It’s one of those times in the year where playoff series run over the top of each other. It seems like the NBA playoffs get all the attention, but for me the NHL playoffs are far more exciting. Sadly for Dan the Man and I, our pick for the Stanley Cup (The Chicago Blackhawks) are one game away from being knocked out of the playoffs. In most series the better team will win, but with the NHL I believe there are more upsets by the lower seeded teams. Remember the Los Angels Kings won it all last season as an 8th seed. The Kings still have a chance to repeat this year as they’re ahead in their series 3 – 2 against San Jose. With the strike shortened season, we didn’t get to see a lot of the Eastern Conference teams. Catching up through the playoffs; the Pittsburgh Penguins really look like the best team in the NHL. Pittsburgh closed out the Ottawa Senators last night to move into the conference finals. They’ll take on the Boston Bruins or the New York Rangers. Boston, Detroit and Los Angels have a chance to close out their series and move on to the conference finals.
Oddly I talked last night on the show that if the Indiana Pacers won last night it would be a close game. Well the Pacers won 97 – 94 and LeBron James committed two turnovers in the final five seconds to help Indian win. Looking at this series so far Indiana could really be up 2 – 0 going to Indiana. The Pacers have the pieces that the Miami heat don’t do well against. Of course when you have LeBron James on your team you are the favorite in every game. James is far and away the best player in the NBA and that can be tough for me to write; since I’m a big Kevin Durant fan. The series is headed to Indiana 1 – 1 and they say the series hasn’t started until the home team loses a game. In the Western conference San Antonio is up 2 – 0 on Memphis, but a lot of people are still picking Memphis. Jerry Hoover was on with us Wednesday night and has Memphis in this series. The series is in Memphis for the next two games; San Antonio is a veteran team and they’ve been here before; so we’ll see how the Grizzlies do at home.
The baseball season is rolling along and of course the talk of the show is The Bet. At the start of the year Dan the man and Mr. Fantasy put a fitted hat on the line. Dan the Man had the Dodgers to win it all, but Mr. Fantasy said they’d be the third best team in California. Right now Mr. Fantasy is looking good, but remember #ItsJustMay. The Dodgers are sitting at 19 wins while San Diego and the Angels have 21. The Giants and the A’s each have 26 wins. So the Dodgers have about 7 plus games to make up; so will see how things work out for Dan the Man. It seems to be a Friday night special on the show that we get an update on The Bet.
So Brian Urlacher decided to retire as a Chicago Bear. As much as it seemed like he wanted to try to play this upcoming season there was no team out their willing to sign him. I still believe that if former Bears head coach Lovie Smith would’ve gotten one of the opening coaching positions this off-season Urlacher would be playing for that team. As we know Smith is going to be an analyst; so no one signed Urlachler. There’s no doubt the Urlacher will go into the Hall of Fame, but is he a first ballot hall of famer. On Friday nights show there was a good point brought up. Will they put two middle linebackers in the Hall of Fame in the same year? As good of a player as Urlacher was Ray Lewis was better and he retired at the end of last season as well. I think everyone expects that they’ll both be in the Hall of Fame, but will they go in together is the question?
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