Callahan's hat trick helps Rangers beat Philly again

Hockey Betting Lines

02/11/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryan Callahan's second career hat trick helped the Rangers continue their winning ways against the Flyers this season, as New York exited Philadelphia on Saturday with a 5-2 victory.

Marian Gaborik added a goal and three assists for the Rangers, who have won all five of their meetings with the Flyers this season and increased their winning streak in the series to seven games.

Artem Anisimov also lit the lamp for New York, which now leads Philadelphia in the Atlantic Division standings by six points. Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves in the victory.

Wayne Simmonds had a goal and an assist for the Flyers, who have lost four of five. Claude Giroux also scored.

Sergei Bobrovsky turned aside 21-of-26 shots in defeat.

The story of the game was the power play. New York was 3-for-7 with the man advantage, while Philly went 0-for-4.

The Rangers started the game with a power-play goal from Callahan at the 8:25 mark of the first period. After taking a pass from Gaborik, Callahan managed to score from a tough angle along the goal line.

Simmonds made it a tie game at the 13:03 mark. Andrej Meszaros' blast from the right point deflected off Simmonds' leg and past Lundqvist.

New York, though, scored again on the man advantage with 3:20 left to make it 2-1. Brad Richards controlled the puck at the top of the right circle and passed in front to Gaborik, who quickly redirected the puck past Bobrovsky.

The back-and-forth battle continued 6:36 into the middle stanza. A nice pass from Simmonds put Giroux on a breakaway. Lundqvist put his arm down along the line to stop Giroux's initial shot, but the Flyers forward was able to jam the puck into the net.

But the Rangers swung the momentum back in their favor with another power-play goal. The visitors got set up in the offensive zone, which resulted in Michael Del Zotto controlling the puck in front of the net. His pass across the crease led to Callahan's second goal of the contest.

New York put the game away with a pair of goals in the third stanza. Just 6:28 into the frame, Gaborik slid a pass from below the goal line to the right circle for Derek Stepan, who slid the disc to the slot. From there, Anisimov put the puck into the back of the net for a 4-2 margin.

Callahan completed his hat trick at the 11:25 mark. With Bobrovsky sprawled out on the ice, Callahan lifted the puck over the goaltender and into the net.

Game Notes

Both of Callahan's hat tricks have come against the Flyers...New York was without forward Ruslan Fedotenko after he took a shoulder to the head from Tampa Bay's Dominic Moore on Thursday...The Rangers have outscored the Flyers 29-10 over the past seven encounters, shutting them out twice...The Rangers scored three power-play goals in a game for the first time since March 15, 2011.

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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.

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