Exciting first week of Winter Olympics
Suggestion of new playoff format for major midget league
It’s been a great first week of the Winter Olympics, and without doubt the No. 1 topic of conversations amongst family, friends and co-workers everywhere.
Watching the excellent television coverage of all sports leaves one hooked, and full of anticipation for what is to come. CBC Sports does one heck of a job with the Olympics – not only on the live action, but the many stories about Canada’s athletes, and what it has taken for some of them to get to PyeongChang.
The Mark McMorris story is inspiring, and to those who have not seen or heard what it took this 24-year-old snowboarder to get to the Olympics, I urge you to look it up on CBC. Last March, while filming snowboarding scenes in Whistler, B.C., McMorris hit a tree and suffered a fractured jaw, left arm, a ruptured spleen, a stable pelvic fracture, rib fractures and a collapsed lung. After months of hard work, rehab and training, the determination this young man showed to get back on the board was incredible. He was rewarded with a bronze medal in slopestyle.
As far as the games go, it is hard to get better women’s curling than what we witnessed in Canada’s opening two losses to the aggressive and fearless teams from South Korea and Sweden.
The Canadian women’s hockey game against their bitter rivals from the United States was a great game, and hopefully these two will meet in next week’s gold-medal contest. Not having NHL players leaves men’s hockey a wideopen and evenly-matched competition, and it is anyone’s guess as to who will win gold. Looking ahead, local fans anxiously await the two-woman bobsleigh competition as Summerside’s Heather Moyse goes for her third Olympic gold medal. This time, though, Moyse is with her new teammate, Alysia Rissling. They begin three days of training runs on Saturday, with the competition on Tuesday and Wednesday. Having Canadian athletes doing so well adds to the excitement. Canada is on pace to at least match, or surpass, the 25 medals won in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
As of this past Thursday, Canada has won 13 medals including four gold, five silver and four bronze. The 25 in Sochi included 10 gold, 10 silver and five bronze.
Major midget hockey
The Moncton Flyers and Kensington Monahan Farms Wild sit first and second in the New Brunswick/P.E.I. Major Midget Hockey League. The Flyers are 24-6-2 (won-lostovertime losses) while the Wild is 22-6-2, with the playoffs just around the corner.
It’s a shame these teams will not have the chance to advance to meet in a playoff series. Charlottetown and Kensington only play regular-season games in this league, and meet each other in a seven-game playoff series to determine who represents P.E.I. at the Atlantic championship.
As I have said before, I don’t understand why all the teams don’t participate in the league playoffs, and the last teams standing from P.E.I. and New Brunswick advance to the Atlantics.
If both Island teams were eliminated in Round 1 of the league playoffs, then play an Island playoff series.
A more meaningful regular season, and having the two best meet in a league championship series, would be obvious benefits of such a setup.
NHL
With only six points separating three teams, a great stretch drive is shaping up in the Eastern Conference’s Atlantic Division between Tampa Bay, Boston and Toronto.
It looks like they are three of the four best in the East, but one of them will be out in the first round of the playoffs as the second- and third-place division teams meet in Round 1. The Bruins hold the upper hand on winning the division, having played four fewer games than Toronto, and three fewer than the Lightning. It is only seven weeks until playoff time. Have a great week!