I don’t want to write this post. I am too sad. Too hockey sad, to be specific.
Usually when I do these playoff prediction things I end being right a little bit more than 50% of the time. Not this year. This year I am sub 50% and it hurts. Oh well. What’s a Bruins fan to do?
After three rounds I had predicted the winner of seven out of 14 series. Exactly 50%. My coin flip control group/comparison was not so lucky. The coin was right on five out of 14 series. That just proved that blind guesses have miserable luck… or something along those lines.
In the Stanley Cup Final between the Panthers and the Oilers, the coin and I both picked the Oilers and we were both wrong, damn it. So my final success rate for the entire playoff season is 7/15, or about 46.7%. Awful. Miserable. The coin flip’s final success rate for the entire playoff season is 5/15, or 33%. Even more awful. Even more miserable.
Boo, I say. Boo. I just had a really bad postseason. Honestly, any postseason that doesn’t end with a big victory parade in Boston is a bad postseason, but some are more pathetic than others, you know what I mean?
The Red Sox play the Blue Jays tonight. My sports fan energy is 100% focused on baseball now. Go Red Sox.
I watched the clock tick down on a gamecast on nhl.com. I didn’t actually watch the game. I thought about it but I didn’t want to jinx anything. My bad.
The Oilers failed to complete the greatest comeback in professional sports history and the Panthers avoided the worst collapse ever.
The team that bounced my Bruins for the second year in a row went to the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row but unlike last year they stuck the landing.
Shit.
Oh, and the Bruins traded Linus Ullmark last night too. We’d best get someone legendary with that first round pick.
After one period of play, the Oilers and the Panthers are tied at one goal each.
40 minutes of regulation play remaining to find out if the Panthers can avoid the most pathetic collapse in professional sports history*, or if the Oilers can complete the greatest come back in pro sports history.
I’m rooting for the Oilers, but given how impossible it is to come back from down three games to none in a seven game series, my money (if I had any) would be on the Panthers… even though I friggin’ hate them.
Come on, Edmonton. Let’s do the impossible and bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada where it would belong if it didn’t actually belong in Boston.
*Sure, there have been a bunch of instances of teams winning a series after being down 0-3. It’s happened in Boston twice. The Bruins blew the three games to none lead against Philly in 2010 and I have still not recovered, even though they won the Cup one year later. In happier news, the only time it’s happened in Major League Baseball history is when the Red Sox came back from down 0-3 to take the American League Championship Series from the fucking Yankees.
Why is this the biggest come back ever? I think it’s happened five or six times in pro sports history, but I don’t think it’s ever happened in a championship round. Pretty sure this would be the first. All the more reason to consider it impossible.
It would be nice to see Florida blow it and lose in utterly humiliating fashion, but it still wouldn’t make up for them beating the Bruins two postseasons in a row. It’s a start though.
So I pick the Oilers to win the Stanley Cup. Then Florida wins the first three games easily and I give up on hope and declare that the Panthers have more or less already won. Then as soon as I stop caring, the Oilers turn around and win the next three games easily.
Damn it.
The Oilers won game six tonight by a score of 5-1. The series is now even at three games all. Game seven is Monday night because the NHL schedule is made by idiots who thought it fine to not have gave seven on a weekend. Come on, guys. It’s game effin’ seven. Have it on an effin’ weekend. What the hell is wrong with you jerks?
I’m still rooting for the Oilers. I’m also still convinced that the Panthers are not going to lose four games in a row. I guess we’ll see what happens on Monday then, right?
Two nights from now we’ll get the last game of the 2023-24 NHL season. That’s followed by three months of nuttin’ honey. Blah.
After two periods, Edmonton leads 3-0. There’s still plenty of time to blow it. Stay strong, hockey fans who hate the Panthers.
Bring us that game seven, Oilers. Hold that lead.
I just finished the season finale of Doctor Who. It was so good. It was so very good. I’m going to have to watch it again because I am really tired and I might have missed a few seconds here and there. Over all though? It was so good.
The Oilers have a 1-0 lead over the Panthers after one period. They are dick teasing me. We all know that, right? Ugh.
My stomach played nicely today. Good job, surgically redesigned stomach pouch. Everything was very predictable. My hunger pains hit me right on schedule. Also, I didn’t over eat at the end of the work day and ruin dinner. Good job, Robbie’s little pouch thing.
Want to know what did ruin dinner? Just before 8:00 I had a bite of potato. The roasted potatoes we had tonight tasted AMAZING, but that last bite got stuck. Trigger the foamies. Trigger a little nausea. It’s been an hour and fifteen minutes and it doesn’t seem to have cleared yet. I still feel like that last bite of potato is stuck. I was able to cough some of it up, but clearly not all of it.
Damn it.
Okay. It’s after 9:00. I should be clear to watch the season finale of Doctor Who now. I have a little spit-up cup next to me (TMI), I have a gamecast of the hockey game from NHL.com open, and I need to do something to distract myself from my stomach pouch whatever it is. Doctor Who should do the trick.
Further updates will be provided. Come on, Oilers. Hold that lead, you sick little monkeys.
Edmonton trails three games to two. They are trying to come back after being down three games to none. Realistically there is zero chance of that. They aren’t winning this series. They aren’t winning the cup.
Still… it would be nice to have another game after tonight, wouldn’t it? Seven games are better than six right?
Come on, Oilers. Prolong the agony. Pretty please.
It’s Wednesday. I’m back in the office. You don’t care, but I want to write about something… anything… so here we are.
Today is Juneteenth. I completely forgot. When the state first established today as a holiday we got it off. Less than a year later our company turned most of the non-national holidays into floating holidays so now we don’t get today off. It was just another day for me except that there was no traffic on the highways this morning. From my house to my office, 43 miles, took 46 minutes. Why couldn’t every commute be this easy? While having the day off would have been great, I will take this as the next best thing… sort of.
I failed to get six hours of sleep again last night. My watch tells me I got 5:45 but my heart rate numbers were pretty spectacular. Hopefully that means I won’t be too completely exhausted again today. Just mildly completely exhausted. I still haven’t hooked up my CPAP machine since coming back from Florida a few weeks ago. I think my sleep numbers (assuming my watch pulls accurate data) are implying that using the machine won’t make much of a difference. I should probably use it anyway. Maybe there will be a placebo effect or something and I won’t be quite as tired after a short night’s sleep. I don’t know.
The Oilers won last night. Yippee. Well… that’s being mean. I am glad they won. Not because I expect them to dig out of a three games to none series hole, but because it literally extended the NHL season. If they are going to lose on me and prove that I suck at picking the outcome of NHL playoff series’, then the least they can do is lose in seven games so we get our money’s worth, right?
As for the Red Sox, they have won four in a row including two wins against the first place Yankees. Glorious. I saw a post on social media where someone said that this streak proves they will not only make the playoffs, but advance to the American League Championship Series. I laughed out loud. No, let me be more specific… I laughed out loud for a long, long time. They are four games above .500. They are in third place in the division, 11.5 games behind the first place (and thoroughly evil) Yankees. They are two games out of the wild card. Oh yeah, it is June. Yeah… they are better than I thought they would be, but they are still pretty clearly mediocre. They might sneak into the wild card, but I am not holding my breath. If you’re expecting the Red Sox to do anything better than middle of the pack, then you haven’t been paying attention. No. They will not make it to the ALCS. If they do, I will happily eat my words, but I won’t have to because there’s no chance. This is the way. I have spoken.
I watched last night’s new episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. There has been so much hate spewed at this show. Most of it rooted in sexism and racism rather than the story or anything to do with it. I’ve enjoyed the show so far and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. I’m on for the ride, as the saying goes. Last night though… episode four… I finally had something that I didn’t like. What was it? The running time was less than 30 minutes. Come on, Star Wars. We need more than that from our weekly episodes. We need more to sink our teeth into. These episodes should be more like 45-60 minutes, right? We need that content, folks. We need it! Star Wars, babie! Give us more!
The Oilers lost the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final series to the Panthers, virtually guaranteeing the Cup will go to Florida.
Then in game four, the Oilers won in a blow out. Tonight, in game five, the Oilers are up 4-2 after two periods.
If you were wondering what the hockey equivalent of a dick tease felt like, then know that this is it.
Even if the Oilers win tonight, there is still virtually no chance of them coming all the way back to win the Stanley Cup. They are just trying to give me a little hope so that Florida can crush my dreams the way they did when the eliminated my Bruins, both this year’s playoffs and last year’s playoffs.
Sure, I am happy the Oilers are winning in game five. It’s just going to make it more painful when they eventually lose.
In other news, the Red Sox beat Toronto again tonight. That’s four wins in a row for my home town team. I’ll take that.
Inside the Red Head's Head 