Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The biggest scandal in Canada's history

At least that's the way it sounds like, given what I've been hearing on TV over the last week. Only one Canadian team qualified for the NHL playoffs. Give me a break with the postmortems. I don't even want to imagine what it would've been like had Carey Price not been there to make it at least one Canadian team. At least the playoffs begin tomorrow, so maybe they'll move on to something else then.

10 comments:

  1. The NHL needs to somehow change things around. Too many teams make the playoffs, and there are so many upsets the regular season is kinda pointless. Home ice isn't as important as it is in other sports, so your seed doesn't really matter. That being said, hyped for Rangers-Flyers, hopefully NY can make a run this year.

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    1. 16 may be too many, but 8 is too few. And with a best-of-7 format, no way is giving some teams a first-round bye like in the NFL or CFL viable. At that point you can only pick the lesser of two evils.

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    2. I agree. But the NBA does 16 and the regular season is very important because home court advantage is tremendous. Home ice isn't nearly as important, and teams like the Kings from 2 years ago can get hot at the right time and play with no penalty for a poor regular season. Every other upset heavy sport has a small playoff field. I don't really know what they can do about it. In Japanese baseball the higher seed starts off leading the series 1-0, but that wouldn't sit well with people over here.

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    3. If anything, the fact that there are so many legitimate contenders improves the quality of the show by that much, because every series has an element of suspense, even those that are less evenly matched. You can't even go into Boston/Detroit saying "Boston has it in the bag", and I fail to see how that's a bad thing. If the field's evenly matched enough, I see no problem in letting 16 teams in.

      You want too many teams making the playoffs though, look at Quebec's junior league, where 16 teams out of 18 qualify for the playoffs, and the first round is exactly as dull as you'd expect.

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    4. I guess so. But when the playoffs are so wide open I feel like the president's trophy winners should get some benefit other than a silly award that isn't important. The only "benefit" is playing the 8 seed who is sometimes very hot after making a push into the playoffs.

      Also that's crazy about the junior league. Is it split into conferences or is it one big group?

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    5. There are three divisions of six teams, but aside from the division leaders automatically being ranked at the top, as well as how often teams face each other (to promote regional rivalries as well as reduce traveling costs, like with any other sports league), it really doesn't make much of a difference. But can it, really? The Shawinigan Cataractes took the last playoff spot with a 20-39-9 record, and that's the most ridiculous thing ever.

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  2. Jeez, that's awful. Even the crappy NBA and NFL teams that make it in aren't nearly that bad. At that point just hand the top seed a bye. Also if there's 3 divisions and 16 spots, that means one ENTIRE division can make the playoffs? What moron came up with that system?

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    1. That last fact doesn't really bug me at all, at least the top 16 teams make the playoffs, no distinctions whatsoever depending on geographical location, no fanfiction plot bunnies that would somehow qualify the 17th team at the expense of the 16th, nothing.

      It's also possible for an entire division to make the playoffs in the CFL (or at least was prior to Ottawa returning), if the fourth team in a division does better than the third in the other one. This is to ensure the best six teams qualify no matter what.

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  3. Well it is your biggest sport, so I guess I kinda understand the sky is falling talk. I mean, not often when neither Toronto nor Vancouver make the playoffs, and Ottawa had a total 180 from last year (think they had second least goals against last season?). At least Montreal should put a good showing, I think they can upset Tampa, but idk about Boston....

    If nothing else, the West is gonna be a tough battle. All teams minus the wild cards are really all pretty close to one-another in ability to win despite any points differences. Rooting for Chicago but I'll stand behind anyone who makes it through THAT gauntlet (unless Boston and Pittsburgh both lose in the conference rounds, then all bets are off).

    By the way, anyone else find it mildly amusing that a bunch of Pokemon nerds are discussing Hockey? idk why, just most probably assume we only live for Nintendo or nostalgia--not applicable to these parts but you get the gist.

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    1. Who would've thought that Canada's basketball team would be the ones making a postseason splash(hopefully). I'm tempted to take St. Louis in the West after how good they looked last night(aside from the awful start).

      To your last question: Depends on how you look at it. I'm a much bigger sports nerd than I am game nerd. Most of the games I play are sports games, actually.

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