Thursday, May 31, 2007

Anaheim hot

A lot has been going around who the real "Canadian" team is in this year's Stanley Cup Championship Final between the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Ducks; given that 19 team members of Anaheim are Canadians while only one or two of Ottawa are.

Ice hockey is nowhere near as popular in the Southwest US as basketball, baseball or football (or should that be American rules rugby? -- only Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand call what the rest of the world call football, soccer). But something must have caught on at the amusement parks in the O.C. because Southern California appears to have taken to the unlikely heroes from north of 49.

Or maybe Team Ottawa just can't get used to the Santa Ana winds, playing in an arena that is deliberately air conditioned year round rather than just in the later spring to early fall. Regardless, the Ducks took a two games to none lead in the best-of-seven last night when goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere shut out the opposition on the way to a 1-0 win.

The series reverts to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4 of the series. At this stage, I'm picking Anaheim to win the series 4 to 2. (Which would mean, since Game 5 if necessary will be in Anaheim and 6 in Ottawa, the Stanley Cup will be hoisted in the shadow of the one-time home of the Governor-General who donated the trophy in the first place -- by the Old Enemy, although they're not since most of them are Canadians, eh?)

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