Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Pucks Unlimited

Just one week to go fans until the start of the season and there's a lot things going on out there in Puck World.

PREDICTIONS

Sports Illustrated has come out with their 2005/06 NHL predictions and they pick Calgary Flames to win it all. SI is also picking Nashville to be this season's Calgary, the surprise team that makes some noise in the playoffs.

However, Oddsmakers at www.bowmans.com the world's
leading online gaming company, say the return of the Stanley Cup to Canada will not happen this year thus it would extend Canada's
drought to twelve seasons without a Cup-winning team, by far the
longest in NHL history going back to 1926. Bummer. They're also giving odds on such things as will Crosby win Rookie of the Year, etc. Oh, and by the way they're picking Philly to win it all.

Besides isn't there some sort of curse associated with Sports Illustrated. (link courtsey of Battle of Alberta)

ROOKIES

There are a number of NHL newcomers who have been busy making names for themselves and making runs at making the big clubs this preseason... by making Big Impressions. (just wanted to see how many times I could use the word making)

Also there's this piece on the rookies who are making a impact.
The race to be the NHL's top rookie at the end of the 2005-06 season is shaping up to be the most intriguing in years. There are talented players who would have been freshmen last season, only to have their entry postponed by the lockout
COLD WARS

Last week we took a look at Roarke's TOP 5 current NHL rivalries.

This week ESPN has come out with their all-time great NHL rivalries.
The recipe for a great rivalry includes a measure of time, a healthy dose of hatred and more than a little blood. If you can throw in some politics, slights (real or perceived), and some shared geography, so much the better.
CYBER PUCKS

The two hot Hockey Video Games that have just hit the market NHL2K6 and NHL06 go head-to-head in this virtual pucks match up .

My game wins.

FROM AROUND THE BLOGS

Speaking of hockey computer games Mike W. at Covered in Oil gives us this link to Eastside Hockey's insanely deep hockey sim. as part of some lynx he's passing along.

Over at Hockey Rants Jes Golbez takes Sean Avery to task for some incredibly stupid remarks. Which is becoming more and more typical of Avery.

Tom Benjamin the master of the eloquent argument all of a sudden becomes a puck pundit of few words... one to be exact.

In a word... amazing.

HOMER ( 8(|)

That's me, a Homer and since it is my blog I'll throw in a preview of my team.

There, I think I've thrown everything in here that I wanted to including... The Kitchen Sink.

Ooops, I knew I left something out... 10 games you cannot miss this season in the NHL

There, that's it, I'm done.

6 comments:

andy grabia said...

I am hurt. My late night story on Avery didn't make the cut?

http://sportsmatter.blogspot.com/2005/09/ebony-avery.html

I even dropped a Boyz n the Hood reference! Doesn't that count for anything!

Photomas said...

Yo Andy, not to worry bro, I got you covered. I'm going to be using your excellent Bidini review if not something else of yours here soon.

andy grabia said...

Oh, I was just goofing around.

Now I look like a shameless self-promoter.

I feel like Don King. Dirty and soiled.

Photomas said...

If it's about hockey you can never have enough self-promotion. It's all good. Say it loud, I'm a puckhead and I'm proud.

Life's messy sometimes you have to get dirty and soiled, if your not your not living.

d-lee said...

Actually, just before Superbowl XXIX, I wrote a pair of posts about the alleged SI jinx with specific reference to the Superbowl preview issue.
What I found, in my research was that SI chose to feature one team over the other on the cover of its Superbowl preview issue 33 times. 19 times, that team went on to win the big game. 57.5757...% accuracy. Doesn't sound like much of a jinx to me. I didn't look into the season preview issues about that, but that might be an interesting project.
If you're interested, the posts I wrote were on my non-hockey blog. You can read them here and here.

Photomas said...

d-lee,

thanks for the links. It's the first time I've seen the jinx rebutted. Great stuff!