The time is here. After 16 weeks of action - a pretty thrilling postseason, supposedly a Pro Bowl and several hours of pregame programming, the NFL season concludes tonight with the New York Giants and New England Patriots meeting in Super Bowl XLVI. The game will be kicking off in just a few minutes, and while the many frontpagers are still getting over the ending to the NFC Championship Game, this looks to be a good matchup - for the folks interested in this sort of thing, New England were listed as 3 point favorites in this morning's paper.

As bryanucla noted in his fanpost this morning, the Patriots win the battle of the Bruins, 2-0 while the Giants lose the battle of having Trojans on the roster, 0-1. Meanwhile, Giants' Head Coach Tom Coughlin has a long-documented respect for Coach Wooden. Use that information as you will.

This is your open thread for the Big Game, the commercials, halftime show and whatever else arises this evening.

I was motivated to write this post in response to a recent poll that was attached to a well-written and well-reasoned article by KSBruin questioning whether Ben Howland has earned the right to stay at U.C.L.A. This article and poll appeared after the Oregon State loss, but before the Oregon game last Saturday. It asked a simple question:

Does Ben Howland deserve to remain as the UCLA basketball coach if the Bruins miss the tournament for the second time in last three years (and no where close to being an elite basketball program)?

The initial results were discouraging to me. After the first hundred or so votes, 2/3rds of the voters felt Howland did deserve to stay even if his team missed the tournament again this year (which they almost assuredly will unless they win the Pac-12 Tournament).

I don't want this to be about the reasons that Howland needs to go or stay. Many people here at Bruins Nation have been expressing concerns about Howland for the last 2-3 years. Despite many who railed against those concerns, the alarm bells have only increased over time. Last Monday, after several months of discussion, Nestor (with the support of the other front pagers) wrote of our conclusion that we had passed the point of no return and it was time for Howland to move on.

The initial response in the poll suggested that the majority of readers/voters disagreed with us.

It was only partly surprising that later that day, after the Bruins blew a 13 point halftime lead and gave up 51 points in the second half (remember when we used to give up 51 points in an entire game?) against Oregon and lost that the poll results turned around. The current results of the poll after 742 votes is that 44% think Howland deserves to stay, while 41% feel he needs to go. The no's made up an awful lot of ground.

Now I don't know if people voted "no" in anger, or if people suddenly saw the logic of our arguments. I doubt it was just the latter. I'm not upset that people disagreed with us. We seriously always welcome intelligent and respectful debate here. To me, the sudden swing was worrisome because it seemed to be motivated by the latest basketball score, and the most recent score is the wrong reason to make a decision on something as important as determining the basketball head coach's future.

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Today the NFL is set to narrow down its final four teams to the two squads that will battle - and given the current state of the UCLA basketball programs, this is the closest to a final four that the Niners/Giants/Ravens/Patriots fans here at BN are going to get for a while.

The San Francisco 49ers host the New York Giants later this afternoon in the NFC Championship Game, the game that will likely dominate BN's attention this afternoon. Aside from having a pair of 49er alumni on the UCLA coaching staff - including head coach Jim Mora, there is pretty heavy support for the 49ers among the front pagers and from what I have seen over the past weeks, a fair number of fans in the community. With that said, there is also some affinity on BN for Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. PST on Fox.

Today's championship game action starts off with the New England Patriots hosting the Baltimore Ravens, kicking off just after noon PST on CBS to decide the AFC champion. For folks looking for a UCLA angle in this game, the Ravens have Brendon Ayanbadejo on the roster as a linebacker/special teams player. The Patriots also feature Bruin representation, with Matthew Slater as a standout special teams player who has seen action at wide receiver and as a defensive back this season. Bret Lockett is also a member of the Patriots, though he has spent the 2011 season on injured reserve.

We imagine many here are aware that today a number of huge websites including Wikipedia have gone dark in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Today, our parent company SB Nation issued a statement opposing these proposed laws. Here is the crux of SB Nation's opposition, as written by the editor of SBNation.com, Chris Mottram:

In this age of new media, there are new and varied ways of using and sharing content that didn't exist just a few years ago, and content owners want to make sure that those uses don't go too far. The problem with SOPA as drafted is that the legislation could not only greatly reduce our ability to find the content we're looking for online, but it could also have serious implications for SB Nation and many of our other favorite sites.

Vox Media, Inc., the parent company of SB Nation (and BN), has also issued an official company statement laying out opposition to these laws, which you can read it here (HT Bleed Cubbie Blue).

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With the Alabama/LSU Championship game and the rest of the bowls now behind us, the only football left comes from the NFL. This afternoon and evening features a couple of good matchups, interesting not just because of the allegiances of various BN frontpagers.

The San Francisco 49ers will be playing host to the New Orleans Saints, with that game kicking off in about 30 minutes (1:30PST, 4:30 EST, Fox). Aside from being an excuse for the 49er fans among us to cheer, two of our new football coaches were part of the 49er organization, with head coach Jim Mora having served as defensive coordinator during the early 2000's, while linebackers/special teams coach Jim Ulbrich spent his entire decade-long NFL playing career in San Francisco.

The nightcap sees the New England Patriots host gbruin's Denver Broncos (5pm PST, 8pm EST, CBS). The idea that Tom Brady has been beaten out in the press by Tim Tebow this week is kinda crazy in the big picture, but I imagine that Tom will let his play tonight speak re that. This is your open thread for this second-round Saturday.

Only slightly less prestigious than the 108 National Titles at U.C.L.A. are the annual Bruins Nation Awards. Shown above are our two winners for 2011, as selected by the readers of Bruins Nation. For Best Post of the Year, the winner is tazmiami with Sent My Voided Check, UCLA Gear & Letter to Chancellor Block. For Funniest Post of the Year, the winner is Rowdy44 with UCLA's Athletic Department to Merge With USC's. Congratulations to our winners!

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I hope that everybody here is having a happy holiday season. While today is not the traditional day for giving thanks, I am one of many around the nation thankful for the resolution of the NBA lockout, and today's opening of the NBA regular season. The action is already underway, with the noon EST Knicks/Celtics season opener now in the record books, with Baron Davis having made his NYC debut. The Heat/Mavs game started a little while ago, while the Lakers and Bulls get going at 2:30 PST. Russell Westbeook and the Thunder tip off at 5pm against Orlando. And in the nightcap, CP2 makes his west coast debut as the Clippers play at Golden State.

This is your Christmas Day NBA (and otherwise) open thread.

Hello Again, Bruins Nation, and welcome back to the Annual Bruins Nation Awards. This morning we listed our 5 nominations for Best Post of the Year. Well, beyond all the serious and heartfelt posts in 2011, and after some people couldn't recognize satire, there was still a lot to laugh about, too, So here we get to laugh again with our most humorous posts of the year.

Once again, these awards are about our community members. As a way to highlight the outstanding contributions from the incredible Bruins Nation community, we picked the funniest posts and comment threads from our readership. No front pagers allowed. Garlic Joe will have to take a back seat this evening.

Again, I went back through every fan post and front page article in 2011. There were tons of articles and comment threads that had me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off (there really should be an acronym for that). I truly wish we had a way to recognize everyone, as we definitely have one of the top 20 or 30 best communities and writers on any blog anywhere, but this isn't AYSO or the college bowl season. We had to eliminate someone here. In the end we selected 5 articles that were the funniest posts and threads of the year. Now you pick the winner.

Last year's winner can be seen here. But as for this year...

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