Anything for a Toronto angle.

This story is downright weird.

...tonight the NHL will hand out its hardware.

And when Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals climbs onto the stage at the Elgin Theatre in downtown Toronto to accept the Hart Memorial Trophy, another season will have passed since Ted (Teeder) Kennedy became the last Maple Leaf, 53 years ago, to receive the trophy, awarded to the player deemed most valuable to his NHL team.

Not only that -- and here's a scoop for you, so pay attention -- but another whole year will have passed since anyone won the trophy.

Retroactive predictions

Question of the day on the G&M's online sports page: "Will Detroit sweep Pittsburgh?"

Nearby headline: "Penguins make it a series."

Maybe that's part of the problem

"Tonight, yes."

That's Daniel Alfredsson, after the Senators' loss to the Penguins last night. on being asked if he was satisfied with the team's effort.

Here's hoping Boston will be just as satisfied with their effort tonight.

One senior? I'm a believer!!

I don't expect a lot of hard news from the Sunday paper. Especially when it's the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.

But when I took a look at this past Sunday's front page, I thought maybe I was reading an edition of The Masthead News instead. That's one of our weekly community papers, given to headlines like Girl Guides to Learn Self-Defence, and serial punctuation abuse: ("... a big, new store.")

The main story is a CP piece about a Montreal woman who has had season tickets to the Canadiens for 55 years. There's a big photo of her above the fold. It's a gentle, boring human interest piece. What really got me was the sub-head:

Montreal senior a season ticket holder for 55 years; believes 2008 team can win the Stanley Cup

Hey, one senior can't be wrong!

Will I end up in the money?

This year's hockey pool picks. Year after year, I ignore St. Louis and Alfredsson. Will that finally work in my favour?

Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin, Marian Hossa, Vincent Lecavalier, Maxim Afinogenov, Marc Savard, Jaromir Jagr, Michael Nylander, Scott Gomez, Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, Joe Thornton.

Nicklas Lidstrom, Sheldon Souray, Chris Pronger, Lubomir Visnovsky, Sergei Gonchar, Tomas Kaberle.

Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo

Own goal

How embarrassing. And it's the game-winning goal too.

King Kaufman on the Cup

King Kaufman of Salon is my favourite sportswriter. Unfortunately, he almost never writes about hockey.

But when he does, he gets it right.

Two highlights from the piece:

Every year I'm struck by how cool the end of the Stanley Cup Finals is. The losing team has to stand around and wait while the winning team goes ape-crazy bananas. Then comes the traditional handshake, which everybody agrees is a groovy thing. Then, after the curtain-opening bestowal of the Conn Smythe Trophy for Most Valuable Player of the entire playoffs -- Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer took this one -- the Stanley Cup itself is brought out by its handlers.

...

There's a hastily assembled team photo with the Cup, which always makes me wonder: Whenever I'm in a group photo, even if the group is six people, it takes the group and the photographer 10 minutes to get everybody arranged just so. How is it that hockey teams can get themselves posed in 10 seconds?

I came eight in my playoff pool. Done in by thinking the Pens would take the Sens. I would have done a lot worse if Detroit had bowed out sooner. I did have a few Ducks, but clearly I should have taken more.

Playoff beards

Gentlemen, start your beards. Maybe Crosby will manage to grow one this time (apparently, the last time he tried, as a 17-year-old junior, all he got was a bit of a moustache).

Sidney Crosby will become the youngest player ever to sport a playoff beard! We will see the Cros-beard this playoff season! Oh yes my friends, mark my words.

More at the Playoff Beard website.

Things I learned from my hockey pool this year

My buddy Allan Marron runs a hockey pool every year, and I persist in participating, even though the best I've ever done is second in the playoff pool (the year Calgary went to the final, and I had the Kipper, Iginla, and a host of other Flames).

Sometimes I pore over the stats before making my picks. This year, I chose them in about 15 minutes. I came fifth.

Here's what I learned.

• It's a very long season.

• Being 20 points ahead in early February is no guarantee of anything.

• Don't count on the big guns playing on the last day of the season. A couple of points from Iginla, a shutout from Kiprusoff -- these could have vaulted me into the money. But both guys were rested for the final game.

• I thought one of the things I learned was not to trade too soon. I dumped Savard in his early-season slump and took Hossa instead. If I'd stuck with Savard, I would have had 96 points. By trading him for Hossa I wound up with 90. In effect, I had him during his worst slump of the year, then missed out on the rest of his high-scoring season.

I also ditched Tanguay, who wound up with 81 points. Instead, I took Afinogenov, but by the time he broke his wrist, I had used up all 5 of my trades, and had to sit and watch as other poolies overtook me (see #2, above).

But it's not that simple. I hung onto Nash for far too long, finally ditching him for Selanne. I wound up with 70 points from these too. Sticking with Nash would have given me 57. I should have gotten rid of him much sooner.

• Save up your trades so you can dump players when they get injured. I did well by dumping Spezza (for Lecavalier) and Pronger (for Visnovsky) once they got hurt. But because of my absurd Savard trade, I could do nothing when Afinogenov went down.

• Past performance actually is a pretty good indicator of future results, especially when it comes to goalies.
  

• I need to finally realize that Martin St. Louis is for real.

• There is a limit to how much your family is willing to listen to you go on about the hockey pool.
  

Now if only I had a list somewhere of things I've learned from playoff pools. At least the Habs are out, so I don't have to worry about picking with my heart instead of my head.