Justifiably, a team who has had none of its players play like an all-star this season will not have any representatives in this weekend’s All-Star Game in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Technically, the Blue Jackets are sending rookie Ryan Johansen to the festivities to be added to one of the two teams for the skills competition, but no Jackets player will be in uniform for Sunday night’s game.

This year’s two teams are captained by Zdeno Chara and Daniel Alfredsson with a televised fantasy draft on Thursday night where both captains will pick their roster. A full list of the players who will be in the game, as well as the rookies added to participate in Saturday night’s Skills Competition can be found here. The Skills Competition will air Saturday night at 7 on NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) and the All-Star game will air Sunday at 4 pm on NBC.

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Another week come and gone on the North Coast. And if I have it straight, this one included the Cavs losing three games by what seemed like a total of about a thousand points, the Indians losing 28-year old Fausto Carmona but signing 31-year old  Roberto Hernandez Heredia to fill Fausto's roster spot, the Ravens getting whacked in the AFC Championship game when their Pro Bowl kicker completely shanked a short field goal that would have meant overtime and Joe Paterno dying twice.

Okay then. Let's get to it:

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So how about them Cavs?

Last year’s hangover is a distant memory as the keg is tapped on an exciting new brand of basketball being played in Cleveland these days. Kyrie Irving is for real - exciting, energetic, and he makes people around him better. Anderson Varejao is back and playing consistently solid-to-excellent low-post basketball, and even Antawn Jamison is showing up big on most nights. The good guys are 6-7, and if the postseason started today, they would be the 7 seed, ahead of an expensive Knicks team and the geriatric Celtics, who will be watching the playoffs on an IV drip in a nursing home. This certainly sucks a whole lot less than last year.

But before we get too giddy, let’s remember that Cleveland is still one or more major playmakers away from competing. Varejao is a role player, nothing more, and he’ll likely be gone at the end of the year. We did draft his potential replacement in Tristan Thompson, who is a “high energy” guy, which is basketball lingo for “plays like a drunken giraffe”.  And the rest of the team, well, they’re D+ leaguers filling a roster.

At least with Irving, we can beat pretty much any crappy team out there, of which there are plenty in the East, which should guarantee .400 - .500 basketball for the forseeable future. So while it may not be all bourbon and bacon for the Cavs, there’s potential, as long as they keep losing close character-building games to get better picks, and get good return for their tradable assets in March. Hopefully we can find someone stupid enough to take Jamison so he can drop a giant deuce* their playoff run like he did for us in 2010, and who knows, maybe we pull another Baron Davis deal and win the lottery again.

*not referring to a two point basket

Anyway, off to the questions.

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With every team slightly past the halfway point of the 2011-2012 NHL season, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at the teams and see how they have fared so far. Some of the teams from the first installment of this article are still in the same spots and could be considered surprises. Others have fallen and others like the Blue Jackets continue to be described as disappointments.

So, let’s go with installment number two of the TCF NHL 30 for 30, done in division standings order starting with the Eastern Conference Atlantic Division.

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