As I type this, the Pittsburgh Penguins are up 2-1 on the Detroit Red Wings in the second period of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. This makes me happy.
If the Wings come back to win, they'll win the Cup and the hockey season will be officially over. This makes me sad.
I'm cheering for the Pens because they're an exciting young team, not just so I can justify playing backyard hockey for a few more days.
[Edit: Well, the Wings came back to tie it 2-2 then took the lead 3-2 then the Pens scored to tie it with less than a minute left! So now, they're getting ready to head into the third overtime. It's not too late here yet - 10:18pm as I type this update - but of course my boss called an early meeting - 7:30am - for tomorrow. So I've stopped cheering for the Penguins and started cheering for the game to be over! ]
The Flames are out after an all-around terrible performance in game 7 against San Jose and, for the third year when they went out in the first round, I have mixed feelings. I'm sad that my team lost of course but also relieved that I'll be able to avoid spending three hours on the couch every second night.
Anyhow, I was 4/8 in the first round (strangely, picking 3/4 in the East which is the conference I watch a lot less of) but in my defense, it was only because I'm a homer for the Flames (I knew they were in an uphill battle against the Sharks) and I picked the wrong upset (Nashville over Detroit instead of Dallas over Anaheim.)
With the excuses out of the way, here's my picks for round two. (This gets easier each round - by the time some team's won the Cup, I bet I'll be able to predict the winner with 100% accuracy!)
Montreal over Philadelphia Pittsburgh over NY Rangers
Colorado over Detroit San Jose over Dallas
Oh hell, while I'm predicting, I'll also say that Montreal will beat Pittsburgh (to be the fourth different Canadian team in four years to make the Stanley Cup final) and San Jose will beat Colorado and then Montreal will beat the Canadian curse to win their, what, 26th Cup in their storied history? In a related story, there will be a huge upswing in the number of sports fans jumping off tall buildings in downtown Toronto.
Back in October, I predicted a Calgary-Tampa Bay 2004 re-match as this year's Stanley Cup final with the right team winning this time. (For the record, Pace predicted Anaheim over Boston, mainly because he likes cute animals for team logos.) Of course Tampa went and screwed up my plan by playing beyond terribly this year and not even making the playoffs (which also means Pace already has more hockey insight than his old man.)
Anyhow, I thought I'd redo it now that the crystal ball is a little bit less murky. (I hate how the NHL now seeds teams in the second round by record. I like the old days when you had division-based, bracketed playoffs so you could project a team's potential progress through the whole "second season".) Anyhow, if I think of it, I'll do another post when the seeding for the second round is confirmed.
Montreal over Boston Pittsburgh over Ottawa Washington over Philadelphia New York Rangers over New Jersey
Nashville over Detroit Calgary over San Jose Colorado over Minnesota Anaheim over Dallas
Okay, I just saw this because I was browsing the most viewed clips on YouTube. And I went to look up the score to find that TO did end up winning the game. But still, this is hilarious. Best part? It's a shorthanded goal to boot!
I didn't see the game tonight (getting Santa pictures at the mall in Weyburn is apparently more important ) but I saw the highlights and wow. A see-saw battle in the first meeting between these two teams in Tampa since the Lightning beat Calgary in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2004. (Don't get me started on the NHL schedule and how it mislays the focus on inter-division rivalries at the expense of making sure at least each team has a home and home with each other every single year. Sidney Crosby finally playing in Vancouver last Saturday after being in the league for two years is another example.)
The game was back and forth, all the stars were shining, and then the Flames pull away in the third for a convincing victory led by Captain Jarome Iginla. (In 2004, I often made the comparison that the Stanley Cup final was like Superman II. Iggy was Superman fighting the heroic battle against three foes, all with the same level of (hockey) super-powers but leaving him badly outgunned. The three bad-guys were Vinny LeCavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis (he was the female bad guy ) and the result in 2004 wasn't the typical Hollywood ending as the Flames just simply ran out of gas and ultimately lost after having two chances to win the Cup after going up 3 games to 2 in the series. So Iggy had some redemption of his own last night with a third period hat trick and all is right with the world again. Dion Phaneuf also had a wicked game with five assists (which makes my pool stats very happy!) and Kipper looks to be getting back to form after a (typical) slow start.
From the Flames thread linked at the start of this post: Dearest Gary Bettman,
Enclosed is Grandma's Famous High-Scoring Recipe avec Chocolate Chips
1 part league's highest scorer (Lecavelier's Special)
1 part league's second higher scorer (Iginla Deluxe)
Add 6 parts extra sour defense (Calgary Brand)
Add 2 parts chopped up goaltending (Tampa Regular Mix)
Mix thoroughly for 60 minutes (as per NHL regulation cook book)
Serve on a bed of half-melted slush and ice (St. Pete Times Forum Specialty)
Give chocolate chips to people who got screwed in pools
When I was in Calgary, I went in a hockey pool with my cousin and his buddies every year. The rules we used were fairly standard in that the team you picked at the draft was the team you were stuck with for the year (in retrospect, dropping your lowest scoring player - ie. the guy who got injured in week three - would've been a nice rule to have. But I'm not bitter about drafting Paul Kariya in 2003.)
But beyond that, this pool had an interesting wrinkle I really liked - instead of everybody paying a set entry fee ($20 or whatever) and drafting who they felt was the best available at the time, you paid $1 per million of salary. So if you drafted a team like you owed the Rangers or Red Wings of the early 2000's, you were going to put $70 into the pot. If you worked the draft like a small market Canadian team, you're on the hook for $35 maybe with the chance for a really big payoff. Instead of drafting someone like Peter Forsberg or Jaromir Jagr in the early rounds, you'd see guys trying to pick sleepers who were on low money contracts and poised to break out for big points (My proudest moment was picking sleeper Jarome Iginla in 01-02 for a buck seventy when he had his big breakout season, scoring 52 goals and 44 assists and jumped to a $5.50 player the next year.)
Another great memory was when one regular couldn't make the draft when we did it at our place so Shea was enlisted to draft for him. Using a unique strategy of "picking the most expensive guy available" and/or "picking the guy with the funniest name - ie. Satan, Palffy, etc.", she ended up winning the guy some cash when he finished in second place!
So anyhow, that's all a long intro to say that I haven't done a hockey pool in a couple years but was glad to see that Facebook has one. They're using the "pick one player from a group of six similar players" style of draft which is pretty fun too. Categories include "Elite", "Sizzle", "Fizzle?", "European", "Goon", "Goalie", etc. Plus they're allowing four trades throughout the year in case you pick a bum. (Oh, and they also let you name your team - I'm "Head Tale" - so if you're playing too, feel free to post your team name as a comment so I know whose butt I'm kicking! )
Here are my picks and justifications Elite - Sidney Crosby Seemed like a no-brainer. So far, Crosby = 1 points. Heatley = 7. Yep, I have no brain.
Sizzle! - Jarome Iginla Always a soft spot for "Iggy" but also a considered pick since Iggy was third in points per game average last year and only a big injury kept him from ending up in the top three for league scoring. Off to his typical slow start but he always seems to pick it up as the year goes on so I remain hopeful and am unlikely to trade him.
Fizzle? - Mats Sundin I hate the Leafs like any good Canadian outside the greater metropolitan Toronto area should. But I've always liked Mats Sundin and he's serving me well so far by leading this group.
Expecting Big Things - Marc Savard Probably my stinkiest pick in the draft. Made the classic draft mistake of chasing somebody who did something good the year before (Savard put up great numbers of a fairly crappy team) instead of going for somebody with potential for this year - ie. Paul Statsny who is kicking ass so far.
European Flair I picked the wrong Red Wing - Datsyuk has 2 points, Zetterberg has 8.
Veteran Leaders Saku Koivu and like a lot of picks, my bias towards Canadian teams is showing (but unfortunately, I didn't pick any of the Ottawa's big three who are totally dominating so far.)
Warhorses Nik Lidstrom is dominating this group so far. Yay me!
Future Norris Dion Phanuef. Beyond my Flames fandom, this guy almost beat a 20 year old record for goals by a rookie defenceman when he scored 20 in 2005-06 . Considering how wide open the NHL was in 1998 when Brian Leetch set the record (23), that's pretty impressive!
Goalies Miikka Kiprusoff and see the last entry for very similar reasoning - Flames fandom + record setting performances.
Goons Shane O'Brien. Is there even fighting in the "new" NHL? This one was a toss-up and also has my least favourite aspect of this pool by far - every PIM gets you a point (the draft we did in Calgary only gave you one quarter of a point as a quality goon should be able to get 400 PIM and a top scoring player will get around 100 points.) The way it's set-up right now, your whole pool result will be completely dominated by the goon you pick.
The Calgary Flames start their season tonight. Pace is wearing an orange off-red outfit in this picture but I'm sure his loyalties are clear.
My predictions for the final this year are Flames over Tampa Bay in a re-match of 2004 with the right team winning this time.
Pace is picking the Ducks repeating as Cup champs, this time over Boston, mostly because he likes both team logos (especially the bear that's on Boston's third jersey).
Apparently having a full-time job in a city an hour away from where you normally live is not conducive to keeping up with e-mail, Facebook, blog posts, personal diary entries, baby diary entries, regular web surfing activities as well as all those other things that make up this thing we call life. For instance, last night, I went to a boat and trailer show with the in-laws. There were no computers there. Tonight was pre-natal class and again, not a computer to be seen.
So here's some randomness of what's going on in my life and head...
Congrats to Michelle Lake who won the Spirit of Librarianship Award today. I'll update my Spirit of Librarianship page this weekend if I get a chance. I first met Michelle when she was the only person in the whole of FIMS who responded to my invitation to join me at Book Expo 2006. My immediate thought at that time was "wow, this is a person destined to win the Spirit of Librarianship award someday!"
Had some good news of my own today - a paper I submitted to CLA won 2nd place in their national student essay contest! This is probably the best result I could hope for as first place was a trip to the CLA conference in St. John's which is right around the time Shea is due. So if I'd won that prize, the broken legs she would inflict on me would've made the trip quite difficult anyhow. So I'll take the CLA gift certificate, the cash prize and the library directory and run.
(This is a good place to mention that for the purposes of this blog, all papers and presentations I've posted should be considered in "draft" form and not an official publication. This has come up as a concern once or twice with other pieces I've posted here then submitted elsewhere. Someone suggested that calling everything I post here a "draft" even if it was handed in and marked is a good way to get around the concern that any jury or whatever might have. And really, that's the truth - the paper that won (er, placed) was revised at least a little bit from what I originally posted here. My Alberta user fees essay - which I also just heard that the online Partnership journal wants to publish pending some revisions - is the same thing. The one posted here (search the blog for "tits" ) is so vastly different from what it has become so as to be almost a different paper.) Apparently the hockey playoffs started yesterday but I haven't seen a minute of a game yet and barely glanced at the scores for the games so far. But here's my predictions for round one anyhow. Calgary beats Detroit in 7 Anaheim beats Minny in 5 Vancouver beats Dallas in 6 Nashville beats San Jose in 7
Buffalo beats New York Islanders in 4 Tampa Bay beats New Jersey in 6 New York Rangers beat Atlanta in 5 Pittsburgh beats Ottawa in 7
My pick for the Cup? I hate to say it but I think Vancouver could really do some damage this year (meanwhile, my Flames over Detroit pick is the one I'd be least willing to bet money on.) The other finalist? Why not Pittsburgh as a Cinderella story? Man, they're an exciting young team.
Not much else I can think of. If you sent me an e-mail or a Facebook message, I hope I'll get to it this weekend.
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) and the result in 2004 wasn't the typical Hollywood ending as the Flames just simply ran out of gas and ultimately lost after having two chances to win the Cup after going up 3 games to 2 in the series. So Iggy had some redemption of his own last night with a third period hat trick and all is right with the world again. Dion Phaneuf also had a wicked game with five assists (which makes my pool stats very happy!) and Kipper looks to be getting back to form after a (typical) slow start.
