Monday, May 28, 2007

 

2007 Cup final set to begin

Finally tonight, May 28th, the Cup final will get underway. No sense picking against the Senators right now. They have beyond a shadow of a doubt elevated their game more than any other team that I’ve seen in this years playoffs. The challenge for Anaheim will be to win that first game. Knowing full well that Ottawa has done this in all three rounds should be huge motivation for the Ducks, not that you would think anybody needs extra motivation come playoff time let alone the Cup finals – still – their pro scouts must be telling them that this is the real deal and one hell of a team in Ottawa. Getting behind in this series cannot be an option for the Ducks in my view.

Conversely, Ottawa must keep doing what they have been. The big line has picked up points in every game but one. Daniel Alfredsson is on a mission. Ironically the first Swede ever to play in the NHL was Gustav Forslund with the old Ottawa Senators in 1932-33. He only played the one year. He was born in Sweden but grew up in Canada and now there’s an opportunity for the first Swede ever to captain a Cup winning team. Incidentally, to be 100% accurate, three players have captained Cup winning teams that were born overseas. Dunc Munroe with the Montreal Maroons in 1926, Charlie Gardiner with Chicago in 1934 who was also their goaltender and Johnny Gottselig also with Chicago in their second Cup winning year in 1938. Gardiner was born in Scotland also and Gottselig in Russia. Daniel Alfredsson would become the first European born, raised and trained player to captain a Cup winning team. Although many in Canada are viewing this as a foregone conclusion the Ducks will be a very formidable opponent. For the first time this playoff season somebody will be able to match Ottawa physically. The Ducks are extremely sound in net and obviously they have a great defense. This should be a very, very interesting game tonight.

Anaheim got here by closing out Detroit. In my last column I stated Datsyuk and Zetterberg would have to step up. They did their part. A wild finish in the third period of that contest almost saw Detroit force OT but it was not meant to be. I would say for forty minutes, the first two periods, Anaheim looked as good as any team I’ve seen in this years playoffs. We’ll see if they can bring that tonight against a very, very hot Ottawa club. I’ll call the Sens to win this series in six games.

My last comment for today is regarding TV coverage. For a number of years now those of us in Canada have come to expect what was for years a normal playoff schedule being jerked all over the place to accommodate American TV networks. I have no problem with the various networks that have broadcast the playoffs nor any of the on air crew. In fact there have been several broadcast teams over the years from our hockey brethren in the south that I enjoy listening to and watching as much or more than what we have on Hockey Night in Canada. Having said that – enough is enough. There is no multi million TV deal with NBC. In my view the NHL had their best years they will ever see with an American audience from 1988-1994. The Gretzky trade to LA, Mario’s Cup wins in Pittsburgh, LA going to the finals with Gretzky in ’93 and the Rangers winning in 1994. All of that added up to a richest TV contract the NHL ever saw from an American rights holder. Regretfully the league rolled right into a 103 day lockout and did not recover for ten years and not until a full season was lost in 2004-05. Folks, it’s time for Gary Bettman to realize this is a sham how we ended up with afternoon games specifically when it left Hockey Night in Canada with nothing in several instances. That’s an abject farce. It’s a freakin’ joke and what I’d like to know and will attempt to find out for the next blog is what recourse does HNIC have given they are shelling out their largest amount of capital ever for their rights and they ( and us ) end up getting stiffed. The fact that NBC left a playoff game going into OT for pre Preakness coverage is the most disgusting thing I have ever, ever heard of in the history of TV broadcasting of hockey. The one saving grace ironically is that with a team from the West coast in the final the league obviously could not schedule a game at 2 or 3pm EST on a Saturday afternoon. Can you imagine – an 11am playoff game locally in Anaheim? Who knows, maybe that’s next so NBC can cut away to an NFL parole hearing or something of equally profound importance to their so-called hockey audience.

Facts for the playoffs

The Ducks' Rob and Scott Niedermayer will be the first brothers to appear in the Final as teammates since the Philadelphia Flyers' Rich and Ron Sutter in the 1985 Final against Edmonton. The last brother combination to win the Stanley Cup was Brent and Duane Sutter, who captured their second consecutive title together with the New York Islanders in 1983. The Niedermayer’s became the first set of brothers on opposing clubs in the Stanley Cup Final since 1946 when Scott's New Jersey Devils defeated Rob's Ducks in 2003. In 1946 Montreal's Ken Reardon faced his brother Terry Reardon with the Bruins in the final.

Ducks right wing Teemu Selanne, who has played 1,041 regular-season and 81 playoff games in his 14-year NHL career, will be making his first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. The series will cap off a memorable 2006-07 campaign that featured his 500th career goal (Nov. 22 at Colorado) and his 1,000th game (Dec. 31 at Minnesota). At 36 years of age (born July 3, 1970), Selanne became the first player in NHL history 35 or older to record consecutive 40-goal seasons and the oldest player in League history to score 45 goals in one season. He finished the campaign with a club-leading 48 goals, third in the League overall.

The Stanley Cup Final will feature 17 players who were selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft, nine from Ottawa and eight from Anaheim.From Ottawa: C Patrick Eaves (#29, by Ottawa, 2003); LW Dany Heatley (#2, by Atlanta, 2000); LW Dean McAmmond (#22, by Chicago, 1991), D Andrej Meszaros (#23, by Ottawa, 2004); D Chris Phillips (#1, by Ottawa, 1996); D Wade Redden (#2, by New York Islanders, 1995), LW Oleg Saprykin (#11, by Calgary, 1999); C Jason Spezza (#2, by Ottawa, 2001); D Anton Volchenkov (#21, by Ottawa, 2000); From Anaheim: C Ryan Getzlaf (#19, by Anaheim, 2003); G J.S. Giguere (#13, by Hartford, 1995); LW Brad May (#14, by Buffalo, 1990); C Rob Niedermayer (#5, by Florida, 1993); D Scott Niedermayer (#3, by New Jersey, 1991); RW Corey Perry (#28, by Anaheim, 2003); D Chris Pronger (#2 overall, by Hartford, 1993); RW Teemu Selanne (#10, by Winnipeg, 1988).

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

 

Somebody pay the baby sitter ( thanks Sweden) Canada reclaims stop spot

Icing their youngest team ever and with a couple of shaky starts at the beginning, Team Canada jelled – to say the least – and picked up another gold medal at this years edition of the World Hockey Championships played in Russia. Granted its not a tournament that the whole hockey world stops and watches but the hockey is still very spirited and high quality and recently it’s been a breeding ground for medals for Canada and that’s never a bad thing.

The recent trend has seen Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton, Sydney Crosby and now Rick Nash lead Canada. Crosby is the only one of that group that did not win gold but he did lead the tournament in scoring and he was voted the top forward. That’s a nice feather in the cap for Nash, the former Rocket Richard Trophy winner who has seen his goal total drop in each of his past two NHL seasons since he copped that award in 2004 along with Jarome Iginla and Ilya Kovalchuk. Nash’s second goal of the gold medal game against the plucky Finn’s was a classic. It was very reminiscent of the Peter Mahovlich short handed marker against the Soviet National team in game two of the Summit series in 1972. Both were huge goals at the time and what it shows is that thirty-five years later, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman should be feeling awesome after that victory, his first win in his first try as GM of any hockey entity. And with somewhere in the vicinity of 18 or 19 players saying no that they did not want to go to Russia that makes it all the sweeter. Great job to a guy who will do down as one of the top captains in hockey history and now he begins his formal foray into executive life with a Gold medal.

Actually I guess technically Yzerman’s first job as a hockey executive began this season with the Red Wings. As of this writing Detroit is down three games to two with game six to be played in less than six hours in Anaheim. Buckle up the chin straps folks. It should be a beauty. This series has been impossible to predict so who knows what will happen tonight. You would think that the nature of how game five ended might be enough to drive a stake in to the hearts of any Red Wing player and their supporters. In fact speaking of goals that were eerily similar, Scott Niedermayer’s game tying marker in game five against Dominik Hasek looked very much like Trevor Linden’s goal to help Team Canada tie the Czech’s at 1-1 in their semi-final game at the 1998 Olympics. In that instance Linden fired a shot that also hit a stick and beat a surprised Dominik Hasek. Fortunately in the case of the Ducks there is no shoot out in the NHL. Bad bit of luck by Andreas Lilja to lose the puck right in front of Hasek but give credit where it’s due to Selanne and Co., for hanging around in a game that by rights they should not have won. As for the Chris Pronger one game suspension I think he deserved it. It was a gutsy call but the right one to make even though the call on the ice was incorrect with the five minute major and game misconduct going to Rob Niedermayer. Tomas Holmstrom could play on my team any day. To take the abuse he does, let alone coming back from that head shot to play after taking thirteen stitches was pretty impressive. Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datysuk better get their acts in gear and play a bit like Holmstrom or its golf season tonight for the Wings.

The Eastern side is all set thanks to the Ottawa Senators who for the third consecutive time cleaned out an opponent in five games. Accolades are wide spread for the Senators. In each of their past two series wins they closed out their opposition in game five both times in games where they were down 1-0 and in both instances these were the first games in those series where the team not scoring first went on to win. Very impressive. The reaction here in Ottawa has been phenomenal. Thousands greeted the players when they arrived by plane from Buffalo and the crowd was reported to be around 8000 that headed out onto Elgin Street now dubbed ‘Sens mile’ amid a sea of red garments and red faces. Possibly a few pints were had but there were no reports of any bare chested ladies however Ottawa has not played their first game of the finals yet either. Stand by on that one.

Bottom line - this is an Ottawa team that deserves credit. Ironically they are sporting their most Canadian lineup in the past ten years that they’ve made the post season. I hate to always put on the big collar and crow from the pulpit but the facts are that this lineup is vastly grittier with the likes of Chris Kelly and Dean McAmmond than Marion Hossa and Martin Havlat. Take a guy like Dany Heatley who is leading the playoffs in scoring; Heatley chops guys back who cheap shot him. He’s not shy of using his body in front of the net to create the room he needs to cradle the puck for the .01 of a second that he needs to release his shot. It’s just an infinitely different attitude and I think it starts with the coach. Bryan Murray was a very tough senior hockey player in and around the Ottawa area years ago and he takes no crap from anybody. Players reflect the coach they play for. In the case of Ottawa – for eight very long seasons- this was Jacques Martin and God love him because he is a great coach but to go to this next level Mr. Martin did not have the capability. Ottawa sported fifteen players on their roster in game five that were born in Canada. Second only to Anaheim’s seventeen. Like I said earlier, the more things change……

Notes

-The last all-Canadian team to win the Cup was the 1975 Philadelphia Flyers.
-local Ottawa area reporter Ian Mendes came up with a beauty regarding Cup winners and the years ending in ‘7’ check this out – this is since the NHL began in 1918.
1927- Ottawa
1937- Detroit
1947 – Toronto
1957- Montreal
1967 – Toronto
1977 – Montreal
1987 – Edmonton
1997 – Detroit

In other words either Detroit or a Canadian team has won the Cup every year ending in ‘7’ since the NHL began.

Liam Maguire

Thursday, May 10, 2007

 

Shane Doan lunacy overshadows Team Canada and NHL playoffs. Briefly.

I love to read about Canadian history especially through the 20th century where we were at the forefront of so many of the most important things to happen in the world. I talk about several of these moments in time every occasion I have to speak publicly and I try and leave the house every day with something, anything, that has the Canadian flag on it. This makes me a proud Canadian, not a special Canadian by any means but I am without question someone who is fiercely proud of our Country. It made sick to my stomach to have to read, listen and see the gutlessness, the absolute farcical events of last week that saw several of our politicians grilling Bob Nicholson of Hockey Canada over the selection of Shane Doan as our captain at this year’s World Championships.

Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Dennis Coderre or anybody else of a political persuasion who have voiced a concern over Shane Doan’s captaincy because of this unfounded verbal incident almost a year and a half ago – these politicians are vermin. They are despicable and an abject farce given their roles as our leaders. To think that time was spent to have Mr. Nicholson come in to attend to this 17-18 months after an investigation was conducted by the NHL which treats these matters very, very seriously, to think that time was taken by members of our government sets us back a hundred years in my view in the eyes of the world. When you’ve got Rene Fassel of the IIHF backing you up, which Team Canada does in this case, that folks says a lot about which side of the coin we all should be on this issue.

I was born in Montreal. My mother is from a small town north of Quebec City. I love the province; I have many, many family members that live there still and numerous friends. I’m a die hard Hab fan. I say all this because it’s so easy these days to take a gratuitous shot at the Bloc Quebecois. They are so disjointed. Thank God their control, such as it was, appears to be waning at the moment. I do not know of a more hypocrite bunch of jerks than those in that political party with their Bill 101 and every other element of their separatist attitude. Why not drag Ted Lindsay into court for his verbal infractions against Rocket Richard? Mr. Lindsay has admitted numerous times in countless interviews that he called the Rocket ‘a frog’ although I think we all know it was much worse than that. What’s stopping a full investigation into all slurs against French players going back as far as we can trace? Oops, probably just gave those morons an idea. It would be their first. Suffice to say this was the lowest moment ever in the history of hockey as far as I’m concerned. Not Bertuzzi-Moore. Not Green-Maki, not the Richard Riot, Shore-Bailey or even Masson-McCourt, the only on ice murder in Canadian hockey history. None of that matches this shameful display of Canadian politics if you can call it that. Thank God and I mean that sincerely, Thank God Mr. Nicholson and every other power that be from Steve Yzerman right on down have continued to tell these misguided idiots to get stuffed. I’d love to tell them a whole lot more.

On the hockey front, got a few right last series, got a few wrong. Ottawa and Buffalo got the wins I was calling. Same with Anaheim but for the second time Detroit has surprised me. Those are two huge playoff series victories for the Senators. I believe Buffalo are the better hockey club. I think the Sabres are every bit if not more so, destined to win a Cup much like Senator faithful extol in many a radio call in show however, I simply cannot go against the Senators right now. They have stepped up and to be honest the fact they are having this success without Hossa, without Chara, without Havlat, I absolutely love. For those of us who live here in the Ottawa area, we’ve got to listen to people phone in or write in to our dailies and complain about those players not being here and how it will hurt us in the playoffs then in the next sentence say that Jason Spezza has to do more corner work for the Senators to be successful. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. This is a very new group by and large to the sport. They have turned on to this team over the past decade since they’ve gotten good and other than not needing an explanation for an offside or an icing call there is very little difference with the main stream Ottawa Senator fan and a Nashville Predator fan. But they’re having a great ride with this team and I think it’s going to continue. I’ll call the Sens in six games over the Sabres.

I really think that Detroit is going to miss Mathieu Schneider. That’s an easy statement to make obviously. His six points in 12 games are not outstanding by any means but his 30+ minutes a game are definitely going to be missed. Lidstrom and Chelios picked up the slack through the rest of game five and then game six but this is the start of a new series against arguably the most physical team in the NHL so I predict that Detroit will not be able to stay with the Ducks over this best-of-seven. Hasek maybe could step up again and steal this one. Anaheim is four years removed from their Cup final run but Detroit is five years beyond their last Cup triumph. They should be a great series, both of them.

Coming soon to a TV station near you, a new reality show; “how to be an incompetent politician.” Be well folks and we'll talk to you next week.

Liam Maguire

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

 

How long before somebody suggests a shootout?

I just had a discussion with an old school hockey fan that has picked up on the latest rage in hockey - that being to complain about the double overtime games. "I can't believe all these double OT games," he stated. "I think they should go to a four on four in the second over time for sure." At that pointI reminded him that based on percentages this year's playoff is headed to a similar amount of double OT games to what was played in 2003, just four years ago. In fact all this talk about how much these games take out of teams baffles me. I don't doubt for one second that it's exhausting to play an extra period let alone two or more but in 2003 New Jersey went into a third OT period against Tampa Bay, one of six OT games they played that year in winning their third Stanley Cup. They lost four of those OT games by the way. Why was it okay for them to play five on five and go on to win a Cup and not a team today? Why was it okay for Montreal to play eleven OT games in 1993 including a double OT game on route to winning their 24th Stanley Cup? How many more changes are we going to suggest to the game of hockey? Here's a novel concept. Fix the inconsistent refereeing and you'll improve the game overnight. There's not a whole lot else wrong. With the coaching today and the quality of the goaltending it's that much harder to score at all let alone in OT when the hatches are really battened down. But I still want to see a game decided in the traditional way. For God's sake don't screw around with the playoffs. Please. There's a reason that the Stanley Cup is regarded as the toughest trophy to win in sports and playing extra periods is one of those reasons. Baseball doesn't go with eight men in extra innings. Basketball doesn't pull a guy off the floor in OT. Why suggest that in hockey? Because of six double OT periods when in the last ten seasons we've averaged nearly five a year? And now it's a problem because why?? Because some lame brained twit in the media probably couldn't get to the bar quick enough to order his Shirley temple so he's upset at the length of the games. Brutal. Please leave the infrastructure of the game alone come playoff time. Incidentally, for the record there were nine double OT games in 2003.

Eddie Shack would not have survived in today's NHL. Well, he would have survived but probably not long. A life time suspension would have been right around the corner at every whistle. For the second time in a month I had the pleasure of working with him. This latest event was the St. Catharine's Home Show. I spoke at that event years ago with Pierre Pilote a three time Norris Trophy winner. Shack has his own records to mull over more than 30 years after his retirement. Four times a Cup winner, scored the Cup winning goal in 1963 for Toronto, was the first recipient of the MVP award in an all-star game, again in 1963. He was the first player to score twenty goals or more for five different teams. He played more than 1000 games and he accumulated 1437 pim's plus he was arguably one of the most entertaining hockey players of not only his era but any era in hockey. Hence the nickname. He also was involved in a couple of the more vicious stick swinging fights of all time. By his own admission he loved to fight and he loved the rough stuff. He broke a stick over Larry Zeidel's head, he speared Reggie Fleming, he knocked out Gordie Howe with a body check, he head butted Henri Richard and cut him badly just to name a few of his moments on the ice. I point this out for people who think the 'old' NHL was a kinder gentler league. Believe me folks, the further back you go the rougher it was there just wasn't as much video evidence. Now someone throws a cheap shot and fifteen cameras record it, CNN picks up on it, Larry King weighs in and the moral majority scream from the hill tops about the monsters in hockey, all Canadian according to some of these idiots, hello Jim Kelley and then these people go to bed at night thinking their spineless words have evoked a tidal wave of support to ban the sport. Of course they turn in before those games go into double OT. Those of us who are fans, the true fans, must continue to speak up and make ourselves heard. Don't think that every single one of you do not have the power to be heard. If you have not already done so you should join the NHLFA immediately. It's free and they are a group nearly 30,000 strong. They think like you do because if you are reading my blog the odds are you are a traditional hockey fan. Maybe not every one of you but most of you and even your one voice whether it be a letter-to-the-editor, a call in to a sports radio show or a well timed email to somebody who is taking a cheap shot at our national sport- fight the good fight. I'm right there with you. Need any help, just let me know.

Liam Maguire

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