Saturday, May 08, 2010

the playoffs, Puck Daddy, and why Dennis Wideman needs double-runners

I have not had the time to post anything about this year's playoffs, though I've been following them more closely than I have in years, perhaps because of my (false) belief that the Canucks had built a team capable of going deep. It's been a fascinating post-season so far, from the magic of the Habs to all the complaints about the refereeing to the the disaster of the Vancouver Canucks (last night's 7-4 loss to Chicago was pathetic). Let's hope Canada's two remaining teams can keep fighting and move on into the conference semi-finals. At this point, Montreal is looking by far the more likely bet than the Canucks. They're playing disciplined, team-oriented hockey and getting outstanding goaltending from Jaroslav Halak. I think the Pens-Habs series has the potential to go the distance! If the Canucks can even push their series with the Hawks to six games I'd be shocked. We'll see what happens!

I've been loving reading Yahoo Sports' Puck Daddy blog, which my Kiwi friend Hamish started reading--he is learning to love our great game and he finds this blog a change from the 'here's who won and why' recap-based writing that fills the majority of the sports pages. Puck Daddy is funny and has a lot of hockey 'human interest' stories--I've been finding it a great read!

Also, I don't know how I missed this one the first time around, but Dennis Wideman's shootout attempt is one of the funniest hockey highlights I've ever watched. I've literally replayed the thing 50 times over the past few days and I've laughed my head off every time. I showed it to my wife and she laughed pretty hard as well! I love the way the announcer says "yahoo!" at the 9 second mark of the video--hysterical!

2 comments:

Eric said...

You're a sucker for punishment! Switching to the Canucks from the Leafs is a recipe for a complete season of failure... :) As for me, I stopped while I was ahead and now only cheer against the Canucks. It's working well so far...

And I also love Puck Daddy, my first stop when reading up on hockey news.

The Renegade Librarian said...

Well, I've followed the Canucks for a long time as well, growing up out here, but if I ever made the switch and dropped the Leafs, I'd just get called a bandwagon jumper, etc. etc. I have tended to keep my Canuck fandom: a) always secondary to the Leafs, and b) pretty quiet.

And yeah, both teams are disappointing crap.