Let's face it, if you are reading this it's because you have lost the feed on the football channel, you live in the top half of North America or at the very least have a fond appreciation for a game that draws the distinction between fighting and just roughing (roughing is when you keep your gloves on). But for you football fanatics that may have accidentally clicked here, I promise to throw in some football-related trivia later on. If you are new to the sport of hockey, you could not have picked a better time to start watching the streaming live feeds out of Russia or the Canadian broadcasting company (CBC.ca). The best four games out of seven Stanley Cup Championship featuring the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins begins June 12 and this series will make every other game you watch from now on pale in comparison, like having high speed internet compared to a 28.8 dial up modem. After a hardly-grueling 1/2 season marred by the owners not letting the players start until after the Superbowl was over in a strategic (and lame) cost-cutting measure, a couple of unusual winning streaks and some high profile movement at the trade deadline the race to the Stanley Cup playoffs was it's usual superficially hyped up event as sports reporters from around Toronto and Vancouver clamored to speculate which 16 of the 30 teams would make it into the playoffs to face their respective teams in the finals. Vancouver found it would take them only the minimum 4 games to stop that dream from happening and break out their golf clubs (as all hockey playoff games are best of sevens for maximum suspense and ticket sales). This is not the place to bore you with the details of the failed March to the Cup by various teams but what the heck, you are here now anyways so here's a couple of highlights from the two teams that are still going at it. In the Eastern Conference there was drama; the Toronto Maple Leafs had the most epic collapse since Mali scored 4 goals in the final 11 minutes to tie Angola in the Africa Cup of Nations tournament in 2010 or Manchester or Liverpool scoring three goals in seven minutes to tie AC Milan in the Champions League Final in 2005 (you're welcome, footballers). Clawing their way back from a 3 games to 1 deficit, Toronto was poised to make their way in the second round with a commanding 3 goal lead with 10 minutes left to play in the decisive game 7. Just over 30 minutes later, the Boston Bruins completed their comeback and sent the Maple Leafs packing and crying back to Canada. Here's the raw drama of that final 30 minutes condensed nicely into a 3 minute video. It's funny because it's so sad... Then there was the break-out of Old-time Canadian hockey featuring two Canadian hockey teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators. This is the type of hockey nobody wants to see which is why this face-breaking hit was replayed repeatedly until something better came along, which was these few minutes of pure awesomeness a couple games later. http://youtu.be/g_Rcbq6iKt4 In the Western Conference Chicago did it's usual winning thing in it's division. Yet they had their fair share of drama as well, giving the Detroit Red Wing faithful the finger as they clawed their way back from a similar 3 games to 1 disadvantage only to win the game 2x in the deciding game 7 after their first game winner with less than 2 minutes left was disallowed due to a
public mugging going on of a Chicago player at the Detroit bench. They went on to score again in overtime, defeat last year's champions the LA Kings and do it decisively in only 5 games. Now, after three playoff rounds, the Bruins and the Blackhawks are the only two teams left skating. Both teams are equal in stature, beards and all-star goal-tending. Boston does have the giant Slovak Zdeno Chara on their team while Chicago has the seldom played semi-psychotic Dan Carcillo who could bite out Chara's innards if need be. If you have yet to see what all the fuss is about in North America and those northern European countries, now is the time to do it.