Best of Seven

There is a lot of baseball going on these days. Each team plays 162 games a season over the course of about 180 days. Multiply that by the teams in the league and that's about 2,430 baseball games each summer... too many for me to cover, so for today I won't. No, today I want to talk about being the best of seven, a far more manageable number on which to focus. For the mathematically challenged, that's really only winning four games in a series that could go up to seven games.

Right now being the best of seven refers to the first round of the NHL (National Hockey League) playoffs. The NHL is divided into two conferences, Eastern and Western. Here is how the series panned out this year:

Western Conference

Colorado Avalanche vs. Minnesota Wild

St. Louis Blues vs. Chicago Blackhawks

Anaheim Ducks vs. Dallas Stars
San Jose Sharks vs. Los Angeles Kings


Eastern Conference

Boston Bruins vs. Detroit Red Wings
Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Montreal Canadiens
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
New York Rangers vs. Philadelphia Flyers

Feel free to choose a team and jump on their bandwagon. Since we know Sports Guy's Girls read to get general info they can share or at the very least be able to interject into a conversation, here's a helpful hint: you may not want to jump on the Detroit, St. Louis, Dallas, or Tampa Bay bandwagon. They have already been eliminated.

Games in the playoffs are played a little differently than during the regular season. If the playoff game ends regular play in a tie both teams continue to overtime periods until there is a winner. Regular season games first go to overtime then to a shoutout (three players on each take turns trying to get a shot past the opposing goalie).

Now that you know who is playing to be the best of seven and get to the second round, who will your new favorite hockey team be?