Of Hockey

The NHL playoffs start today. The Bruins are not involved.

Fun fact: This is the first year since 1967 that the Celtics have made the playoffs (that's the Boston basketball team) and the Bruins have not. Isn't that odd?

Another fun fact: After last year's "only one Canadian team in the playoffs, woe is the way of the National sport!" kerfuffle up north*, there are five Canadian teams in this year (out of 7 Canadian teams total). Of course, two of the match-ups have Canadian teams playing each other, so no more than three can go on to the next round.
*Not to mention the "and a Canadian team hasn't won the Cup since 1993!" part.

I'll be watching the playoffs (after this weekend anyway) with a relaxed, don't-care-who-wins vibe (except Montreal, obviously I would prefer they didn't win anything, ever), which is kind of nice. And I'll try to monitor the Providence Bruins in their playoffs, since a couple of Boston players were sent down for that (go Pasta, Trots, Spoons).

Speaking of Montreal, actually, Stanley Cup of Chowder put out a piece today on which of the playoff teams to root for, and I noticed some of their writers feel the way I do.

• "East Pick: Whoever's Playing Montreal: Self-explanatory."
• "East Pick: Rangers: For the East, I like watching the Rangers. They're an entertaining team, and it'd be nice to see another Original 6 team win (not you, Montreal)."

And probably all summer, I'll be watching the Bruins to see what they do, which is kind of like waiting for a centipede's shoes to drop. GM Peter Chiarelli was fired today. So far, the coach has not been fired, but it remains possible. They told a couple of players they won't be re-signed (Cambell and Paille). Will Lucic be traded? What about back-up goaltending? Will they manage to "trade" Marc Savard (who hasn't played for a few years since that awful concussion, but remains on the payroll) to a team that needs to get to the salary cap floor? (Incidentally, the fact that the latter is a possibility highlights just how weird the bookkeeping in the NHL is, if you ask me.)

In non-NHL hockey news, the upcoming women's hockey league, the NWHL, will play for the Isobel Cup, named after the daughter of Lord Stanley. A nice touch, I think.

Meanwhile, go look at this cartoon history of the Stanley Cup. It's all kinds of awesome.