Coyotes nip Thrashers in SO

Hockey Betting Lines

03/14/2010 - Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Adrian Aucoin scored the game-winning goal in the fourth round of the shootout, as the Phoenix Coyotes edged the Atlanta Thrashers, 3-2, at Philips Arena.

Rich Peverley got Atlanta on the board with a backhander to start the third round. However, Radim Vrbata kept Phoenix alive by netting his own backhander. Clarke MacArthur got the fourth round started with a wrister that missed the net. Aucoin then fired a wrist shot that hit off the inside of the right post and into the back of the net for the victory.

Matthew Lombardi and Lee Stempniak scored in regulation for the Coyotes, who have won five in a row and sit fourth in the Western Conference with 89 points. Jason LaBarbera made 39 saves for the victors.

Nik Antropov and Maxim Afinogenov each had a goal and an assist for the Thrashers, who have dropped six straight for the first time since a nine-game slide from December 19-January 5. Atlanta, which moved into sole possession of 11th place in the East with the single point, sits five points behind Boston for the eighth spot.

Ondrej Pavelec turned aside 32-of-34 shots in defeat.

Down 1-0 in the third, Afinogenov scored a power-play goal just 34 seconds into the final frame on a snap shot, then Stempniak countered on a power play at 10:39.

Antropov's power-play score with 6:22 to go tied the game at 2-2. Afinogenov led a rush down the right side of the ice and made a cross-ice pass to Antropov, whose tip-in got past LaBarbera.

LaBarbera stopped four shots in the extra session, while Pavelec made three saves.

Following a scoreless first period, Lombardi lit the lamp at the 5:14 mark of the second to put Phoenix on the board, when he deflected Keith Yandle's shot from along the left boards.

LaBarbera was sensational in the middle stanza, making 16 saves to keep the Coyotes ahead heading to the third.

Game Notes

Atlanta has just one win and a tie in 13 all-time meetings with Phoenix...The Coyotes went 1-for-4 on the power play, while the Thrashers went 2-for-8 on the man advantage.

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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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