Kickin' Off The Week

Well, my attempt at non-poker was semi-successful at best.  But then, my weekend didn't turn out as expected overall, so what's one more departure from plans?

I didn't play anything major. A couple $6.50 turbos on Stars out of sheer boredom (won both, yay bankroll building). No MTTs, no $22 turbos, no blogger games (okay, two pushfests, but those don't count as poker), none of my usual weekend stuff. It felt liberating. Plus, Stars was much better to me than Tilt has been of late with the beats. I might stick around there for a bit and rebuild that bankroll. Then again, in the 2nd turbo I played, I got back-to-back aces (one held up, the other won preflop), followed by aces twice more... AK a few times with 3 left as well. So that's where my horseshoe went.

I had something else I wanted to talk about, but I can't remember what it was. So I'll go back to sports.

Jays swept Texas over the weekend. Quite handily too. Wiped out the sweep by Oakland and puts them in a tie for first in the East heading into a series with Baltimore, the team they're tied with. It's still plenty early though. That said, much like they lost in different ways to the A's, they won in different ways against the Rangers. Litsch didn't have his best stuff on Friday, but battled and did what was needed, and the Jays scored a ton to make sure a 1-run loss wasn't going to happen. On Saurday, Halladay showed once again why he should have 3 or 4 Cy Youngs on his shelf instead of 1. Then yesterday Burnett once again struggled with being consistent, but the Jays kept it even and took it in extra innings, showing that maybe they CAN finish. The return of BJ Ryan is nothing but good news. Now if only Scott Rolen can get his finger healed, we can see what this team is really capable of.

As for the NHL playoffs, the big surprise to me so far is Dallas' domination of Anaheim. How are they making such seemingly easy work of the Ducks' defense? How come they're suddenly playing in front of Turco? I'm so confused.

As for the rest, no big surprises so far. The Pens are dominating the Sens. Ottawa has a serious problem upstairs. As a team, they're head isn't screwed on right anymore. This is a team with a ton of talent, but partway through the season got completely fucked up by their goaltender's antics, and the firing of their head coach who couldn't deal with them properly. Brian Murray has been sinking fast since getting back behind the bench. They just don't have the mindset to make it happen in the playoffs this year. They expect to lose, and it will keep happening. Not to take anything away from the Pens, who are a juggernaut themselves with Crosby and Malkin leading the way.

Boston finally squeaked out a win over Montreal, but that's an anomaly. Washington-Philly, New York-Jersey, Colorado-Minnesota, are all solid, evenly-matched series as expected. Detroit continues to make mincemeat out of Nashville, and with Sarich's hit on Marleau yesterday and the big comeback, I think Calgary just slapped the Sharks across the face. Expect ugliness to commence, with the Flames coming out on top. San Jose won't have much choice but to play Calgary's game, and they just don't have the chops for it. Besides, when your backup goalie is Curtis Joseph, you've got something called depth in THE key position.

I've already called a Detroit-Pittsburgh final, which would be a great series.