Before giving my predictions on this year's NHL playoff season, this past weekend our team (and town) hosted the Hockey Alberta Junior B Provincial Championships... and it was one incredible weekend of hockey action!
After the round robin portion of the tournament (Thurs, Friday & Saturday) we finished first in our pool (B) and thus we battled the champions from our league, Heritage Junior B Hockey League, the Cochrane Generals in the one semi-final game. Although Cochrane carried the territorial advantage in play and totally outshot us (50-23 by my stats), we won 4-2 due to some timely goals and some spectacular goaltending by Coulter Haugen (aka "Haugy"). Unfortunately, we did not play nearly as well on Sunday afternoon in the gold medal game against the Sherwood Park Knights and so we had to settle for the silver medal. Its disappointing (obviously) but it was such a super weekend with such amazing fan support... standing room only crowds Friday night, Saturday and Sunday afternoon! Also, it looks like our Head Coach, Reid Fenton, will be stepping down after six years as the coach of the team and so it was great for him to go out with a silver medal after all he's put into the team. He's an excellent coach and a good friend!
Now... onto my NHL playoff predictions... which I'm sure will once again be less successful than TSN's "Maggie the Monkey":
Western Conference
Detroit over Nashville in 5 games, San Jose over Calgary in 5 games, Colorado over Minnesota in 6 games, and Anaheim over Dallas in 7 games. My pick to come out of the West - the San Jose Sharks! Yes, Anaheim the defending champion and they are good... but they'll have at least two very tough series against Dallas and then Detroit, so I think San Jose will have the advantage.
Note: yes, I am still a Flames fan but they barely got into the playoffs and although they could suddenly go on a hot streak after being on such a cold streak... don't count on it!
Eastern Conference
Montreal over Boston in 7 games; Pittsburgh over Ottawa in 7 games; Philadelphia over Washington in 6 games; and NJ over NYR in 7 games. Some great matchups in the East! My pick to come out of the East: New Jersey... though I really don't like to pick them its hard to see anyone outdueling Martin Brodeur, esp Carey Price or Martin Biron. Marc-Andre Fleury may be able to do so, but I just don't think the Penguins have the defencemen to give Fleury enough of a break to hold off some pretty decent Devils offense.
At the very least, the NHL playoffs, esp the opening round, will provide a lot of tv double-headers... Fortunately Sarah likes to sit on the loveseat in the tv room and feed Caleb... so I suspect Caleb will do a lot of feeding and growing these next few weeks as he sits on mommy's lap and eats while we all watch the NHL playoffs!
Sport's cliche: "There's no I in team"
Steve's response: But there is an I in l'equipe (french word for "team")
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