TSDMike | June 20, 2009

I was checking web referral stats and I noticed a handful of hits from a Russian sports site, all linking to my rant about Bettman and the Stanley Cup Finals. I checked it out – It was a blog post of some sort with the title “Obituary for the 2008-2009 Red Wings”.

Here’s the website translated to English courtesy of Google Translator.

I guess this would explain all of the “Kiev Mail Order Brides” spam comments that I’ve had to delete over the course of the last couple of weeks.

Category: NHL | 1 Comment »
Tags: conspiracy, detroit red wings, gary bettman, hockey, NHL, pittsburgh penguins, stanley cup finals

TSDMike | June 14, 2009

A lot has been made of the fans’ reaction to the second period hit by Johan Franzen that knocked Sidney Crosby out of the game. I’ve read in comments and blog posts by various writers displaying the ubiquitous opinion that Detroit fans showed no class by cheering the injury to Pittsburgh’s franchise player when it occurred.

But, this is severely out of context, and the criticism is unwarranted.

Category: NFL, NHL, Other/General Commentary | 10 Comments »
Tags: collision, contact sports, detroit red wings, fans in detroit, game 7, hit, injury, joe louis arena, johan franzen, NHL, pittsburgh penguins, sidney crosby, stanley cup finals, violent game

TSDMike | June 9, 2009

Basketball has the Lakers. Baseball has the Yankees and football has the Patriots. The Detroit Red Wings are the NHL’s counterpart to the perennial winners in the other major sports. But the Wings are the only one of the group that has a legitimate chance to win the championship every single year. Detroit is about to put the finishing touches on what will very likely be their fifth championship in 12 years, in this, their sixth Stanley Cup Finals appearance in the last 14 years. The road to winning the cup almost always goes through Hockeytown.

If you look at the Stanley Cup Finals history since 1995, only four times were the teams to make the finals not required to defeat the Wings en route. The Red Wings are the only team to make the playoffs every single year during that period.

While this is obviously awesome for Red Wings fans – arguably the most popular team in the league – is this a good thing for the sport as a whole?

Category: NHL | Comments Off
Tags: dan wetzel, detroit red wings, dominance, hockeytown, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, parity, pittsburgh penguins, popular team, stanley cup finals history, wings fans

TSDMike | June 3, 2009

Twenty-one seconds.

Twenty-one seconds in the second period of game three of the Stanley Cup Finals kept this series from being a boring sweep by the heavily favored Red Wings. Twenty-one seconds prevented the Finals from being over in six days.

The whole playoff season this year has been a disaster for Gary Bettman and the NHL. In a league fighting for popularity and for relevance in the sports world, this has done nothing to bolster their position. Out of the 14 completed series, only the second round matchup of Pittsburgh and Washington had any excitement to it. The Penguins went on to storm through an overachieving Carolina team to reach the finals for the second straight year.

Detroit swept through their opening round against Columbus, then went seven games against an underrated Anaheim team – but that series should have been done in five games. Had Jonas Hiller not made 7,000 saves in game two’s triple overtime marathon, the Wings would have steamrolled the Ducks easily.

Category: NHL | 2 Comments »
Tags: blackhawks, evgeni malkin, gary bettman, nbc, NHL, pittsburgh penguins, Playoffs, red wings, sidney crosby, stanley cup finals

TSDMike | May 28, 2009

I made a friendly bet with one of my blogger buddies last week that if the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks in NHL Western Conference finals that he’d have to display a mildly humiliating banner in a conspicuous place on the index page of his site.

Two nights ago, I whipped up a quick graphic and in a dick move sent it over to him early, even though the series wasn’t exactly over yet, as the Wings were only up three games to one in the best-of-seven series. Detroit didn’t clinch the series until late last night.

Well I just checked out his site and sure enough, he manned up and installed my banner on his blog – check out my artwork on his site, haroldmartin.net.

So Blackhawks fans are OK as far as I am concerned – well at least one of them is.

Category: NHL, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tags: bet, Chicago blackhawks, detroit red wings, NHL

TSDMike | May 17, 2009

Red Wings. Blackhawks. Penguins. Hurricanes. The next two two weeks should be pretty exciting if you’re a hockey fan. Here are my predictions for the final four of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Category: NHL | Comments Off
Tags: carolina hurricanes, Chicago blackhawks, detroit red wings, eastern conference finals, goaltender, hockey fan, home ice advantage, NHL, pittsburgh penguins, playoff experience, stanley cup championships, western conference finals

TSDMike | May 14, 2009

The Ducks fought back from a 3-2 deficit to win game six and they’ve got a chance to pull two badass upsets in a row. And their fans don’t care.

Category: NBA, NHL | Comments Off
Tags: anaheim ducks, boston celtics, ESPN, game 7, henry samueli, home hockey, joe louis arena, los angeles lakers, NBA, NHL, orlando magic, Playoffs, red wings, stanley cup champions, western conference semifinals