Sunday Games Again, With A Difference

The Hockey Tattler, Vol. I, No. 10

Sunday March 7, 2010

Sunday’s Games, Coast to Coast

It was only seven short days ago that the hockey world was going bonkers over the Olympic gold medal game. Canadians were and remain delirious over the outcome. The Americans, at first despondent, seem to be gaining a sense of composure at having come so far with a youthful team. The Russians, meanwhile, sacked one of their sports czars.

So today’s games come as a bit of a consolation, against the backdrop of last week’s nirvana. Even so, three games caught my attention.

NBC’s Game of the Week aired midday at 12:30pm. It was an all Midwest tilt, with the Detroit Red Wings pitted against an emergent (Western Conference 2^nd place) Chicago Blackhawks team. But think about that start time. These guys had to be out on the ice, playing at 11:30am Central time. And yet, when they talk about the game in interviews, everybody always talks about “tonight”.

The early game might have caught Chicago off guard. In a spotty second period, two Hawks goaltenders allowed five unanswered goals. The Wings emerged with a 5 – 3 win.

The second game of the day was a small college contest in Brunswick Maine. I can’t help it. My own college, the Bowdoin "Polar Bears", made it into the NESCAC finals as the top seed. Bowdoin played Middlebury in a game that the hockey world will little note. Penalties did the Polar Bears in, and Middlebury emerged on top, 3 – 2. NESCAC has a new league champion. The Polar Bears will regroup and try again next year.

The third game will be played later tonight, at 8pm East Coast time. It will happen out on the Alberta plains, in Edmonton. The New Jersey Devils face the Oilers. On paper, it should be no contest. The Devils are in second place in the Atlantic Division. The Oilers are in last place in the Northwest Division. The Oilers have something to prove.

Ordinarily, very few people in New Jersey would be watching an evening game on the same night as the Oscars. But good fortune has struck the local Devils TV network. Due to a dispute between Disney/ABC and Cablevision, the Oscars have been blacked out in the New York metropolitan area. What timing.

Hockey Rules.