nhl-general
Maggie the Monkey went 3-1 in the 2nd round, only getting the Ottawa over Sabres pick wrong and leads all the TSN experts throughout the playoffs (7-5). For the conference championship round, Maggie takes Carolina and Edmonton. So far so good for Edmonton but the Carolina pick might be in trouble.
Good luck, Maggie. We got $5 on you.
Links:
[TSN.ca]: Monkey Business 2006
1st horseman of the sportspocalypse: Red Sox win the World Series. 2nd horseman: White Sox win the World Series. Now the WNBA is drawing more viewers than the NHL. ESPN is reporting that more people watched the WNBA on ESPN2 last year than the NHL on OLN this year. When the United States wins the World Cup, it will be the end of sports days.
We have to point out two things. First, OLN has a much lower subscriber base (21 million less) than ESPN as well as lack of ratings for other programming to shove the WNBA down our throats…er.. promote other shows. As a matter of fact, when ESPN had hockey, they drew 300,000 more viewers on average. (416,000 vs 117,000.)
Second, hockey has always been an in-person draw. Hockey fans understand that the game is much better on ice than on TV, as opposed to football. The average attendance at NHL games was double that of the WNBA (17,000 vs 8,500), setting a record for attendance.
Let’s not forget that ESPN has a vested interest in justifying their decision to drop the NHL by pointing out the mediocre ratings of hockey on OLN and NBC. NBC has countered that ratings are “in the ballpark” of what they expected and they will be profitable in year 1 of the deal. It’s a shame when these kind of statistics come out. When the casual fan sees these stories, they will think, “I guess the NHL is boring now… I’ll watch another rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.” And that is how we lost Arrested Development.
Links:
[ESPN]: Great hockey, yes, but is anyone watching?
Maggie the Monkey didn’t do too well in the first round of the NHL playoffs but since all of the top seeds in the Western conference were upended, neither did anyone else. With a respectable 4-4 showing (only 1 out of first place), Maggie is back for the second round. Frankly, with the way the NHL playoffs have gone, you could paint rats with team colors and race em for your predictions. Oh right, every team in the Eastern conference wears black, red and white. Well, you get the idea.
Anyway… in round 2, Maggie picks:
Ottawa over Buffalo
Carolina over New Jersey
Edmonton over San Jose
Anaheim over Colorado
Frankly, those aren’t bad. We would’ve taken NJ over Carolina and San Jose over Edmonton. But then again, we picked the Red Wings to win it all. Ooops.
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[TSN.ca]: Monkey Business 2006
First, let’s talk about the Canadiens. They came out and gave the #2 seed quite a scare by beating them twice on the Carolina home ice. But ultimately, Carolina righted their ship and won the next four to send the Habs packing. Good season, Canadiens, no shame in losing to the Huricanes.
Next, we have the Flyers. A team that came out and showed no heart whatsoever in a home elimination game. After being down 5-0, they ultimately whimpered into the summer with a 7-1 defeat.
Like clockwork, the Flyers fold in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And, like clockwork, Flyers fans melt down about it. Here are some of the best quotes from Flyersphans.com. Not for the easily offended.
bryboy7:”If anyone ever sees Petr Nedved in person………Kick him in the balls. As hard as you can. Just to see if he has any.”
Luzinski’s Gut: “Bunch of f*cking ****** ass ***** c*cksuckers. Dead men have more heart than these mouthbreathing sh*tf*cks.”
nitz: “They should have come out in short skirts and fishnets, because they’ve played like a buch of bit**es.”
nitz: “F**k this team. I’m going to go downloading porn. If I want to see someone get f***ed, I at least want it to be sexy.”
Man, we love meltdowns.
After getting pasted 6-0 in the first period of last night’s playoff hockey game against the Sabres, the Flyers started getting a little chippy as they say in hockey and took a bunch of penalties in the second period. Of course, Flyers fans will say they were just sending a message for the next game, which is one of the great things about hockey.
After the game, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said that the Flyers were playing “like idiots”. When told about Ruff’s comments, Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said, “That’s Lindy’s opinion. I’ve seen his teams do the same things. Lindy ought not to talk about that.” OK…no news so far… then as he was walking out of the presser, Hitchcock added:
Tell Lindy to fuck off, to mind his own fucking business.
Sure, it was a calculated move to deflect attention from his own team but you gotta love hockey coaches for saying stuff like this.
Links:
[Philly.com]: Ruffly speaking, Hitchcock offers fighting words
Ever since Eric McErlain from Off Wing Opinion joined us for the weekly podcast last week, we’ve been all over the NHL playoffs. And we’ve been rewarded with some damn exciting games over the weekend — a couple of double-overtime games, 8-1 upsets — we remember now why the NHL playoffs are better than the NBA playoffs.
In researching the experts picks for the series, we learned that Maggie the Monkey is the doyen of NHL prognosticators. Maggie, from Canadian sports network TSN, came into fame when she was the only expert on TSN to pick the Ducks to upset the Red Wings in 2003. She regulary does as well as any of the talking heads.
Oh, in case you didn’t know, Maggie picks the teams by throwing feces onto a board. Wait, no, that’s Darren Pang. Maggie spins a wheel.
Here are Maggie’s picks for the first round this year.
Tampa Bay (8) over Ottawa (1)
Carolina (2) over Montreal (7)
New York Rangers (6) over New Jersey (3)
Buffalo (4) over Philly (5)
Detroit (1) over Edmonton (8)
Colorado (7) over Dallas (2)
Calgary (3) over Anaheim (6)
San Jose (5) over Nashville (4)
So far so good for Maggie. We’ll update you after the first round.
Links:
[TSN.ca]: Monkey Business 2006
Well, the NHL playoffs are starting soon and here are the final power rankings for this year. Based on these rankings, it looks like everyone is expecting a Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup. The Eastern conference championship is more in doubt with the Sens, Sabres, and Hurricanes battling it out.
| Rank | TSN.ca | ESPN | **FoxSports | Sportsline | SI | Yahoo |
| 1 | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings |
| 2 | Stars | Stars | Hurricanes | Devils | Stars | Stars |
| 3 | Senators | Senators | Senators | Sabres | Hurricanes | Stars |
| 4 | Sharks | Hurricanes | Stars | Senators | Senators | Devils |
| 5 | Devils | Sabres | Sabres | Stars | Sabres | Hurricanes |
| 6 | Sabres | Ducks | Rangers | Sharks | Predators | Flames |
| 7 | Rangers | Devils | Predators | Flames | Flames | Sharks |
| 8 | Ducks | Flames | Flames | Ducks | Rangers | Sabres |
| 9 | Flyers | Rangers | Flyers | Hurricanes | Devils | Flyers |
| 10 | Flames | Canadiens | Ducks | Predators | Sharks | Ducks |
| 11-30 | more | more | more | more | more | more |
** No update this week
Once again, ESPN has neglected to update their Power Rankings this week. We know they cover the NHL less than they do the WNBA but 2 weeks in a row is ridiculous. Meanwhile, the top 10 on most sites remain relatively stable with only the Devils making a move in the Sportsline and Yahoo rankings. The Devils are one of the hottest teams in the league and still can’t get any love.
Here are the NHL Power Rankings by top sites this week.
| Rank | TSN.ca | ESPN** | FoxSports | Sportsline | SI | Yahoo |
| 1 | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings |
| 2 | Senators | Senators | Hurricanes | Senators | Senators | Senators |
| 3 | Rangers | Stars | Senators | Hurricanes | Stars | Stars |
| 4 | Stars | Hurricanes | Stars | Stars | Hurricanes | Hurricanes |
| 5 | Ducks | Sabres | Sabres | Ducks | Sabres | Rangers |
| 6 | Canadiens | Ducks | Rangers | Rangers | Rangers | Flyers |
| 7 | Flyers | Rangers | Predators | Devils | Predators | Sabres |
| 8 | Sharks | Predators | Flames | Canadiens | Flames | Flames |
| 9 | Hurricanes | Flames | Flyers | Flames | Flyers | Ducks |
| 10 | Flames | Canadiens | Ducks | Sharks | Ducks | Devils |
| 11-30 | more | more | more | more | more | more |
TSN is on vacation this week for some reason. Maybe it’s a Canadian holiday we don’t know about. ESPN, on the other hand, just decided not to update for no known reason. So both rankings for ESPN and TSN are from last week. Not much changed this week for any of the sites. A couple teams flip flop positions but no big moves in or out of the top 10. Red Wings and Sens still occupy the top 2 slots.
Here are the NHL Power Rankings by top sites this week.
| Rank | TSN.ca** | ESPN** | FoxSports | Sportsline | SI | Yahoo |
| 1 | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings |
| 2 | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators |
| 3 | Stars | Stars | Hurricanes | Stars | Stars | Stars |
| 4 | Flyers | Hurricanes | Stars | Hurricanes | Hurricanes | Hurricanes |
| 5 | Rangers | Sabres | Sabres | Rangers | Sabres | Flyers |
| 6 | Ducks | Ducks | Rangers | Ducks | Predators | Sabres |
| 7 | Predators | Rangers | Predators | Flyers | Rangers | Rangers |
| 8 | Hurricanes | Predators | Flyers | Predators | Flames | Avalanche |
| 9 | Sabres | Flames | Flames | Flames | Flyers | Predators |
| 10 | Sharks | Canadiens | Ducks | Canadiens | Ducks | Flames |
| 11-30 | more | more | more | more | more | more |
** No updates this week.
Sometimes dealing with various sites’ power rankings is like looking at the old boxing champions. This week, we finally have a unified #1 in the Red Wings. Everyone also agrees the Sens are the #2 team in the league. Also, despite the Flyers winning 5 of their last 6, they couldn’t even crack the top 10 in the ESPN poll. Yet, they are in every other poll, ranked as high as #4 by TSN.
Here are the NHL Power Rankings by top sites this week.
| Rank | TSN.ca | ESPN | FoxSports | Sportsline | SI | Yahoo |
| 1 | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings | Red Wings |
| 2 | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators | Senators |
| 3 | Stars | Stars | Hurricanes | Stars | Stars | Hurricanes |
| 4 | Flyers | Hurricanes | Stars | Hurricanes | Hurricanes | Sabres |
| 5 | Rangers | Sabres | Sabres | Rangers | Sabres | Stars |
| 6 | Ducks | Ducks | Predators | Flyers | Predators | Predators |
| 7 | Predators | Rangers | Rangers | Predators | Flyers | Rangers |
| 8 | Hurricanes | Predators | Flyers | Ducks | Rangers | Flyers |
| 9 | Sabres | Flames | Ducks | Flames | Flames | Flames |
| 10 | Sharks | Canadiens | Flames | Sabres | Ducks | Avalanche |
| 11-30 | more | more | more | more | more | more |
