I’ve had a wonderful time in Vancouver! Many of my pictures look like they could have been taken at the Summer Olympics instead of the Winter Olympics. There are many pictures of flowering trees, flowers in bloom, sailboats and rowers on the water, and the sun making everything shine. The only pictures I have of the snow are the mountains and the snow caps seem to get smaller every day. We didn’t make it up to Whistler or Cypress to see any of the sports up there. Sadly, the scalpers down here don’t seem to cover the sports on the mountains and we hadn’t pre-purchased our tickets. We did watch some of the sports live on TV, though, which is something I couldn’t have done in southern California.

The Canadian coverage of the Olympics is a lot more thorough than the American coverage on NBC. Though they seem to have fewer channels covering the Olympics, I’m sure they have many more hours of coverage than NBC’s channels. Their channels have the Olympics airing live from the time the events start in the morning until they end. They have replays of games and events after that and unlike the US prime time coverage, they do not start with one sport, then go to another, then go back to the first sport, etc. If you want to watch ski jumping and not watch the other sports going on at that time, it’s simple – just choose the channel showing ski jumping. The only exception to this rule is when they are showing hockey games. They pick another sport airing at the same time to fill the gaps during intermission and go back to the hockey game as soon as intermission is over.

Watching USA vs. Canada men’s ice hockey in a local pub had to be a very close second to being in Canada Hockey Place to watch the game in person. Other than the two of us in our USA hockey jerseys, there was only one other fan we could see cheering for Team USA. There was a guy wearing an American flag as a cape (the Canadian flag as a cape has been very popular almost everywhere we’ve been). He didn’t join in when we chanted “USA! USA!” However, he did cheer when the US scored.

Everyone around us was very nice to us even though we were clearly cheering for the “wrong” team. They seemed to respect the fact that we had the guts to wear USA hockey jerseys into a Canadian bar to cheer our team on to victory. Needless to say, the trash talk from the Canadians took place a lot more before the game than during, since the US scored early to take the lead and never looked back. Canada tied the game a couple times, but never had the lead in the game.

Vancouver has been beautiful and everyone has been very friendly and helpful. I definitely want to come back here when I’ll have more time to enjoy the city.

I’m watching USA vs. Sweden women’s ice hockey right now from a bar with Wi-Fi and looking forward to seeing the US men’s ice hockey team continue to play well. One of the Canadians in Smiley’s (the bar we chose to watch the game) last night pointed out that Canada had the better individual players (Crosby, Getzlaf, Perry, etc.), but that USA had the better team. Since this is a team sport and not a skills competition, Team USA seems to have the advantage at the moment. Though Luongo played well in Canada’s first game, I doubt that Norway tested Canada the way the Swiss and American teams did. I’m not sure the TSN media analysis of Canada’s position in the Olympic standings being Brodeur’s fault is fair. Though I haven’t seen Canada vs. Norway yet and I did see a couple glaringly obvious mistakes by Brodeur in last night’s game against Team USA, it’s not like Canada lost 10-8. They only scored 3 goals. I don’t see how they can blame the game entirely on Brodeur when they weren’t scoring very much.

The rest of the Olympic hockey tournament should be very interesting. Perhaps thinking Team USA had a chance in men’s ice hockey wasn’t such a crazy thought after all.

In spite of their two bench minors for too many men on the ice (inexcusable in a must win game) and two other power play chances they gave the Red Wings, Anaheim’s penalty kill kept Detroit’s power play at bay for 3 of their 4 chances. Anaheim’s power play (ranked 2nd in the postseason going into tonight’s game) was also successful 1 out of their 5 chances (though it was really more like 4, due to the overlapping penalties). Fortunately for Ducks fans everywhere, most of Anaheim’s 46 penalty minutes, 12 penalties) came at the 20 minute mark of the 3rd period when the gloves were dropped by just about everyone (Scott Niedermayer included). Until that point, the Ducks were even with the Red Wings in penalties at 5 (10 minutes each).

Jonas Hiller was amazing again, stopping 38 of the 39 shots he faced (97.4% of the shots). The Red Wings outshot the Ducks 39-28, but the Ducks played much better after the first period. Considering how poorly the Ducks played in Detroit on Sunday, I expected them to come out with all cylinders firing at the beginning of the game tonight. Apparently, they didn’t all get the message that the game time had been pushed up to 7 p.m. (all the previous playoff games in Anaheim had been at 7:30 p.m.). The Ducks came out looking a little tired, but by the end of the first they were still tied with the Red Wings and that was important. They came out strong in the 2nd and got the only two goals of the period, in spite of being outshot by the Red Wings in that period.

When the Red Wings scored their power play goal, a lot of Ducks fans got a bit nervous. A one goal lead is far from safe in the playoffs – especially against a strong team like the Red Wings. The Ducks held on to their lead and are ready to play their style of game again in Detroit Thursday night in game 7. In spite the pressure of a game 7 on the road, the players know this is what the playoffs are all about. The excitement of a game 7 is hard to match.

Thursday’s game will be the Ducks’ 4th game 7 in franchise history. They’re 2-1 in game 7s so far. The Joe Louis Arena is a difficult arena to face in the playoffs. In a game 7, it’s sure to be incredibly loud, but the Ducks are as prepared as possible and they’re ready to face Detroit and fight for their playoff lives. They know if they don’t win their season is over and no team is ever really ready for their season to end.

Ryan Getzlaf had a point in each of the Ducks’ 2 goals tonight (1-1), making tonight his 7th multi-point game of the postseason.

Fortunately for Ducks fans who couldn’t make it to Honda Center tonight, FSN Prime Ticket aired the game in HD (even for those of us unlucky enough to get only one of the FSN HD channels).

Corey Perry tied the Ducks’ franchise postseason record for the fastest goal scored at the start of a game (Sykora scored 42 seconds into game 5 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals in New Jersey on June 5, 2003), established a career high for points in a postseason game with 3 (2-1), & had his first career postseason multi-goal game. However, his first goal of the game was probably the highlight for most Ducks fans at Honda Center tonight. Perry’s goal gave the Ducks their only lead of the game, which they held until Hiller gave up a soft goal to Franzen at 11:49 in the first period.

Ryan Getzlaf extended his league-leading postseason point streak to 8 games. He has 14 points in those 8 games (2-12) and has regained the solo lead in postseason scoring (he was tied with Sidney Crosby going into tonight’s game). Chris Pronger & Scott Niedermayer also extended their point streaks (to 5 & 3 games respectively), but overall the Ducks looked pretty bad tonight in front of their announced attendance of 17,601 (including 427 standing room only tickets) breaking the record set this season against the Philadelphia Flyers on January 2, 2009 (17,597). One of my friend’s who was at the game joked that it was all Red Wings fans, but the Ducks fans were well represented in the crowd, in spite of the “Let’s go Red Wings” and “Ozzie” chants that could probably be heard by watching the game on TV near the end of the game almost as well as they could in Honda Center.

Another bright side for the Ducks is that they managed to continue their power play goal streak, scoring one goal in their 3 power play chances. For a while, it seemed like the Ducks didn’t want a full power play, since they took a penalty 31 seconds after Detroit’s first penalty and only 6 seconds after Detroit’s second penalty. They scored to end their third power play opportunity after only 12 seconds. Obviously, that’s the way the Ducks would prefer to end a power play early. I’m sure the Ducks will aim to spend less time in the penalty box in games 5 & 6, even though Detroit only scored one goal in their 5 power play opportunities tonight.

The Red Wings clearly didn’t start game four as they’d planned. Mike Babcock mentioned in his post-game interview that they’d talked a lot about starting the game stronger, since he feels the Ducks have out-skated the Red Wings for about the first ten minutes in every game this series and that the Red Wings have improved as the games progressed. The plan was to change that tonight and start stronger, which they obviously didn’t accomplish. Babcock also mentioned that he thought the first period of tonight’s game was their worst period they’d played in a long time and that he’s not sure how they managed to come out of it with a 2-1 lead.

The Ducks and Red Wings have two days off to rest up before playing game 5 in Detroit on Sunday. The series has become a best of 3 series and whichever team can come out of it winning 2 of the next three will advance to the conference final against the Vancouver Canucks or Chicago Blackhawks (also tied at 2 a piece after tonight’s overtime Hawks win).

Honda Center will surely be packed again Tuesday night for game 6, since everyone already knows the series cannot end earlier.

Note: Hiller was pulled for the first time in his playoff career (his 10th playoff game). I’m sure Hiller will still start game 5 for the Ducks, since he started tonight’s game as the number one goalie in the playoffs and was in the top for the regular season, as well.

The NHL couldn’t have scripted last night’s game with Crosby vs. Ovechkin better (though I’d bet they would have picked Pittsburgh to win, since they want the series to go to 7 games). In spite of the fact that Malkin won the NHL scoring title this year and until last night had more points than Sid in the playoffs, all the buzz has been about Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin. Alexander Semin had more points than Alex Ovechkin until last night, too. Now, advertising Sid vs. Alex seems to make sense. Crosby stands alone in 2nd place (behind Ryan Getzlaf and no one is going to talk about him – he’s from a southern California team that people still seem to think is lucky for having beaten the Sharks). Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin are tied for 3rd with 11 points, though Malkin’s 1.38 points per game beats Ovechkin’s 1.22. At least now they’re talking about the top scoring player on each team, which they weren’t before last night’s hat tricks.

Who would have ever guessed that Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin would both get their first playoff hat tricks in the same game? The league really couldn’t have planned it better unless it was in game 7 of the conference finals. That would be a bit better. Otherwise, it was perfect. The two players the NHL cares to market both got their first playoff hat tricks in the same game. Alex’s third goal in his hat trick was the game winning goal. It really was perfect.

The only problem is that the NHL has no clue how to market itself. Drive around and look at the billboards in any major city and you’ll see ads for the MLB, NBA, NFL – I’ve even seen one for tennis. I’ve never seen a billboard with NHL stars telling me I should watch the NHL. Watch the NHL on NBC and you’ll see ads (I stopped fast forwarding to watch it, since it looked interesting) for watching poker. They even have a hockey themed ad for poker explaining how the games are similar and why those watching the NHL game should stay tuned and watch the poker tournament that follows. Conversely, if you watch the poker tournament or baseball or anything other than the NHL on any channel other than Versus, you’ll never see the NHL playoff ads. The NHL could really use a better marketing director.

Perhaps the NHL will prove me wrong this time, but I’d be completely stunned. They don’t seem to realize that advertising during a hockey game for a hockey game is pretty pointless. I’m already watching. Heck, knowing what channel Versus is on my DVR is a huge step – it’s something your average person on the street wouldn’t know. Ask them where they find ESPN, though, and I’d bet you get a much higher percentage of correct answers and 0% of the people going “What’s that?” Somehow, I think if you polled people on a street corner asking where they can find Versus on their cable or satellite, you’d get a lot of puzzled looks and people saying they’re not sure if they get that channel – and they might not. Versus is a part of my sports package, though ESPN & ESPN2 are both standard. Those of us who are already watching Versus don’t need to be convinced. We watched Sid and Alex both get their first playoff hat tricks last night, but non-hockey fans could have been won over last night. A lot of hockey fans who don’t normally watch other team’s games got sucked into the Ducks/Red Wings game Sunday, since it was exciting. A game going into 3OT where there is one winner and one loser (and no point for losing in overtime) is exciting – especially when it’s a fast-paced game like hockey. Since that game was on NBC, perhaps a few people who don’t normally watch hockey did stumble upon it and get sucked into the action, but without a better marketing strategy I don’t see how the NHL can improve their ratings.

Of course, some cities are better at advertising than others. This may be where some of the people saying that southern California shouldn’t have NHL teams get the support for their argument. In Pittsburgh, during the playoffs, there are banners all over. I drove through Anaheim Saturday night and there was no way anyone could possibly tell that just a few blocks away was the home of the Ducks – in round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I don’t have experience with the surrounding areas of most teams in the playoffs, but I know that in Pittsburgh stores have signs in their windows and are happy about the Penguins being in the playoffs. That doesn’t happen around here and without the NHL having billboards or any other advertising to let people know, it’s no wonder people only care about the NBA playoffs. If you live in the US and haven’t seen a TNT billboard for the NBA, I’d be pretty surprised. I haven’t watched a playoff NBA game since Rick Fox played for the Lakers, but I know what channel it’s on if someone asked me in random conversation. It just goes to show you that the NBA knows how to advertise. I have a DVR and don’t even watch most games live, but I see ads in magazines and billboards. It would be nice if someday the random person on the street could tell me where you could find the NHL playoffs, just as someone who doesn’t care about the NBA playoffs still knows where to find them.

Since the 1985-86 season when the Presidents’ Trophy was introduced, only 7 of the winners have won the Stanley Cup in the same season. Of course, only four other Presidents’ Trophy winners had lost in the first round of the playoffs (the most recent being the Detroit Red Wings, who lost to the Edmonton Oilers in 2006). The Ducks became the fourth team to knock the Presidents’ Trophy winner out in the first round of the playoffs. Were they surprised? Not at all. The whole playoffs, the Ducks have been saying they didn’t think they were out of their league and they could beat the Sharks. Clearly, they were right. Throughout the playoffs, I didn’t talk to many people who had predicted the Ducks would win before the playoffs started. Most people I talked to before the playoffs thought my Ducks in 6 prediction was completely nuts. They told me how the Sharks had performed in April didn’t matter and their history of collapsing in the playoffs didn’t matter. I disagree. The Sharks ended the season just cruising and barely hanging on to their league best record and while I realize that history isn’t always a good indicator of the future since teams change, a lot of the current team were a part of the Sharks teams that lost in the conference semifinals the last few years.

The start of the night (Getzlaf dropping the gloves as soon as the puck dropped – 2 seconds into the game – and fighting Thornton) may have surprised a lot of fans and media, but Randy Carlyle & Ryan Getzlaf were not surprised. They had discussed the Thornton/Getzlaf fight idea and whether it was a good idea. Carlyle told Getzlaf it was his choice. He said he’s never been the type of coach to send a player out to fight, but he was happy with Getzlaf’s choice.

Hiller continued to look amazing in net and though the Ducks couldn’t stay out of the penalty box for long (12 penalties, 30 minutes) neither could the Sharks, who had exactly the same penalty minutes. Hiller kept the Sharks to one goal on the power play (they were 1-4), while the Ducks went 2 for 5 on the power play.

Since they’ve beaten the team with the best record in the NHL this season, the Ducks have a lot of confidence going into the series against the Red Wings. The Red Wings clearly have an amazing playoff history and swept the Blue Jackets in the first round, but the Ducks still believe they can compete at a higher level than they have so far and face the Red Wings with confidence. After saying that they’d think about facing the Red Wings tomorrow and for now they’d enjoy their win, Randy Carlyle joked that he decided he’d give the team a half hour to enjoy the win, then it’s back to work.

Jonas Hiller hadn’t played a game in the NHL playoffs until the first game of this series against the Sharks (April 16 – also his first playoff shutout). He’s played only 4 NHL playoff games and he has 2 shutouts. A lot of people seemed to doubt Hiller’s ability to handle the playoff pressure, but considering the fact that the Sharks have only scored 6 goals against him in 4 games and he shut the Sharks (the winner of the President’s Trophy for the best NHL season) twice. I think Hiller has shown he can handle playoff pressure. Sure, it’s early in the postseason, but if I were a Ducks fan, I’d be happy Hiller was in net.

Bobby Ryan, Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) finalist, scored Anaheim’s first goal of the game (and their second – scored right after the long break close to the middle of the 2nd period as the Honda Center crew jury rigged a solution to temporarily replace the glass between the benches). Tonight’s goals were Bobby’s first two non-power play goals of the post season. Because of tonight’s goals, Ryan co-leads the NHL in goal scoring (with Ryder, Malkin, & Kessel). Tonight was also only the second time in Ducks franchise history that a rookie scored multiple goals in a postseason game (the first was Francois Beauchemin, who scored 2 goals in game 3 of the conference quarterfinals on April 25, 2006 against Calgary. His three game goal streak (4-0) is tied with the longest playoff goal streak in the NHL so far.

Fans chanted “Bobby” after each of his goals and a couple times late in the game. They also chanted “Hiller” near the end of the game. I didn’t ask Hiller about the crowd chanting, but Ryan said it was really great to hear and that he realizes he’s come a long way since last year and the crowd’s cheers mean a lot.

Ryan Whitney’s 4-game point streak (0-4) is tied for the NHL point streak of the postseason (with Ryder, Crosby, Kessel, Martin, & Franzen). Getzlaf has scored in 3 of the Ducks’ four games and has 5 points so far (1-4). Whitney, Ryan, Hiller, and Getzlaf are definitely leading this Ducks team, which wouldn’t even have made the playoffs in the eastern conference, in shutting down the number one team in the regular NHL season.

Sadly, tonight’s announced attendance (always a lot less than the actual attendance) was only 16,830. That’s two home playoff games for the Ducks without a sellout. Considering the fact that they had some of their biggest announced crowds this season at the Honda Center, it’s amazing that they can’t sell out the playoff games. Perhaps the prices are just set too high given all the other options (Lakers playoffs being just one of them) in southern California. Whatever the reason, it’s sad that the games haven’t sold out. In my opinion, the games here in Anaheim were the most exciting games of the California playoff series.

The Ducks definitely played their best hockey of the postseason tonight. That’s one fact no one seems to dispute. Clearly, the Ducks want to carry this style of play back with them to San Jose and end the series in 5 games.

Fortunately, for all of you with HD (apparently, enough people complained that FSN Prime Ticket decided they should air tonight’s game in HD), FSN is not covering Saturday’s game. That’ll be three Ducks/Sharks playoff games in a row that those of us in southern California will be able to see in HD, since Versus has shown all of their playoff games in HD. Suffering through the first two games in standard definition was definitely rough for all of us who are spoiled with all the other playoff coverage, most of which we’re able to experience in HD.

When I predicted that the Ducks would win this series in 6 games, most people thought I was nuts. Some told me the Sharks would win in 5, some said 6. I’ve only talked to a couple other people who picked the Ducks to win the series. Clearly, the California playoff series is far from over. However, now that the Ducks have a 3-1 lead and need to win only one of the remaining 3 games to end the series and advance to face the Red Wings in the conference semifinals, a few people seem to be thinking that I might not have been completely nuts when I picked the Ducks to advance.

(In other news, not long after the first period ended, there was a 4.0 earthquake centered about 7 miles from Anaheim. Those at ice level didn’t feel it, but more than half of us in the press box noticed it.)

Enjoy the playoffs!

The new players on the Ducks seemed a lot more at home in Anaheim tonight. Nokelainen got his first goal of the season, Whitney & Christensen got 2 assists each and Christensen got a goal that was questionably called off by the ref, due to goaltender interference by Getzlaf. As a Kings fan, I wanted the Ducks to lose tonight’s game in regulation. However, I think the call by the ref taking away Christensen’s goal was one of those calls that could go either way and would normally go the other way. Clearly, when Vancouver scored their third goal, the goal that got called back was very important. Fortunately for the Ducks and their fans, Scott Niedermayer scored 3 on 3 (after the Ducks had taken a penalty to remove their power play advantage) in overtime to win the game.

Perhaps the Ducks did a better job at the trade deadline than most seem to think. I thought their first trade was probably the best trade they made this season and I’ve talked to many people who think the Penguins or the Ducks didn’t do well with that trade. I still think both teams got what they needed a bit in their first trade of the trade deadline time.

I was curious how it felt for a player to go from Pittsburgh where the arena is full every night to the home crowd in Anaheim where there are a lot of empty seats – even on the nights when they have standing room only sellouts. Tonight’s announced attendance was 16,967; however, there were a lot fewer fans at the Honda Center than that. Whitney said that the Honda Center is “pretty loud” and that the three games he’s played in Anaheim have had a “really good atmosphere.” That it’s “not like going to the Islanders or Atlanta where you really feel an empty building.” He went on to say that the fans are great here and clearly he seems to be comfortable with his new teammates, he’s getting used to playing with Pronger. Obviously, it was also nice to get the first home win (he was traded early enough that he had won a game with the Ducks in Dallas against the Stars on February 28th) and experience the Anaheim crowd when the team wins.

Needless to say, Erik Christensen didn’t agree with the call made when he got the puck in the net, but it all worked out in the end and the Ducks won the game. He never got an explanation from the refs, since he doesn’t have a letter on his jersey. The ref refused to talk to him about the call, since he’s not the captain or an alternate. Christensen said, “Nothing you can do about it now, so, I mean, I disagree with the call, I guess.” He saw the replay and didn’t really see Getzlaf push anyone into Luongo, but at least it didn’t make a difference in the outcome of the game.

The games at this time of the season are so important to everyone (especially with the tight competition in the western conference) and all three games today were decided after regulation, giving out 3 points in each game. This frustrates players and fans alike when their teams are relying on other teams failing as much as their team doing well for the rest of the season. Every point matters and the teams are competing strongly to get as many points as they can down the stretch to the playoffs.