Misc - NHL

ChampsWhen the NHL season began, I thought I would have more time to try to learn this sport. I didn’t. However, that didn’t keep me from picking two teams – something I have done the past several years. Admittedly, I’m not going to pick two teams that have no chance, but at the same time, my primary requirement was that they be expected to score a lot of goals. So, I chose Pittsburgh and San Jose in my first NHL post.

BlueSharks… you might find this interesting. Please recognize that I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the sport myself. In fact, I can’t watch it for more than about 30 seconds before I have to switch to “My Three Sons” or anything else – and I mean anything else. So, we’re in the same boat. Nevertheless, there are compelling stories as of tonight. In case you didn’t know it, the season ended Sunday and now I can dissect the playoffs.

Prelude to the Stanley Cup?In the only other post about hockey on this blog so far, I indicated that my favorite teams this season would be the Sharks and Penguins. I like fish. Well, actually, the only “fish” I like are fried clams because they’re more like a cross between french fries and chicken nuggets than the rest of that seafood crap. But, in lieu of no Connecticut Clams in the NHL, I got as close as I could. Yeah, I know Penguins are birds, but anything that can’t fly but can swim under water is a friggin’ fish.

Sidney Crosby, PittsburghWhile I’m not a big fan of hockey (not even a small fan), there are some things I like about the stats. Hockey is second only to baseball in terms of the number of unique stats available. If a person were a stats freak and an NHL fan, they would definitely have a lot to play with. Now, I grew up poor. My room in the old farm house was sloped so badly, I used to place red and black checkers at one end of the wood floor and let them roll down hill to the other end. I would keep stats on the results. So… anything that has a lot of stats interests me - even hockey. Anything that doesn’t… doesn’t.