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Post by Simey on Apr 18, 2008 18:34:25 GMT -5
Okay, as TotS's resident (ice) hockey expert (I've been feeding BC everything he's said about it for years) I thought it was about time we had thread to discuss the climax of the NHL season.
Well alright, I'm a total newbie as a hockey freak (start date: November 24th 2007, Coventry Blaze beat Cardiff Devils 5-4 in a shoot out - my first attended match, and an awesome one), but I've been completely hooked for five months now and have been watching the one and only NHL show we get in the U.K. every week at lunacy o'clock in the morning to keep up with events.
And now we're well into the first round of the play-offs!
Surprise: Detroit are failing to hammer Nashville.
No surprise: Pittsburg are not failing to hammer Ottawa.
Surprise: Dallas are playing like it's February and are beating Anaheim so far.
No surprise: Picking a winner between Minnesota and Colorado is like trying to tell the difference between any two of Sean Connery's characters' accents.
Surprise: Montréal have actually lost games to Boston for the first time since 1472.
No surprise: There's only one team from the Southeast in the play-offs.
Surprise: It's me that's started this thread, not BC.
No surprise: I've run out of surprise/no surprise comments to make.
So, what's your take on the post-season so far?
Who do you think's gonna make it through to the next round?
And who are you supporting? (Rather boringly - and completely due to BC's and NH's influence on TotS - I'm behind the Canadiens, but there must be somebody who's supporting a different team....maybe....?)
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 18, 2008 18:57:24 GMT -5
Oh, and what I would had looked like if I would had started this thread myself? "Oh, look at the crazy canuck, talking about hockey". No, I prefer that a Brit starts it instead. Nobody expects a British guy to talk about the NHL.  Of course, I'm a fan of the Habs. I'm going to watch the game tomorrow with some friends (like I did yesterday). After the Habs, I root for any other Canadian team that is still alive. Now, I expect that Boston's win yesterday will be a good slap in the face of the Habs players so that they win tomorrow. |
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Post by NightHunter on Apr 18, 2008 19:10:55 GMT -5
Surprise: Montréal have actually lost games to Boston for the first time since 1472. Yeah, and 20 years after, Christopher Columbus found America. Indeed, I'm a Habs fan but not hockey in generaly. And I'm only following them during the play offs. Go Habs Go!!!! |
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Post by Agrarvyn on Apr 18, 2008 19:39:40 GMT -5
I wasn't even aware that we played professional ice hockey in the UK!
Then again, I'm always mildly amused by the fact that the baseball World Series never includes a non-American team.
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Post by Simey on Apr 18, 2008 20:18:08 GMT -5
I wasn't even aware that we played professional ice hockey in the UK! Neither was I until last October. I'd always liked watching the ice hockey during the winter Olympics and a friend and I had gradually mentioned more and more frequently last year how we'd love to see a live game and I eventually got round to finding out if it was played to any decent level over here. Two excellent discoveries: 1. It is. 2. The best Elite League (the top league) team in the country is my most local - Coventry Blaze. Yes, the best teams over here include a lot of import players (the Blaze are about 50% Canadian), but the standard is good and the Elite League is pretty competitive, even though it is currently only made up of ten teams. The Skydome in Coventry usually gets well in excess of 2000 people to the Blaze's home matches (the building's capacity is 2700-ish). All-in-all I was surprised and thrilled with the state of ice hockey, in Coventry at least! Anyway, the U.K. season is over (except for the championships in Austria this week that team GB are doing okay in!), so back to the NHL play-offs! |
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 18, 2008 23:16:02 GMT -5
Did you know that UK has won an Olympic Gold medal in ice hockey? That was in 1936, and 11 of the 12 players were in fact Canadians with both nationalities... Anyways, the Devils have been eliminated tonight by the Rangers, which is not a surprise as the Rangers has won 7 of the 8 games played between these two teams this season.
And now, it's not about the playoffs, but this brings me to mention a new event on the international scene of hockey: the NY Rangers (NHL) are going to play against the Metallurg Magnitogorsk (from the professionnal Russian hockey league) for the new Victoria Cup next October. In other words: it's the best European team against one of the best from the NHL (to be fair, if it would had been the best team of the NHL, they would had picked this year's winner of the Stanley Cup. But who knows? Maybe they ARE the future SC winners?).
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Post by Beowuuf on Apr 18, 2008 23:17:27 GMT -5
His chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and no surprise. Ok, his two chief weapons... Apologies for the unhelpful contribution, but you can't pass up a good Monty Python referenceWhen Weller used to support the (Basingstoke) Bisons we heard their progress on the radio all the time, sadly barely a peep now, even though the radio station now sponsors them!!! And I'm sure I watched a programme about the canadian off-season and alot of the hockey players came over here for it to play in our teams - which I have no problem with, canada rules!  |
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 18, 2008 23:26:31 GMT -5
When Weller used to support the (Basingstoke) Bisons we heard their progress on the radio all the time, sadly barely a peep now, even though the radio station now sponsors them!!! Now that you talk about them, their logo is not very original: it's the same than the one used by the Buffalo Sabres from 1996 to 2006. They only changed a few colors. |
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Post by Simey on Apr 19, 2008 17:20:05 GMT -5
the NY Rangers (NHL) are going to play against the Metallurg Magnitogorsk Yikes! Now there's a name to scare you off the ice before you've even got your skates on! I wouldn't wanna play hockey with them (assuming I could even, like, er, skate), I'd wanna, you know, just be really polite and hope they left me alone. BC - do you know if MM has players from North America in the team? Because of course the NHL teams tend to contain the best European players as well as North American - including a lot of Russians - so it might seem a little unfair....? The Devils out, eh? Perhaps not so surprising versus the Rangers (I'll take your word for that - I hadn't noticed their vs. record ;D ), but they were pushing for first place in the Eastern Conference not so long ago. |
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 19, 2008 22:23:09 GMT -5
BC - do you know if MM has players from North America in the team? Because of course the NHL teams tend to contain the best European players as well as North American - including a lot of Russians - so it might seem a little unfair....? From what it is said on wikipedia, there's one of the goalies that is Canadian, but the Hockey Database now lists him with a German team. Otherwise, they are all Eastern European players. And from what I can see, there's only Kaigorodov that has a little experience in the NHL (six games with the Senators in 2006). Tonight, I went in bar with some friends to watch Game 6 of the Bruins/Habs confrontation. Very disappointing lost... Habs were leading 1-0 after one period, then 2-1 after two. It all happened in the third: Boston tied, Habs responded, Boston tied again and then took the lead, Habs tied with less than 5 minutes and then, boom, Boston finally gets a fifth goal a few seconds later. Final score: 5-4- for Boston. Series is tied 3-3 and game 7 will be played Monday.  EDIT: Ah, and Colorado has just won its series against Minnesota. |
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Post by Simey on Apr 20, 2008 8:29:57 GMT -5
Series is tied 3-3 and game 7 will be played Monday. Okay, that's really not so good, but I'm pretty excited about it, I must admit, 'cause the NHL show over here will only be showing a match in the wee small hours of Tuesday morning if any series has taken the full seven games to be decided (otherwise they would be moving to a semi-final preview), so now I really, reeeeeaally hope that they do get to show a match and that it is Montréal vs. Boston! EDIT: And I picked the Avs to beat the Wild! Wow, I'm so knowledgeable! Or perhaps so randomly lucky.... |
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Post by Simey on Apr 20, 2008 8:58:54 GMT -5
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 20, 2008 10:56:34 GMT -5
"Those who can’t win in the regular season, talk about what to do in the postseason."
That is so true!
"Corey Price"
That is not true! It's Carey Price. Those who can't play in the NHL write about what to do to get there... ;D
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Post by Simey on Apr 20, 2008 17:45:28 GMT -5
"Corey Price" That is not true! It's C arey Price. Those who can't play in the NHL write about what to do to get there... ;D Oh, yeah! That did make me look twice (well, one and a half times anyway), but I didn't pick it up. Good work though he's done for Montréal since they traded away their previous no.1 goalie, he hasn't got nearly such a cool name - how can you beat Cristobal Huet? I have a sudden fondness for the Caps just because he's there. Okay, this is particularly because he's the Habs goalie in my NHL 2K7 XBox game - it feels so out-of-date since he was traded, but I really don't want to be so sad as to have to buy this year's edition of the game just to have the current players in the team. |
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Post by Black Cat on Apr 21, 2008 12:22:57 GMT -5
Ah, Detroit and Dallas are moving to the second round. Anaheim getting eliminated in the first round is a little surprise to say the least..
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