La Coupe Stanley

La Coupe Stanley. I just love to say that. I don’t know why. There’s just something about mixing French and English that seems weird.

It may not be the most popular sports championship, but it is certainly one of the biggest. Literally. I can’t think of any team sports trophy that has the names of every team winner engraved on it. It’s the sports trophy answer to 6-foot-7, 263-pound Hal Gill.

It’s also the only sports championship where the sport is a totally different game than the regular season.

Sure, it’s still hockey, in that 12 players with sticks will bat a puck back and forth across a sheet of ice. But the intensity makes it a completely different game. When announcers say, during a lively stretch of a regular season game, that the teams are playing “tournament hockey,” it’s a big compliment.

The NHL has the longest season of all the major American sports, in a sport that is rivaled only by football in toughness. It’s impossible to maintain intensity from October to June, so there are bound to be lulls in the action. Try to stay awake at 1 a.m. as the Penguins play the L.A. Kings in December, and you’ll wonder how you became a hockey fan.

But all that is forgotten this week as 16 teams spend all their reserves in pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

A good example is Wednesday’s 4-1 Game 1 win by the Penguins over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Penguins have been improving steadily over the past few weeks with the addition of Coach Dan Bylsma, the return to action of powerful shooter Sergei Gonchar, and skillful trades that brought Bill Guerin, Chris Kunitz and Craig Adams to the ‘Burgh. But Wednesday night, they reached yet another level, including a 33-27 edge in shots and a 38-21 advantage on faceoffs.

Regardless of who your team is, they will play like you’ve never seen them before in the next few days. Everybody wants to win La Coupe Stanley.

Picking up the Pen (s)

I'm going to tempt the fates here and deliver a mini-analysis of what's gone right with the Penguins since Dan Bylsma took over as head coach. The turn-around has been nothing short of stunning. Since Bylsma took over on February 16th, the team has lost just two out of 18 games in regulation time, and lost only three games in OT or shootouts, taking one point. They have won 13 games, three of those in OT or shootouts. The Pens came into Bylsma's term with 58 points. Headed into the final seven games of the season, a team that had a slim to none chance of making the playoffs now sits firmly if a tad uncomfortably in sixth place, with 88 points and a bit of wiggle room either way that could, potentially, get them into a home-ice situation in the first round depending on how other teams do.

I'll let you think on that for a minute. 30 points since Bylsma took over, in 18 games. Freaking unbelievable.

Now, not for one second do I believe the coaching change is responsible for all of that. The dead, stinking albatross-like weight of Ryan Whitney was finally eliminated from the shoulders of the team. Defensive leader Sergei Gonchar came roaring back with a vengance, earning 15 points in 18 games. And late trading was good to the Penguins, with the additions of Chris Kunitz, Bill Guerin, and Craig Adams.

Still, could Michel Therrien have done the same with the same circumstances? I doubt it. In hockey, sometimes a team is just done with a coach, and as much as I like Therrien and as great as his results were last year, it was apparent that the players were through with him. It's a little sad, but it's not the first time this has happened to a hockey coach, and it won't be the last. Therrien understands that, as does Bylsma, I'm sure. It's tough to keep everyone on your side and working to their full potential when things start to go bad, and Therrien was unable to stop the skid. Good luck to him, wherever he ends up.

In the meantime, Dan Bylsma has a fired-up team, and excited fan base, and a stellar record in his brief tenure. Here's hoping he can continue the success deep into the playoffs, and here's hoping that, if he doesn't, the team will continue to perform for him next year if GM Shero keeps him on.

In other news, I found this sweet Mario Lemieux commercial from 1987 on youtube while I was looking for something else.



Love that two-toned grey Blazer. I'll bet Mario doesn't drive one of those any more.

Here's what I was looking for, the "Great Day for Hockey" commercial featuring Evgeni Malkin. It's not as good as I wanted it to be since it's just recorded from someone's television set, but it's an awesome commercial because it really showcases Malkin's skills as a player and how he sees the game.



Hopefully at some point I can find a better copy.

A random bit of Errey-Otica.

(Be sure to check out Erreyblog for the best coverage of Bob and Steigy's verbal pulchritude.)

"There's five guys on that puck! Just throw a blanket over them!" WHAT????

Until next time...

Coincidence?

Hmm.

Pitt makes the Elite 8.

The Penguins are on track to a solid playoff position after a VERY shaky couple of months.

And I haven't been blogging much here.

Coincidence?

You decide.

A pre-emptive strike

After being upset by West Virginia in the Big East Tournament, you may need to be convinced that the Pitt men’s basketball team is headed for big things in the NCAA Tournament.

Don’t worry. Check with Pittsburgh City Council.

Council has given its preliminary approval to legislation that would ban upholstered couches from outdoor use. What does this have to do with the NCAAs?

For one thing, putting indoor couches on your porch doesn’t make aesthetic sense. It sounds like the perfect setup for a Jeff Foxworthy joke. But I think Council has another issue on its mind.

Council wants to deter Pitt fans from burning couches should they win the Big Dance.

Furniture burning has become a dubious tradition after sporting events. Stories of couch-burning after the Ohio State-Michigan or Pitt-West Virginia football game have become legendary.

The latest episode occurred after Super Bowl XLIII, when all the local news channels had their cameras fixed on a single, burning couch in the middle of Forbes Avenue.

I don’t understand the phenomenon. Maybe you have to be a college student (and very drunk), but I’d really like to see one of those kids make payments on a couch from IKEA and then set it on fire.

(And, yes, it scares me that I sound like my dad now.)

All the same, I don’t think City Council would be in a hurry to pass this legislation if Pitt were a nine-seed.

Drive-by post

I'll tell you what, if nobody in the NBA is smart enough to draft Levance Fields, they don't deserve him. That kid is the best point guard I've seen since Jen Rizzotti.

What the great ones do

It really shows my age that I remember when heavyweight championship boxing matches were broadcast on network TV. Not pay-per-view, not even cable, but good old ABC.

One fight I’ll never forget was the 1976 bout between Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Young. My opinion of Ali has mellowed over the years, but back then, I found his “I Am The Greatest” schtick more annoying than charming. So I always rooted against him, to no avail.

Then came the Ali-Young fight. Young clearly outfought the champ throughout, and even Howard Cosell sensed an upset in the making. Imagine my shock when Ali won by unanimous decision.

My brother, Joe, wasn’t shocked. He said, “If you’re going to beat the champ, you have to knock him out.”

Many boxing pundits think that Young was robbed, but that’s beside the point here. In many of his fights, Ali did just what he had to do to win—and that’s why he could call himself “The Greatest.”

The same can be said about the Super Bowl XLIII Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Most of their wins weren’t pretty. Some were the source of controversy, and most left them open to criticism. But they did what they had to do to win.

Consider the two regular-season matchups between the Steelers and the hated Baltimore Ravens. The first game went into overtime and ended with three points off of Jeff Reed’s toe, 23-20. The rivalry was as intense as the score was close. Running back Rashard Mendenhall was injured by a hit from Ray Lewis, and much trash talk was heard in the media for weeks when Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs claimed that a bounty had been put out on Mendenhall and wide receiver Hines Ward.

The rematch did little to resolve those issues. It climaxed with a controversial play in which Santonio Holmes was credited with a touchdown after review for a 13-9 win. Whether the ball crossed the goal line is something that is still being argued all the way from here to Baltimore.

There was also the game against the San Diego Chargers, the first 11-10 game in NFL history. It, too, ended in controversy as a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown by Troy Polamalu was negated by a questionable call.

Add to that the 20-13 come-from-behind win over the drama-ridden Dallas Cowboys on the late interception for a TD by Deshea Townsend—and, finally, the 27-23 Super Bowl victory in which Holmes kept both feet inbounds for one of the most memorable moments in Super Bowl history.

Through this season, detractors have passed these close wins off as dumb luck. Come on. I can see a blown call being worth one or two wins a season, but nobody wins the Super Bowl on luck alone. Faced with one of the toughest schedules in recent NFL seasons, the Steelers did just what they needed to do to beat most of their opponents.

The result? A sixth Super Bowl victory, and one that was more than earned—by doing just enough to win.

That’s what the great ones do.

Happy Football-mas!

All the analysis that can be done has been done. Everyone, hopefully, is prepared. Now all that's left is to play the game.

My prediction-Steelers 35, Cardinals 14. I don't actually care about the score, though. It all depends on how well we can cover Larry Fitzgerald and scare Kurt Warner.



GO STEELERS!!