Sunday, October 28, 2007

Rockies Rocked In Game 3

Unfortunately, and despite a nice comeback from a 6-0 deficit, the previously red-hot Rockies came up short for the third straight game in this year's World Series, 10-5. Now down 3-0 in the series, I expect it'll all wrap up tomorrow night, with yet another sweep - the fifth out of seven series in this postseason! In fact, if that happens, every playoff matchup that didn't include the Cleveland Indians will have ended in the minimum number of games this year!

Colorado's run-up to this cool-down reminds me of the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1992 NHL playoffs. That year, the Blackhawks had finished just seven games over 0.500 during the regular season, but that was more than enough to get them into the postseason. They played St. Louis in the first round, and took the last three games to win the series 4-2. They then swept Detroit in the Division Finals, and swept the Gretzky-less and Messier-less Edmonton Oilers in the Conference Finals. That put them into the Stanley Cup Finals on an incredible eleven-game winning streak, which was practically unheard of with the grueling schedule and wear-and-tear of the hockey playoffs.

And yet, despite all that, they were then swept themselves, by the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, who'd arrived there on a bit of a roll themselves, having won seven in a row (including three against the President's Trophy-winning New York Rangers).

So it looks like we have Colorado playing the part of the Blackhawks, and Boston well on their way to filling in for the Penguins. In each case, a hot team would be somehow managing to beat what appeared to be an even hotter team, and making it look easy in the process.

No comments: