The glorious end of hockey season

It’s finally here. With the Stanley Cup final mercifully here, we’re looking straight at the end of hockey season… in June. Sure we’re pretty much blessed to see a match up the calibre of Detroit-Pittsburgh — a finals that features two high scoring clubs with enough star power and light their own marquee – but starting their championship today, after four days off, virtually insures that the series will last into June. Summer and hockey are not synonymous with each other.

Brace yourself, in the coming week or two we’re going to be hearing a lot about Sidney Crosby’s and Evgeni Malkin’s amazing scoring abilities for the Penguins and Henrik Zetterberg’s and Pavel Datsyuk’s for the Red Wings. We’re going to be hearing a lot about rugged old timers Chris Chelos (older than Crosby and Malkin combined) and Gary Roberts. We’re going to be hearing about how Sid and Evgeni are significantly younger than the greats (Gretzky, Lemieux, etc.) were when they first won Cups. We’re going to be hearing a lot about the match up between the two teams’ offensive defencemen (Nicklas Lidstrom vs. Sergei Gonchar. And finally, we’re going to be hearing a lot of volume coming out of Don Cherry’s mouth and suits.

So, who do I think will be hoisting one of the best looking trophies in sports? Look for Detroit’s defence to keep the Penguins stars in check more than Pittsburgh’s defence core can keep Detroit’s high-octane offence locked up. Detroit in 6. It’s a shame that the Pens are good enough to push it to 6, I hate watching teams win it all on the road.

And don’t worry Sid the Kid and Gino Malkin, you’ll be drinking out of Lord Stanley’s Cup soon enough. But you’re a bit too young to taste that nectar now.