We’re coming to the second busiest sports month of the year. April. Where has March gone? I know.
Anyways. It is a huge weekend for the Edmonton Oilers as they will be hosting their two western Canadian foes– the Vancouver Canucks tonight (CBC, 8:00 p.m.) and the Calgary Flames on Easter Monday (Sportsnet, 7:30 p.m.).
With 15 games left on the schedule, the Oilers are three points back of the St. Louis Blues for a playoff spot. That means every five games, they will have to pick up a point on the Blues, and hope they are slightly better than three other teams that are in front of them– the Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators.
Here are the other events I’ll be watching this weekend:
The 47th Super Bowl will take place Sunday in New Orleans (CBS, 4:30 p.m.) with the Baltimore Ravens playing the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers have won the Super Bowl five times, while the Ravens won it once in 2001. This will also be a record tenth time the Super Bowl is in New Orleans. The last Super Bowl in Louisiana was in 2002 as the New England Patriots defeated the Saint Louis Rams 20-17.
Super Bowl XLVII will also be historical because brothers will be coaching against each other for the first time. Jim Harbaugh will take the reigns for San Francisco, with his older brother John Harbaugh in charge of Baltimore.
The Ravens (10-6) led the AFC North, while the 49ers (11-4-1) led the NFC West.
As we get ready to take in some first round playoff action in the NHL, let’s not forget to look back on the beauty goals that got us to this point!
This week on the GOTW (for the week of March 26) we’ve got a couple of guys getting on the end of beautiful plays by their teammates and three awesome breakaways. If you scroll right to the bottom, you’ll also see one of the strangest goals of the year!
Let’s go!
5. Jakub Voracek
That series between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins is really going to be something, especially if we get to see the type of games we saw recently between those two clubs. Check out this beauty goal from Jakub Voracek!
Finally, the National Hockey League in Winnipeg returns this weekend as the Jets host the Montreal Canadiens at the MTS Center (Sunday, CBC, 3PM). When the Phoenix Coyotes moved to Winnipeg on July 1, 1996, Manitoba sports fans have been circling this date on their calendar. Fifteen years later and they finally have their wish. Players that will become household Jets’ names will include Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien, Bryan Little, Blake Wheeler and Evander Kane.
The Canadiens (0-1) meanwhile got off to a slow start as they lost 2-0 to the Toronto Maple Leafs Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre. James Reimer was brilliant in posting a shutout.
It was quite an end to the NHL season on Wednesday night in Vancouver, riots aside, with the Boston Bruins providing a huge upset at Rogers Arena to capture the 2011 Stanley Cup.
Now, when I say “upset,” it’s not so much that the Bruins beat the Canucks, it’s how they did it. Did anyone honestly predict that Boston, who had scored three times in Vancouver over the first three games there, would come out and put up a four-spot in game seven? I certainly didn’t!
One thing that wasn’t a surprise at all was the awarding of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP to Bruins goalie Tim Thomas – he earned his second shutout of the final in the deciding game and ends up with a 1.14 goals against average against Vancouver. He was absolutely ridiculous during the playoffs and many people were convinced that he would win MVP honors regardless of the outcome on Wednesday.
Here’s the bad news though: that’s it for the season! We’ve got the NHL awards coming up, the draft a few days later, free agency kicks off a week after that and then we’re into the dog days!
Before we completely close the book on the season that was though, I feel it’s only fitting that we look back at the top 10 goals (as chosen by me) of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs… (more…)
We’re coming to the second busiest sports month of the year. April. Where has March gone? I know.
As we get ready to take in some first round playoff action in the NHL, let’s not forget to look back on the beauty goals that got us to this point!
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