From the History Files - The 2013 NHL intro for Brits

(ok, back in the day, being 2012-13 season, I wrote this and got it published somewhere online. I'm busy with the Nanowrimo thinger going on but in the meantime, enjoy this piece of history)

Looking to widen your sports knowledge to something outside of the local football league? Perhaps you are looking to butter up those Canadian tourists that wandered into your bar and will tend to tip way too much if someone mentions hockey around them. Whatever your reasons, welcome home.

Last year I started submitting some posts to WhatCulture about the NHL, voted by 3o million Canadians, 54 Swedes, and Danny Taylor of Plymouth, England as being THE #1 hockey league in the world. The NHL stands to begin it's 94th year of play (give or take) next month. And this year is no different as there is much excitement in the maple syrup-flavoured air, hockey-stank excitement. Nobody in Canada has been this excited about the NHL starting up since last season when it finally began after another epic Lock-Out, which will be discussed later.

In what went down as the greatest Stanley Cup Finals ever played since 2012, the Chicago Blackhawks stunned the Boston Bruins with 2 goals in the final 90 seconds in Game 6 to clinch hockey's greatest trophy. It was karmic retaliation of sorts, for the Bruins had earlier made the biggest comeback in history to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of a playoff series earlier which everybody outside of Toronto found hilarious. If none of that made any sense to you, welcome to...

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW OF THE NHL AS A NON-FAN;

All you need to know is this; The NHL is crazy. There is nothing rational about it, either on the ice or off. It was the subject of the greatest sports movie ever made, and has some of the best haircuts ever. It once had two players that dominated the sport like no other athlete has ever dominated a sport yet they played at the same time. Imagine Maradona and Pele playing at the same time, and on occasion even on the same team to defeat the world's worst superpower and #2 hockey nation (no, not America, the other one).

This moment knocked the 1972 Summit Series off the #1 hockey moment
of all time - yes, it is of someone crying. 

THE EASY STUFF;

The regular season starts in October, is 82 games long, and lasts for about six months.
Playoffs start in April and go for about three months. There is no 'one game take all' playoffs; this is all about maximizing owner revenue so the teams are forced to play four rounds of best-of-seven's, which in reality is quite brilliant. The first team to win four games over their opponent moves on to the next round and possibly gets a break while waiting for their opponents to inflict maximum pain on each other.

They play for a large trophy called the Stanley Cup, named after Lord Stanley. It is so rare, there are only 3 replicas of it in existence (the presentation one, the touring one, and the one at the Hockey Hall of Fame. The original is kept in a safe at the Hall of Fame as well and is no bigger than a large salad bowl, which was probably it's original intention).

Canadians start talking about hockey about 2 months before the regular season starts. This is called the 'pre-season' and in reality mean nothing unless you are a Toronto fan, then it defines the rest of your season, saving you all sorts of heartbreak later on.

This photo deserves to be a bit more viral.

Retro Post - What you need to know, the nhl 2013

- just a blast from the past. As in last year. A rejected piece that will now see the light of the Internet for the first time. 

The National Hockey League is Crazy; What you Need to Know About the 2013 NHL Season

Is this a lock-out year or not?

  Looking to widen your sports knowledge to something outside of the local football league? Perhaps you are looking to butter up those Canadian tourists that wandered into your bar and will tend to tip way too much if someone mentions hockey around them. Whatever your reasons, welcome home.

 Last year I started submitting some posts to WhatCulture about the NHL, voted by 3o million Canadians, 54 Swedes, and Danny Taylor of Plymouth, England as being THE #1 hockey league in the world. The NHL stands to begin it’s 94th year of play (give or take) next month. And this year is no different as there is much excitement in the maple syrup-flavoured air, hockey-stank excitement. Nobody in Canada has been this excited about the NHL starting up since last season when it finally began after another epic Lock-Out, which will be discussed later.

 In what went down as the greatest Stanley Cup Finals ever played since 2012, the Chicago Blackhawks stunned the Boston Bruins with 2 goals in the final 90 seconds in Game 6 to clinch hockey’s greatest trophy. It was karmic retaliation of sorts, for the Bruins had earlier made the biggest comeback in history to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of a playoff series earlier which everybody outside of Toronto found hilarious. If none of that made any sense to you, welcome to…

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW OF THE NHL AS A NON-FAN;

Round 1 Finally Finished!

Now normally, Ogie isn't one to be turned to when you want bold predictions. To be truthful, you shouldn't turn to anyone for betting advice. But that said, Ogie did pretty good on his first rounders, going 7 for 8 in the win column.

But now, shit gets serious.

In the East

Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens

                vs     

You probably don't know this as you've lived in a ditch in Louisiana your whole life but Boston and Montreal have one of the most storied rivalries in hockey. At one time a Boston/Montreal game was received with the same passion and fervor as Canada vs. USSR or Common Sense vs. the NRA. It's cooled somewhat over the years as Boston has won 9 of the last 11 match ups since the infamous Don Cherry Too Many Men Incident That He Doesn't Like To Bring Up More Than Four Times A Year.

On one side you have a perennial Stanley Cup contending team. On the other side you also have a perennial Stanley Cup contending team (if someone were to invent a time machine and go back to the seventies). Boston is loaded with Tukka Rask, Zdeno Chara and Milan Lucic. Montreal is loaded with Carey Price, P.K. Subban and a lot of Montreal Medical Men on standby.

2104 Hockey Playoffs - The Year of the Duck?

Visual Representation of the Western Conference Playoffs

The Western Conference;

The best way to dissect the Western Conference is to imagine a gathering of high octane muscle cars, the kind that would make Vin Diesel wet his pants in glee. Then imagine all those cars entering a demolition derby, smashing the shit out of each other in an attempt to be the last one standing. Then the winner of which gets to meet Jarome Iginla and the Boston Bruins for the Stanley Cup.

That's what the Western Conference is like; a hockey royal rumble full of talented teams that are Stanley Cup contenders yet due to their location have to eliminate each other to get to the final prize. Half of these first round match ups would have been great Stanley Cup Finals in a perfect world. They are going to be beating the shit out of each other in the first round only to still go at it against two more opponents before they finally get a chance to meet what should be a relatively healthy Eastern opponent.

The NHL. What you Need to Know. Part 1 of 4

The NHL, voted by 3o million Canadians, 54 Swedes, and Danny Taylor of Plymouth, England as being THE #1 hockey league in the world stands to begin it's 94th year of play (give or take) next month.

Here is what you need to know about this year's teams, all anxious to try to relive the pace and glory of last year's shortened 48 game season by starting 4 months earlier and returning to an 82 game (give or take) schedule.

The NHL continues to make a mockery of consistent rules, divisions and Canadian hockey fans by continuing to allow teams to play in such tropical destinations as Florida, Texas and Arizona where one can see a professional hockey team for cheaper than attending a local high school's drama class production of Oklahoma.

where the hell is the Smythe area of North America?

Gone are the six divisions that meant nothing for the last 20 years replaced by four divisions that still mean nothing. The new structure still means each conference will have 8 teams that qualify for the playoffs but in keeping with it's unusual scoring system, the following method will be used to keep fans confused until the final days of the regular season when they learn if their team has qualified or not.

From NHL.com; 

The top three teams in each division will make up the first 12 teams in the playoffs. The remaining four spots will be filled by the next two highest-placed finishers in each conference -- regardless of division -- based on regular-season points. It will be possible for one division to send five teams to the postseason while the other sends three.

The seeding of the wild-card teams within each divisional playoff will be determined by regular-season points. The division winner with the most points in the conference will be matched against the wild-card team with the fewest points; the division winner with the second-most points in the conference will play the wild-card team with the second-fewest points.

Simple. And how does a team get these points to qualify for the playoffs?

Just nod and move on...

A team gets 2 points for a straight-up win. If both teams tie, they each get a point. They play a 5 minute overtime session, at which time each team is minus 1 player. If someone scores, the winning team gets 2 points and the losing team gets 1 point. If nobody scores in extra time, the teams go to a shoot out where players take turns trying to score on breakaways (much like a penalty kick). If they score, that goal doesn't count as a goal on their point totals but their team could win, as long as the other team doesn't score. Eventually, everyone gets bored and they all go home and wait for the NHL statisticians to tell us what happened.

As I said you don't really need to worry about it. Chances are your team will just make or just miss the playoffs thanks to the league's continual attempt to ensure team parity. Just pick a team then come back in April.

On to the teams!

NHL Playoffs 2013 - The Western Conference (aka Home of the 2013 Stanley Cup Champions)

#1 Chicago Blackhawks

Analyzing The Team - The Chicago Blackhawks nearly went undefeated the entire year if it weren't for GARY BETTMAN who insisted they had to lose a few games in the interest of the rest of the league. They were so good that their back up goalie had a record of 17 Wins and 1 loss. Unless the dreaded President's Trophy Jinx come into effect, because of GARY BETTMAN, Chicago all the way. 

The Blackhawks 'ass-sceen' was universally praised and welcomed by
opposing goalies but GARY BETTMAN ruled it illegal. 

Analyzing the Team Name - The Blackhawks are actually not the name of a Native American tribe but the 1st owner's machine gun unit in World War 1, says the drunk old-timer beside you at the pub. Today, the Blackhawks are synonymous with the greatest sports team ever and also Vince Vaughn so they still have a bit of a conflicting image problem. Yet, as long as they manage to get the puck onto any one of their forward's sticks look to them to win any given night. Especially vs. whoever their eastern opponent is. 

VS

#8 Minnesota Wild

Analyzing The Team - Minnesota made big news last summer when their management precipitated the lock out by signing 2 highly coveted free agents to multi-million dollar decade long contracts despite their proven ability in never winning a Stanley Cup. The wealth of experience that Zach Parise and Ryan Suter brought in not winning when it counts in the Stanley Cup playoffs will be a boon to the Wild as they bow out in four straight games.

This is either Parise or Suter. Hard to tell

Analyzing the Team Name -  The Wild team name, much like their crest is difficult to figure out. It is one of only 4 other North American professional sports teams (so, excluding soccer) that can't be pluralized (no, i won't tell you the others).  The crest sort of looks like a tripped out mountain lion from afar but on closer inspection is more of forest at night motif. Minnesota has lots of lakes that are frozen over much of the year and is known solely for it's most (and only) famous native Minnesotan, Prince.

I guess the Minnesota 'White-Outs' came in second.

Playoff Prediction; hahahahaha ha haha (gasp,gasp) hahahahahaha

Great Hockey Riots #9

Edmonton Riot of 2006 - the Oilers defeat the Anaheim Ducks in conference final

Unlike #10, the Oilers actually made it out of the first round before things got a bit premature. The riot happened after they won the right to play in the Finals on behalf of the Western Conference, a fact nobody thought would ever happen again until someone invented time travel and went back to the mid-eighties.

In the eighties the Oilers were the class of the league.  Fast, talented and tough they ushered in a new style of play that focused on goal scoring, cheap shots (led by Mark Messier) and getting the puck to Wayne Gretzky.  They played a score now, worry about defense later style of play that made for the most exciting hockey since the movie Slapshot.  

Then The Trade happened.  Oilers owner Peter Pocklington needed money and sold the Oilers and the NHL's biggest asset in Wayne Gretzky to the LA Kings.  Except for one last hurrah towards respectability in 1990, the Oilers quickly sank down to their current level on the cusp of being either an average farm league team or an elite beer league team.
It stayed that way until 2006, the year after the NHL's 2nd work stoppage.  The first year of the owner imposed salary cap system meant that the perpetually poor Oilers were able to acquire the skills of MVP defenceman Chris Pronger and the heart of Mike Peca who at one time was destined to replace Stan Smyl in the Canuck organization, in ogie's perfect world before the Canuck organization messed that up, as per club policy.

Despite the acquisition of some top-rated talent and the continued use of some mid to low rated talent, the Oilers squeaked into the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference.  From there they would go on to surprise everybody in the hockey universe by beating the league leading Detroit Red Wings, then go on to beat the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks to meet the Carolina Hurricanes, who surprised everybody because they had no idea a team existed in Carolina.

So, figuring that the Stanley Cup was all but theirs again, they streamed out of the pubs and clubs to party like it was 1985 again.  Some Oiler faithful took advantage of the riot and decided to take matters into their own hands and settle a debt they had with a phone booth on Whyte Avenue:

i have no idea what this phone booth did to deserve such hatred.

Speaking on behalf of the Edmonton tourism board; 

"It's madness, it's just madness," said Steve Parent, 19, on Whyte Avenue. "This is how real Edmontonians party."

As riots go, it was a pretty friendly one; only two people were stabbed, a dozen arrests were made out of an estimated 50,000 people.
The Oilers did manage to win 15 out of 16 games and helped Canada forget all about their hatred towards the NHL owners for the loss of the 2005 season but as riots go, unless you were using a pay phone that night, it was a pretty mild affair.