Well, the hockey gods have apparently decided that I can only be half right at any given time. If Vancouver can close out Minnesota on Wednesday night, my predictions for the second round will be exactly the same percentage as my predictions for the first round. 50%. I can't answer a 50-50 question in Trivial Pursuit correctly to save my life, but two rounds in a row it looks as though that's how I'm picking them. I called my friend Matt (the big Flyer's fan) last night to confirm the tee-time for the Flyers. He wasn't a happy man and I don't blame him. His team, however, did make it two rounds further than mine did. I saw my last Pens game over a month ago. One thing I realized during my conversation with him (albeit a brief one since he's buried in school work. He's working on a PhD from The University of Connecticut.) is that hockey is set up in a very intelligent manner as far as sports go. Beginning with the opening of the regular season near the beginning of October, you rabidly watch your team all throughout the year seeing all of the different opponents, perhaps attending a few games along the way. You might even find time to scout the other teams if your team isn't playing that evening. All of this leads to the first round of the playoffs which begins in mid-April. Games are overlapping each other there's so much hockey to watch. You're getting a regular fix all throughout the first round. Then as teams are eliminated you begin the second round. There are fewer teams and therefore fewer games, but still very intense since you know that they're playing for the right to compete in the conference finals in the third round. By the time the third round starts, you don't even notice that there are fewer games since each game holds a season's worth of significance within it. This finally leads to the Stanley Cup Finals. Whether it's a sweep or it gets pushed to game 7, you're left feeling exhilarated (unless of course your team didn't make the playoffs). Then just as that is wearing off, the draft takes place. The press surrounding the draft dies down right around the time that the unrestricted free agents being testing the waters. Just as this is finishing up you have the salary arbitration hearings. At the end of that, the press focuses on training camp and you're right back into the regular season. Now, if I could just get ESPN to follow the games correctly instead of their bad camera angles and even worse commentators.
Not much else is going on today. I'm tiring of walking the precarious fence of doing the job I was hired to do and the job I actually enjoy doing. Especially since I'm being tapped for both and one has a deadline attached to it. Other than that work is fairly mundane. I walked over to the greek orthodox food festival at St. Nicholas church today. The food looked really good, but I just wasn't in a lunch kind of mood. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it though. That's all for today I guess.