In Focus

A Chick Cheat Sheet to the NHL Playoffs

I was glued to my television all Sunday afternoon (this was after I went to church, mother). Not only did Tiger win another Masters, but my husband Phil's team, the Chicago Blackhawks, made the Stanley Cup playoffs! They finished 5th in their division and will be facing off against Chick Susie's former employer, the St. Louis Blues.

The first round of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs begins this Wednesday with the Blackhawks starting their series Thursday night at 7 PM on ESPN and Sportsnet. Below is the Blackhawks playoff schedule, or click here for a full schedule. In some cases, the National Hockey League playoffs may not even be watched by a Chick because we have no understanding of what it is about. (Sort of like where we were before we dug into the investment world.) I thought I'd give you a little information in Chick lingo about the playoffs and it's format. Normally I wouldn't be sharing this with you but I ran into a couple of Chicks this past week who told me how much they loved watching Phil play in the Olympics. They said it was just cool to "know" somebody even though they knew nothing about hockey. Here's your chance to learn a little something about the game of shinny, expand your horizon and impress any lurking testosterone.

• Sixteen teams make the playoffs (there are 30 teams in the whole NHL).
   
• There are two conferences with 8 teams from each conference making the playoffs. The Western Conference includes teams in the western U.S. and Canada like Phoenix, Vancouver, and L.A., and the Eastern Conference houses teams in the east... Boston, Philadelphia and Ottawa to name a few. Basically the teams to the west of and including St. Louis are the Western Conference. Makes sense doesn't it? The "Gateway to the West" dictates our hockey conferences.
   
• How they finished during the 82 game season determines who they will play in the playoffs. 1st place in each conference will play the 8th place in their conference. 2nd plays 7th, 3rd plays 6th and so on. Chicago finished in 5th in the West so they play 4th place St. Louis.
   
• Each round of the playoffs (one "round" is the series of games between two teams) is in a "Best of Seven" format. This means, the team that is the first to win four games out of seven is the winner of that round. This team advances to the next round while the loser is eliminated and the player gets out his golf clubs. School's out for summer.
   
• The higher the seed (1st place being the highest seed, 8th being the lowest) determines who gets "home-ice" advantage. Home-ice advantage simply means, since there are an odd number of games, the extra game will be played on the higher seeded team's turf. They have "home-ice". The playoff series also will start on the higher seed's home town ice.
   
• There are three rounds of playoffs in each conference. The team who comes out on top after these three rounds (which means they will have won 12 games -- 3 rounds times 4 wins in each round) will be declared the Eastern or Western Conference Champion. This is not the Stanley Cup winner. These two face off against each other in one last best-of-seven series. The winner goes home with the Stanley Cup!
   
• The Stanley Cup was originally known as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup with a silver cup measuring 7 1/2 inches high by 11 1/2 inches across. The founder was a man by the name of Lord Stanley, the Earl of Preston and the Governor General of Canada. The winners names were to be engraved on it. The first Stanley Cup was won by the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association in 1893. The original Cup was retired 1969 and a replica was made in its place. The size of the Cup has grown considerably with the addition of each name of the players of the 70 teams that have won it. Seven women have their names engraved on the Cup as they were either an owner or a president of a winning team. The Chicago Blackhawks have won "The Cup" just three times, with the last time being in 1961.
   
• The most recent Dynasty Team was the Edmonton Oilers who won 5 Stanley Cups in 1984, 85, 87, 88 and 90. A guy by the name of Wayne Gretzky was a player on that team. Before that, the NY Islanders won four straight from 1980 through 1983.
   
• Phil played in the Stanley Cup finals only once in his career. His team, the Washington Capitals, were the Eastern Conference Champs in 1998. They lost the Stanley Cup to the Detroit Red Wings in four games.

This should get you through any light topics about hockey in the weeks to come. If anyone dares get any deeper than the info above, tell them you have to pee.

Go Hawks!!

St. Louis (#4) vs Chicago (#5)