Let’s find out what the Lakers are looking foar to! (h/t to That NBA Lottery Pick)

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First Look: NBA All-Star 2012 Jerseys - People are complaining that these are too plain, but I like them. ASG jerseys shouldn’t look like Kobe Bryant’s Christmas shoes, they should be blue and red and say “east” and “west”. [Smoking Section]

The 15 Best Ads of the 2012 Super Bowl So Far - My favorite ad so far is the one that plays the entire Rancor scene from Return Of The Jedi and says EAT DORITOS at the end. [Warming Glow]

14 Photos of Alex Ovechkin’s New $4.2 Million Mansion - So hey, now that you’ve got a cool new house and Sidney Crosby’s brain is a glass of milk, you uh, think you could get us past round one of the playoffs? [Brobible]

The Best Football Fan Raps - Too bad the “fan” part disqualifies the Super Bowl Shuffle, that’s still the best half-assed football rap of all time. [Adult Swim]

Video Of The Day: Chael Sonnen Opens Up To Dr. Phil - I like that MMA only has two personality types: “nearly illiterate” and “Brian Wilson”. [Cage Potato]

26 Meanest Quotes From Reviews Of Lana Del Rey’s New Album - I think she just exists so people can take pictures of her smoking cigarettes. [Buzzfeed]

People With Lana Del Rey Lips: 15 Celebrities Get Pouty Upgrades - You chose to be famous for being the world’s stupidest Nancy Sinatra and haing a monster’s face, Lizzy, this hate and backlash is all your fault. [UPROXX]

30 Funny, Catty, and Bitter Twitter Reactions To DC’s “Before Watchmen” Announcement - 28 of these are from me. My Hooded Justice costume didn’t make the cut, but I’m showing up in a cosplay post, so hey. [Gamma Squad]

Remember when Michael Shannon was in Groundhog Day? Hint: He loved Wrestlemania. - The character with whom I identify most in Groundhog Day. [Film Drunk]

11 Reasons Andie MacDowell Is The Most Underrated Romcom Lead Ever - Reason 12: that shampoo she uses makes her hair look voluminous! [Moviefone]

UPROXX ‘Archer’ Open Thread: ‘The Limited’ With Executive Producer Matt Thompson - Very cool stuff is happening at UPROXX. Go earn a badge that doesn’t say “poopies” on it. [UPROXX|

15 Celebrities Doing Cheesy Print Ads - I like that Tara Reid gets credited for a Josie And The Pussycats print ad but not Rachel Leigh Cook or Rosario Dawson. At least those two have worked in the last five years. [Unreality]

But not all of them. I hope at least someone from The Smoking Section will appreciate that joke.

Anyway, this Russian rap video has everything you’d expect from a Russian rap video — gangsters bragging about what appears to be Monopoly money, beautiful woman with incredible midsections who will morph into horrid-looking old ladies when they turn 25, random dudes in judo clothes — and, most importantly, Alexander Ovechkin. In a sideways hat. Rapping. All it needs is TaTU and someone piledriving a bear and it’s basically every Russian thing in history.

As a hockey fan it makes me kinda sad to see teaching someone how to do the Soviet Dougie. As a Caps fan, I have to defend it by challenging Sidney Crosby to remember an entire verse without his brain shutting down. That’s what it’s come to, isn’t it? Which guy’s brain is more irreparably damaged.

Feel free to hop over to Puck Daddy and browse the transcribed lyrics, wherein Ovie brags about all the cool championships he’s won and being in the All-Star Game. Nothing in there about the Stanley Cup, though.

What you need to know, courtesy of HockeyFights.com:

Caps rookie Jay Beagle went looking for a fight with Arron Asham, one of the toughest middleweights for the past decade. It started out well, Beagle controlled range, threw long distance rights, but the feeling of things going well soon evaporated. Asham righted himself, regained his balance and composure and returned fire.

Where it goes then is swift, brutal and decisive.

Best: Every Hockey Fight Needs WWE Hand Gestures

It’s not sportsmanlike to play to the crowd and taunt your opponent after a fight in sports (to the point that Asham has already apologized for it), but when a rookie starts throwing hands and you drop him with two punches I think you should be required to stand over him and make hand gestures at his rag-doll-physics corpse until he never tries it again.

Asham’s “goodnight” gesture is the same one used by WWE’s CM Punk before his finishing move, a fireman’s carry into a knee to the face called “Go To Sleep”. As both a pro wrestling and pro hockey fan, I also would’ve accepted crotch-chopping, The Big Show’s roaring palm raise or the entire Val Venis pre-match routine.

Worst: The Caps Can’t Afford To Lose Any More Brains

With multiple years of playoff futility under their belts and sites like Puck Daddy openly wondering whether or not Alex Ovechkin has peaked offensively, the Washington Capitals should probably start picking their battles on the ice and trying to keep the insides of their heads intact. Washington won the game (3-2 in overtime), but most sites covering this don’t even bother to mention that — the only thing people will walk away from this game remembering is how Beagle hit the ice like he was dying in Half-Life.

I was really hoping the Caps could go all the way this year, but artist Aleksandr Reut has jinxed them into a literal oblivion with Washington Capitals — We are the Champions!, a 40″ x 32″ oil painting on canvas that may or may not serve as the cover to an NHL Choose Your Own Adventure Book reading “the Caps have died, the end” on every page. The painting is currently available on eBay with a starting bid of $5,000, so if you’re a Good Samaritan type with five grand to spare, please buy this, put it in a trashcan and dropkick it into the f**king sun.

Here’s a better look at the painting. On a mountain of skulls, in the castle of pain, Alex Ovechkin sat on a throne of blood! What was will be! What is will be no more! Now is the season of evil! Sidney Crosby is like the buzzing of flies to him!

My favorite part is either Bruce Boudreau as a hobbit/Gandalf ultimate mash-up or Barack Obama off in the background dressed like a pilgrim. I also love how the artist only has those 65 x 85 Yahoo Sports player photos for reference, so no matter what he paints the players are always looking directly at you.

[via RMNB]

Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin, AKA The Only Reason To Give The NHL Time Of Day, was suspended two games for this obviously-illegal-but-not-really-that-illegal hit against Chicago’s Billy Campbell. Brian Campbell. Whatever the hell his name is. Anyway, responses to Ovi being seated for the next two games has brought out a variety of reactions. But seriously, Campbell appears to be halfway down to the ice when he got hit. Probably because of menstrual cramping.

I’m torn; I don’t like seeing people get hit in the back that close to the boards, but the hit doesn’t look that bad. The biggest problem I have with the NHL is that they don’t seem to enforce the rules consistently, and one has to wonder whether a third-line guy with fewer eyeballs on him would have received such harsh retribution. Either way, Brian Campbell sucks. Video of the hit is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a video of Alexander Ovechkin giving a fan his take on Russia’s ouster from the Olympic tournament after getting pimp-slapped by Canada. Pimp-slap sounds less misogynist even though it really isn’t. Anyway, this is Ovechkin spotting a fan with a camera, altering course and then tossing that fan to the ground in a way that only a world-class athlete can. Where was that feistiness during the game with Canada? I guess that’s Eurotrash for ya. Read the rest of this entry »