The Fan In Van Podcast & Blog - Matt Lee

The World Series kicks off tonight and it involves one team who were favourites to claim the championship banner and one team who weren’t expected to make it past the first round. The Red Sox carry an arsenal of offense with some supreme starting pitchers, but the Rockies carry an unheard of 21 wins in 22 games. Who’s going to take the best of seven series and be proclaimed champions of world baseball? I’m breaking the series down.

Starting Pitchers: It all starts with Josh Beckett and Jeff Francis, the former quite possibly being the most clutch pitcher in baseball today, and the latter being one of baseball’s future stars. However, Boston starters hold a tremendous amount of postseason experience which just can’t be matched by youth alone. Edge: Boston

Offense: Holliday is a great hitter for the Rockies, but a BoSox offense led by Big Papi and the element of having the green monster in Fenway puts the Rockies at a disadvantage. Edge: Boston

Defense: This is where it gets interesting. The Red Sox have a few holes in their outfield, whereas the Rockies have little to none. Tulowitzki is one of the best shortstops in the game today and the questions in centre field for Boston forces me to give the Edge: Colorado

Manager: Boston’s Francona is creating a legacy of being a postseason manager in baseball while Hurdle is new at the World Series thing. It comes down to numbers here, and Francona has got a lot of it. Edge: Boston

The Bottom Line: My guess is that whoever wins the first game tonight will emerge as World Series champs. I hate to pressure on Jeff Francis but this is undoubtedly the biggest game of his young career and if he manages to steal the show tonight it can go a long way. A win against Beckett could be the difference maker in a World Series that has the potential to go the distance. Furthermore, Coors Field rules force the Red Sox to sit one of Ortiz, Youkilis or Lowell. That could be bad news for the Red Sox.

The Prediction: Colorado Rockies win the show in seven games. That’s right.

Alright, so I’ve got a friend who’s a diehard Toronto Maple Leafs fan and sadly a cousin who thinks Johan Hedberg is the greatest goaltender since sliced bread. And believe me, I’ve been confronted by both of them several times about how great the Leafs are and how impenetrable Johan Hedberg is. I mean, my cousin told me that if he was the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks and hypothetically had both Luongo and Hedberg as his goaltenders he would have difficulty naming a starting goaltender.

But onto the controversy. So the Toronto Maple Leafs and Atlanta Thrashers locked horns tonight, a pretty decent game I have to note. The game went back and forth several times during action and it was nice seeing two shoddy teams going at each other like the two did. I’m a huge Kovalchuk fan so to see him playing well (1g 2a) was always nice to see. But in any case, the event happened during the shootout between the two teams.

The footage…  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4H5TUBGa6A

Skip to Mats Sundin’s shot and you’ll see that Hedberg will slide out and make the patented Dominik Hasek pokecheck but instead it looks like Hedberg tripped Sundin. Now, here’s what it says in the rulebook:

25.4 Violations During the Shot – Should the goalkeeper leave his crease prior to the player taking the penalty shot has touched the puck, and in the event of violation of this rule or any foul committed by a goalkeeper, the Referee shall allow the shot to be taken and if the shot fails, he shall permit the penalty shot to be taken over again. When an infraction worthy of a minor penalty is committed by the goalkeeper during the penalty shot that causes the shot to fail, no penalty is to be assessed but the Referee shall permit the shot to be taken over again. Controversial? You be the judge… Really, I’m impartial. I hate both players.