I have just one request for tonight's games...

And it's not, "Please Marc-Andre Fleury, can you turn down the suck and turn up the awesome?" or even "I'm begging you San Jose: would you choke again and give the Avs a 2-0 lead in the series?" though those would be both enjoyable. No, today's request is very simple: Could the Chicago Black Hawks show to the rest of their fellow tops seeds how it's supposed to be done and take care of business against Nashville? And I don't mean with an overtime win (a la Vancouver) or a feisty but unnecessarily drawn out 2-1 win (like Buffalo). Could the Chicagos post a three, four or five goal win tonight and definitively say to the rest of the league "Were the big dogs. Come get us,"?

I'm rather petty and selfish when it comes to playoff hockey. I really don't like upsets. I cheer for the favourites. I generally want the best teams playing because I believe that it makes for the most exciting forms of hockey (except of course when my teams are involved, then upset away.) As much I as dislike the Leafs, I wanted them to win in 2002 for the sake of the game. A Toronto-Detroit series would have been much more competitive from a pure hockey standpoint the snoozer we ended up with (Detroit in five over Carolina). My all time favourite final was Colorado-New Jersey, and not just because the Avs won or Ray Bourque finally got his Cup. It was an exciting seven game series between the league's two best teams.

Which leads me back to my original point: I want to see Chicago crush Nashville tonight and in every game throughout the opening round. The Hawks are unquestionably the better team. If they can play like winners, it just might inspire the rest of the great teams to realize their potential and quit coasting


Please note: This doesn't apply to San Jose or Washington. In Washington's case, I want Montreal to win the Cup. San Jose's, if they were going to play like a winner they would have done some years ago.