Got 4 out of 8, the West killed me. I was surprised by both the Kings and the Wild. The Sharks choked again

Now watching: game 1 of Boston/Montréal! 17 minutes to go! Fuck, the Bruins just scored 2-1 Habs

I was originally a kings fan, but i got a job at the honda center two months ago, and have been following the ducks since. i'd like to see the kings go all the way but if the ducks take em out, ill still be happy.

As a Liverpool fan, I got quite a kick out of John Terry's tears at the final whistle. Looking forward to an attacking, positive flowing final rather than the negative, pathetic time wasting final it could have been.

Haha! Yeah, the sweet tears of a lionhearted wanker.
Maybe if he had gotten himself suspended or injured for the final, he would have been able to kit up and lift another european trophy, the shameless buffoon.

That was 100x more nerve-wracking than the gold medal game!!

I didn't post my predictions because there wasn't much I could say thanks to missing a huge chunk of the regular season (don't get a job, kids), but here's what I expected from the first round.

Avs over Wild in 5: Colorado has always been a pretty rough bugaboo for my hometown Blackhawks, and they're a young team with a great offense that could explode at any given moment, plus Varly's been great all year. And then what do they do? Drop it in seven against a bunch of good guys who have been out of their prime for ages. Hey, whatever, I like Minnesota a lot more so I'm glad they wound up winning, but I totally would have gotten this series wrong.

Hawks over Blues in 7: I'm well aware I'm a Hawks fan, but there were only two teams I was worried about facing this postseason: Colorado and St. Louis. The thing about the Blues is that they limped into the playoffs with zero momentum, so I figured we could take them if we stole one early and got them reeling, keeping the momentum away from them and eventually winning out over what would surely be a bunch of repeated murder attempts (I really fucking hate the goddamn Blues). When we dropped the first two, I changed my prediction to Blues in 5, but then they dropped four straight so what the fuck do I know.

Ducks over Stars in 6: I dunno, I missed so much of the season that I know next to nothing about these two teams this year, I just guessed.

Kings over Sharks in 7: Same here, although this time I had the historical knowledge of San Jose always choking and Los Angeles just stepping up considerably in the playoffs in recent years. SJ went up by three, and then LA became the fourth team in history to come back and win a series after losing the first three games. So I was totally right on this one for the exact reasons I predicted. I'd say I look like a genius for predicting something so rare, but really, this was a foregone conclusion. Considering the teams playing, what the hell else could have possibly happened?

Bruins over Wings in 6: Boston is arguably the best team in the league right now. Detroit is a great team and are always going to contend, but it' gonna be really hard to stop the B's. They just never had a chance.

Lightning over Habs in 7: Honestly, this was mostly wishful thinking since I really like Tampa and really dislike Montreal. The Habs showed absolutely no mercy and just totally dominated the series in every facet of the game. I'd've looked like a total idiot for guessing this one. Montreal V Boston is going to be a monstrous series.

Jackets over Pens in 7: This was partially wishful thinking as well, since I just love seeing underdog teams succeed out of nowhere, but also a buddy of mine made a really compelling case for why this was the most valuable upset to bet on, so he swayed me and I bought into it. I would have lost money had I bet it, obviously, but they put up a much better fight than I would have expected.

Rangers over Flyers in 6: Fuck the Flyers.


Anyway, this is what I'm guessing now, with no rationale behind it:

Hawks over Wild in 5
Kings over Ducks in 7
Habs over Bruins in 6
Pens over Rangers in 5

The Habs V Bruins series could really go either way, but we could very well have a repeat in both conferences from last season. That would be boring, but it would also mean my team could repeat the Cup, so I'll allow it.

New York Rangers against Pittsburgh. As a Sens fan, I gotta say fuuuck this series! Can't they both lose?

Then I watched the Ontario League final. They mentioned some Guelph guy being voted "third most underrated player." In a way, doesn't that turn around and make him the most underrated? I mean, he's underrated even compared to the other underrated guys! Whew! Have fun untangling that shit:p

Pens over the Rangers in 5? No fucking way! The Rangers have a better depth than the Pens, their defense and goaltending is great! Rangers in 6, I say. Go King Henrik!

Glad you picked the Habs though but we need to play better if we want to win, Price won the game by himself yesterday and we were lucky. Frustrating the Bruins will lead us to victory, they have the better team but it's always an emotional series and we need to keep our emotions in check, that's something the Bs didn't do yesterday, they took bad penalties and Subban scored twice on the powerplay including the 2nd OT GOW. Game 2 tomorrow at noon, uh I hate afternoon games!

I'm kinda sad the Blues, Stars and Sharks are already eliminated, especially Saint Louis, they were my pick for the finals!

I'm a big hockey fan since I first came to North America. My favourite teams are and have always been the Montreal Canadiens (I hope they'll beat the Bruins!) and the Phoenix Coyotes (future Arizona Coyotes). Since I'm living in Gatineau, I'm going to watch a few Ottawa Senators games as well and started to like this team, too but not as much as the other two. This season was the first time I was actually able to go to see some NHL games. I've watched Nashville vs. Montreal and New York Islanders vs. Montreal at Bell Center and Florida Panthers vs. Ottawa as well as Montreal Canadiens vs. Ottawa (the epic 7-4 win for the Habs!) at the Canadian Tire Centre. I'm also watching some LHJMQ, this year I've followed the games of the Olympiques de Gatineau, the years before I went to see the Saguenéens de Chicoutimi. I'm not a fan of any particular team but I like Chicoutimi and Baie-Comeau.

My other favourite sport is soccer. I'm going to watch the games of Montreal Impact FC as often as I can since they are playing in the MLS. In Europe, I'm supporting Zenit Sankt Peterburg in Russia and OSC Lille in France and as a German I'm obviously following the German Bundesliga a lot which is also my favourite league because it always reserves some surprises (Wolfsburg winning the league in 2009 for example) and there is a good mixture of small and newly promoted teams (I like Augsburg, Freiburg, Mainz and even the controversial Hoffenheim) and traditional teams (Bremen, Dortmund, Munich etc.).

Can-Am League baseball returns to Ottawa for 2015 Welcome back!
This time we'll try not to let the corporate politicians kill the team after a couple years, fir a misguided greedy hope of drawing a richer, higher-league team.

I hate you and him and your shitty team and I hope they all catch dysentery and have to forfeit the series. Almost nothing would make me less happy than seeing Montreal win it all.

That's how I feel about the other Eastern series! Man, this conference is horrible this year. Look who's left: - my least favourite Canadian team, who cheat
- the team trying to eliminate that only Canadian team
- the Rangers and Penguins, who are enemies of Ottawa.

I am a reluctant temporary Habs fan, using the word 'fan' loosely.

Who cheat? Give me a break, it's not the 1950s anymore. No need to be a fan, go praise Karlsson while being bored on Rideau Street!

Nothing would piss me off more than the Blackhawks of the Bruins winning the Cup again, not a lot of things make me want to punch people, hockey is definitely one of them! Watch the fuck out, Bastard, you spoiled Chicago child.

I'm reaping the fruits of fifty years of being awful. We built it, you bought it.

Chicago/Montréal for the Cup, I'm preparing my insults.

There will be blood!

what's that got to do with anything? Is winning with honour an outdated concept? Hey, I still hope Montreal wins, but it's s bit like how I ~cheer~ fir Liverpool, now that friggin Luis Suarez is our best player.

@Bastard, I for one wouldn't mind a Hawks repeat. Not everyone outside of Chicago is enraged by jealousy of your dynasty potential:)

I thought you meant how the Habs were cheating with the way they were getting their players back in the day. They had all the Quebecois... I don't see how winning Montreal winning the cup in 2014 can be cheating...

Following this Man City v Villa game is intense, especially as Villa are managing to hold their ground. A draw would be amazing, and at least take the title to the wire on Sunday. If City end up winning the title, I'll be gutted, but can admit that they deserve it in a way, any team that drops a 3 goal lead, and makes so many errors in a season doesn't always win the title. Too many skin of the teeth scrappy wins and defensive errors over the season.

Huh... that's really what you thought I was getting at You sure you weren't just covering your team's present-day ass?

Oh wait: You were indeed


For the record, I liked the old concession of the Canadiens getting first chance to claim Quebecois players. Though when the Nordiques return, that'll have to stay in the past.

That's like my least favorite thing in sports history. Most teams get a farm team, Montreal got a farm province, and SURPRISE they manhandled everybody for ages. Those two dozen cups are forever tainted as far as I'm concerned, even the ones that had nothing to do with that bullshit advantage.

As for a repeat, I really thought Chicago would be out against either St. Louis or Colorado this year, but we surprised me and took out the Blues, and the Wild surprised everybody by taking out the Avs. A repeat is much more likely now, if you ask me, though definitely not a guarantee. Pretty much every single team left has the tools to beat us. The rest of the playoffs are going to be a good fight for every team, and as long as it isn't Montreal, I'll be satisfied with the result

I still don't know what you by cheating then... And we could talk about Ottawa's failures if you want!

And the Habs, were more than nowadays, an instrumentalization for the Quebec people, the times of Maurice Richard were rough for the Francophone people and hockey was important, it gave a sort of power that we didn't quite have before the political change of the 1960s.



This is pissing me off a lot, the cups in the 70s had nothing to do with this sort of cheating. Guy Lafleur was drafted in the modern draft era, imagine if Marcel Dionne would had been drafted by the Habs too!
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl1971a.html

Sounds like you're just frustrated to me! Our 1993 cup was also cheating, eh?

The legend of that rule is greatly exaggerated and distorted. The rule existed for roughly 7 years in the 30s-40s and the Habs were never able to draft a player who played a single game in the NHL using the Quebecois rule. When the amateur draft was introduced in 1963, the Quebecois rule was once again in effect for a few years, and the Habs didn't use it until 1968 when they drafted Michel Plasse, and 1969 when they drafted Rejean Houle and Marc Tardif. The rule was eliminated not long after. Tardif was a journeyman goalie, and both Plasse and Houle played three seasons plus a handful of games in another before defecting to the Nordiques in the WHA. It hardly had an impact on the Habs dynasties.

No, no, we also stole Patrick Roy, he was drafted in the 2nd round to avoid suspicions.

This is cheating, Metantoine: http://www.youtube.com/embed/XanXIBhHCAg?autoplay=1 Knocking the net off to stop play. You've done a marvelous job dancing around the issue - much better job than Subban did dancing around the net!
It's one game though. It'll be forgotten once the next game starts, and one game can't taint an entire Stanley Cup win - unless it were the final deciding game.

As for Ottawa, we are the second-best team in Canada! I'll take my silver medal, thank you.

Well, City are champions. Any thoughts?

They've got an ace team. So it is well deserved but also lucky only because Crystanbul happened to Liverpool.

If I ever have the money, I'd like to buy a bottle of port, vintage 1927 - the last year Ottawa won the Stanley Cup. And only open it the next time that ever happens!

In this case, you will simply waste your money because you won’t be able to open it in a lifetime… but it may be some kind of an investment for your children and their children after this...

kluseba, are you a fan of another team, or just generally pessimistic?

It's not a question of being a fan or not. I like the Senators even though I'm a Canadiens and Coyotes fan. I think that the Senators have a very long way to go to reach out for the top. They were nearly there a few years ago but missed their chance since then they couldn't really convince me. I'm living in Gatineau right now and I have seen a couple of games at Canadian Tire Center but the team was really disappointing this year. While many other teams were stable and strong over the last years, Ottawa was pretty much inconsistent and I don't see how things are going to get better. I'm sure they won't be able to mess with the big names over the next decades. They are lacking some solid perspective players, real star players and a crowd behind them. It's a shame when you go to watch the Senators while they are playing against Toronto or Montreal because there are far more fans from these teams in the crowd.

Other topic: What do you think about FC Sevilla's win over Benfica Lissabon tonight?

Wooooooo, Montréal won! I was so stressed during the game, the conference final against the Rangers will be awesome!

The Ducks could eliminate the Kings tonight but I think this will also end in 7 game. We'll see. Cool to see 3 original six teams in the final 4 for sure!

This is turning out great! New York won their lesser-of-two-evils series, now I can delight in their demise too! And come on Kings, those Anaheim Fucks denied Ottawa's Cup back in '07, and I hold the iron grudge.

Kluseba, what you talkin' bout? Ottawa has star prospects.
- Lehner. Goalies take a while, but Anderson ain't signed forevere! He'll be ready.
- Eric Gryba. Solid physical defensive defenceman. Could be a new Scott Stevens, and will only get more feared and respected as his name gets known.
- even Karlsson is young enough that we might not have seen his best yet. 100 point season? Don't bet against it

Yes, many forwards took a big-ass step back. I'm very well sold on Mark Stone though.

Quite frankly, here in Portugal everyone pretty much felt that it was going to be very easy for Benfica, myself included. What's incredible about this is that it's the EIGHTH european final that Benfica loses in a row. The last time they won a final (European Cup) was in 1962 and they had a hungarian coach called Bela Guttman, who said that without him Benfica would never win a final again. Well, so far the "curse" (as it is called by the media) lives on...

Man I love sports. Good thing we have a clusterfuck thread that encompasses all of them at once. GO SPORTS!

Was reading about this just today- incredible story. Is this guy Guttman still alive? Maybe they can pay him to lift the curse...?!

Nah dude, he died in 1981!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...... Why Kings, why did you do this to me?

The only sport that really matters to me is MMA. Two guys punching each other in the face... EVERYBODY understands a fight! I understand that combat sports are not for everybody, but to those of us who are into it... now is really a great time to be a fan. Despite the downward spiral that Dana White has steered the sport into of late, the sport itself is as good as it gets. The fighters are better and better with every passing year, and there are more and more rising through the ranks. It really is a shame that the big boss has become such a money grubbing huckster... it really is tarnishing the credability that they have worked so hard for so long to gain.