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A Nervous Wednesday for Caps Fans
Ok, I don’t really believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy but I do believe in the Washington Capitals. God- please- this once- could you not be a dream-killer?
No #1 Stanley Cup seed has ever lost an opening round series to a #8 seed after going up 3 games to 1. But the Caps have a chance to make that dubious piece of history Wednesday at the Verizon Center and they know it. Stung by complacency in Game 5 and one the best performances by any goalie ever in Game 6…we will soon know what the Caps are made of.
I am gloriously, dangerously and deeply emotionally invested in this damn thing. Granted, not as much as my season-ticket holding friends who were actually there to see the 2-1 Game 5 debacle when the Caps could have ended it all; who have followed every amazing twist and turn of a regular season that ended with Washington as the best team in all of hockey.
But the Caps are part of my neighborhood and I can’t help it. I live a block from Verizon Center and I’ve seen the red madness out in the streets of Chinatown before and after every home game. I hear the horns honking after an inspiring victory like Game 2 against Montreal when the Caps rallied to win a 5-4 nail-biter in overtime. And whether I get into the arena or not, I will be out in the streets for the joyous, delirious celebration when the boys hoist the ultimate prize above their heads.
Because I cannot accept the possibility that it could all come crashing down in one sad, pitiful moment Wednesday night; because it would make me wonder what the hell the regular season is for, and therefore, why even watch or care at all- I must believe they will pull this off.
Not only that, but I must believe that if they do win game 7 Wednesday- they have a real chance to go all the way. Here’s the theory, expressed by Brian McNally of the Washington Examiner:
…win that seventh game and no one remembers a thing. The panic subsides — for a few days at least. Jaroslav Halak can’t follow you to Philadelphia. You don’t have to go back to Bell Centre and its legion of screaming fanatics. It’s a new series and a 0-0 start and sometimes the relief of that allows a team to loosen up and make a run at a championship.
Right? Doesn’t that make sense? I have to believe. They will win. Otherwise, on Thursday morning when I wake up, Santa Claus will have been shot at point-blank range by an armed bandit, the Easter Bunny’s head will be hanging on some hunter’s wall and the Tooth Fairy will be serving 10 to 20 for a narcotics conviction. What’s left of my innocence will be gone.
Bracketology
March Madness is upon us, people! It’s off to the races and the biggest annual time-suck since you last filled out your own tax forms. I don’t know how much productivity is lost in the American workplace and really, I don’t care. This is important stuff.
Every year, I come up with some new fangled, bizzaro formula for predicting the winners. I am, actually, a total spreadsheet nerd and I can spend hours on this stuff analyzing and sorting. I have had mixed success. I’m usually in the top 5 in my office pools.
I almost perished from a bitter, awful, horrendous and deeply sad disappointment in 2008. I had picked Memphis to win it all. Nobody ever thought friggin’ Memphis would win the National Championship. And there they were- beating Kansas by 9 points with 2 minutes to play. I had this. I could taste the $400 pot. Regrettably, the Memphis boys had a significant weakness. Free throws. Coming down the stretch, they couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. I had not factored in their horrific FT%. Aaaauuurgh. I know the Memphis players and the larger Memphis community were crushed. But so was I. Big-time.
Last year, I correctly picked North Carolina to win the title, but my other Final 4 were off so, again, close, but no cigar.
This year, I have discovered that there are many, many people out there on the World Wide Web, smarter and nerdier than I. They have applied their mathematics degrees to the greater societal good and have used logarithms, Pythagorean theorems and good old common sense to come up with their sets of predictions. And so I have researched them thoroughly and selected the analysis I thought was the most complete and I’m going with their rankings which were made before the tournament field was set.
I will not tell you what system I am using, ok? Find your own! I will tell you this:
The system is cool and I believe, accurate enough, that it honed in on a number of 1st round upsets that include five teams seeded 9th-12th. I do have three top-seeds getting to the Final 4…but also a #4-seed. It all has the ring of truth to it. If there are alternate realities out there, I KNOW this is one of them. I am just hoping the cosmic dice select this particular reality, because, I’m telling you people, I’m feeling it this year.
Here are the 1st round upsets:
#9 Northern Iowa over UNLV
#9 FSU over Gonzaga
#10 St.Mary’s over Richmond
#11 Old Dominion over Notre Dame
#12 Utah State over Texas A&M
My Final 4: Kansas, Duke, Syracuse & Wisconsin
National Champion: Duke. Very few teams entering the tournament as the #1 seed actually win it all. But if Duke pulls it off in 2010 it will be their 3rd time. They do it approximately every ten years. Check it out.
Garcia Media Life 
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