A GLIMPSE OF THE 08/09 HABS

Toronto sucks…what’s new. Joycing over the blow-out win last night makes as much sense as praising Oscar De La Hoya for winning a match via knockout after three seconds if he were paired against yours truly in the ring. Comparing the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Montreal Canadiens is no different than comparing an Enzo Ferrari to a Toyota Prius. They both have their supporters and devoted fans, but at the end the Enzo has the Prius on every category hands down.

With that said, I am of course a devoted Leafs hating HABS fan and can’t let a blow-out of our arch nemesis go by without saying: NEENER NEENER NEENER….WE KICKED THEIR BUTS…AND HOW! biggrin.gif

To give some credit to the Maple Leafs, they came out strong, but just couldn’t hold on and match the HABS horsepower (kind of reminded me of the HABS two years ago). Halak is of course directly responsible for fending off the early onslaught. Had TML potted on early, this would not have been a blow-out. We still would have won mind you, but not as comfortably.

As for the HABS, some overzealous fans might already be staking their spots on the parade route after this game. I have two things to say to that:

1) The best seat is already taken. I chained my lawn chair to the best spot back in May 2008.

2) The HABS have certainly showed some fire power in rolling three scoring lines. Some are already gelling, others are not, but having three lines that can score gives some relief to say, Kovalev’s line, that is not firing on all cylinders yet. They don’t have the added pressure of not performing at 100% and not getting goals since, well, the other lines are winning games while they work out the kinks.

And then we have our fourth line with so much competition for three spots, you can bet your last buck that anyone having the privilege of receiving ice time there will be giving 2,309,787,438 %. This was apparent in our first two games of the season, where the fourth line had a bushel of self created chances by grinding and fighting hard in the corners.

Even though this team is being picked by many to win the East, it is still grossly under valued and estimated. The balance, skill level and depth we have makes this team so potent, that this blind fool has had them as a Stanley Cup favourite since May. Not to take anything away from Detroit (they are one heck of a superb team), but they will undoubtedly suffer the Stanely Cup hangover, at least for this season, before returning to the finals next year. This is the year for the HABS team.

Now with that said, our team is no where near its potential yet. Last night the TML were generous in giving us chances and not making our errors look too obvious. By the time this team is firing on all cylinders, no team, no matter how defensive will be able to stop us from dominating start to finish.

SO to summarise Toronto sucks (what’s new), we rule, and last night we had an average game (relative to our capabilities). Just wait and se what happens when Kovalev’s line gets back to potting a few a game, the defence locks the neutral zone down and our transition game gets back to a smooth flowing play.

On to the STINGERS. Well in comparison to the blow-out win last night in Toronto, the Stingers’ game yesterday afternoon was much tighter. I know some will quote me from yesterday saying “it will be an annihilation”, and I’ll admit that maybe I underestimated our opponents a tad. The Mount Allison Mounties put up a good fight, and it was a nail biter till the end. However after a long hard fought battle in the trenches the Concordia Stingers came away with the win 66-13 tongue.gif It was 45-8 at the half…final result could have been much higher if we kept the foot on the gas pedal, but what can I say, we’re a bunch of class acts biggrin.gif