Hockey Nirvana

‘Ovechkin and Crosby – New Best Friends Forever’
courtesy of ‘clydeorama’

It’s official: Penguins and Capitals in Round 2.

I’ll have more to say on this later in the week, but suffice that right now? I AM STOKED. This is the playoff series I’ve always loved and was hoping for this year. Even if it isn’t the Conference Finals, I don’t care. I could care less about the rest of the playoffs at this point: THIS IS THE SERIES TO WATCH.

Look for a series “pre”cap here on Friday; I’ll be posting one up on WLDC as well. Obviously, the one here will be more biased towards my Penguins…and I’ll most likely take crap from Caps fans on the WLDC site. But that’s okay.

This is what playoff hockey is all about. To quote Igloo announcer John Barbaro:

ARRRRRRE YOOOOOOOOOOU READYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????!!!!!

Eastern Quarterfinals 2009: Flyers vs. Penguins

Fleury Slows it Down, courtesy of clydeorama

Tonight, the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin.

Tonight, the real NHL season kicks off.

Tonight, the Penguins collide with the Flyers. A battle for Pennslyvania. And probably the most intense matchup in the entirety of the first round, East or West.

Looking at the stat sheets, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are practically identical. Records, points, goals for and against, you name it. They’re basically copies of each other, if you look at them from a pure statistical viewpoint.

But as Pens and Flyers fans know, it ain’t all that.

By a long shot.