PLAYOFFS!!!!!

I expected to feel more melancholy about the end of the NHL regular season today, but it's not that bad. obviously a lot of the reason is that both my western and eastern favorites are in the playoffs...but also, I realized today with no small amount of glee that now the highlights and recaps and firsts that I've delayed posting can be neatly organized and posted as "what you missed this year" or "favorite weird screenshots" or best-ofs or whatever. and so I will...of course I have thousands of screenshots from online games and NHL.com and thousands of my own photos from games to go through. and there's all kinds of statistics, for the Blackhawks and Bruins and the NHL and AHL that I can go through (plus my stats for number of teams and arenas seen and win percentage, etc.). I worry I've done a lousy job on the blog actually following the season...but I think I do okay at making hockey (and occasionally other sports) fun to follow. if any of this makes sense...oh, and I haven't posted all the hockey apparel I bought this year (no, still no jersey)--there'll be a few (more) photos of me, hope no one minds.

that's your NHL and AHL matchups (ECHL already started the Kelly Cup playoffs, and the Toledo Walleye lost in the first round--there goes my dream of seeing them this season. I really wanted to!). a few personal stats: I saw 22 NHL teams this year. of the 8 I didn't see, 4 are in the playoffs. of the teams I didn't see, the two I most wanted to (Nashville, Buffalo) are the ones playing my favorite teams in the quarterfinals! (Preds are the only Western team I've never seen.) I haven't seen any of the 8 Eastern Conference AHL teams that are in the playoffs; I've seen 7 of the 8 Western ones (Rochester didn't play the division the Chicago Wolves are in. Chicago played Lake Erie, and Lake Erie played Rochester, but Rochester didn't play Chicago. the AHL works differently and I haven't figured it all out yet).

I'm planning to go to the first Wolves playoff game this Wednesday, vs Milwaukee Admirals. then they play Friday, but that's the first Nashville-Chicago game, so I guess I'll follow those two online. Wolves in Milwaukee Saturday and Nashville at Chicago Sunday are possibilities. Rockford IceHogs don't have home games vs Texas Stars until April 21 & 23. I think I have an unused Greyhound ticket to Buffalo, still--the American city I most wanted to see an NHL game in this year but didn't. and I wanted to see another Bruins game...hmmm. couldn't make it to the first two games (Thurs. & Sat.), however.