Puckin’ Around

In all the excitement of my working holiday, I forgot to mention the results of the regular season hockey pool. Ever the groundbreaker, I was part of the first-ever tie for second place, which entitles me to half of the runner-up prize money. In all fairness, I tried to get the pool administrator to list my fellow second placer ahead of me in the archival list, since his team had more goals than mine, but the response surprised me. My team won as many points in fewer games, so my name precedes Craig’s for all posterity, and I get half the cash. I’m amazed to have got that far; between January and March, I seemed doomed to stay in fifth place, but in true “gotta make the playoffs” fashion, my guys made a mad dash to the finish and suddenly I owned the second spot by one point. It literally took the last game of the season to determine the final pool placements. The office pool was a wilder ride than the league standings this year.

I doubt I’ll do so well in the playoff pool.

I became a temporary Canuck fan for the first round of post-season. They pushed their series to six games and lost in Calgary on the weekend—I hope no one loses their job over it, since they exceeded all expectation after last year’s atomic coaching failure. The players themselves seemed surprised to have made the playoffs.

Which may have been their undoing.

It was acutely evident to me that the primary difference between the Flames and Canucks was their attitude. The Flames played like they were thinking, “We made it here; we can do this!” and the Canucks were, “We made it here? Can we do this?” In the end, they couldn’t. They blew a three goal lead and lost 7-4 in game six. But I, a proud Canadian, am rooting for Anaheim in the conference semi-final, and here’s why:

Calgary was in the lead, 5-4. The Canucks pulled their goalie with a minute left. With thirty seconds left, the Flames scored in the empty net. Vancouver was obviously done, gone, kaput, and the kids from Calgary were on their way to the next round. So they didn’t have to score a second empty-netter with nine seconds left. But they did. And they celebrated like it was a major coup. It wasn’t. It was just rude. No class at all. Shame, shame, shame, little boys.

They’ll have their hands full with the Ducks, though. Anaheim grounded the Jets in four, and with Ryan Kesler heating up, the Flames may be the ones who get roasted.