New Season
The hockey season is back, and you can follow it all with us right here on BIH.
Stats Centre
We are working on an archive of matches, stats and players from BIH in the past few years.
Sir Stanley's Preview
It’s here. The Stanley Cup Final.
82 regular season games followed by three best of 7-games series.
We started with 30 teams, now we have two.
And those two? The Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins.
After the first series, and a massive fight back by the Chicago Blackhawks, the Canucks have made solid progress through the next two rounds, beating Nashville in 6, then clinching the Campbell Bowl as Western Conference Champions in 5 games against the San Jose Sharks.
This is the third time the Canucks have been to Final, yet they’ve never won it. This may very well be their best chance, they look good, really good.
The phrase “Quarterback” is an overly used one in North American sports, piggy backing the popularity of the regions most popular sport. However, never has the phrase been so aptly applied as in reference to Canucks captain Henrik Sedin. H. Sedin leads the NHL postseason in points with 21, that total includes the rather diminutive return of 2 goals. Any other top line centre contributing 2 goals is not going to be taking his team to the end of season showcase. But Sedin is something else. He sees, and executes, passes that other people simply wouldn’t of thought of. The games would almost be worth watching for him alone.
But then there is so much more to the Canucks than the top line and the Sedin Twins. Chiefly among them is Roberto Luongo. The big goaltender, who led Canada to the gold medal at last years Winter Olympics has recovered from his first series wobble. A good battle with Pekka Rinnie of Nashville in round two, brought the best out of the Montreal Native.
Special mention should also be given to the truly bizarre way the Canucks clinched series. Reminiscent of last years Stanley Cup winning goal by Patrick Kane, where confusion reigned, here, a chip off the boards resulted in only one person on the ice knowing where the puck was, and he put it in the net, in the 2nd period of sudden death overtime. Tough on the Sharks, but the Canucks deserved it.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgVvlnAz9hA)
Their opponents, the Boston Bruins have molded themselves into a team built for the playoffs. They are big, the fight for the puck, and they drive to the net hard. From their base of Tim Thomas who has returned from a below bar year last time round to earn a deserved nomination (along with his opposite number Luongo) for the Vezina Trophy as the leagues best goaltender.
In their semi final they shut down Tampa Bay’s big three (St Louis, Lacavalier and Stamkos) ultimately leading them through a Game 7 decider 1-0.
Zdeno Chara, their 6 ft 9, 255 pound, defenseman and captain has maybe not imposed himself on teams as much as expected this post-season, but still leads the NHL in plus-minus (goals scored for his team while on the ice, minus goals scored against). There was a nasty incident in round 1 where a hit from Chara trapped a Montreal Canadian player’s head between him and where the borders begin after the benches. While not the first time he has been involved in a controversial hit, the incident does seem to have shaken him. His line is giving up more shots a goal, but limiting good goalscoreing chances. The battle between him a Henrik Sedin, captain on captain, talisman on talisman, top line centre vs top defense pairing will go a long way to deciding the destination of the Stanley Cup this spring.
If Tampa had made it through, I would have backed the Canucks to win the series. However, if there is one team to beat them, I would have to say, its probably the Bruins.
The fact they’ve come through two game 7s to get here, works both ways, they’ve got the togetherness an experience from going through the most pressured of environments, but they have also had to lay it all out just to get here. Maybe the Canucks have a little bit more left in the tank, they also have home ice advantage, meaning they have one more game at home (if all 7 games are needed) they also have the first two, and would also have Game 7 in Vancouver by virtue of being the NHL’s top team in the regular season.
I really can’t pick this one.
Game 1 is Wednesday night/morning at 1am UK time.
blog comments powered by Disqus0-3 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-3 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-5 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-4 |
||
| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-4 |
||
| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
||
| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
5-8 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
||
| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|
- Adam Walker
- Alex Birch
- Andy Pierce
- Chris Gent
- Christopher Beal
- Craig Simpson
- Dave Simms
- Elliott Stanley
- Gareth Chalmers
- James Broughton
- James Gordon
- Katy Madgwick
- Luke Catterson
- Mark Briggs
- Mark Duell
- Mat Young
- Patrick Smyth
- Promotion
- Russ Morrell
- Seanna Murdock
- Stephen Dowson
- Stewart Roberts
- Tom Forster
- Vicki Smart
- William Lyon
