ESPN SUCKS

So a big tell about someone's personality is to see what they have their home page set to on their personal computer.....

For many people it's CNN (they want to appear worldy yet they never even open a link), for others it's Google, and for some (Fattey) it's http://www.ilovelittleboysinnothingbuthockeygarters.com/

For me...it varies depending on the time of the year. During the hockey season, my home page is set to http://www.tsn.ca/ for obvious reasons. Pure and simply, nobody comes close to covering hockey better than TSN. I even go as far as to get the daily headlines emailed to me every morning. So besides the week of July 1st (free agent deadline), I need to find another home page because I'm not really down with hearing about the Canadian Olympic Track and Field team every day.

By default I choose ESPN. So when I opened up Internet Explorer today, after skipping over the first five links to Brett Fav-ruh, I noticed a picture of Patrick Kane. To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised and it got me a little wet seeing the 19 year-old NY-born Blackhawk on the front page of ESPN.com.

Then I started reading Scoot Burnside's article about his power rankings for the upcoming season. After slowly puking in my mouth, I soon realized why ESPN sucks at NHL coverage.

Scott Burnside is sipping the Blackhawk and Flyers Kool-aid....quite frankly, I'm not.

You can't argue with his top 2 in each conference: Pittsburgh-Montreal and Detroit-San Jose but after that it gets a little sketchy for me. He's got the Flyers as 3rd in the East. Did he not realize that they barely snuck in the playoffs last year? Or that they had the worst record in the NHL 2 years ago? Yes, I'm a fan of Mike Richards and he is the leader of this team (Briere pushes poop on his off days) but to expect them to finish 3rd in the conference is crazy.

He also has the Senators 10th!!! Is he serious? Yes they sucked it up down the stretch last year but if they finish in 10th this year, I might give Burnside my first NCAA goal puck (very valuable - Fairfield Stags class of '03) .

And how do you have ANYONE behind Garth Snow's Islanders???

For the West, does he honestly feel that the upstart "pretty pick" of the Blackhawks will finish higher then Calgary? Calgary has proven every year that they are one of the hardest teams to play against in the league. Blackhawks have some amazing young talent and add Soupy to the mix to play next to Duncan Keith on the PP but still....

I also think that Edmonton is nowhere near the 5th best team in the conference and I will be surprised if Wayne-o doesn't have his Coyotes battling for a playoff spot and Peter Mueller making a run at the scoring title.

My rankings:
East
1-Pitt - Dirty Good
2-Mon - Kovalev is G-O-D
3-Wash - OvechKING
4-NYR - they are a very different team this year...but better overall. Patrick Rissmiller's name will look amazing on Lord Stanley
5-Philly - they will be more consistent this year
6-Ott - Spezza and Alfredsson are still there....don't count them out
7-NJD - Marty gets them in the playoffs by himself
8-TB - UNREAL offense.....terrible D and goaltending. Mike Smith? Really?
9-ATL - ILYA
10-BUF - who cares that you can't name 5 guys on the team...they always contend
11-FL - some decent young talent bus losing Olli will hurt
12-BOS - worst GM in the league
13-CAR - Staal can't carry them alone. Ray Whitney is sneaky good though
14-TOR - Oh Mats, oh Mats, where art thou?
15-NYI - Garth motha f'n Snow....nuff said

West
1-Det - Three most underrated players in the world...Pavel, Nik and Henrik
2-SJ - Love the Boyle signing but will letting Rissmiller go be too much to handle?
3-ANA-Nieder is back....just watch him play....it gets me hard
4-DAL - always there
5-CAL- Phaneuf will win Norris
6-PHX-they're sneaky good
7-CHI- I love two crackers with my soup
8-Min- not sure why...but they are always better then I think
9-Nash-best young d-core in the league
10-STL-very good d-men.
11-CLS-Nash keeps them out of the cellar
12-EDM-I just don't think they are good....am I the only one?
13-LAK-Kopitar and his tinted visor....dirty
14-COL-Sakic? Will they bring him back?
15-Van-No Naslund = no leader

Here is the link to Burnside's picks....
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=3504426&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1