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You know you’ve made it when you get your own logo. Well, you’ve made it as far as Nike is concerned. It means you have your own brand. In Melbourne for the Australian Open Roger Federer now gets to wear a cap with his own logo – just like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.

Getty: Nice hat

In fact, there is an official website dedicated to the Jordan brand. That’s a whole level of making it but then basketball lends itself a little more to this than golf and tennis.

While we’re on the subject of Michael Jordan, one of the best sports books I have read is David Halberstam’s Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made. Highly recommended.

It is especially good considering Halberstam never got to talk to Jordan but then the book is more than your regular celebrity bio It’s a picture of the times when ESPN was on the rise and the stars were in alignment to create the Jordan brand.

Quite frankly I’m amazed David Beckham doesn’t have a logo.

And as I have mentioned Tiger Woods, if you get the chance you should read this from Golf Digest. It’s a great article.

Right, well, I’m going to go check on the tennis. I’ll have more on this later on in the week but is it just me or is the blue court harder on the eyes?

Getty: An elite club

I think we're back from the brink. Indian skipper Anil Kumble and Australia's Ricky Ponting will sit down before the Perth test to settle the differences between the two sides.

Hopefully calmer heads will prevail.

For further reading, check out what former Australian coach John Buchanan has to say, and on the other side I thought James Lawton in The Independent talked some sense.

We in the Sports Hut thought it might time for a little light relief. We were quite taken by the story in the British press about Sunderland striker Anthony Stokes.

Apparently some woman called Sunderland HQ, asking to speak coach Roy Keane. Reception told her that Keano was a very busy man, don't you know, and couldn't accept the call. Said caller said if he didn't ring her back within the hour, she was going to the papers.

That got Keane on the phone. Apparently, the woman was Stokes' neighbour complaining about loud music.

Hilarious.

Happy new year, all you BigPondSport.BigBlog.com.au readers out there. And I don’t just mean Mum and Dad.

The moral high ground can be a lonely place, but it looks mighty crowded at the moment.

I’m sure you know to what I refer:  Harbhajan Singh’s ban for racial abuse, the Indian cricket team temporarily suspending their tour of Australia, claim and counter-claim about unsportsmanlike behaviour, unease in some quarters about India's financial power within the game.

But there’s plenty of self-righteousness flying around. and it reflects well on no one.

The second test in Sydney was, for sure, a bad-tempered affair. It was marked by aggressive and over-the-top appealing, time-wasting, the Singh-Symonds incident. and some horrendous umpiring decisions, which only escalated the situation.

And, from my perspective, the Australians’ celebrations when they won the game, leaving Indian skipper Anil Kumble to walk off the field with no recognition, left me feeling really uncomfortable.

As a result, umpire Steve Bucknor has been stood down from the third test in Perth, and he will be replaced by New Zealander Brent Bowden - who would want to be in his shoes, quite frankly? Although Mark Benson didn't cover himself in glory either but was never scheduled to stand in the WACA test.

Sure, the umpiring was bad, but it's not as though this has never happened before. Sometimes you've got to suck it up.

But it’s dangerous territory if you get talking about what is and isn’t in the spirit in the game.

My brother said to me that it is a bit of a red herring to contend that not walking is not in the spirit of the game. Like he says it's a bit unsporting, but at that level of cricket not walking is fair enough. It's up to the umpire to get it right. But hanging around when you have middled it to slip is a bit dodgy - but it is nowhere near as bad as appealing when you know full well that the batsman is not out.

You know you’re in trouble when you’re having these conversations.

And this whole sledging business is tricky. It's part of the game - there's no avoiding that - but as the Sydney test showed us it's obviously gone beyond the bounds of what's acceptable.

I remember walking past the local park where age-group cricket teams played each weekend - the kids seemed to sledge with the best of them. Is that a good thing? I don't think so.

Everyone is having a lash at it and we don’t want to be left out in the cold. It’s time to reflect on the year that was, on events from around the world and around the corner, and hand out some BigPond Sport Awards.

No doubt it’s not to everyone’s taste, but what they hey. It’s our blog. Let us know what you think. We’ll be happy to disagree with you ;-)

Outstanding performance by a woman: Liz Ellis
The Australian swimmers are a force to be reckoned with, for sure, but the BPS gong goes to Liz Ellis. Nobody plays the game harder and Ellis always conducts herself brilliantly. A true champion.
Honourable mentions: Libby Lenton, Jana Rawlinson, Rachael Grinham, Lauren Jackson

Outstanding performance by a man: Cadel Evans
A pretty tough category and it came down to the wire between Casey Stoner and Evans. Stoner took the MotoGP by the scruff of its neck and made it his own but Evans gets the nod from the Sports Hut. The Tour de France is an awesome event and Cadel was awesome, coming second in what is arguably the world’s toughest sporting event. He wrote a really good blog, too.
Honourable mentions: Ricky Ponting, Archie Thompson

Outstanding performance by a team: Australian cricket team
Geelong and the Storm dominated their respective comps but the Australian cricket team gets across the line by a nose. Their Ashes series win over England was emphatic. The Australians never took their eye off the ball until the tri-series, losing to England, but normal service resumed at the World Cup. Australia were all-conquering.
Honourable mentions: Geelong, Australian cricket team, Australian netball team,

Outstanding performance by a coach: Craig Bellamy
Craig Bellamy has built the Storm into a formidable unit. They were the best team in the NRL in 2006 but fell at the last hurdle. Bellamy took all that on board in 2007 and with commitment and determination made sure that 2006’s failure would not be repeated. Bellamy is a total worker bee and has ensured that the Storm will be a force to be reckoned with in 2008 and beyond.
Honourable mentions: Mark Thompson, Stephan Widmer, Norma Plummer

Rookie of the Year: Israel Folau
Berrick Barnes was a breath of fresh air at the Rugby World Cup – as was Freddie Fittler at Bondi Junction but we’re going Israel Folau. The Storm youngster is big, strong and super-talented. He didn’t make the NRL media guide but ended up playing every game. Debut seasons don’t come much bigger than his.
Honourable mentions: Berrick Barnes, Brad Fittler (as a coach)

Idiot of the Year: Ben Cousins
People seem to fall all over themselves to win this one. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, drunken incidents involving athletes were a dime a dozen. Players invariably added their own little flourish to proceedings – swimmer Geoff Huegill got arrested at a taxi rank, English cricketer Freddie Flintoff took to a pedalo during the Cricket World Cup, All Black Doug Howlett put an empty pot-plant holder on his head and jumped on cars outside the Heathrow Airport Hilton and English footballer Ashley Young indulged in some webcam high-jinks ahead of an international against Russia. The Western Force Super 14 team took it to a whole other level by throwing around cute furry marsupials. After witnesses came forward, chairman Geoff Stooke had to reveal a number of incredibly distasteful incidents:
 
Former vice-captain Scott Fava threw a quokka two to five metres; - Player Richard Brown ran naked with a quokka, urinated in front of four female tourists and was diving with a milk crate to try to trap the marsupials.

Still, there can be only one winner. From West Coast Eagles superstar to toolie on the Gold Coast, we couldn’t go past Ben Cousins. It was the story of the year.
Honourable mentions: Western Force quokka shockers, Willie Mason, Doug Howlett, Geoff Huegill

Yawn of the year: Cricket World Cup
It should have been good. Held in the West Indies, there were upsets and ultimately an Australian win, but, God, was it dull. It seemed like it would never end. The less said about it the better.
Honourable mentions: Willie Mason, Ben Cousins, bad-behaving footballers

Match of the year: Roosters v Warriors
The golden point special between the Roosters and Warriors at the Sydney Football Stadium was a cracker. BigPond Sport had the pleasure of being there and aside from it all going down to the veritable wire, there was such a great vibe in the ground and everyone just totally got into it and went away happy. It’s moments like that when I feel sorry for people who aren’t into sport.
Honourable mention: Wales v Fiji at the RWC

What we didn’t like
All the off-the-field malarkey. Cousins was poster boy in Australia for the vexed problem of drugs in sport. It was an all too common theme in 2007. Rumours swirled around the AFL, but the NRL could claim no moral high ground with the news that league legend Andrew Johns was cautioned by London police after he was found with an ecstasy tablet in his pocket. He subsequently admitted to a long-time drug problem and a battle with mental illness.

The Tour de France had its regular drug scandals, and was anyone really surprised when athlete Marion Jones admitted using performance-enhancing drugs? Jones was stripped of her five medals from the Sydney Olympics and it could cost her relay team-mates their medals too.

It’s ugly. And depressingly endemic.

Meantime, the Mitchell Report says drug abuse is rife in baseball and implicates former and present stars. All-time home-run leader Barry Bonds could go to jail for perjury and obstruction of justice related to the on-going BALCO steroids investigation.

And what’s with Michael Vick? He’s gone to the big house for involvement in dog-fighting.

The Cricket World Cup will go down in the history books for all the wrong reasons. Some skew-whiff results had people talking, the crowds stayed away, and above all else the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in mysterious circumstances was a shattering event and cast a dark shadow over the tournament.

We also weren’t impressed with the ABC not showing the World Netball Championships final live. That got the big thumbs down.

What we liked
BigPond Sport was quite taken by Sebastien Chabal, the French rugby player who looks like a caveman and took the Rugby World Cup by storm. The fact he squeezes his large frame into a smart car clinches his place here, but it’s another RWC character that takes this category out and that’s Wally the Wallabies mascot. BigPond Sport likes a cuddly toy and we thought it was cool to see Wally keep popping up – sideline and at press conferences – alongside Berrick Barnes, who as the youngest member of the touring party was responsible for keeping tabs on Wally at all times. Ah, the stories he could tell. Well, let’s hope he could. The Wallabies’ blog was well worth a read.

Also:

• It doesn’t reflect well on us, but we took some pleasure in England’s failure to make Euro 2008.
• David Beckham: He came, he saw, he conquered. He seems like such a nice boy, as my mum said.
• BigPond Sport was excited about a genuine title fight – Mayweather v Hatton. We bought into the hype.
• And finally a big boo-yeah that we have both a Socceroos coach and a Wallabies coach for Christmas.

Getty: Wally rocks.

There was much excitement in the Sports Hut this morning with the arrival of our 2008 Sports Diaries. It’s an A4-sized diary but with all the year’s sporting events listed on the appropriate day. Boo-yeah.

The 2008 version comes with a glossy first page featuring a photo of the Australian cricket team just having won the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

I quickly thought I could find a more New Zealand-appropriate image to paste over the top.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

I honestly couldn’t think of any sporting victory, achievement, win that would be fitting. What a sorry state of affairs.

I ran the super computer that is Sophie’s mind over the events of the year, but I got nothing.

Fortunately, I rebooted and came up with something…

Valerie Vili became only the second New Zealander to win an athletics world title after winning the shotput title in Japan in August.

The less said about the rest the better.

On another matter entirely, I think Robbie is going to be a terrific coach for Australia.

Plenty of people have asked me how I feel about it but I have to say - fundamentally - I am ambivalent, which is slightly unsettling.

Apparently there’s been a certain amount of outrage about it in New Zealand, and my brother told me this morning that apparently some Cantabrians are going to start supporting Australia. Honestly. I’ve got no time for that kind of thinking.

Like my brother said, Graham Henry is going to have a lot to prove too. And he’s still a great coach. I’d just be happy if there was a little less focus on the World Cup being the be all and end all when it comes to international rugby. If anything positive comes out of this mess, it will be that.

Test rugby should mean something. Anything else shows a lack of respect for the fans who watch the game, support the team, buy the merchandise and create the atmosphere.