History Repeats...Sort of!

When I was in high school there was a kid in the same grade as me who couldn't play sports to save his life. He couldn't catch a football, he would constantly fall while trying to skate, too soft for rugby, he just didn't have any sports ability in him at all. The sad thing about this is that the kid loved sports!!! I mean he craved it!!! He knew the players in every sport...he followed the games by the numbers...he was even one of the biggest fans of every one of our high school teams!!! The jocks liked him just because of his knowledge and that was the group he hung out with. I'm sure he was proud to hang out with the jocks. He couldn't be one so this was as close as he could get. This kid has pursued his love of sports and is now a prominent sports columnist. From what I understand he still hangs with his old high school friends as much as possible even though he gets to meet the most elite athletes through his profession.

I'm telling you this story because I believe it's a direct parallel to a certain hockey team. My high school friend is amazingly similar to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team wishes it can be good enough to make the playoffs and hang out with the best of the best but they just don't have enough of that athletic ability to make it. Consequently they end up watching and cheering others that may be friends of theirs. Some of them will almost certainly be approached by TSN or Sportsnet to help out with play-by-play or just being the "special" guest for the playoff run. See the similarities?

Now, I'm not a Leaf hater. I just find it amusing that coach Paul Maurice started off the year by guaranteeing a trip to the playoffs to all of Leaf-Nation...and they bought it!!! This is their 3rd year in a row for getting the best tee-off times and it doesn't look too rosy for next year either.

Without getting too long-winded I will make some bold predictions for this year's post-season. Just remember, you heard it here first...

1. Ottawa will be lose in 5 games to their first-round opponent...probably New Jersey.
2. Washington will finish first in their division which will put them 3rd in the conference. This will give them home-ice advantage in the first round. I believe the Caps are the dark-horse team that wins the east and competes for the Stanley Cup.
3. The standings in the west will probably stay the same although I expect Calgary to move up a bit and Dallas to move down.
4. I believe San Jose will win the west but the dark-horse there is probably Minnesota. If I was a betting man I may put long money on Minnesota vs Washington for the Stanley Cup!!!

That's it for now...Like I said I didn't want to get too long-winded. If you have any thoughts about this years' playoffs please feel free to drop me a line!!!

CHEERS!!!!!

The Rokpig...

The Ship Has Been Righted

Hey Everybody,

This is starting to fall into the wrong pattern but I do have a good reason. I haven't been putting out a blog and speaking my mind lately and I'm sure you really miss me!!! OK...maybe not but hey I can dream right? Truth is I love speaking my mind when it comes to sports and anything else I'm passionate about...like my family! This leads me to why I haven't been blogging much lately and it has something to do with the blog title...my family ship has finally been righted. We have moved out of our 1300 sq ft house on one of the busiest streets in Kanata. We have moved into a 2700 sq ft house on a quiet street in Stittsville. Very busy with the whole move thing since the middle of September and there's still a bunch of work to do...but you don't care about that!!

So let's talk about one of the other ships that has been righted! The Sens have been going down a horrible stretch since the All-Star Break. Truth be told it's been going bad for quite some time. Hard to believe these guys were good enough to get to the Stanley Cup Finals last year! I guess Mike Comrie and Tom Preissing were really that good!!! Or is Bryan Murray that good? When he took over the GM job and assigned John Paddock as head coach I thought that wasn't a bad move! Bryan's been a very successful GM before and John had successfully coached the majority of the Sens stars while he was head coach in Binghampton!!! Besides, he's inheriting a phenominal team that any coach would dream of guiding to the finals again. Well....not so fast people!!! According to Liam Maguire, John Paddock is the first coach in the modern-era to coach in the all-star game and be gone before the end of the season. There's a lot of finger-pointing as to why this happened and the Ray Emery distraction seems to be at the centre of it all. He was a distraction from the beginning and John didn't handle it properly. He subsequently lost the players in the room. Enter Bryan Murray! The re-entrance of Bryan Murray should right the ship of this team and make them contenders again...that is, if one of the goalies can get it going!!!

Another ship that has been righted is the FaveQuest Nasty Hockey Show. For those of you who don't know I have been hosting a show with different co-hosts for the past 6 weeks at Philthy McNasty's in Kanata. Some of my guests have included Liam Maguire (http://liamslament.blogspot.com/), The Sensquatch (http://www.mefeedia.com/tags/sensquatch/), Shredder from The Sens Underground (http://sensunderground.com/) and Angela Grant Saunders from Saunders Farm (http://www.saundersfarm.com/). All video footage is posted on favequest.com (http://favequest.com/) and is pretty good entertainment if you have some time to check it out. We tape every Saturday at around 5:00pm for about a half hour but we'll be taking some time off to plan for the playoff run. The Nasty Hockey Show will return on Saturday, April 5th so circle that date on your calendars and try to make it out. Liam Maguire should be on hand to handle any trivia questions and to alert us of any "Gutless Pukes" that may have made it to the playoffs...he loves to speak his mind!!! Now the reason why I say this ship has been righted is quite simple...believe it or not this show is starting to attract an audience! Every week the hits on FaveQuest have steadily increased. For me it's a feeling of accomplishment as I have never done anything like this before in my life...but I love it! What a rush it is to be able to talk to passionate hockey fans over a couple of pints as it is being recorded and sent out on the internet! We are creating content and people are finding it interesting!!! Very cool!!!

With that in mind I hope you get a chance to check out the websites I've included. It should give you some insight into the fun you may have been missing...then you can right your own ship and check it out live on April 5th!!

CHEERS!!!
The Rokpig