hoc-key?

On the topic of hockey, guess what the first Google search result for the term "hockey" is? Unlike the first results for "football", "baseball", and "basketball", it is not the official website of the North American professional sports league representing the sport, it's the Wikipedia page for ice hockey. The official NHL website is the 3rd result. For what it's worth, the NHL manages to come in first on Google.ca. This is either a case of the Google being the ultimate arbiter of the truth or the NHL focusing its search engine optimization efforts on the markets with the biggest bang for the buck.

Hockey Night

After playing pond hockey for the first time last year, I finally got the chance to play on a real hockey rink last night. It wasn't real hockey (8 on 8, no positions, no line changes, no offsides, no face-offs, etc.), but it was still a lot of fun. Actually, it was a lot more fun than real hockey, since my inability to do anything other than skate in a straight line and stickhandle two or three times before losing control of the puck would be a serious handicap if I actually had to worry about pesky details like staying onside or passing or playing defense. I've played a lot of different sports at sub-amateur levels, but ice hockey is the most enjoyable sport I've ever played at such a low skill level.

On Frozen Pond

How I managed to live this long and never play pond hockey is beyond me. After playing for about three hours on a frozen lake in New Hampshire last weekend, I'm incredibly sore and still coming down from the adrenaline rush.

The Cup is Raised

Welcome back to Detroit, Stanley.

Back to the Future

It's taken about 15 years, but it's finally happened - the Red Wings and the Penguins are finally meeting in the Stanley Cup finals. This was a common prognostication, especially for this guy, back in the early 90s when the Penguins last ruled the NHL and the Red Wings were establishing themselves as one of the league's premier (regular-season) teams. In 1992, the last time the Penguins advanced to the finals, they faced an original six team with a backup goaltender by the name of Dominik Hasek. This time around, they're facing an original six team with a backup goaltender... you see where this is going. Hasek introduced himself to the NHL in game four of the 1992 finals when he came on in relief of Ed Belfour. By then, the Blackhawks had already lost the series, but Hasek's brilliance at least gave them a chance to stave off the sweep. As a Red Wings fan, I'm hoping that the Penguins of 2008 don't fare as well as their 1992 edition and I'm also hoping that Hasek's NHL career doesn't end the same way it began.

Swedish Fish

The performance of Detroit's Swedish contingent in last night's Wings-Avs game was probably the greatest gift that Sweden has given the world since reasonably priced, some assembly required, particle board furniture. If only Babcock would put three of the Swedish forwards together to create the Ikea line.

Outplayed

This year's NHL Western Conference final has to be one of the strangest playoff series I've ever seen. The Red Wings are on the brink of elimination after amassing a 2-1 lead, and yet I still feel like they are going to win. The obvious parallel to this series is the 2002 Western Conference finals, where the Wings and the Avalanche alternated wins in the first four games before Colorado won game 5 on the road in overtime after it looked like the Wings had it in the bag. The Wings, of course, managed to win games six and seven en route to the Stanley Cup. After that game five loss, however, I didn't think they had much of a chance.

I haven't lost my confidence in the Wings, but I'm not exactly buying into the story that they outplayed Anaheim in games four and five. They certainly outshot the Ducks and spent more time in control of the puck. They may have even outhit the Ducks in yesterday's game, but I don't know if they really outplayed them. Anaheim generated just as many quality scoring chances as the Wings, they just did it with fewer shots. Because Detroit's offense is built around puck control and taking a lot of shots, they often look like they are dominating even when they aren't. When Anaheim was able to gain the zone, they were able to control the puck in a way that Detroit was rarely able to do in the Anaheim zone. They connected on more of their passes, they were able to control the puck behind the goal and in front of it, and their defenders were constantly pinching in and preventing the Wings from making the easy clear.

I couldn't believe how biased the analysts were in favor of Detroit (and I'm a Red Wings fan). Anaheim's fans are a bit upset as well (all eight of them). In the studio between the third period and the start of overtime, they practically declared Detroit the winner and signed off for the afternoon. Even if I'm wrong and Detroit really outplayed the Ducks for 60 minutes, all of that goes out the window in overtime. One mistake or bad bounce and the game is over. I don't think there is any doubt that the Wings got outplayed in OT. In her write-up of the game, Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press seemed to attribute both of Anaheim's goals to luck, "a lucky bounce" and "the gift of a turnover". There was certainly an element of luck in Niedermayer's equalizer, but Selanne's game winner was all about skill and effort. It started when Lilja attempted a dangerous cross ice pass from the right side of the goal crease. He fanned on the pass and got muscled off the puck by an Anaheim player, who fed it to Selanne who then promptly deposited it in the back of the net. Luck had nothing to do with that sequence of events.

So why am I still confident that the Wings can win? Because tomorrow night, for the first time since game four, all of the pressure is going to be on the Ducks. The reason the Ducks have been successful despite the unimpressive numbers they have been putting up is because they have been more aggressive than the Wings. It doesn't hurt having J.S. Gigure between the pipes, and perhaps their confidence in their goaltender is what allows them to go on the attack, but come Tuesday night, the Wings will have no more excuses for playing tentative hockey. If guys like Draper and Maltby and especially Holmstrom can start out strong and make a statement early, I like Detroit's chances. If games three and four are any indication, there will be at least as many die hard Red Wings fans as die hard Ducks fans in attendance, so I don't see a big home ice advantage for Anaheim. If the Wings can force a game seven, it's anyone's series to take.

Hockey Night

As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about the NHL moving to Versus is the feed from CBC I'm watching right now. Versus has used the CBC feed for games three and four of the Detroit vs. Calgary series. I'm not sure why Versus didn't send their own crew out to Calgary. I did hear the announcers give a shout out to all of Versus viewers south of the 48th parallel during Tuesday night's game, so at the very least, we know that Versus is not stealing the feed off of CBC's satellite. Right now, the Premier of the Province of Alberta, who is in attendance at tonight's game, is being interviewed. You just don't get that kind of coverage from American hockey broadcast crews. Part of me enjoys the CBC coverage because it reminds me of home, but I mostly enjoy it because their broadcast crew is much better than Versus. I also recently discovered that CBC is streaming every Hockey Night in Canada playoff game online.

In other sporting news, the NBA playoffs are coming up and for the first time since the early/mid 1990s, the Golden State Warriors are in the postseason. I learned this on Deadspin this morning, and like Hockey Night in Canada, it brought back some memories. My brother was a big Warriors fan in the early 1990s. For reasons that escape me now, we nicknamed Billy Owens "Baby Back Ribs" back when he was playing with the Warriors. Not Billy "Baby Back Ribs" Owens or "Baby Back Ribs" Owens mind you, simply "Back Back Ribs". I don't really have anything else to say about this, it just popped into my head for the first time in about 15 years today when I read about Golden State and Billy Owens.