Three Guys in a Basement

Although none of the founders of tgiab.com really had a dog in this fight, it would have been fun to see the up and coming Penguins at least take it a game 7 back in Detroit.

First and foremost, congratulations to Brett Lebda.  The Notre Dame product is only the third player to get his name engraved on the cup.  He follows legends Don Jackson and Bill Nyrop.  Well done Mr. Lebda.  Enjoy the off-season and your day or two with the cup.

In my opinion, there were two very interesting points to the playoffs.

1. Age – - Do you know that Chris Chelios is 46 years old?  Seriously, 46? I mean that is really, really old.  People our age could have Dad’s that are that old.  Can you imagine if you were 25 and your dad was still playing in the NHL and had just won a cup?  Ridiculous.  To put things in perspective, Cheli is older than his coach, Mike Babcock.  Some other notable Chelios feats: After a poor performance in the 98 Nagano Olympics, the United States trashed their Japanese living quarters.  I condone this behavior.  If you are going to lose on the world’s biggest stage, you might as well go out with a bang.  Noone has come forward to take blame for the trashing, but Chelios (as a great Captain) wrote a check out of his personal account to Japan.  He owned a bar on Madison Street here in Chicago called Cheli’s.  The one in Chicago was sweet, but he shut it down when he signed with the Red Wings.  He ended up opening two new Cheli’s in the Detroit area which are both total sell-outs compared to the old-school one in Chicago.  There was a double homicide at one of the Cheli’s recently by a disgruntled employee, which shows you he should have never shut down the original Cheli’s.  Enough with Chelios and back to the topic at hand, Age.  Chelios is 46, while Crosby is 20, Malkin is 21, and Jordan Staal is 19.  If you add all of those players ages up, you still don’t get to Chelios’ age.  Incredible.  The man is over 60 years old.

The second point of interest from the NHL is playoff beards.  What a great tradition.  And you can’t fault Sydney for not trying.  Even though he just grows chicken scratch, at least he doesn’t shave like some of the other panzies.  Some of my favorites:

Great scruff.  I love the afro with the beard, the missing teeth with the beard, and the hint of gray with the beard.  Well that does it for hockey posts for awhile.  A sad day indeed.