Jim Lang

Jim Lang is a Connected anchor and NFL reporter for Sportsnet. Also check out Jim's website, www.jimlang.ca

It's a good thing Pete Rose could hit, because his sense of style was definitley a miss.

The disgraces continue to build for Charlie Hustle as he makes Clubber's worst dressed list.

After last week's blog about playoff handshakes, I received an interesting e-mail from Marty McSorley. Marty told me the best thing he ever heard during an end of the series handshake was "I would have you on my team anytime". Apparently it was spoken from a guy that Marty says the media and fans thought hated him. And now on to this week's questions.

Name: Jim in Cowtown

Comment: Hey Langer, here's a question for you, when my brother goes on out-of-town trips with his university track team, they are given $50 a day for meals and whatever else. What kind of per diem do professional athletes get when they are on the road, and is this something in the CBA, or is it determined by each individual team.

Answer: Hi Jim, thanks for the question. The amount of per diem given to a player on the road is determined by the CBA negotiations in their respective leagues. Here is the per diem given to each player on the road in the four major sports leagues.

NHL - $91.56

NBA - $113

NFL - $90

MLB - $91.50

For example, when the Jays head out on a road trip to Tampa, Colorado and San Diego in the middle of June, each player will be handed an envelope with $823.50 US. That is the amount of per diem owed to each player for the duration of the road trip. You would be amazed how many pro athletes with huge contracts that will go out of their way to not spend any of their per diem.

For the record, we get $60 per diem any time we are sent on the road by Sportsnet. That's pretty good when you consider that the per diem at ESPN is only $48 dollars US a day. Good luck trying to buy a decent meal in New York City with that kind of per diem.

Name: Shawn from London Ontario

Comment: Hey Jim! Who in your opinion was the best/worst dressed athletes in sports history? Some like Ray Emery try too hard to look good. So who's on your list?

Answer: Whoa Shawn, that is a tough question. As the salaries of pro athletes continue to skyrocket, there is a lot of disposable income for these guys to go out and buy top of the line clothes. Former Leafs captain Mats Sundin was always well dressed. Tom Brady of the Patriots is meticulous about the cut and quality of the suits he wears. Some of Emery's suits are amazing. Other ones he wears make him look too much like a pimp.

Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns is hands down one of the coolest pro athletes ever and he is also very well dressed. All of the big boys in the NBA, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant etc all take great pride in their clothes. Dwight Howard is a huge man and needs all of his suits to be custom tailored. Let's face it, high end pro athletes do not buy there suits at Moores or JC Penny. I have heard stories of players in the NHL that have "home" suits and "road" suits. The road suits are generally black or dark blue and still look good after being packed and repacked in a suitcase. Henrik Lundqvist knows how to dress. You would be hard pressed to find a guy who is more obsessed with his clothes than David Beckham.

As far as the best dressed athlete of all time, I will have to go with the man that married Marilyn Monroe, the Yankee Clipper himself; Joe DiMaggio. Honourable mention goes out to Deion Sanders, Derek Jeter, Beckham and LeBron.

It's tougher to pick a worst dressed athlete because almost every team in professional sports has a dress code when the team travels on the road. In the NBA, they even have a dress code for injured players sitting on the bench. Now if I had to pick just one though I would end up taking the Worm, Dennis Rodman with honourable mention going out to baseball's disgraced all-time hit leader, Pete Rose.

Name: Griz

Comment: Jim, I have heard of some pretty weird tracks being played in the dressing room of some teams before a game. For example the Dallas Stars using Hall and Oates (might explain the missed playoffs).

You're about to play the biggest game of your life. Stanley Cup or World Series final, Superbowl or Grey Cup...whatever you want it to be. The boys in the dressing room look to you as the leader, and it is your room to control. What tunes are you pumping on the stereo before leading them out? Secondly, what is/are some of the lamest tunes you have heard of teams playing as pump up tunes?

Answer: Hey Griz, solid question. The kind of music that is played in a team's dressing room or locker room is vitally important to a team's success. Any team that would dare play music from a stiff group like Hall and freaking Oates deserves to miss the playoffs. How Mike Modano could ever allow that kind of thing is beyond me? It's usually the team leaders/captain that controls the stereo in the room. You will often hear gangsta rap and hip hop, heavy metal, hard rock, even some kick ass modern country tunes. No soft rock, Justin Bieber, Depeche Mode, or Madonna should ever be allowed inside the dressing room of a professional sports team. If it was up to me, I would go with some hard rock, probably some classic AC/DC tunes. I am a big believer that music in the dressing room needs to have a little bite to it. The music a team takes to the ice or the field is also very important. I love the fact that the Blackhawks take to the ice at the United centre to Ted Nugent's 1970's classic "Stranglehold". I also like how Carolina comes out to the Scorpions "Rock You Like a Hurricane".

Name: Chris

Comment: Jim I am wondering what are your top three sports that can't be fully appreciated unless you see them live.

Answer: Chris, you really have to see professional box lacrosse live to fully appreciate the violence, intensity and speed of the sport. Once you go see a NLL game live, you will instantly love it. Another sport that is better live than on TV is basketball. I will never forget watching Vinnie Del Negro throw up an alley oop for David Robinson and watching the Admiral nearly destroy the backboard at a Spurs/Raptors game. Once you are at a game live, you will fully appreciate just how big and athletic the guys in the NBA really are. As good as it is on television, watching a NHL game live is a completely different experience. When you are at a game live, you really get a sense of the remarkable velocity of the shots in the NHL. I can remember covering a Leafs game day skate back in 1997 at Maple Leaf Gardens. I was standing by the glass and watching Wendel Clark take some casual wrist shots. When Wendel took a wrist shot and it went off the end boards it sounded totally different than every other player. That's the kind of thing that must be experienced live to truly understand.

Name: Keith

Comment: Dude! Which Cup-winning team had the best playoff record? Has any Cup winning team gone undefeated en route to the cup?

Answer: Well Keith, Mario Lemieux and the 1991/92 Pittsburgh Penguins are near the top of that list. Mario and the Pens went 16-and-5 and won their last 11 straight games to win the Cup that year. The 1976/77 Montreal Canadiens went a ridonkulous 12-and-2 that year to win the Stanley Cup. Bobby Orr and the 1969/70 Boston Bruins also were a remarkable 12-and-2 to win the Stanley Cup that year.

To the best of my knowledge the only team to run the table in the Stanley Cup play offs were the 1952 Detroit Red Wings. Terry Sawchuk put on one of the greatest displays of goaltending ever as the Red Wings went a perfect 8-and-0 that year in the post season. Sawhcuk had four shutouts and ended his playoff run with a GAA of 0.62.

Name: Brent

Comment: Hey Jim, big fan! I've been following the NHL playoffs and there was clearly an upset following the Habs-Caps. In recent years, we've seen quite a few of those happening throughout the post-season. What team do you think pulled off the biggest upset win ever?

Answer: Hi Brent. First off, this is a very subjective question. Understand what I think is the biggest upset ever might be different from what you think. Having said all that, there are a few series that come to mind.

Any time you talk about big upsets you always have to talk about what Ken Dryden and the Montreal Canadiens did to the Boston Bruins in 1971. That year the Bruins were the defending Stanley Cup Champions, they had the top four scorers in the NHL and they had 15 more wins than the Habs in the regular season. But that was the year Ken Dryden came out of nowhere to stun the Bruins and launch his hall of fame career. I had the privilege of covering one of the biggest upsets ever as the New York Giants beat the undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl 42. Another huge upset took place in 1988 when Kirk Gibson and the Dodgers stunned the heavily favoured Oakland A's.

But the biggest upset that ever took place in Lake Placid in 1980 when Team USA beat the USSR in the "Miracle on Ice". A bunch of punk college kids beat the one of the most powerful international hockey teams ever assembled. The USSR team that year featured Vladislav Tretiak, Valeri Kharlamov, Vladimir Krutov, Slava Fetisov among others. The big upset is one of the things we love about sports. There are big upsets every year, but there still hasn't been anything that can rival what Herb Brooks and the Americans did at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Name: Donny from Winterpeg

Comment: Hi Jim. Love the blog! Getting straight answers is always a refreshing thing these days. I have a question about the CFL. I'm a fan of the league but I'm not a fan of cold weather. Why doesn't the CFL start camp in May and have the first league game at the beginning of June? Why not use the good weather in June and have the Grey Cup in Mid to Late October? I don't get it. Is there a reason us fans have to freeze our tails off to watch 3 rounds of playoff football?

Answer: Hi Donny, here's hoping the NHL finally comes to their senses and the Coyotes end up in Winnipeg where they belong. You bring up a very interesting question concerning the timing of the CFL season. The CFL cannot start the season too early or they would end up in a conflict with the Stanley Cup Final. This year the regular season kicks off on July the 1st. If they start the season two weeks earlier, the Grey Cup would likely end up being played on November the 14th instead of the 28th. The bottom line Donny is that if you're a football fan, whether it's the CFL, NFL, NCAA or the CIS, you will end up having to attend to some cold weather games. It's a part of the sport.

Name: Tobin

Comment: Hey Jim, how did you get the nickname "Clubber"? Is it as simple as the Rocky movie?

Answer: Hi Tobin, that is pretty much how it happened. Daren Millard hung that one on me. Of course, Millard goes by the nickname of "Ducky". There is an unwritten rule at Sportsnet that you can't work here without a nickname.

Here's a short list of some of the nicknames you will hear on a daily basis around here:

Kipper - Ducky - Cheech - Fayzer - Clubber - Langer - Moops - Bones - Kerny - Bubba - Arch - Jake - Bomber - Moynesy - Mac - Soup - Big Dog - Big Man - Hey You - The Croation Sensation - Tips - Butters - A Hop - Georgie - Johnny Audio - T Bone - Steamer - Bones - D Ray - Buckles - Conky - Schwartzy - The Hedgehog - Juice - Mix Master - Greener (aka the Green Bastard) - Clutch - The Milkman - Marzie - Wheels - The Austrian Oak - Dude - Glenny Mac and John Shannon, whom everyone calls John Shannon.

That's it for this week. I was extra proud to be Canadian the last few days as I watched our amazing World War 2 veterans parade though the streets of Holland. This week marked the 65th anniversary of the Canadian Army's defeat of the German army and the subsequent liberation of Holland from years of hardship and occupation.