chTONGUEeek’s super secret spies within the MLSE have learned that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors – who recently came 4th and 3rd last in their conferences, respectively – are planning to co-launch an innovative “at least we’re better than those guys” marketing campaign in order to drive 2009-10 season ticket sales. chTONGUEeek will be providing exclusive access to sneak peaks to the various ads over the coming weeks – so be sure to check back regularly for previews of ads such as this one:

Others in this series can be found here, here, and here. You can also submit your own to us via king (at) chtongueeek.com – and if we publish it here we’ll send you something from our store.

With his Tar Heels just two wins away from winning another national championship, North Carolina head coach Roy Williams says it’s time to break things down and focus on the non-fundamentals.

“At this stage of the tournament, only great teams are left,” said Williams. “We can all hit free throws and box out and throw bounce passes. But what can set you apart is the non-fundamentals. And that’s what we’re working on. Today I had them practicing hook shots from half-court.”

For the rest of the story, see the Sports Pickle.

While supporters of Canadian Women’s Soccer were initially “exceptionally pleased with the remarkable show of support for women athletes” when literally millions of male sports fans clicked through on a recent article about the team, chTONGUEeek’s proprietary study has learned that 99.6% of them were extremely disappointed, and each stated that “actually, um, I was really hoping for something a little different.” The reason for this will remain an eternal mystery, as 0% of them were willing to go on record saying exactly what it was they were hoping for.

Reports indicate that the Raptors continue to be shocked that they continue to lose when,  in the words of superstar Chris Bosh, “Yeah, we practice great. Nobody can get a shot off at practice. But in the games, for some reason, it’s a lot different and I don’t know why that is.” Off the record, team sources indicated similar confusion, stating that “It’s truly an amazing contrast. When we practice, our defense is so good that not only do scrimmages routinely end without either squad getting a single shot off, but it carries over to our shoot arounds where we commonly go 10, 12 minutes without hitting the rim even a single time. But for some reason, as soon as there’s another team on the floor, the inability to get a shot off continues for our team, but the opponents seem to get whatever shot they want, over, and over, and over. It’s almost eerie – what could possibly change so dramatically when another team comes on the floor that suddenly makes a team that’s playing against itself so well perform so badly…” before trailing off when he was knocked out by an errant inbounds pass from the far end of the practice court.

In a move eerily similar to the coup currently taking place in the Republic of Congo Canada, The Pittsburgh Penguins are leading a coalition with the Dallas Stars and Philadelphia Flyers to be declared the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions. As spokesman Dan Deluth explains:

Sure, it seemed cut-and-dry in June when the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins to become the Stanley Cup champions. However, looking back we noticed that this wasn’t really fair. After all, if you combine the playoff wins for the Penguins, and conference finalist runner-ups Stars and Flyers, you can clearly see they had a lot more than the Red Wings. In turn, we are asking Governor General, er, I mean NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to retroactively decide that a coalition of the Penguins, Stars, and Flyers be declared the 2008 Stanley Cup champions.

While there has been a struggle over who should lead this coalition, the teams eventually settled on Penguin Sidney Crosby remaining captain, even though his sub-par performance early in the series was an oft-cited reason for the loss. In exchange for their support, the Philadelphia Flyers (who narrowly missed representing the Eastern Conference themselves) will get access to the Cup on holidays and weekends, while the Dallas Stars team will receive official “league within a league” status and gets to play for their own “Stars Cup” next season, to be paid for by all the other teams.