So, it's the first couple of days of the NHL playoffs, our annual Spring rite that indirectly gives men in Canada the right to grow a beard until their favourite team loses. Which is why I always cheer for the Stanley Cup winning team. Yet, I can't grow a beard. Strange custom, but we Canadians are always looking for a reason not to shave.
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| beard growing may be our only similarity |
Already a few things have happened in the last 48 hours which chip away at my resolve to watch the playoffs. I'm not a 100% all or nothing hockey fan, but i am Canadian. Work, family and chores take up a large chunk of my time and so when i have the few minutes to 'zone in' to a game I appreciate it. That said, here are some observations of the little hockey i have watched;
Let's call this....
PLAYOFF HEADLINES
YES, WE KNOW.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS IN PLAYOFFS 1ST TIME IN 9 YEARS!
Holy shit, who doesn't know that already? I watched the 3rd period of their 1st game loss against Boston and heard it at least three times, saw it as a graphic twice and then heard it two more times that night on TSN Sportsdesk (without watching the mandatory 'what went wrong' special Leaf supplement they run). And I'm not even watching that much hockey right now.
If you are just tuning into the NHL (which you aren't because you are reading this) there is no way you can escape this fact. I mean, I didn't even watch any of the pre-game, post-game, most-of-the-game and hockey highlight packages that all indubitably made mention of this. We get it, Toronto has sucked for a decade and now the team is better than the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and a few other eastern teams so sucky I can't be bothered to remember their names.
Reminding the viewers that Toronto hasn't played a playoff game in 9 years is like telling us the sky is still blue, America has guns and Nazis were bad, bad people. And after that 1st game showing, they still haven't played a playoff game. Booyah!
BOBROVSKY!!!
Sadly, the joke is over...
Okay, although it pains me that TSN's Onrait will no longer be shouting BOBROVSKY! during the highlights, a great consolation prize is that Detroit is still keeping their playoff run alive.
SERIOUSLY, MONTREAL? STOP SINGING
There's a small unwritten rule in hockey that if your goalie is working on a shut out, never mention that to him. Even if there is five seconds on the clock, never, ever mention shutout. I'd like to add another one that involves obnoxious fans. No, not you Toronto. Step back, Rangers and Canuck fans. I'm talking to you, fans of the Les Habitants.
I mentioned this before in my playoff predictions. Yet, perhaps due to my uni-lingualism, nobody from Montreal made it viral. So let's talk about that 1st game against the Senators.
Montreal was by far the better team, they threw over 50 shots at Senators goalie Craig Anderson and had little to show for it. However, by the start of the third period they were up 2 to 1.
At 17.35 I could hear the fans singing that Ole, Ole song (which to be fair is Spanish, not French so WTF Quebec? Fun fact; it also comes from Ireland, during the 1990 World Cup Soccer Championships, so the song is over 20 years old, which is just as long as it's been since the Canadiens last won the cup, not that anyone in Montreal would know that.
Bad digression.
Anyways, at 17.35 in the 3rd period; the Canadiens are up 2-1, the fans don't even give their opponents the benefit of being behind by 2 goals. Exactly ONE MINUTE later, ottawa ties it up. Then in less than three minutes, Ottawa takes the lead. And the ole, ole song is never heard again (that night).
BAM! OLD-TIME HOCKEY!
We'll hear about this the next few days in every story that also has the word hockey in it.
Lars Eller was fed what was called a 'suicide pass' by Montreal defenceman Ralphael Diaz and was just OBLITERATED an Ottawa player. I mean it was almost as bad as the mother of all elbows, but legal. The difference was that when Eller hit the ice, his nose broke his fall. There was blood everywhere and he wasn't moving. The Ottawa guy was thrown out of the game for... for... well... for spectacularly hurting someone in a textbook clean, albeit not-nice hit. I won't go into the details as hockey commentators will analyze the hit as if it has a secret to the Holy Grail in it. It's unfortunate how messy it looked and having received a suicide pass once myself, shit happens. It fucking hurts and receiving one, you never play the game the same way again.
That shit happened, bad decision on part of the defenseman, it's playoff hockey let's move on.
SAN JOSE aka RAFFI TORRES VS VANCOUVER CANUCKS
In my playoff predictions, I forgot Raffi Torres was a San Jose Shark these days. He's a game changer and in the Canucks/Sharks first game he was so dominant on the ice he also scored the Canucks only goal in their 3-1 loss. I don't know why this guy has troubles staying on teams if you look at his track record the last few years. 2011 he was one of the few Canucks to score on Tim Thomas when it counted in the Finals, and in 2012 he was on that surprising Phoenix Coyote team that obliterated Marian Hossa and the Chicago Blackhawks from Stanley Cup contention. The guy is a competitor, no doubt about it. He is someone you are well aware of when he's on the ice, especially if your name is H. Sedin, D. Sedin, R. Kesler, etc etc.
Last year the Sharks had a similar player named Ben Eager (another personal fav) and if you may remember he was told to 'tone it down' after having a little disagreement with Luongo and some other Canucks in a 7-3 loss. He was subsequently benched for being too 'competitive' and the Sharks went on to lose the series.
I don't understand a coach's need to curtail an emotional guy like Eager or Torres who's main function is to go around and play good, old time hockey. The more Torres stays on the ice and Kevin Bieksa doesn't fight him and instead goes after someone like the Patrick Marleau, the more likely San Jose will win this series.
Q-Do you know who the Canucks decided to re-sign after the 2011 season other than Raffi Torres?
A- Andrew Alberts, Christopher Higgins, Kevin Bieksa, Jannik Hansen, Maxim Lapierre and Sami Salo.
While Bieksa's jawline may cause some fear among opponents (Todd Bertuzzi's jawline cackles somewhere from Detroit) can anyone honestly say 'Holy shit, be careful Higgins is on the ice!'?
The only reasoning I can see from Torres not re-signed by the Canucks or the Coyotes is that he was too competitive a player which in today's NHL leaves him a bit of an anomaly. Or he was banging everyone's girlfriends which is really bad for team morale, but not unheard of with the canucks, Rumour had it he would also call out everyone in the dressing room as being 'chicken' if they refused to fight.
So for old times sake let's revisit what the Canucks gave up, which would have delighted Canuck fans everywhere if this happened in this year's playoffs.
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