Now that the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Washington Capitals, we can all focus on the Eastern conference final between the Pens and the Carolina Hurricanes, who defeated the Boston Bruins in a tremendous game seven Thursday night. For those of you seeking storylines for the series, let me be of assistance of what you may (or may not) hear from sportscasters and writers over the next week.
- Eric Staal and Jordan Staal are brothers. I feel like you should hear this from me since the announcers will fail to mention this.
- Although Tuomo Ruutu is the brother of former Penguin Jarkko Ruutu, Pirate great Turner Ward is not related to Carolina's goalie Cam Ward.
- Scott Walker, who scored the series winning goal against Boston, is not a Texas Ranger even though he may think he is after punching out the Bruins’ Aaron Ward.
- Sergei Samsonov and Simeon Varlamov are not the same person.
- It's time for Bill Cowher to decide whether he supports the Penguins or the Canes. 
- Cam Ward and Ryan Bayda are both from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. OK, no one outside of Saskatoon will mention this, but I still think Saskatoon is one of the greatest city names ever.
- After watching hundreds of "The Portal at NHL.com" commercials, you will snap and want to "Scott Walker" guy who randomly (and unconvincingly) appears to be in the stands and locker room. Conversely, you realize that the FreeCreditReport.com commercials aren’t as bad as you originally thought.
- The Penguins will get all of the calls since the NHL wants Sidney Crosby in the finals. Oh sorry about that. I channeled my co-worker who is a Washington Capitals fan momentarily.
- Craig Adams is on a one-game goal-scoring streak! (Or the Penguins are undefeated in game sevens when Craig Adams scores a goal.)
- Ron Francis, Carolina’s associate head coach, won two Stanley Cups with the Penguins. Even if Francis decides to "Scott Walker" the cotton candy guy, which would completely out of character for this three time Lady Byng recipient, he will still be loved in Pittsburgh. (h/t Empty Netters for this video)
- Will the Pens see the return of Casey Hampton at its home games? Since Ric Flair is a huge Canes fan, who would win in a steel-cage match between these two?
Let's just hope Casey Hampton keeps his shirt on this time unlike during the Super Bowl parade.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Penguins-Hurricanes Storylines
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4 comments:
The Penguins will get all of the calls since the NHL wants Sidney Crosby in the finals.one needn't be a bitter caps or flyers fan to believe this to be true... to put it another way, pens fans would say the same thing about the caps and ovechkin had they won game 7... and to me, they're both reasonably plausible...
assuming arguendo that the penguins will get favorable treatment from the officials, it's still silly for pens fans to see that as a drawback somehow... style points may be fancy and nice, but what we would ultimately like to see is crosby and co. hoisting the stanley cup sometime next month... even if it comes with some small assist from the zebras, that's better than if it doesn't come at all...
Pirate great Turner Ward is not related to Carolina's goalie Cam Ward.Ah, but are either of them related to Hines?
Captain - I don't know of any Penguins fans who would have thought of an NHL conspiracy if the Caps won. If they won, it would have been because Varlomov had a monster game.
Archi - Yes, Hines Ward would have been a more obvious choice.
I didn't mean that anyone would suspect a conspiracy caused the caps to beat the penguins... I meant to suggest that penguins fans (and others) would (perhaps rightly) suspect that the caps would get more favorable calls in the conference finals against carolina...
professional sports are multi-billion dollar businesses... ok, maybe multi-million dollar businesses in the NHL's case... and to some extent, that's the point... the NHL is in some really bad shape right now, what with franchises going bankrupt... NBC is pulling the plug on the big screen outside of mellon arena because of the slight chance that they'll squeeze half a ratings point out of additional home viewers... and aren't some players starting to choose to play in europe instead?
fans like to think of professional sports as if they are outposts of pure, unadulterated competiton that's full of good... they don't like to see 'em like their credit card company, always manipulating them and playing on emotion to get as much cash out of the consumers as possible...
and that's why I wouldn't put it past the NHL at all to try and influence the outcome of the playoffs... it's not all or nothing... the fix doesn't have to be in with a scripted professional wrestling storyline... but telling officials how to adjudicate borderline cases to help the league's bottom line and its image? totally possible, if not likely...
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