The Site & Stanley Cup ‘09
The website has been up and down due to a hard drive failure on the server. The provider has restored the files, but it appears that there are still some issues being ironed out.
On to my main topic, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings will begin the duel for the Stanley Cup tonight. This is a sequel, that I’m not entirely happy with. They played each other in the final series last year. With 30 teams in the league, it seems improbable for the same teams to make it to the final series two years in a row. I’m not a huge fan of the Red Wings to begin with and it doesn’t help that they’ve already won the Stanley Cup eleven times.
The Red Wings are not happy about the re-scheduling done for the playoffs. There was going to be a bit of a long break between the two rounds. In order to keep fans interested, the NHL moved the games up and scheduled two back to back games this weekend, one today and one tomorrow. The Wings have players that are injured or playing hurt and would have benefited from more days off. I think this is the best idea the NHL has come up with in a long time. Two consecutive games should make for interesting hockey and spark more interest.
| Game 1 | @ Red Wings | Sat. 7 p.m. |
| Game 2 | @ Red Wings | Sun. 7p.m. |
| Game 3 | @ Penguins | Tue. 7 p.m. |
| Game 4 | @ Penguins | Thu. 7 p.m. |
| Game 5* | @ Red Wings | June 6, 7 p.m. |
| Game 6* | @ Penguins | June 9, 7 p.m. |
| Game 7* | @ Red Wings | June 12, 7 p.m. |
* if necessary
Go Stars
Yes, I know they lost, but they were able to give the Red Wings a run for their money. Dallas lost for three reasons. They did not finish off the San Jose Sharks fast enough. The four overtime periods in game six wore our guys down for the first game against Detroit. The Stars simply were not able to score on the powerplay and could not beat the Red Wings’ exceptional defense.
So now I’m actually pulling for the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup. I want them to sweep the Pittsburgh Penguins, because it will show that the Stars were that much better for putting up some decent resistance. Thus far the Penguins are failing miserably by losing both games in Detroit with shutouts. Game one was four to zero and game two was three to zero. If the Wings can sweep the Penguins, it will make it look like the deciding series was between Dallas and Detroit.
The sweep will also signal a change that NHL needs to make regarding cross Conference games during the season. The Eastern Conference teams don’t see much of the Western and the Eastern teams don’t travel as much as the Western. Both Conferences need to be evenly matched to have an exciting Stanley Cup final series. That doesn’t seem to be the case this year.
Mother’s Day
For Mother’s Day I bought my mom a robotic vacuum cleaner called a Roomba. She had talked about them before and I never saw one, but decided to take a chance and order one from the Internet. When I first looked for one, I was put off by how expensive they were, but Alexis found a great deal on one. We took it over on Saturday and she was very impressed. After only a couple of hours of charging, anticipation got the best of everyone and we turned it on. It didn’t make it half way to the wall before it complained about being full. To no one’s surprise it was full of pet hair from the dog and the cat.
On the topic of Stanley Cup playoffs, it seems the Dallas Stars are struggling against the Detroit Red Wings. It wasn’t a big surprise to me. I know the Wings are a good team and they usually seem to be, similar to the Yankees in baseball. Dallas generally has to fight tooth and nail for their victories. They had the opportunity to sweep the San Jose Sharks in the last playoff round, but failed to do so. Instead they took the best of seven series to a sixth game, where they finally won in a game that lasted five hours. The Wings swept the Colorado Avalanche in their second round and were very rested in the first game against the Stars. The first game Dallas lost and lost badly. In the second game, the Stars looked like they were in it to win and played well. They lost because they couldn’t take advantage of scoring opportunities and couldn’t generate more chances. In order for them to win on Monday night, they need to take the fight to the Wings, get in front of the goalie, shoot more, and score when the Wings are off balance.
