Sunday and sent the reigning champion Czech Republic into the Fed Cup semifinals for a second straight year. The Czechs entered Sunday's actio

Heat host Raptors in matinee affair >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh said a few days ago it's important for this team to make the essential adjustments following a loss. "If we lose one or two, we need to make the necessary adjustments, get it done and cut

Celtics start local events early vs. Memphis >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Celtics own an amazing 17 championships, the most by an NBA franchise. Their neighbors across the way, the NFL's New England Patriots, can capture their fourth Super Bowl title Sunday night against th

Hurricanes blow into Durham seeking upset of Blue Devils >>
Durham, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The seventh-ranked Blue Devils will look to keep up the race for first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference as they host the Miami-Florida Hurricanes for a bout at Cameron Indoor Stadium. This will be the 18th

Wolverines and Spartans add another chapter to bitter rivalry >>
East Lansing, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 23rd-ranked Michigan Wolverines will try to be the first team to knock off the ninth-ranked Michigan State Spartans at the Breslin Center when the two rivals square off in a Big Ten Conference battle.

Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.