HOCKEY PICKS

So, for myself at least, the first thing I tend to think about when October rolls around is not 'crap it's almost winter' or 'how the hell am I going to pull off my costume for Halloween' but more about the upcoming Hockey season. For sports fans (which I have to say that I am most definately one) October has to be one of the best months of the year. Baseball is at its only point of interest, NFL and CFL are both well on their way and then to top it all off, Hockey starts.

Unfoprtunately, with the begining of Hockey so too comes that awfully self-indulgent tradition of Hockey predictions. This year especially, with almost every major media publication offering up some form of a Fantasy Hockey Pool, it seems that we are being bombarded with pundit after pundit displaying their self-proclaimed expertise by giving their predictions. Most of the time they are absolutely rediculous as all the so-called 'expert' does is basically look at the rosters see how many names they recognise and then order the teams based on that (this is even worse for Western Conference predictions as the East-biased hockey media has little to no knowledge of what is going on west of Toronto). Usually the predictions go something like this

EASTERN CONFERENCE
1.)Buffalo
2.)Philadelphia
3.)Carolina
4.)Ottawa
5.)New Jersey
6.)New York Rangers
7.)Boston
8.)Montreal

9.)Tampa Bay
10.)Toronto
11.)Washington
12.)Florida
13.)Pittsburgh
14.) Atlanta
15.)NY Islanders

WESTERN CONFERENEC
1.)Nashville
2.)Anaheim
3.)Calagary
4.)San Jose
5.)Detroit
6.)Minnesota
7.)Colorado
8.)Edmonton

9.) Phoenix
10.)Dallas
11.)Vancouver
12.) Chicago
13.)Columbus
14.) Los Angeles
15.) St. Louis

This is absolutely rediculous. Why is it that we have to be bombarded by these lame-ass pundits telling us the most predictable outcomes for the coming year. Can't we do that ourselves? How hard is it to look at Anaheim see the names Pronger, Neidemeyer, Selanne and say 'wow, I pick them!' Why can't any of these people go out on a limb ever?

Anyways, these are some frustrations I have. And for interest sake, if I were a so-called Hockey expert my picks would go something like this (keep in mind my biases as a ravid Oiler fans, especially when talking about the Flames and the Lafs, and the fact that I have little to no knowledge about the East).

EASRTERN CONFRENCE
1.) Buffalo
2.) New Jersey
3.) Carolina
4.) Boston
5.) Ottawa
6.) Philadelphia
7.) Pittsburgh
8.) Florida

9.) Montreal
10.) NY Rangers
11.) Tampa Bay
12.) Atlanta
13.)Washington
14.) Toronto
15.) NY Islanders

WESTERN CONF
1.) San Jose
2.) Nashville
3.) Minnesota
4.) Edmonton
5.) Detroit
6.) Chicago
7.) Dallas
8.) Columbus

9.) Anaheim (Anaheim adds another d-man to an already solid defence and lose one of their best scorers = No playoffs. Oh yeah and Prongers leaves town half-way through season for so-called 'personal' reasons. Afterwhich no team decides to pick him up and he spends the rest of his life wallowing in his own self-pity)
10.) Calgary (Kipper gets injured and the team realises how one dimensional they really are)
11.) Colorado
12.) Vancouver
13.) Phoenix
14.) Los Angeles
15.) St. Louis
* 6-13 are separated by less than 10 pts
Of course this won't probably happen, but these are my 'predictions'.