SAY HEY! HAWKS WIN! TOEWS MVP

First off,

Congrats to the Chicago Blackhawks and their fans. I admit I'm not a true enough Red Wing fan because (or so I'm told) no self-respecting Red Wing fan would ever root for the Hawks to win anything.

Well, I rooted for them and they won. And they won in my original prediction of 6 games. Unfortunately, I took the two losses in Philly too literally so I don't get any credit for getting the prediction right.

Some random notes:

-- BIG KUDOS to rightful Conn Smythe winner Jonathon Toews. He was the best skater in the playoffs. He was huge. The thing is, it wasn't so much his offense that made him such a good choice. Toews was consistently the best player in the faceoff circle all playoffs long. He was also incredible in how defensively responsible he was. It's exciting to know that he's already 22 years old and has pretty much done it all. Now, though I doubt he can relax, he can focus on putting up Hall of Fame numbers and doing so while bringing Chicago back for more Stanley Cups.

-- BIG KUDOS to Philadelphia fans. First, they could have beat the traffic by getting out of dodge as soon as they learned the goal counted but they didn't. Instead, they chanted "Let's Go Flyers." WOW. Being a Sioux fan, when's the last time the Sioux lost a hard fought playoff game and the Sioux fans responded by chanting "Let's go Sioux?" Never. Some message boards are too busy cutting the Sioux and the coaches to shreds to care what the players put forth in effort on the ice. ALSO kudos to the Flyer fans for BOOING EVERY TIME GARY BETTMAN SPOKE INTO THE MICROPHONE. Other fan bases may jeer at Flyer fans and call them knuckle draggers or dim bulbs but they know stupid when they see it and they're not afraid to show it.

-- Whatta ya know. The Ubersieve Christobal Huet gets his name on the Cup. Good thing too because that's the only way he'd ever accomplish it.

-- It was nice to see Hossa hoist the Cup second. Everyone knows of the Hossa curse. Well, it's now put to rest. Unfortunately, I would've liked that to have been done the year before with Detroit but alas..

-- I wonder how Martin Havlat feels right now?

-- I agree with the NBC commentators that Ville Leino should get consideration for the rookie of the year for the playoffs... if such an award exists.

-- It was an amazing run for everyone on both teams. Philly wasn't supposed to make it past the first round. Chicago hadn't done it since the greats of Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull, and Glen Hall skated at Chicago Stadium. Even Jeremy "The Lips" Roenick was all choked up. I guess that's why I loved this series so much. The massive underdog that shouldn't have even been there vs. the young upstarts.

-- Bettman cries again. We all know he'd've loved to call Pronger's name for the Conn Smuthe... and I was half expecting him to do so.

-- Speaking of Pronger, I don't have any negative thoughts towards him right now. Yeah, probably because he didn't win the Cup, but still...

On to the draft.