another sam chan: the student blogger

What do you know, this year looks a lot like last year. Detroit vs Pittsburgh all over again. A few things have changed – Marian Hossa sold his soul and switched sides, the Ryans (Whitney and Malone) are gone, and the Penguins have a new guy behind the bench. Add in the fact that the Red Wings manhandled the Blackhawks (again, what the Canucks were supposed to do…but I digress)without arguably their two best players and hall of fame shoo-ins  and this is probably be my easiest prediction yet (and I went two for two in round 3, if you hadn’t forgotten, although I did predict Carolina would take Pittsburgh to 7) But I’m a stubborn fool, so I’m calling it now: Pittsburgh in 7 games, a series in which they will come back from 3-1 hole.

The Penguins remind me too much of the Penguins of the early 90s, the ones with Lemieux, Jagr, and Francis – with Crosby, Malkin, and Staal filling those respective roles. I’m actually surprised the comparison isn’t thrown out more often. But the main reason I’m going with Pittsburgh is because of the first guy – Sidney Crosby.

He is extremely similar to another rising superstar in control of their sport – Lebron James. Both were dubbed ‘the chosen one’ long before they even entered their respective leagues, and the onslaught of criticism began the moment they had theri debuts. For Lebron, it was his free throw shooting. For Crosby, his loose temper.

The former’s team has struggled and is currently down 3-1 as we speak. However, there is no doubt of Lebron being the King of basketball now and everybody knows that any team he should always be favored against all odds. Even as he’s down, I still highly believe that his team will come back due to his leadership and his willingness to win. (Here’s an example) James currently leads his team in both scoring and shooting percentage. You don’t have to be a basketball analyst to understand that the more shots you take, the easier it is to have a lower shooting percentage. Many people score a lot of points by shooting a lot, but rarely do any score the most while doing it at 50 percent efficiency. To stat-pack some more, he also leads his team in assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, and minutes. But this is about hockey.

Just like Lebron has done in basketball, Crosby has also turned all his doubters into believers. He took a backburner to his fellow teammate and Alex Ovechkin during the regular season scoring title but while Malkin has struggled at times in these playoffs, Crosby has brought it: every. single. game. He went head to head with the supposed best in the game and took them all down: Mike Richards, Alex Ovechkin, and recently Eric Staal. People often note that Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zettleberg are two most skilled defensive offensive players in the league, but Crosby has impressed me immensely with his hustle and leadership on both ends. He has turned team-hoppers like Craig Adams into scoring options, made an unnoteworthy defense (quick: name 3 guys on the Penguins defense) look good, and perhaps even inspired Malkin to show his true colors (Remember him in last year’s playoffs? I don’t). I was never on the Crosby bandwagon, and I never believed for a second that he could one day rule the league the way Gretzky and Lemieux did. But his gritty and skilled play this spring has changed my outlook, and now I, along with everybody else are all just witnesses.

Penguins in 7. Book it.

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In round 2, I went 2 of 4, bolding boasting that my canucks would take the hawks in 5. I still cry silently every night before I go to bed. Even though I no longer care who wins and am 3 games late, I thought I would post my Round 3 Predictions as well. I have to go with the safe bet of a Pittsburgh and Detroit final, with Pittsburgh going 7 and Detroit beating those pesky darn hawks once and for all in 5. That is all.

Taking a look at my past predictions:
Round 2:

Western Conference:

2 Detroit Red Wings vs 8 Anaheim Ducks
Wings in 6

3 Vancouver Canucks vs 4 Chicago Blackhawks
Canucks in 5

Eastern Conference:

1 Boston Bruins vs 6 Carolina Hurricanes
Bruins in 7

2 Washington Capitals vs Pittsburgh Penguins
Penguins in 5

Round 1:

Western Conference:

1 San Jose Sharks vs 8 Anaheim Ducks
Sharks in 6.

2 Detroit Red Wings vs 7 Columbus Blue Jackets
Wings in 5

3 Vancouver Canucks vs 6 St. Louis Blues
Canucks in 7

4 Chicago Blackhawks vs 5 Calgary Flames
Hawks in 6

Eastern Conference:

1 Boston Bruins vs 8 Montreal Canadians
Bruins in 4

2 Washington Capitals vs 7 New York Rangers
Rangers in 6

3 New Jersey Devils vs Carolina Hurricanes
Devils in 5

4 Pittsburgh Penguins vs Philadelphia Flyers
Penguins in 7

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There could be a million things I could write about after all the hockey action that has happened within the last 48 hours (Vancouver Giants going to the conference finals, Vancouver Canucks taking game 1) but I’ve decided to leave that to the pros and talk about something else. Thanks to inflation and the ridiculous popularity of the Canucks in Vancouver, I couldn’t afford to attend the first playoff game for the Canucks tonight. However, thanks to the NHL sponsoring an official ‘tweet up’, I don’t feel like I missed a thing. Before I go any further, a ‘Tweetup’ is really just a meetup of people from Twitter.

Canucklehead Twittering away at the NHLTweetup

Now a couple hours later, I realize that I just saw two of most powerful community driving things work together: sports and social media. There is nothing quite like what a sports team does to a city. I walked down the street in downtown Vancouver at 11:00pm at night without any fear that I would be shot for the first time in a long time because I knew I was just surrounded by other Canuckleheads, just like me. People would honk at my friends and scream out “Go Canucks Go”. You could start a conversation with anybody on the street by throwing random player’s names around. The feeling of community is tremendous and it is just as the marketing suggests: we are all Canucks.

NHL Tweetup Pregame, Picture taken by Miss604

Social media is a different beast. There’s tons of blogs and marketing ‘gurus’ who have been preaching this web 2.0 stuff for years, but regardless, I thought that it might be a quiet night (other than the screams in joy and agony) in terms of conversation since I was just hanging out with a bunch of strangers. But when I walked into the room, I quickly realized that I actually knew these people. It wasn’t like walking into a mall; these were people that had the same hobbies and interests as me and the night went by like any other night with your regular friends would. Is it possible to become real friends with somebody without ever meeting them? Five years ago, it would have been a straightaway ‘no’ (unless you’re one of those pen-pal advocates). But now, I’m not so sure. We sure looked like we had fun here:

To wrap things up before I forget what I’m talking about, the impact these two seemingly forms of ‘entertainment’ on community building is amazing and anybody doing business, politics, or anything that requires people to be involved should pay close attention.

Special Shout Out to Richard, who did an awesome job organizing the first ever #NHLTweetup.

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