You can find out by answering this simple question…

The Super Bowl is in the books (congrats, Saints).  Does that mean…

a) Football season is over.
b) Only 2 months until draft day.

It’s been a pretty disappointing sports season for me this year.  Despite some bright moments, the Panthers missed the playoffs.  The Hurricanes followed up last year’s run to the NHL’s Eastern Conference Finals by entrenching themselves as the worst team in the league this year.  For the “Big 3″ of my sports interests, that leaves the Charlotte Bobcats.  If you haven’t been paying attention, the ‘Cats are on an absolute tear, winning six in a row and nine of their last ten to push their record to 21-19 and move into fifth place in the Eastern Conference.  Moreover, five out of the six wins in their streak have come against upper-tier teams (Grizzlies, Rockets, Spurs, Suns, Heat), with several of them coming in obliterating fashion (such as Wednesday’s 39-point dismantling of Miami). 

I’ve attended wins against Cleveland and Pheonix this season while visiting family in Charlotte, and thanks to my wife’s Christmas gift of the NBA League Pass Broadband package I’ve been able to watch most all of their games this season.  I can testify that they’ve become a very fun team to watch.  Scrappy (#1 defensive team in the NBA), high-flying (Gerald Wallace is one of the most exhilerating players in the league you’ve never heard of), and full of energy every night, the Bobcats seem to be putting together something special this year.  Their toughest test of the season begins tonight at Atlanta, kicking-off a string of seven of eight away from home, so the next two weeks should go a long way to determining how good this team really is.  In any event, if you’re an NBA fan, you just might want to keep your eye on the Bobcats moving forward.

Check out this amazing athletic play by Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace, blocking a layup by Memphis’ O.J. Mayo with 20 seconds left Saturday night.  Memphis actually came back and tied the game later, only to have Wallace beat the buzzer on a tip-in to give the Bobcats an 89-87 win.  Wallace is certainly among the most underrated players in the NBA, and with numbers like his 18.1 points and 11.6 rebounds per game and crazy defensive plays like this, he’s deserving of recognition on this year’s All-Star team.  If you haven’t heard of him, now’s the time to take notice.

Check out this nice ESPN feature on college basketball coaching legend John Wooden and the love of his life.

Last January, I watched in horror as the Arizona Cardinals demolished my Panthers in the playoffs. Jake Delhomme had five interceptions and a fumble, and the Panthers were just flat run over, bringing a bitter end to a very promising season. In fact, it was so bad that they haven’t really been the same since.

Until yesterday.

Carolina traveled to the desert and beat up the favored Cardinals 34-21, intercepting Kurt Warner 5 times and forcing a fumble from him (sound familiar?). The game got the Panthers to 3-4 and seemed like just the exorcism needed to get this season back on the right track. Was it a true turnaround or just a one-week abberation? We’ll get a better idea next week as the Panthers head to New Orleans to take on the 7-0 Saints. Let’s go Panthers!

Despite being defending division champs, the Carolina Panthers are 2-4 and will possibly relegate a healthy Jake Delhomme to the bench for the first time in seven years.  Despite reaching the NHL’s final four last year, the Carolina Hurricanes have been bitten by the injury bug and are off to a disappointing 2-5-3 start.  What’s a Carolina pro sports fan to do?

Welcome the start of basketball season.

The Charlotte Bobcats open the new year tonight in Boston against the Celtics, and I’m as excited for their season as I’ve ever been.  It seems like each of the past three years or so have had people wondering if the ‘Cats would finally break through and make their first playoff appearance, but that possibility seems stronger than ever this year after their near miss last season and coach Larry Brown coming into the year with a roster that fits his style.  Tonight will be a tough opening night test, but Charlotte has always played Boston well for whatever reason and a win would be a huge tone-setter for the season, which includes a pretty tough November schedule.  I’ll have my internet radio tuned to the game tonight, so let’s go Bobcats – Carolina fans need something to get excited about.

Check out this incredible goal scored by a nine-year-old kid during the taping of the Boston Bruins’ “Mini 1-on-1″ event.  Holy cow, this is pretty.

For those of you who are into sports, ESPN.com’s “Page 2″ section always tends to offer some good reading. The page tends to focus on stories that explore either the lighter or more human side of the sports world. Today, my eye was caught by Scoop Jackson’s column “Tough Decisions on Sports Sunday,” in which he examines the plight of a friend who received an email from his pastor lamenting his recent absence from church.  The friend tries to reason in his mind how he will alleviate his guilt over missing church while catching about 7 Sunday sporting events.  As I read the article, I couldn’t help but feel sad for this guy’s blatant idolization of sports in his life.  It’s a pretty obvious case.  However, it also reminded me to look inward and war against the same tendencies in my own life.

I love sports.  Few things are as fun to me as watching the Panthers play a big game, but I’ve also grown to become a pretty big hockey fan and I avidly follow basketball as well.  I really enjoy the experience of watching a game, or even listening to one on the radio.  I’ve inherited my dad’s tendency to be a loud fan, a habit I’ve had to learn to curb since Jordan was born.  I’ll jump up and down after a big win and sink into the couch after a loss.  I even see the experience of fandom as an avenue for worship – we were made, after all, to lose ourselves in something bigger than ourselves (namely, God), so when I’m standing in a stadium with 72,000 other screaming fans I’m reminded that even that rush is microscopic compared to the exhilaration we will know when we stand face to face with Christ.

However, a love for sports, like all loves, has a more dangerous side.  It can become, like it is for the guy in Jackson’s column and like it has sometimes been for me, a love that eclipses our love for God.  When it reaches that point, what was once a blessing becomes a destructive curse as we place our ultimate affection on something that can never offer ultimate fulfillment.  To see love for God neglected for a lesser love is heartbreaking to see, and fills me with the sense of sadness and pity that I had reading that column.  However, I’m sure that guy doesn’t see it that way.  He has endless excuses, endless justification (as he reveals at the column’s end) that serve to alleviate his own conscience.  Seeing our own idolatry is never as easy as seeing someone else’s.

That’s why I’m grateful for the other people God’s blessed me with in my life who see me more clearly than I see myself.  My wife, in particular, will often point out when she sees me investing too much in the teams I follow.  Sometimes I think she’s wrong, other times I know she’s right – but every time, wisdom compels me to file away a reminder that no love should ever remotely approach my love for Christ and a warning for my sinful heart.  I’ll also never forget a conversation I had with my dad on the phone back in college.  My dad is a football nut.  His dad was a high school and small college coach for 35 years, dad was an all-American wide receiver in college and he went to training camp with the Packers back in the early 80s.  I had called him on a Sunday afternoon after a Panthers game in their dismal 1-15 season of 2001.  I was disgusted with the way they’d bungled another one away and was venting about it.  He said something that, though he doesn’t know it, has stuck with me ever since.  “When I was your age, it used to ruin my day when the Steelers would lose,” he said.  “That’s not the case anymore.”  It was one simple sentence, but it communicated a truth that I’ve kept close to heart ever since – football is a heck of a lot of fun, but it’s ultimately not that important.  Let what is ultimately important define and dictate your life. 

So sports fans, go read Jackson’s article, and use it as an opportunity to ask yourself if you’re not more like that guy than you’d like to think.  I’d also encourage you to peruse the comments for a fascinating look at what our sports culture thinks about this concept.  It’ll give you a burden to see the glory of the one we were created to enjoy supplant the lesser glories that we turn from healthy hobbies to deadly idols.

Many people would say that my Panthers’ 20-17 win over the Redskins yesterday is nothing to get too excited about.  Perhaps they’re right – it was Carolina’s first victory this season in four tries, Washington isn’t a very good team, and their coach may not survive the season.  What has me excited, however, was how they won.

Down 17-2 in the third quarter, Carolina launched a second-half comeback that saw them grab the lead and then seal the game on a called Jake Delhomme first down run on 3rd and 8 with two minutes left (at the 4:10 mark in the video).  As Jake carried DeAngelo Hall across the marker and bounced up going completely berzerk, I saw this team with a swagger for the first time all season.  Jake’s strength as a QB is his emotional fire and leadership, and a spark of that seemed to ignite the entire team in their victory.  There’s a long way to go if the Panthers are to scrap back into playoff contention this year, but for now, thanks to #17, it at least seems possible.

My Carolina Hurricanes played their first game of their new NHL season last night.  Unfortunately, they still haven’t scored their first goal.  The Canes were blanked 2-0 by a good Philadelphia team led by new goalie Ray Emery and all-star defenseman Chris Pronger.  They won’t have to wait long for another shot at a win – they take on the Bruins in Boston tonight.  Here’s to a win – with the Panthers faltering miserably so far, I need something in the sports world to cheer about.