hockey

Ah, the promise of spring sports

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At the beginning of this month I posted about how the Lightning had clinched a spot in the playoffs and it was the first day of baseball. Now, as April ends and May begins:

Yep, my Cleveland Indians are in first place in the AL Central and the American League overall (2 games ahead of the Yankees, with my Tampa Bay Rays only 1.5 games behind them). Seeing Boston in last place in the AL East certainly doesn’t hurt my mood either! 😉

I know it’s only one month into the season, so it’s definitely early, but I still need to take a moment to bask in the glory of the current standings.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Lightning staged an amazing comeback, down 3 games to 1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL quarterfinals, winning three in a row including a Game 7 shutout. Then yesterday they won the first game of the semifinals against the #1 seeded Washington Capitals. GO BOLTS!

No foolin’ – it’s a promising sports day

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It’s April Fools Day (which means there’s the typical slew of tech-related gag news stories) but it’s no joke that today is opening day for my Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Rays … a fresh start and a new season baseball.

Ever better, the Tampa Bay Lightning secured a spot in the NHL playoffs with their victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night. This will be the Bolts’ first return to the post-season since 2007. I’m actually flying to Chicago this weekend to visit my sister and go see the Lightning take on the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks on Sunday night … should be fun!

On the other side of the coin, the Cavaliers are eight games away from closing out their joke of a 2010-2011 season. With only 15 wins going into April, it’s still possible they might not finish dead last in the NBA.

Sports depression

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It’s early October, that wonderful time of year when temperatures (supposedly) get cooler and we have that wonderful confluence of the baseball, football, basketball, and hockey seasons. Well, it’s usually wonderful, except:

I got a pair of free tickets to the Lightning home opener tonight so I took my daughter, hoping to get a lift from a hockey home ice win. The appearance Dwight Howard dropping the ceremonial puck was a not-so-nice reminder of how the Orlando Magic knocked the Cavs out of the playoffs last spring. 🙁

We left at 6 minutes to go in the third period with the Bolts holding the lead over the New Jersey Devils 3-2 (thanks to 2 goals in the first 5 minutes of the period). As we listened to the last minute of the game on the radio driving out of downtown Tampa, we couldn’t believe our ears as the Devils tied the game with 0.3 seconds to go! The Lightning ended up losing the shootout, which gives them a disappointing 0-1-2 start. sigh

Maybe Lebron and Shaq will give me something to believe in …

P.S. Props to my new sister-in-law for pointing me to waitingfornextyear.com!