Really, it’s amazing Buffalo even came close to winning this series, considering the ridiculous litany of injuries they suffered. Winning would have been a miracle. That said, if only Max Afinogenov had scored on that breakaway chance in Game 5, instead of shooting the puck directly into the goalie’s chest…
That game, that SERIES, was some of the best hockey I have seen in a while. Tight play, blue line to blue line, wide open. With four of the games, including game seven, essentially being one goal games. Hats off to Buffalo for one hell of hard fought set.
I can’t decide who to root for in the final. Edmonton is the underdog (an #8 seed!!), and I love underdogs. I also love Canadians, and that they’re western Canadians makes them even more… quaint. :) But on the other hand, they’re playing against the “Hartford Whalers of Raleigh”!! But on the other other hand, the “Whalers” left Hartford, now didn’t they? Besides which, they just beat Buffalo, and I’m feeling rather bitter. Oh, what to do??
Edmonton is also the nearest metropolitan area to the Athabasca Oil Sands - home to the largest oil supply in North America/the world? Also the top source of oil for the US…and growing rapidly in influence..
These hockey Oilers will be made much less quaint soon enough by their real-life neighborhood namesakes.
Awww, drat. Buffalo is my second favorite hockey team.
Though I think that my office friend who is a sports freak doesn’t even know that Carolina is in the finals. If he does, he hasn’t let on, and he almost ALWAYS lets on if a Carolina team is beating a Pittsburgh team in terms of playoff standings. ;)
All my Buffalo friends love their Sabres, and my Carolina friends could care less. That hardly seems fair. Also, Buffalo is pretty much part of Canada, seeing as how Tim Horton’s is all over that part of the state.
B. Minich, when you said, “all my Carolina friends could care less”, it made me think of the following:
Peter Karmanos, owner of the Hurricanes and astute businessman, realized he couldn’t make a go of it in Hartford by the mid-90s. Ostensibly the 4th team in the greater NY area, on top of which was the Boston-philia of the RI residents.
So he moved to greener pastures of North Carolina. A couple of years later (circa 2000), Forbes’ most valuable franchises list rated the Hurricanes DEAD LAST among the four professional sports.
I am sure it has improved somewhat with the two finals appearances, but how can you not root for a good businessman?
One other obscure Buffalo link to this series: Hurricanes’ coach is Peter Laviolette, who got his start with the New York Islanders several years ago.
When Laviolette got that job, the favorite for the job was none other than Sabres’ own Ted Nolan, who had been the coach in Buffalo up to 1997, before a nasty soap opera with GM John Muckler and goalie Dominic Hasek.
Now Laviolette is on his second team, and in the finals. Nolan is STILL, ten years later, not in the NHL, despite great success in Buffalo while he was there.
Curiously, Nolan is also aboriginal Canadian. Diversity in the NHL: it works.
Carolina versus Edmonton. Ugh. And they thought nobody watched the final series between the Calgary Flames and the Tampa Bay Lightning two years ago. Sheesh. At least the Canadians will be watching.
Your so right! We should only have teams play in the major championships who would command strong TV ratings and bankrolls!! There are the only ones who really deserve it!
Glad you agree with me, as does most of America. Hence the fact the the NHL has gone from being featured primetime on Fox to headlining the Outdoor Life Network.
Thank you for proving yourself an idiot. What is your point? That nobody will be watching it on TV? Well bully for you and them for not watching.
That it will be boring? How would you and them know because YOU WONT BE WATCHING IT!! Big name teams are not the only teams capable of great play. For godsakes, this past series between Buffalo and Carolina should have shown that. Obviously, you weren’t watching that either.
Say it with the class, Angry, ‘Great TV Ratings does not equal Great Sports’.
Your shot against Angrier is way off net. Angrier’s original point, that an insubstantial part of the American sports landscape cares, is quite correct.
Rebutting his point with the argument that this final will be good hockey or intrinsically interesting is irrelevant to his argument.
After all, Vince McMahon’s XFL might have featured high quality football, but it died, in spite of low expectations and cost structure, due largely to the fact that no sports fan could rouse themselves to care about the Memphis Maniax against the Orlando Rage.
Directionally, the Stanley Cup Finals will feel the same way to the average North American sports fan.
BTW - great hockey? Cam Ward v. Dwayne Roloson between the pipes? Has a Stanley Cup final EVER featured a more underwhelming goalie “battle”?
Who’s dying to see Chris Pronger skate the cup? Or Doug Weight? Speaking of Weight, the over-under line on the falsely hyped “Weight faces the Oilers” story must be about 150 as Barry Melrose struggles for a storyline.
If anything, you should criticize Angrier for trying to score cheap points by “analyzing” the obvious…
The XFL was basically Arena Football in bad weather.
As for the NHL, seldolmly has a “professional” sport done so little with so much. Storied teams like the Penguins, Red Wings, Maple Leafs, Islanders, Rangers, Blackhawks. Sports legends like Wayne Gretzky and Gordy Howe.
All the NHL has to show for its ridiculous strike is a horrible television deal and two teams in the Stanley Cup Final that are essentially the best of the rest. Do people who live in a state like North Carolina where standing water rarely if ever freezes at all, much less enough to play hockey on, care about this sport? They certainly didn’t seem to care in Tampa.
Speaking of Arena Football, someone explain to me why it is seen every weekend on NBC and hockey isn’t?
I may be one of the few hardcore hockey fans here, but in fact the pathetic goaltending battle in this Stanley Cup final makes this year’s version far worse than the equally market-unfriendly Calgary-Tampa tilt two years ago.
Calgary-Tampa had Kiprusoff (Calgary) coming off the best season of any goaltender in the modern era, to say nothing of an even better playoffs, against Khabibulin (Tampa) a highly-paid, somewhat overrated goaltender.
The goaltending in that final, not that anyone noticed, was simply phenomenal. Khabibulin stoned the Flames 1-0 to tie the series at 2, the teams traded games 5 and 6, both in OT, and finally game 7 was a Tampa squeaker where Khabibulin turned back seemingly a dozen glorious Calgary chances in the third period.
Wonderful wonderful hockey.
To think that Roloson and Ward will provide even half that entertainment - its hard to write those words without suppressing laughter.
Okay, Ward doesn’t really have any sort of reputation, being a rookie and all. Yet, as anyone who watched him rob the Sabres time and again can tell you, he’s fully capable of taking over games as much as Roy and Brouder. If he were only a journeyman on the level of Esche or Emery, the Canes would have been looking at 3-0 deficts in three games, which Ward kept scorless until Carolina found their legs. He was the best player on the ice for the Hurricanes. To say he doesn’t belong starting in the Finals is to write him off solely for being a rookie.
June 1st, 2006 at 7:11:28 pm
Brendan,
That game, that SERIES, was some of the best hockey I have seen in a while. Tight play, blue line to blue line, wide open. With four of the games, including game seven, essentially being one goal games. Hats off to Buffalo for one hell of hard fought set.
Now to take Redneck Hockey to Edmonton. :-)
June 1st, 2006 at 7:15:44 pm
Heh.
Congrats on the win, Lojo.
I can’t decide who to root for in the final. Edmonton is the underdog (an #8 seed!!), and I love underdogs. I also love Canadians, and that they’re western Canadians makes them even more… quaint. :) But on the other hand, they’re playing against the “Hartford Whalers of Raleigh”!! But on the other other hand, the “Whalers” left Hartford, now didn’t they? Besides which, they just beat Buffalo, and I’m feeling rather bitter. Oh, what to do??
June 1st, 2006 at 7:20:00 pm
Edmonton is also the nearest metropolitan area to the Athabasca Oil Sands - home to the largest oil supply in North America/the world? Also the top source of oil for the US…and growing rapidly in influence..
These hockey Oilers will be made much less quaint soon enough by their real-life neighborhood namesakes.
June 1st, 2006 at 7:20:38 pm
So basically, what you’re saying is that a vote for Edmonton is a vote for Dick Cheney?
Heh.
June 1st, 2006 at 8:00:46 pm
Awww, drat. Buffalo is my second favorite hockey team.
Though I think that my office friend who is a sports freak doesn’t even know that Carolina is in the finals. If he does, he hasn’t let on, and he almost ALWAYS lets on if a Carolina team is beating a Pittsburgh team in terms of playoff standings. ;)
All my Buffalo friends love their Sabres, and my Carolina friends could care less. That hardly seems fair. Also, Buffalo is pretty much part of Canada, seeing as how Tim Horton’s is all over that part of the state.
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:38:49 am
B. Minich, when you said, “all my Carolina friends could care less”, it made me think of the following:
Peter Karmanos, owner of the Hurricanes and astute businessman, realized he couldn’t make a go of it in Hartford by the mid-90s. Ostensibly the 4th team in the greater NY area, on top of which was the Boston-philia of the RI residents.
So he moved to greener pastures of North Carolina. A couple of years later (circa 2000), Forbes’ most valuable franchises list rated the Hurricanes DEAD LAST among the four professional sports.
I am sure it has improved somewhat with the two finals appearances, but how can you not root for a good businessman?
One other obscure Buffalo link to this series: Hurricanes’ coach is Peter Laviolette, who got his start with the New York Islanders several years ago.
When Laviolette got that job, the favorite for the job was none other than Sabres’ own Ted Nolan, who had been the coach in Buffalo up to 1997, before a nasty soap opera with GM John Muckler and goalie Dominic Hasek.
Now Laviolette is on his second team, and in the finals. Nolan is STILL, ten years later, not in the NHL, despite great success in Buffalo while he was there.
Curiously, Nolan is also aboriginal Canadian. Diversity in the NHL: it works.
June 2nd, 2006 at 9:19:38 am
Carolina versus Edmonton. Ugh. And they thought nobody watched the final series between the Calgary Flames and the Tampa Bay Lightning two years ago. Sheesh. At least the Canadians will be watching.
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:10:31 am
Go ‘Canes!
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:38:20 am
That said, if only Max Afinogenov had scored on that breakaway chance in Game 5, instead of shooting the puck directly into the goalie’s chest…
Dammit. If Buffalo had only scored more goals than the Hurricanes each game….
Joking ;-)
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:42:18 am
Angrier -
Your so right! We should only have teams play in the major championships who would command strong TV ratings and bankrolls!! There are the only ones who really deserve it!
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:41:17 pm
Lojo-
Glad you agree with me, as does most of America. Hence the fact the the NHL has gone from being featured primetime on Fox to headlining the Outdoor Life Network.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:47:20 pm
I was just looking at OLN’s schedule. When it isn’t featuring the NHL, it has - bow hunting. WOW!
OLN: We Play Things Even ESPN2 Won’t Touch
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:57:30 pm
Angrier -
Thank you for proving yourself an idiot. What is your point? That nobody will be watching it on TV? Well bully for you and them for not watching.
That it will be boring? How would you and them know because YOU WONT BE WATCHING IT!! Big name teams are not the only teams capable of great play. For godsakes, this past series between Buffalo and Carolina should have shown that. Obviously, you weren’t watching that either.
Say it with the class, Angry, ‘Great TV Ratings does not equal Great Sports’.
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:29:49 pm
Lojo,
Your shot against Angrier is way off net. Angrier’s original point, that an insubstantial part of the American sports landscape cares, is quite correct.
Rebutting his point with the argument that this final will be good hockey or intrinsically interesting is irrelevant to his argument.
After all, Vince McMahon’s XFL might have featured high quality football, but it died, in spite of low expectations and cost structure, due largely to the fact that no sports fan could rouse themselves to care about the Memphis Maniax against the Orlando Rage.
Directionally, the Stanley Cup Finals will feel the same way to the average North American sports fan.
BTW - great hockey? Cam Ward v. Dwayne Roloson between the pipes? Has a Stanley Cup final EVER featured a more underwhelming goalie “battle”?
Who’s dying to see Chris Pronger skate the cup? Or Doug Weight? Speaking of Weight, the over-under line on the falsely hyped “Weight faces the Oilers” story must be about 150 as Barry Melrose struggles for a storyline.
If anything, you should criticize Angrier for trying to score cheap points by “analyzing” the obvious…
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:07:29 pm
XFL might have featured high quality football, but it died
Ugh, why did you have to bring up that disaster!!!!
The XFl died because it was like watching the practice teams play each other.
June 2nd, 2006 at 7:08:15 pm
The XFL was basically Arena Football in bad weather.
As for the NHL, seldolmly has a “professional” sport done so little with so much. Storied teams like the Penguins, Red Wings, Maple Leafs, Islanders, Rangers, Blackhawks. Sports legends like Wayne Gretzky and Gordy Howe.
All the NHL has to show for its ridiculous strike is a horrible television deal and two teams in the Stanley Cup Final that are essentially the best of the rest. Do people who live in a state like North Carolina where standing water rarely if ever freezes at all, much less enough to play hockey on, care about this sport? They certainly didn’t seem to care in Tampa.
Speaking of Arena Football, someone explain to me why it is seen every weekend on NBC and hockey isn’t?
June 2nd, 2006 at 8:34:42 pm
Brendan:
Thanks for riding along with us, we’re glad you chose to spend some time on our site.
And if you’re around for a game next year, drop a line beforehand.
June 2nd, 2006 at 9:39:47 pm
I may be one of the few hardcore hockey fans here, but in fact the pathetic goaltending battle in this Stanley Cup final makes this year’s version far worse than the equally market-unfriendly Calgary-Tampa tilt two years ago.
Calgary-Tampa had Kiprusoff (Calgary) coming off the best season of any goaltender in the modern era, to say nothing of an even better playoffs, against Khabibulin (Tampa) a highly-paid, somewhat overrated goaltender.
The goaltending in that final, not that anyone noticed, was simply phenomenal. Khabibulin stoned the Flames 1-0 to tie the series at 2, the teams traded games 5 and 6, both in OT, and finally game 7 was a Tampa squeaker where Khabibulin turned back seemingly a dozen glorious Calgary chances in the third period.
Wonderful wonderful hockey.
To think that Roloson and Ward will provide even half that entertainment - its hard to write those words without suppressing laughter.
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:03:39 pm
Okay, Ward doesn’t really have any sort of reputation, being a rookie and all. Yet, as anyone who watched him rob the Sabres time and again can tell you, he’s fully capable of taking over games as much as Roy and Brouder. If he were only a journeyman on the level of Esche or Emery, the Canes would have been looking at 3-0 deficts in three games, which Ward kept scorless until Carolina found their legs. He was the best player on the ice for the Hurricanes. To say he doesn’t belong starting in the Finals is to write him off solely for being a rookie.
June 3rd, 2006 at 4:06:15 am
Mike’s brother Matt -
Point taken. Roy and Dryden were anonymous rookies who found fame by stealing cups. Perhaps Ward is a third.
June 3rd, 2006 at 4:06:51 am
stealing…”Stanley”…cups.