Sporting Madness

Time for a quick update in my playoff bracket standings. After Round 1, I'm leading with 24 points. I managed to get all eight series right in terms of winners (beating all of the TSN experts ), but only predicted the exact number of games (six) in the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia series. Still, my bracket is still intact, which has to be seen as a victory. My father, Frank Bucholtz , is hot on my heels with 23 points; he picked seven out of eight series correctly, but figured that the Devils would knock off Carolina. However, he got two series exactly right: Pittsburgh in six and Washington in seven. New Queen's Journal co-editor-in-chief Mike Woods and Canadian University Press board guy extraordinaire Ricardo Bortolon are tied for third place with 19 points each. Both picked New Jersey and San Jose to advance incorrectly. Mike was dead-on on the Washington series, while Ricardo called the Detroit sweep. My mother brings up the rear with 14 points; she incorrectly picked Calg...

Yes, this is a little late, but seeing James Mirtle 's playoff bracket yesterday inspired me to create my own. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as pretty, but it's functional. If you're interested in joining my bracket pool for fun, just go to Simply Sports Ware ; the pool name is SportingMadness and the password is Sporting. The pick deadline is Friday night at 7 p.m.; that will allow picks to be made after one game in every series has been played. Let's see who comes out on top! Here's my picks: Round One: West: - Vancouver over St. Louis in six games. - Anaheim over San Jose in seven games - Detroit over Columbus in six games - Chicago over Calgary in five games East: - Boston over Montreal in five games - Washington over New York in six games - Carolina over New Jersey in six games - Pittsburgh over Philadelphia in six games Round Two: West: - Vancouver over Chicago in five games - Anaheim over Detroit in six games East: - Boston over Carolina in ...

The NHL announced today that Anaheim Ducks defenceman Chris Pronger would be suspended for eight games for his stomp on Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks. Outstanding CKNW and Canucks TV colour man Tom Larscheid nailed it towards the end of the clip, calling it "A deliberate play by Pronger just to stomp on Kesler with his skate." In my mind at least, this was out-and-out dirty, right up there with the infamous Chris Simon on Jarkko Ruutu play. Of course, Simon's a fringe player, so the full book (a 30-game suspension) got thrown at him: Pronger wouldn't even have been suspended without the NHL suspiciously finding a "new angle" after they'd already ruled it was inconclusive. According to Pronger, the league told him Thursday night there would be no suspension, but then re-reviewed the tape on Friday and came up with the new punishment. I don't see how they deemed it inconclusive in the first place: even the original camera angle was far bette...

Scott Niedermayer's recent return should elevate the Anaheim Ducks back to their former levels of might. Even without him, they're still a solid team that has put up 32 points thus far, good enough for seventh place in a jam-packed Western Conference where they're only two points out of second. With him, they have most of the pieces that led them to last year's Stanley Cup championship. It's uncertain whether Teemu Selanne will follow Niedermayer's example and return for the remainder of the season, but the Ducks' younger forwards have done a nice job of filling the void, with Getzlaf, Perry, and Kunitz all recording over 10 goals so far. Anaheim's had its problems so far, though. One of the most prominent is the absence of scoring depth, as no one except the three previously mentioned forwards has more than four goals and the Ducks have only averaged an anemic 2.35 goals per game, 25th-best in the league. They also haven't been amazing defensively,...