A Playoff Maelstrom

Wow.

The race to the finish line is coming down to the wire. Another exciting year in the NHL is about to wrap up and we have quite the dogfight in both the eastern and western conferences. Should things always come down to the wire? I don’t know. Don’t we all tend to procrastinate a little bit in our lives even though we say next time i’ll start earlier etc?The Calgary Flames are fighting for their playoff lives and unfortunately are on a 2 game losing streak. Am I going to panic? Nope. The loss to the Oilers was a tough one to take as the team played quite well and certainly put in the effort, but just didn’t get the result. The Vancouver game was a blowout - but some lessons in life are best learned from falling and learning how to pick ourselves up again. This team had it’s nose bloodied by a fiesty Vancouver squad. If anything, we should take our mad out against the Oilers tomorrow night as we look to regain our lost footing. Should we focus on winning the division? I think that might be a bit out of reach right now. Instead, the Flames forwards have to rededicate themselves to helping out the defense. Our star goalie needs to get his concentration back. Most importantly though, we need to be physically punishing our opponents every time they set foot across our blue line.

I’m inspired to write this post based on the WHL game I caught on the weekend where the Lethbridge Hurricanes beat the Brandon Wheat Kings, from pillar to post, in every conceivable category. Led by a strong fore check, the Hurricanes did not let the Wheat Kings dally for too long in their (Canes) zone. They physically dominated the game with numerous high-light real hits and they never let up for most of the game. The Flames could learn much from watching this team. On another positive note, the Calgary Hitmen have advanced to the second round of the WHL playoffs (along with the Hurricanes) and as such I can safely say that over the course of the next 2 months I will be seeing some amazing hockey. Forget social gatherings, forget the party’s forget relationships…its about hockey.

I love this time of year.

Go Flames

P.S. Go Hitmen…Go Hurricanes (except if Lethbridge plays Calgary then its Go Hitmen)