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 13, 2009

Of course, I don’t actually mean that.

Before I go on, I want to say congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins and your fans. You fought hard and didn’t quit when you were down 2-0 in the series and again after a 5-0 loss in game five. It’s not your fault that you won.

There’s really no reason to sugarcoat this, so I am simply going to just say it: This series was rigged in favor of the Pen’s. Not to take anything away from them. They played hard, fought hard and persevered. But they shouldn’t have won this series.

Category: NHL | 22 Comments »
Tags: detroit red wings, gary bettman, pittsburgh penguins, stanley cup finals

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 | June 1, 2009

In the last 12 hours, Evgeni Malkin has gotten lucky on three fronts. First, he’s lucky that the NHL didn’t fine and suspend him for attacking Henrik Zetterberg at the end of game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. He came at him with two glancing blows to the back of his head with his stick. If this were another player, or a game where the stakes weren’t as high, he’d undoubtedly be sitting out a couple of games for that.

Then he got lucky again this morning when the NHL redacted the fight instigator misconduct penalty that was assessed by officials at the end of the fight last night. This penalty carries a game suspension if it occurs in the last five minutes of the game, which it obviously did. Again, if this were someone other than the League’s leading scorer, in a contest other the last series for the championship, this call surely would have been upheld.

But those two instances pale in comparison to the biggest stroke of luck in Malkin’s favor – the fact that the official aggressively intervened and saved him from getting his ass pummelled by ‘Z’. Hank was on his way to showing young Malkin that he just f***ed with the wrong bull but instead he’ll live to play in game three because the referee got between the two of them and even absorbed a blow or two that were meant for Malkin’s dome.

Check out the video:

Category: NHL | Comments Off
Tags: classic, claude lemieux, darren mccarty, detroit red wings, evgeni malkin, fight, henrik zetterberg, pittsburgh penguins, Playoffs, stanley cup championships

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