Tag: Blues

Comedy, Sports

Dear NHL, Please STOP BEING STUPID

by copperwriteLeave a Comment on Dear NHL, Please STOP BEING STUPID

I thought I’d take a big giant step onto a frozen pond and take a look into the NHL playoffs. After all, they started two days go. Perfect timing… except the NHL, while starting Round 1 of the playoffs is STILL MAKING TEAMS FINISH THE SEASON WHO DIDN’T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS.

Seriously, CAPS is the only way I can make a statement here. This is so blindingly stupid I cannot even put it into words other than MAKING THEM ALL CAPS. The Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames, two teams who haven’t been in any contention whatsoever to snag any playoff spot in the Scotia North division since, I don’t know, mid-March, have two regular season games left. The play tonight and tomorrow. This is going on DURING ROUND 1 OF THE PLAYOFFS.

Does this make any sense? Is it me? Have the NHL brass been playing pond hockey without helmets again?
Traditionally – well hell let’s just throw tradition right out the window into a snowdrift shall we – the playoffs begin when the season ends. Every single major sport does it this way. Why you may ask? So the entire focus is on the playoffs and not wondering how the bottom tier teams are going to do tonight and what impact it has on their draft slot. WHO CARES?! NO ONE!

By the time the season ends for the Flames and Canucks, four of the first-round matchups will be done with Game 2 of their respective series. This is so incomprehensibly stupid I cannot get my head around it SO I JUST HAVE TO USE CAPS.

Sigh. Deep breath. STUPID. Try again,. Sigh. Deep breath. Meditate. Don’t think. Let it go. Frozen. Frozen. Canada. Flames. Canucks. DAMMIT.
I’ll be back.

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Comedy, Sports, Uncategorized

NHL Playoffs are on and now I Love Them

by copperwriteLeave a Comment on NHL Playoffs are on and now I Love Them

Perhaps the word ‘love’ is a bit of a stretch. It wasn’t as if I hated the concocted “pre-playoffs” like she was a girlfriend who married the next person they dated after me. The playoffs, COVID-delayed or not, are perpetual. I have only had the woman I dated marry the next person they dated six times, and one of them decided to ‘curve their stick’ and shoot a bit differently, if you know what I mean.

Now the hoopla and fanfare, yes both occurred in the past couple weeks, of both the ‘Round Robin’ and the ‘Pre-Qualifying Round’ has officially exited the ice. Ergo we now have legit playoffs, so let’s take a look at who’s left for the next round. Apparently the NHL has now decided to call the next round the First Round, and I am okay with that. Essentially this means the NHL is now officially smarter than those college guys at the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament (hey remember that? It’s like nostalgia at this point). They convince themselves the play-in games are actually the first round. DUMB.

Did I say “let’s take a look at who’s left?’ I did. Not yet. Just a solid reminder the NHL teams are going nowhere. The Eastern Conference is still playing their games in Toronto at the venerable Scotiabank Arena. The Scotiabank Arena is like the United Center of the North. It’s nice, relatively new, but not a legendary place like Madison Square Garden (which BTW is not a square shape – who knew?). The Western Conference teams are still stuck in Edmonton and play their games at Rogers Place. Same deal. Nice, and kind of like an Olive Garden of arenas… without the breadsticks.

And what teams are not remaining?

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Comedy, Sports

NHL at 50% Report

by copperwriteLeave a Comment on NHL at 50% Report

Hello hockey fans! We’re now sitting – more for some teams, less for others – at the halfway point of the season as the Avalanche, my yard marker team, has just played their 41st game. They beat the pants off the Western Conference-leading St. Louis Blues, BTW. A 7-3 iceberg crasher.

I’ll try to build upon the Tirty Tree and a Tird Percentage report and see where how our playoff teams would be set up if we were to end the season right now.

Eastern Conference

OK, let’s toss a wrench in this. Before we actually look at current playoff teams, let’s cut out the ones that – unless there’s a huge ice floe having never occurred before in this league – have no chance of making the playoffs. Buh-bye any teams under 40 points for the season: Ottawa, New Jersey and the team that, if there were such a thing as being bumped into a lesser league ought to be – the Detroit Red Wings. Good Lord of the two-line pass they are awful. Normally a team stands a chance of making the playoffs if they can get to 90 points. At the 50% mark, the Dead Wings are at 23 points. Historically awful.

On to the playoff-making teams. Last time we checked in, the Eastern Conference playoff teams at the third mark stood at: Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers and the Buffalo Sabres.

Well, hockey fans, let me tell you, at the halfway point the Easter Conference leaders are:

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Comedy, Sports, Uncategorized

The NHL at 10%

by copperwriteLeave a Comment on The NHL at 10%

Hockey is violent ballet; grace and guts. And yes, if you’re skating on the same thin ice I am, The Nutcracker would sell more tickets if we knew sometime during the Sugar Plum Fairy one of the dancers would get crosschecked.

Okay, we’re around the 10% mark of the season. No, there was not a 0% report as a) zero means no games have been played, and b) no one wants to be a zero. What you’re going to see here is a breakdown of each team so far by conference and who’s going to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup based upon the current standings. Let’s go East first.

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