Stanley Cup Playoffs

ampersand · Post by **ampersand** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 7:16 pm

Chicago scored late and broke LA's streak of playoff wins at home. I think Chicago will ended it tomorrow.

Hey Cid, do you have your broom ready for tonight?

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:55 am

Man this game is insane. Will LA go home, or will Chicago have to play again?

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:29 am

In case anyone was curious, that was 2 overtime periods before Chicago finally put last year's champs away.

ampersand · Post by **ampersand** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 9:22 am

And I think a hat trick was scored in the process.

The Cid · Post by **The Cid** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:48 pm

Deacon wrote:Man this game is insane.

No matter how good every other sport can be, nothing is as intense as playoff overtime elimination game hockey.

And what was the difference? The same thing that decides every NHL championship: Chicago's goalie was slightly better than LA's. Crawford made a bunch of huge saves in the first overtime or they'd be headed back to LA.

So, Boston vs. Chicago. My hometown vs. my favorite non-Boston city. (And somewhere I also lived. My earliest memories are all in Chicago. So if you ever wondered why I tend to go easy on Chicago teams, that's why.)

You'd think there would be a lot of sports history between the two cities, but their history together isn't all that rich. Great Boston vs. Chicago moments:
-Young Jordan scores 63 in the old Boston Garden against the 1986 Celtics. Boston goes on to win the series anyway.
-The 1985 Bears steamroll the Patriots in not just the most lopsided Super Bowl ever, but one of the most lopsided sporting events ever.
-The 1918 World Series. Seriously. We have to back that far to find a relevant Boston vs. Chicago baseball moment, and those are quite possibly the two most devoted baseball towns we have left.
-That's about the entirety of heated playoff games between these two cities.

This ought to be a lot of fun.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:27 pm

Super Bowl XX was the one with the Super Bowl Shuffle right?

The Cid · Post by **The Cid** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:30 pm

Yes. And the Fridge. And Ditka.

ampersand · Post by **ampersand** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 8:40 pm

You have the President cup winners versus the Boston strong team. Two teams that at one point, were on the verge of elimination. Should be fascinating.

The Cid · Post by **The Cid** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 12:10 pm

After Wednesday night's game, I'm pumped for this series to keep going. This is going to be great.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:17 am

What kind of crap is this that the finals are stuck on the awkwardly named NBCSN rather than actual NBC? Fine for me I guess, other than being difficult to find, but what about those without cable?

Ah well. Great action, and Boston goes up 2-1.

The Cid · Post by **The Cid** » Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:33 pm

Only games 2 and 3 were scheduled for NBC Sports Network. (Motto: "If you thought the Fox Soccer Channel was jamming the English Premier League down your throats, wait until you get a load of us!") Going forward it's on NBC straight through.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:12 am

Good. It should be.

PS Isn't the awkwardly named NBCSN (I'm not going to forgive them for that) the new home for premier league soccer?

The Cid · Post by **The Cid** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 2:22 pm

Quick overview of that situation: Comcast used to own this marginal sports network named Versus. It wasn't terrifically successful, but it had the NHL after the cancelled season and that gave it some recognition. Well, Versus was still struggling when Comcast bought NBC and all that comes along with it. They decided to flip Versus into the NBC Sports Network, a growing network with visions of a piece of ESPN's pie. With the growing popularity of soccer (particularly European club teams) in the US, this new network invested a ton of money in getting both rights to EPL matches. Meanwhile, Fox Soccer Channel basically existed to show EPL matches to Americans, so now Fox has been forced to flip that into Fox Sports One, their wannabe ESPN. Also, CBS turned the never-watched College Sports Network into CBS Sports Network. They have no rights to anything of note, but they certainly love to pretend that people like sports radio mainstay Jim Rome. (But, because CBS is Viacom, this enabled South Park to do a hilarious and pretty accurate Jim Rome parody on their show.)

It will be very interesting to see how that impacts television rights negotiations with the major sports leagues. Net gain: We don't have to pay extra to get the channel that shows English soccer now.

Four games, so far. Four overtimes combined throughout the series. This one's a special Finals. This is awesome, it's like a competition between the NHL and NBA to see who can put together the more thrilling finale.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:59 pm

There's already the "Fox News" channel, so why not just the "Fox Sports" channel instead of "Sports One" which makes no sense? Or at least like the others call it "Fox Sports Network"? Ugh. Corporate branding.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:45 am

Wow, that was an expected last minute duo of goals by Chicago to win the Stanley Cup, and in the face of stellar play by Rask. I know how the Boston fans feel, I think. Congratulations to the Blackhawks on yet another NHL championship.

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