Tuesday, May 20, 2008
And now it's time for Stanley
| Yes the Red Wings won last night, and they won huge to advance to the Stanley Cup playoffs. Therefore, this morning I shaved. Yes I know, I normally reserve the post-playoff shearing for after the ENTIRE playoffs are done. This year is special. Obviously the Red Wings are my favorite team, but many years back I picked the Penguins as my "backup." You have to carefully choose your secondary team so there's no chance they'll run into each other til the finals. This year it's the Wings and the Pens. And it's going to be awesome. The Pens are dominated by Sid "The Kid" Crosby, who is clearly on of the hottest hockey players to hit the ice in over a decade. He's teamed with Evgeni "Geno" Malkin who is almost as good. That one two offensive punch has allowed the Penguins to plow through their opponents this post-season. Until Now. While Detroit boasts another pair of amazing offensive weapons in Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, the biggest thing Detroit brings to the table is smothering defense, anchored by the greatest defenseman in the game today, Nicklas Lidstrom. Add to that the fact that Detroit has two of the best goalies in the game with Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek, and you can see the "unstoppable force" and "immovable object" situation forming. I am 51% rooting for the Red Wings and 49% rooting for the Penguins. Mainly I just want to watch this amazing series unfold. If you aren't a hockey fan, these games are still worth tuning in to see. If you are a casual or avid fan these are must watch games. The greatest players NOW against the greatest players of the future. With a sprinkling of the greatest players from a year ago. The games are all at 8pm on Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays from this weekend til the best of 7 series is decided. The first two games are on Versus and the rest on CBS. But that is where the problem comes in for me. I leave early tomorrow morning to head to Florida to visit Courtney and Sean. Plans have been in the works for us to go "camping" over the weekend. Now there will be an RV involved so normally I'd laugh when calling that "camping." But this time is different. I have one question: It would also be cruel to hook him on hockey at such a young age when Jacksonville just lost their pro hockey team, The Barracudas. He'd be a "hockey orphan" like me. Forced to survive on the meager doses of televised hockey supplied by Versus. There is talk that hockey may return to Jacksonville in the future, but until they, like Orlando, realize that Florida is already above their NHL team quota, and they embrace minor league hockey, they will continue to have great teams that can't sell tickets.  |
Labels: Hockey
