Ah, the New Year—early January. Is there a better time of the year? It’s a sports-junkie’s smack: the NBA is heating up, College Basketball enters league play, the tables in the European football leagues are starting to gel, NFL Playoffs are starting up, and College Football bowl games are reaching a crescendo. But those are the gateway drugs to the real thing: Lists of Predictions for the coming year. After all, is there anything more tempting, more alluring, more powerfully intoxicating than “next year” to the sports-junkie? And “lists” complete the cocktail.

Think about it, every year we wait for the end of the year lists, the mini-retrospectives on the last twelve months. They start coming out just before Christmas and we eat them up. But to be honest, reliving the past year’s sporting highlights are only satisfying if a) your team was successful and is involved in the list; or b) there was some amazing moment from the year that you forgot and needed the list to remind you. And from a writer’s standpoint the retrospective list requires far too much research. The Predictive List, on the other hand, is full of hope for everyone involved because the events haven’t happened so you can choose to root for the prediction, against the prediction, or for an entirely different outcome. Plus, they require no research. Sweet!

So, without further ado, my 2010 Sports Prediction List (feel free to root for these to come true, I know I will be):

Reunited, and it feels so good.

10. Jimmy Clausen will get invited to the NFL-version of the crying room when he fails to get drafted in the first-round. Eventually, Kansas City drafts him in the second round so he can be reunited with Coach Cheeseburger.
9. Clay Bennett is the next high-profile feaux-lebirty to be involved in a sex scandal. A sex-tape gets released but no one watches it except Clay.
8. In the biggest upset in NBA-playoff history, the Nuggets knock off the Lakers in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals. After the game, The Birdman is named the Series MVP and credits the Denver crowd’s decision to wear “Fuck Kobe” T-shirts en masse as the catalyst.

Fuck Kobe

7. Finland wins Hockey Gold at the Winter Olympics. The Fightin’ Finns! The hometown Canucks don’t riot but they do cause the Vancouver bars to run out of beer as they drown their sorrows.
6. The year’s biggest golf-scandal will involve Sergio Garcia bringing a gun to Butler Cabin . . not that there is anything wrong with bringing a gun to a cabin in Georgia, but they only let Master’s Champions into Butler Cabin.
5. David Beckham dyes his hair red, white and blue prior to the USA-England match at the World Cup, sparking a huge controversy amongst the New York Post and the London Mirror on whether Becks supports England, the United States or is just a crappy German beer.
4. Johnny Flynn fails to medal in Figure Skating at the Winter Olympics.

Clint Dempsey

3. The Cubs finally reach the World Series . . and then lose to the Seattle Mariners on a Ken Griffey, Jr. walk-off homerun in Game 7.

2. The USMNT opens with a win against England . . and eventually advances to the semifinals of the World Cup before valiantly bowing out to eventual-champion Argentina.
1. The University of Washington Huskies football team comes all the way back with an undefeated season to reach the BCS National Championship Game. Heisman –trophy winning QB Jake Locker will have to face-off against another Washington state native in Kellen Moore, the junior QB of the Boise State University Broncos. Of, course, that game will occur in 2011, so you will have to wait for next year’s Prediction List . . .