The NHL playoffs have finally arrived. For the last month and maybe more, some of the best playoff races we've seen were going on. Well, we would have seen, if anybody were actually interested in the last 20 games of the regular season. At some point in February, I usually tune out the NHL. I've been thinking of tuning in around Christmas so the fatigue of the season doesn't hit me so early. Now that the playoffs are here, it is once again time to get excited about hockey. After filling out a Viking playoff pool form, a startling thing happened when I got to the end: I chose the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Stanley Cup. I don't know quite how it happened. If you just asked me who I would pick to be the last team standing in June, I don't think they would have been my first choice. When I actually sat down and went series by series, they wound up with Lord Stanley's silver cup. The problem with these hockey pools is that part of my strategy is to play the field, which is maybe a stupid thing to do on my part, since I am against hundreds of opponents. Nonetheless I decided to play the field and make some off-the-board picks. The first is the Penguins and Flyers quarter-final series that started Wednesday night. Obviously I took the Flyers, but my reasoning is that that series is truly a toss-up, with a slight edge toward the Penguins. The team with Sidney Crosby, a goaltender who has actually performed well in the playoffs and this season's top points getter gets the slight edge in my book. I'm not alone here. Looking at the TSN poll online for who will win it all, 25,437 had responded and 4.2 per cent picked the Flyers, while a commanding 30.2 per cent selected the Penguins. That would be enough votes to have a majority government in this country. The smart money is certainly on the Penguins, even though the Flyers can't be considered anything worse than a mild underdog. With those things considered, the majority of people in the pool will select the Pens to take the series, so anybody taking the Flyers gets a nice start on the rest of the pool if they actually win the series. It's not the best move to consciously pick the team you think is actually going to lose, but I like to make most of my decisions in hockey pools the same way I make them in real life: by betting on the what if. That's not how I made all of my picks in the hockey pool this year, but it's how everyone has to make a few. It just turned out that it had an incredible impact on how the rest of my predictions played out. A team that I think will lose in the first round, wound up being my pick for champagne spraying and watery eyes in two months. I guess that's what happens when your strategy is to pick the horse with the sagging spine to win the race.
