Caution: Quasi-Serious Analysis Ahead

There are several reasons I don't go in for the whole "Serious Series Preview and Breakdown" here, not the least of which is that I'm not very good at it.

First: As you can probably imagine, I am hopelessly biased. If I were to preview, say, an Ottawa/Toronto playoff series (if such a thing were to occur again in my lifetime...HAR!), I doubt anyone would want to read a full page of balanced analysis ("Leafs SUCK and here's why!") in which I go into a five hundred word rant on why Darcy Tucker should never be allowed to procreate. Funny? Maybe. Useful? Not so much.

Two: Unfamiliarity with the opposition. If I had to guess (and my Beloved would be happy to point out...with a lonely sigh), I've watched roughly 85-90% of the Senators televised games this year. I can tell you if Mike Fisher is going to have a good game just by watching the first three strides he takes after the opening face off. I wouldn't know Ryan Getzlaf if I hit him with my car. Well, not right away, anyway. I'm sure the nice officer would introduce us.

Three: Winston Churchill once said that "Statistics are like bikinis. Interesting for what they reveal, absolutely fascinating for what they don't" Not only that, they're boring (um...the stats, not the bikinis. Bikinis are quite interesting). Dry analysis based on statistics mean nothing in the playoffs, and even less in the Finals. What matters most are things like effort and heart. Stats won't tell you who will go into a corner, or take the hit to make the play, and that's what wins Championships.

So...where does that leave me? With this:

The Ducks are a three-line/four D team. Ottawa can roll four lines all the time, all six defenceman can block shots and shut down just about anyone.

• Anaheim has logged more travel and time zone changes in the first three rounds than a drunken Delta pilot. Ottawa has yet to venture out of the eastern time zone.


• While the Ducks are the more physical team, Ottawa can play any way you want, and have the advantage of being, by far, the faster team. You can't hit what you can't catch.


• I managed to work in a Winston Churchill reference in a hockey post. C'mon, that's gotta count for something.

Senators in six. May God have mercy on avian souls.

In Unrelated News, Panama City Awarded Expansion Franchise

In a plea agreement reached with the New Jersey State prosecutor, it appears that Rick Tocchet won't get any jail time for running what has been described as "an illegal gambling ring". Gary Bettman remains suspiciously silent.

Personally, I don't much care about Tocchet's gambling habits. We've all joined a sports pool or two. Hell, some of us *cough* may be of passing acquaintance with...um..."independent wager facilitators."

He swears he's never bet on hockey. Does that mean I believe him? Hell no. Does it matter? Hell no. Why? Well, unlike a certain All Star baseball player, cum manager, cum pariah, Tocchet's Hall of Fame potential is basically zero. Two? The guy's in Phoenix for crying out loud. If he fixed a game to make sure the Coyotes would lose, how would you be able to tell?

Nope, the only reason I bring it up is that it gives me the opportunity to post the picture you see here. I have to confess, I find the uniforms of the New Jersey State Police absolutely hilarious.

Manuel Noriega gets out of prison in September. I think he may want his clothes back.

Tocchet Pleads Guilty to Gambling Charges [TSN.ca]

Oh Yeah?!?! Well, Keep Your Hot Babes. We Invented Time Zones! Take That!

Okay children, we're in the Finals! We're in the Finals with four days to kill until Game 1 (thanks again NBC. Sure there isn't a horse race somewhere? Jerks).

So anyway...We know what that means! That means it's time for everybody's favourite new game...Mock The Ducks! Um...Right. The Ducks. California...Er...Gotcha. I'm gonna bring it! Hide the women and kiddies! Here I come! Ah...okay. Ah crap. This was way easier with the Sabres (we told them it would be twenty-four degrees at game time, and they came by the busload, dressed up in parkas and ski masks. Gawd I love the metric system!).

I mean, really, how do you work up a good hatred for a team your team has played against once in two years? A team whose former name elicited more pity than anything else from Canadians ("Oooo...'Mighty' Ducks? Wasn't that a cartoon? Oh you poor dears. Who's going to want to play with that on their jersey? Have a beer. Just one, mind you. Wouldn't want you getting all crazy on us.") A team whose totally unexpected trip to the finals in 2003 actually made me want to root for them as the quintessential Rudy story? You can't. At least not before any games have been played. What am I going to do?

Can I make fun of their so-called "non-hockey market"? Can't do that. Not with Anaheim being so close to L.A., the same L.A. that didn't give a rat's ass about two, count 'em TWO, NFL teams but has had the Kings for 30 years. Nope, that's no good.

The citizenry? Well, these are the same folks who pioneered gay rights, hippies, women's beach volleyball (thank you), emission standards, tofu, and by inadvertent extension to this last, Whacking Day, in which Albertans take a day off from the ranch to beat Vegans with calcified steer ribs. In other words, everything that drives Republicans, and their close Canadian relatives, the right fringe of the Conservatives, absolutely batshit crazy (except for Whacking Day. They love that). For this we can only thank them.

I was starting to get desperate. Then, on a tour of the Interwebs, I came across the Battle of California (through Battle of Ontario, to which I was directed by a link on Deadspin, whose parent site, Gawker.com made fun of Tom Cruise, who co-starred in Jerry McGuire with Cuba Gooding Jr., who appeared in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon) I found disconcerting evidence of co-operation between camps!

So I gave up completely. I need some time. I need to do some research. Believe me, the only reason I'm not flying into a BLIND RAGE is that...um...you guys seem kinda harmless, in an amusement park kinda way (and you linked my little site on yours. Gosh. Thanks). Plus, Battle of Ontario is way better at this kind of stuff than I am.

But beware! The minute I find some dirt on you guys, you're toast! Get it? Losers? And you still have to keep Celine! Suckers!

p.s.: I'll actually get to my prediction on this series later in the weekend (oooh...guess who I pick?), but I first need to dig up as many embarrassing pictures of Micheal Eisner as possible.

UPDATE: KMS2, of Hockey Ladies Greatness was kind enough to point out that the Kings were admitted to the League in 1967 and are in fact 40 years old, not 30 as I stated above. I had it in my head that they came in during the expansion of 1974. Probably because of the uniforms. Seriously. Does anything say 1974 like Gold and Royal Purple? I think not. In a very groovy way, Five For Smiting regrets the error.

There's Always Room For Bat Boy!

People of Ottawa, this is your Mayor. This is your Mayor on drugs. Any Questions?

Hey Steve! Didja Hear? The Sens Are…Steve? Yo Steve! Where Are You Going?

It was with great anticipation (and not a little bit of glee) that I settled in Sunday morning to watch TSN’s The Reporters.

Considering what had happened the day before (what’s that girl? The Senators are in the Finals? Quick! Go tell Timmy! I think he’s by the well!) I was anxious to see Steve Simmons contort himself into linguistic knots trying to assure his fan that the hockey universe did indeed still revolve around the Air Canada Centre and that Ottawa, all evidence to the contrary still sucks. Dancing in my head were wonderful images of ole’ Steve-O flopping around on the desk like a gutted trout after being forced to say “Senators” and “Stanley Cup Final” in the same sentence, the gagging noises eventually reaching frequencies audible only to dogs, while staring bug-eyed into the wrong camera. Oh the glory of it!

Alas it was not to be. Imagine my chagrin, when Dave Hodge introduced the panel and Steve wasn’t on it. Curses! Not to be denied my IN THE FACE! moment, I picked up a copy of the Sun. Surely, I thought, there would something in the fetid swamp that is his Sunday column. He couldn’t possibly ignore us, could he? And what did I find there but… almost nothing.

Amidst the flotsam of his usual brain droppings, was a one sentence (of course) piece to the effect of “Gee, that Daniel Alfreddsson sure is good!”. I can’t remember the exact wording as I’ve thrown out the paper and the Canoe website seems to have “misplaced” that particular column in favour of his equally uninformative post from Detroit, but it’s close enough to the gist to stand up in court.

His silence can only mean one thing. He is currently ensconced in his Underground Hack Bunker preparing a hard hitting seven part investigative report on how a Senators Stanley Cup championship is meaningless because they didn't beat the Leafs in the playoffs.

This Just In! Buffalo Ousted In Overtime! NBC Shares Your Pain...On Its Cable Channel

In a move that could go down in the annals of broadcast history as one of the most compassionate gestures ever offered by a heartless multinational media conglomerate, the good folks at NBC decided to spare Buffaslug fans across the United States the final, gruesome death throes of their favourite team. They cut away from the Sens-Sabres overtime in order to go to their Preakness pre-race coverage, which consisted, for the most part of various representatives of the Horsey Set waxing poetic about their dead hero (um…come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t want to anger those folks either).

Unfortunately not all Sabre fans were so spared, as the NBC feed in the Greater Buffalo Area (if there is such a thing) was maintained. We are told that the seven people in the rest of the country who saw the end of the game when it was switched to Versus also feel very badly for the Slugs and their fans. So that’s something.

For you gentle readers who may think that all of those big, bad critics are being too hard on poor little NBC, SI’s Alan Muir leaps to their defence thusly:

“Just don't make out NBC as the villain here. While they could have held out for the extra 20 minutes, their position is defensible. After all, the Peacock Network pays a hefty sum for the rights to the highly rated Preakness. They simply share ad revenue for the rights to NHL games, and since there are no TV timeouts in OT, that's not a tough decision to make.

No, this one falls squarely on the sagging shoulders of the NHL. Instead of saving Saturday nights for Hockey Night In Canada, they've bent over backwards to provide NBC with the games it wants at the times it wants. And in giving NBC this game at this time with the hard deadline of the Preakness staring them in the face, they made the wrong decision.”

Other than the obvious question of why a two minute horse race needs a ninety minute lead-up, this raises some interesting points worth consideration. Namely:

1) Enraging loyal viewers is okay, because those loyal viewers aren’t buying enough toothpaste and dog food to make it worth NBC’s trouble to actually televise, you know, an entire sporting event, even when the League changed the timing of that event to suit NBC’s preference.

2) “Hard deadline”…for the pre-race?? Apparently, the good folks who control horse racing are quite insistent dat da coverage will commence at da time dey says so. Capice? Udderwise, somebody could get hoit.

3) We were completely unaware of the CBC’s covert plan to take over American airwaves and offer HNIC to our neighbours to the South. You GO Peter Mansbridge!

4) All of this is the Maple Leafs fault, naturally.


Pulling pucks for ponies. [SI.com]
ESPN Trots Out The Barbaro Crazies Again [Deadspin]

Of Glory! Of Victory! Of Near Head-On Collisions!

Why do we cheer? Why do we invest so much time, money and above all, emotion in what, for all intents and purposes, is a simple game played by others for their own benefit? It can't be for the players themselves. We don't know them, as much as we pretend to. We've never met them except in autograph lines, or perhaps at rare sightings at local restaurants. We know that the faces will change from one year to the next, whether because of free agency, the pursuit of bigger paycheques, or by our own actions (all of you who bellowed that the Captain should be traded back in November, please raise your hand).

So why is it that when they win, we are lifted along with them, in paroxysms of joy and ecstasy? And when they lose, we mope and grouse, devastated, through our day to day lives until the moment our heroes win again, thereby cleansing the sour taste of defeat, putting a spring in our step and a smile on our face. We are fully aware, that our own actions, thoughts and even prayers have absolutely no impact whatsoever over what happens between two teams. And yet we continue to wear our lucky socks, don the jerseys, engage in countless rituals, meaningless though they are, in order to ensure victory. It's irrational. We know it's irrational. And yet we do it. Why?

These are the thoughts that occurred to me when Alfie scored. Well, a little while later, really. At the moment Alfie scored, my wife and I were on our way to Ottawa and a long planned dinner date with our best friends. Having watched the entire game at home, I was forced to choose between standing up our friends, thereby incurring the scorn and calumny of my beloved, and watching what could be a multiple overtimes at home. Guess which option I picked?

As we made our way up Highway 31, the game on the radio, Alfie delivered me to the promised land. I yelled, I honked, I yelled some more. I swerved into the oncoming lane. My wife yelled. I yelled a little less and concentrated on what the hell I was doing. My wife yelled a little less. But as we got closer to Ottawa, oncoming traffic began honking at us, having noticed the flags flying from our windows. Soon, we were sitting at stop lights with complete strangers, honking and screaming at each other. Go Sens! All the Way BAYYYYBEEE!! WOOOOO! And I began to wonder a little bit, why? Why am I so goddamn happy because our professional athletes beat another city's professional athletes? Why?

Every first year sports psychology student worth his or her tuition will answer by citing things like "tribalism" and the comfort we find in a "community of the like minded" or, Heaven help us, by falling back on the tired cliche about how we, as fans (from the root fanatic after all) are somehow reliving, vicariously through mercenary athletes, the glory that escaped us in our own minor league youth, be it on the ice or the football field or baseball diamond.

And guess what? I have come to realize that I don't care right now. That's for the After. I don't care about what primeval motivations may be lurking in my reptilian brain. I'll examine those a little closer in the After. The Ottawa Senators are in the Stanley Cup Finals. MY Ottawa Senators are in the Stanley Cup Finals. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to stop my wife from washing my lucky socks.