Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Stanley Cup Finals-2017
With their
win on Monday night, The Nashville Predators have evened the seriers
with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The series now moves on to Pittsnurgh
for one game, then back to Nashville. It is now a “Best out of
three” series, and the the first team to win two games gets to
hoist the Stanley Cup.
With their
two convincing wins in Nashville, the Predators have taken the
momentum away from the Penguins. They have a massive following in
Nashville; it was reported that almost 50 000 fans stood outside
the arena to catch the flavour
of the game. Keep in mind that they are not exactly experiencing
Ontario weather at this time. The city is in Tennessee, warm, sunny,
free of pounding rain.
The
Preds have gained one new and very prominent fan: Charles Barkley,
from the basketball world. On a recent NBA telecast, I heard Barkley
announce that he was leaving the booth to go back to his hotel room
to watch hockey. It was a bit of a slap in the face to his game, and
an endorsement of hockey.
On
last night's telecast, Barkley was interviewed by a somewhat giddy
Scott Oake. Oake was impressed by “Sir Charles”, and his interest
in the game. The conversation ended when Barkley stated that of all
the major sports, he loved the way hockey playoff games end: sudden
death. No coin flip, no last bats, no running out the clock. The puck
crosses the goal line, legitimately, and everybody goes home.
Distractions
have become more pronounced in the year's playoffs. There is the
usual bickering and whining. But other ingrediendts have been thrown
into the mix this year. Take Listerine, as an example. Huh?
Sidney
Crosby of the Penguins supposedly accused P. K. Subban of the Preds
of having bad breath. I assume he ascetained this during a heated
argument. Naturally, Crosby denied the allegation, with a smile.
Subban was last seen lugging a bag full of Listerine down the hall in
the arena. Talk about subliminal advertising!
Distractions
have been part of the process for time immemorial. I vaguely remember
an Aesop fable when a crow talked a fox out of a piece of cheese, by
telling him how beautiful he looked. There are so many instances in
hockey involving split second timing, and intense concentration.
Getting the jump in a face off is so important, as an example.
Rick
Meagher once told me the most difficult opponent to face off against
was the Los Angeles Kings' Bernie Nicholls. “When we were getting
ready for the puck to drop, he would start talking about all the new
rides and attractions at Disneyland. He was just being sociable, but
it was most distracting!”
They
now have coaches being interviewed at stoppages in play. They have
reporters in between the benches to “capture the flavour of the
game”, with a delay on the audio, hopefully. There are players
being “Mic'ed up” during the game. There are cameras running in
dressing rooms before the games, in the intermissions. All of these
things are unnecessary distractions. Not required.
But
a little input from “Sir Charles” never hurts.
James
Hurst
June
6, 2017.
# posted by James Hurst @ 7:33 PM 
