So yesterday was a fantastic day for Canadian hockey teams: Flames won, the Oilers won and the Sens finished off Tortellini and those pesky Lightning and are movin' on to the next round. As much as I want the Habs to win, it's potentially going to be a hellish 417 (yeah that's right, not the 40) series in the second round, and that's just between the hosers at work...How unbelievably talented is Havlat?...Good on Emery for holding his own this round. The guy is a 23-year-old back up goalie who has to back stop one of the top Stanley Cup contenders with (as Ballzov rightly observed) some of the most pessimistic fans in the league. Which gets me to thinking, how many other young goalies/backup goalies have had stellar playoff runs that have put them on the map? If my memory serves me right, (Hat tip to Iron Chef) JS Giguere with the Ducks (Flying V!), Kipprusoff with the Flames, I think Ken Dryden was a newbie with the Habs, (I'm sure there's more...) - good company for Emery and Hip-hip Huet if they can keep their teams in the hunt...the CBC has a "top ten greatest playoff moments" on their website; not sure if Steve Smith scoring on his own net and Claude Lemieux crosschecking Kris Draper face first into the boards really counts as "greatest" in my books; if they're going to list those as great, they might as well include Chris Osgoode crying after losing to the Sharks ...Glad to see Mark Messier's on that list, despite his inability to make good commercials and eat just one chip...
Oh and I know you've all been waiting for it...
Vintage Pro Set hockey card of the week:
Raymond "Borque" Bourque. Looks like Shaky had a stint copywriting ProSet Cards in the 90s.
Go Habs.
