Flying under the radar, at least in this country, are the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Hockey still exists, and the NHL is still in business, in spite of their lockout of two years ago. In the United States (outside of NHL cities), hockey gets lower TV ratings than poker, and is less popular than tractor pulls. It is a great spectator sport that has not translated well to TV. Now that the league is no longer seen on ESPN, the league has become out of sight and out of mind to most sports fans.
The Stanley Cup Finals begin Monday night just outside of Disneyland in Anaheim. Canada's Team, the Ottawa Senators, face the 57 Freeway's Team, the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks are no longer Mighty, as Disney sold the team a couple of years ago, and they are simply the Anaheim Ducks. Games 1 & 2 are on TV in the US, just barely, as they will be on Versus (way up the dial on digital cable and satellite). The remaining games will be on NBC, as long as there is no horse racing pre-game show. (NBC last Saturday left the Senators-Sabres playoff game before overtime to go to the Preakness pre-race show. The pre-race show got much better ratings than hockey) It's still a big deal in the Great White North, though.
These teams have not played since January 2006. What kind of league plays an 82-game schedule, but doesn't let every team play each other at least once or twice? In the NBA, even the Lakers have to play the Charlotte Bobcats twice.
I still like hockey. I can't bring myself to root for the Ducks, as I'm still a Dallas Stars fan. Go Sens!
2 comments:
I'm with you, buddy. I have to turn my back on California and am rooting for the reincarnated Senators, who in their second lifetime are making their first Cup final appearance but actually have quite a history of hoisting Lord Stanley's prize before they went belly-up in the late 1920s. This incarnation in the Canadian capital was reborn in 1993, but their jerseys carry a Roman 1894 establishment patch. Canada deserves to have the Cup back for a year; Edmonton nearly pulled it off last year but got nipped by Carolina. Now the Sens have the chance to return Stanley to its home nation, and where it's appreciated, for the first time since the league's once-signature franchise, the Canadiens, won it in 1993. Wow, it hasn't been won for Canada since the Senators returned? It's even gone to Tampa-St. Pete for two years (thanks to lockout), for crying out loud!
Yes, the Stanley Cup has been paraded in places such as Dallas, Tampa, and Raleigh since it has been won by a Canadian team. And, the Canadiens are the last team from north of the border to win it, though Fire (Calgary) and Oil (Edmonton) came close the last two times around.
The original Senators won something like 11 Stanley Cups in the old days. They had quite the dynasty going.
Ironically, the Ducks have 20 Canadians on their roster, while the Sens only have 11.
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