With the 2012-13 NBA regular season now in the rear view mirror, it proved to be one the Portland Trail Blazers hope they can put behind them and move forward with winning seasons in the future. I had low expectations for this team going into the season. But I’ll be honest: I was pleasantly surprised with how the season played out. With the exception of the big stumble to the finish line, the Blazers played, for the most part, competitive basketball for a majority of the season.

With the regular season on ice for almost a week, I will aim to avoid saying all the things that have already been said about this past year. What has been revealed over the course of the past few months is that the Blazers have some very good pieces, lacking however in depth and bench. I know, that probably has been said repeatedly over the past week.

A couple years ago, I was on the road with the Oregon baseball team on the same weekend as the NFL Draft. That Thursday night, instead of going with the team to practice, I locked my door, grabbed my laptop and hunkered down to watch the draft.

At that point, I knew I liked Twitter and decided to open TweetDeck to keep track of everything that was going on.

It was like having an extra set of eyes in my head. Except that the other set of eyes was in New York, behind the scenes, five minutes in the future.

When the goal came from rookie substitute Adam Jahn in the 92nd after almost two consecutive hours of the Portland Timbers blanking the San Jose Earthquakes, it hurt. But it didn't hurt nearly as much as it would have if Chris Wondolowski had buried his free header in the dying moments of the team's clash at Jeld-Wen Field the previous Sunday, and it didn't sting as much as it would have if Alan Gordon, Steven Lenhart, or Wondolowski had struck it. The Timbers drew San Jose 1-1 Sunday night. It was the most sterling of performances from Caleb Porter's team, and it certainly didn't have the most sterling of finishes. But it was a fair point and a solid result for a team still on the rise. 

It was always going to be hard for the Timbers / Earthquakes rematch to create the kind of firestorm that would live up to expectations. The teams' meeting in Portland had everything a classic soccer match could ask for - controversy, fighting, a red card, a dazzling goal, and a massive fall-out. There is something to be said for how the Jeld-Wen cauldron stirs the most passion in teams, home and away, and how road Timbers matches rarely explode the same way home games do. 

I know, this is our world today:  A place void of losers, where everyone gets a chance and little is earned due to no need to do so.  And it’s limiting the means of inspiration, motivation, and the creation of responsible adults.

In recent years, I’ve watched begrudgingly as our youth sports have lowered the bar.  They’ve created classifications in an effort to create more winners, an all-inclusive playoff format which by definition defies logic and chopped the legs from coaches in a position to make a difference.  “Get better,” is gone, and with it one of the single greatest motivators since the beginning of time … failure.

Despite an end to the season that saw the Portland Trail Blazers seemingly lose the will to go on, the season was not a loss.  The team performed above expectations for most of the year, and Damian Lillard showed an ability to dominate on offense in just his first year in the league.  Between Lillard, Wesley Matthews, Nic Batum and LaMarcus Aldridge, the team has a strong core to build around.

Building a bench is the number one priority.  It is also priority two, three and four.  According to HoopsStats, the Blazers had the worst bench this season, with a negative 17.9 points efficiency, twice as bad as the closest team.  The bench averaged only 18.5 points per game, also worst in the league.

If you weigh 225 pounds, can you bench press your weight ten times?

In some alternate universe, a strong man laughs and says, "Easy."

At the NFL combine where each college player gets less than 225lbs and pushes it as many times as they can, it looks easy.

They'll do ten repetitions, or twenty, or thirty.

Young men who lift weights for their sport, for their future, practice a lot. And it shows.

For an accurate visual, 225 is an Olympic bar with four forty-five pound plates. Two on each end.

Does it sound like a load? It's more than a load.

We are all one tribe.

-          Namaste

You’ll probably want to file this under, “Things I’ll See Right About The Time Skating Becomes Popular In Hell.” During the 7^th inning stretch at Yankee Stadium, the PA system started playing “Sweet Caroline.” This would be what you’d expect- at Fenway Park. That fans hearing it, enthusiastically singing along, in New York could mean only one of two things:

1.      A hole had been torn in the space-time continuum, or

2.      Yankees fans were unified in dropping their customary rabid tribalism to show support for a city ripped asunder by the Boston Marathon bombing.

A 13-game losing streak leaves a foul stench in the nostrils of Portland fans heading into the offseason. But if you’ve been through Tillamook and enjoyed their ice cream or cheddar cheese, you realize that sometimes a nasty odor is a necessary step in producing bigger and better things.

The memory of the season-ending slide will fade away from the memory of Blazer fans as quickly as the smell of cow byproducts dissipates into the ocean air. That’s because there were enough morsels of excellence and untapped potential to make even the most cynical fans salivate.

Even though we’re still several months away from seeing the Blazers play another regular season game, here are five things I cannot wait to see once they’re suited up again.

When the Western Conference Finals matchup was set, fans felt that the series would be tough, hard-fought and go the distance. What they didn't see coming was a Portland Winterhawks team that would literally own the Kamloops Blazers in the first two games. With over 7,000 fans the first night and over 9,000 for game two at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the Hawks showed why they had won the season points race and the Scotty Munro trophy.

Kamloops was unable to register a single power play goal in the first two games and even gave up one shorthanded game one. The Hawks went 3 for 11on the power play in the two games, as Kamloops seemed to use desperation moves and instead, found themselves taking more penalties. To watch the stick work and after the whistle shenanigans of the Blazers, you've be hard-pressed to believe they had the fourth best WHL record this season.  The scoring lines for the Hawks were in full force and Kamloops tried to reply with its top line, only to see it shut down and held off the score sheet completely. 

On this episode of The Slant, Brad Stein is joined by OSN writer Casey Mabbott. They recap all the game ones of the NBA playoffs, the Darrelle Revis trade, the NFL draft, and the 2013 NFL schedule.

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I showed up to the bar somewhere around noon. My friend Franky and I saw the trailer stacked with metal and padding sitting out front as we walked in. We were immediately welcomed by a coach of ours, Nic. He gave us the usual energetic smile/handshake combo and thanked us for coming. The three of us sat at the nearly empty bar, talking, until a few more guys showed up. All of us began emptying the trailer and assembling the smaller cage against the west wall of the bar. About 30 minutes in and MMA fighter Dennis Hallman (51-14-1) rolls through the front door. Dennis wastes no time in gathering the guys around to share dirty jokes and fight stories. Eventually we all made our way back to the assembly line and finished setting up.

Twenty-six hours later, the bar is packed wall-to-wall, sardine can style, with clambering fans. A couple buzzing spotlights directed the room’s eyes towards two amateur mixed martial artists as they tapped gloves. The ref gave the signal, a bell rang, and Franky put his hands up. This is local mixed martial arts, and it’s happening in your backyard.

In the last two articles, we have discussed how to create a vision board and use it as a resource to improve your health. In this segment, we will discuss some practical information that you can implement to achieve your goals. We are going to keep things nice and simple and at the beginner level, since that is where we started when this column first went to print. I have asked an associate of mine to contribute to this week’s column. Her name is Katie Rowlett. She is a personal trainer and a national level figure competitor / sponsored athlete living in Central Oregon. I asked her to first discuss motivation, since this is a sticking point for many people. Here is what she had to say: