Sporting Madness

TSN's Gino Reda tweeted an interesting question following the Flyers' improbable 4-3 comeback victory [ Broad Street Hockey ] over the Bruins [ Jon Bois , SB Nation ] tonight; was this the greatest comeback in NHL history? I'm tempted to say yes. To start with, coming back from a 3-0 series deficit in a best-of-seven in any sport is incredibly rare. It's never been done in the NBA, it's been accomplished exactly once in Major League Baseball and it's happened three times now in hockey. The other two occasions were the Toronto Maple Leafs' comeback against Detroit in 1942 and the New York Islanders' comeback against Pittsburgh in 1975 . Let's take a look at them and see how they stack up. First, the Maple Leafs' comeback in 1942. This was in the Stanley Cup Finals, so they get bonus points for that, and it was also the first Cup Finals to go seven games, so that's worth even more points. That was a tremendous Maple Leafs' team, f...

Much has been made [ David Shoalts , The Globe and Mail ] of this afternoon's upcoming Game I tilt between Alexander Ovechkin 's Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby 's Pittsburgh Penguins as a ready-made marketer's dream for the NHL. Hopes are high, and many seem to feel that this kind of matchup between two of the league's brightest stars could be a breakthrough moment for hockey in the U.S. There are some aspects that favour that idea, as both stars toil in reasonably large media markets where there isn't much else going on at the moment; both cities have atrocious baseball teams and Washington's NBA team didn't make the playoffs, while Pittsburgh lacks an NBA team completely and Pennsylvania's lone NBA team was just eliminated [ Howard Beck , The New York Times ]. If this series is going to draw in the viewers, though, it will have to start with a strong first game. Fortunately for the NHL, they've been able to get this game off of the obs...

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...

Just to continue on with the Stanley Cup playoff predictions: the Detroit-Pittsburgh series kicks off tonight, so I thought I'd put a quick post up with my pick. I love Pittsburgh's offensive firepower, and I have more faith in their goaltending (Fleury instead of Osgood), but I don't trust their defence. Also, Detroit has the experience, they have the scoring depth, and they have some amazing defencemen in Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwall. I've been going against the Red Wings all playoffs long, thinking that someone would be able to expose their flaws of only average goaltending and a high collective age, but no one in the West was able to handle them. It should be an interesting series, and I'll be rooting for Pittsburgh all the way, but my prediction is Wings in six.

So, Round Two's officially wrapped up and I went 2-2 with my predictions , continuing my .500 mark (now 6-6 overall). I got the Penguins and Stars, but flubbed on the Avs and Habs. For this round, I tied with Bob McKenzie , Eric Duhatschek and Maggie the Monkey, lost to Allan Maki (who's now a ridiculous 11-1 overall), Darren Dreger and David Shoalts (3-1), but beat James Mirtle , Matt Sekeres and Zanstorm (1-3). Most of them are beating me overall, though, due to my 4-4 first-round efforts. Here's my picks for the conference finals. East: Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia: Penguins in six. Nice to see the biggest Battle of Pennsylvania since Gettysburg reinvigorated. I like Pittsburgh here because of their overwhelming offense and great goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury. Philly will try and run them out of the rink in the old Broad Street Bullies model, but ultimately, that won't be enough to prevail overall. Look for home-ice advantage to play a big role in this on...