Well, it does have the word "layoff" right in there....

[captainsblog]

Two compelling stories as East finally meets West: a last-seeded team of mixed-up misfits from other teams, which blasted its way through three series in near-record time; against a 6-seed which clawed and scraped past a higher-"seeded" division winner with a worse record, then a seemingly unbeatable bunch of Bullies, and finally their PATH train rivals in a riveting (and I don't mean Craig) seven-game thriller.

So faced with such imminent drama, the NHL, showing the same wisdom that got it booted off ESPN in favor of poker tournaments and Crossfit meets, decides to take almost a whole week off before starting the Stanley Cup Finals tonight.

It's not like they had to wait for the Clippers or Lakers to play first before laying down the ice in the Staples Center.  And it's bad enough that the playoffs take up the entire first two months of baseball season; why are they so hell-bent on running them into the middle of June?

I can hear the excuses. It's all for the television, and we should be happy the games are all on NBC's flagship network and not their Outdoor Life Versus Sports Whatever cable channel. Couldn't start them on a national holiday, right? (What national holiday, eh?) Or last night, when the hockey hotbeds of San Antonio and OKC were going at it on the hardwood atop the ice surface.

So if these two feel-good stories go the expected full seven games, we're looking at Lord Stanley's Cup being raised in, possibly, the wee hours of June 14th.  It'll be so hot by then I can picture water skis on the zamboni.

Best of all? For the Sabres, it'll only be three months before their first preseason game:P

Comments

[canadiandiamond.livejournal.com]

I think Game 7 of the Devils/Rangers was set for Sunday past if needed, which it wasn't, but still, they could've started sooner once that series was done. It really does run into June pretty consistently now, which must be crazy in places that actually get warm weather. Here, not so much really. XD

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

We've still got hockey down here in Virginia. Friday night, I'll be going to game one of the Calder Cup finals between the Norfolk Admirals and the Toronto Marlies.

Never thought I'd be going to a hockey game in June in southeast Virginia!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

What, exactly, IS a Marly, anyway?

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia ever so helpfully tells me "The team is named after the former Toronto Marlboros junior hockey team, but the abbreviated "Marlies" name was chosen to avoid any potential association with the similarly named cigarette brand."

Another click tells me that the Marlboros (1903-1989) were named after the Duke of Marlborough. I don't know why the Duke of Marlborough was worthy of such honor. Though he was the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and the husband of Consuelo Vanderbilt. (And the Marlboros were sometimes called the "Dukes," apparently.)

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Wow. I would never have guessed that, so I imagine the avoidance is working.

I went to Cornell, in an upstate city generally recognized as one of the most Marxist enclaves on the continent, and yet just outside the city limits is a subdivision known as the "cigarette streets," including Salem Drive, Winston Drive and Muriel (a onetime cigar brand) Street. My flaky freshman roommate, a faculty brat, grew up on Tareyton Drive. To this day, those names remain the same.