The SeedSing NHL Stanley Cup Finals Prediction

Welcome to the first ever, and probably last, SeedSing NHL Stanley Cup Finals prediction. We here at the website are not big hockey fans, but I thought with Ty out of town I would give the sports prediction blog a try.

Let me start with what I know about the two teams playing for the Stanley Cup. I know that the Florida Panthers play in Miami. This is their third straight trip to the finals (they lost last year to Vegas). The Panthers have a player by the name of Matthew Tkachuk, who is the son of Keith Tkachuk who played for the St. Louis Blues the last time I really paid attention to hockey.

As for the Edmonton Oilers I know they were really good when I was a kid. Edmonton is in Canada and a team from our friendly neighbors to the north have not won a cup in a really long time. That’s all I know.

With all my knowledge and borrowing the sports predicting skills from Ty I am going to say the Florida Panthers will win their first cup in a nice six game series. Why I am picking the Panthers you ask? They are from the United States and Edmonton is in Canada, and like I said a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup in forever. USA, USA, USA.

In all seriousness enjoy the Stanley Cup hockey fans. The NHL has the coolest trophy in all of sports and hockey is a pretty cool sport to watch. My fourteen year old is getting more into hockey and has been watching the playoffs and he’s been playing NHL 24 for the last month. He is the one that told me Florida would win. When I asked why he told me that Florida has more recent playoff experience, they won more games, and a team from Canada has not won in forever.

RD

RD Kulik is the founder and Head Editor for SeedSing.com

Support us on patreon.

Is this the End of Sports?

Currently the French Open is on going, tomorrow night is the NBA Finals and then the Stanley Cup Finals begin on Thursday. Both leagues and international professional tennis did not get the most optimal matchups and the sports media will not shut up about it. “Ratings will be down” they say, “the gambling community is not happy” they cry. I personal believe the last point the sports media cries about, gambling, is why clean competitive sports is coming to an end. Let me explain.

In the NHL and NBA both playoffs saw a strong team from New York not make the finals, in the NBA the Knicks missed the conference finals when they were upset by the Indiana Pacers. The Dallas Mavericks did not have to play the defending champion Nuggets to advance, they got to face the young upstart Minnesota Timberwolves. In the NHL the defending champion Las Vegas Golden Knights were bounced in the first round by a big market Dallas Stars team, then Dallas was knocked out by the lower seeded Edmonton Oilers. Over in the east the little thought about Florida Panthers advanced to their second straight cup final over the massively loved New York Rangers. The biggest market to have their team playing for a championship is Dallas or Miami, and Dallas is a football town and most of you readers probably did not know the Florida Panthers played in Miami. For ratings and gambling, these matchups are not the best. Also the French Open, Novak Djokovic, the man everyone wants to watch, withdrew today with a knee injury. This is all not according to plan.

I listen to a lot of sports radio and I follow these sports personalities on social media. I hear each and ever “expert” complain about the matchups and then do an ad read for a gambling website. The studio show for the French Open is sponsored by Fanduel, the hockey and basketball arenas are covered with gambling adverts and every other commercial is telling you to bet. It is annoying and it is getting a little scary because if gambling means this much to the leagues, then getting optimal matchups, with the most popular teams and players, it means more money.

Before I go on I want to make it clear that I am not calling for a ban on sports gambling. I do not gamble myself, but is not for addiction or moral reasons, I just don’t like to spend my money that way. What I am afraid of is that all of our sports leagues/governing bodies have prioritized revenue more than competition. That is why in the span of less than five years we have gone from zero gambling to non-stop advertisement. I have no faith that the NFL, NBA, MLB, ATP, the Grand Slams, NASCAR, the NCAA, the IOC, FIFA, MLS, LIV Golf, or any other letter salad sports organization would take an opportunity to fix an income to drive more revenue towards their sport. I have no proof, but I think it is already happening. (When I have proof I’ll write about it here).

I am ranting here today because the last few days has been non-stop complaining from the sports media on the state of competion in our current professional leagues. The sports media is their for the management of these leagues, so anything they say can be directly tied to management. Seeing how greedy billionaires have become, and it is billionaires that run these leagues, I have little faith that competion will be important in sports moving forward. Only money will matter and getting rid of competition so management can make another couple of million dollars will win out.

When the French Open ends, the NHL Stanley Cup is hoisted, and a new NBA champ is crowned, the media people will complain on behalf of the league and the gamblers. The narrative will be set. The owners will discuss how to increase revenue, and competitive sports will be killed. I hop I’m wrong, but I am truly afraid the process has already started.

RD

RD Kulik is the founder and Head Editor for SeedSing.com

Support us on patreon.

These NBA and NHL Finals are About Respect

Bring it home Blues

Have you been paying attention to the NBA and NHL Finals? You should because things are getting quite crazy. Going into the 2019 version of the NBA and the NHL Stanley Cup finals the narrative was about inevitability. Now that the games are being played, the narrative is changing.

The story in the NBA was about the last hurrah for the super powered Golden State Warriors. Nothing was going to stop this dynasty soon destined to be broken up due to free agency. Steph, Klay, and Draymond started it all, but Kevin Durant was going to bring them another championship on his way out the door. Even after KD got hurt, the Warriors still seemed unbeatable. The Raptors have the awesomeness of Kawhi, but not much else. Many reputable experts picked the series not to go longer than five games with Golden State being victorious. The narrative was about the dominance of Golden State, and there was no respect afforded to the road that Toronto forged to the finals.

Right now the Toronto Raptors have a two games to one lead in the best of seven series. If the series does indeed go five games, it will be Drake dancing along the sideline. The Raptors have relied on Kawhi, and they should because he is great, but the rest of the team has been pulling more than their own weight. Add the effort of the Raptors to the injuries on Golden State, Toronto is taking their chances. In all three games the Raptors have outplayed Golden State ten of twelve quarters. Yes KD would probably make a difference, but he is not there. Toronto is earning respect by not backing down from the unbeatable Warriors. The Raptors may turn that respect into an actual title. That would be crazy.

Over in the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, the St. Louis Blues keep trading punches with the dominant Boston Bruins and the series is now tied 2-2. On a side note, I know a lot about the Blues and their playoff struggles. I grew up in St. Louis and watched many of a hockey game. Growing up I saw guys like Scott Stevens and Brett Hull become superstars, only they then leave St. Louis and win Stanley cups in new cities. The Blues made the playoffs almost every year I lived in St. Louis, and they almost never made it out of the first round. Now they have made it and they are taking their chance.

In this current version of the Stanley Cup Finals, Boston is the team built for championships, St. Louis is the team built in hopes of making the playoffs and getting hot. Well, St. Louis got hot. Yet like the Las Vegas Golden Knights of last years Stanley Cup finals, the Blues are not losing that winning feel. The Blues are making sure that Boston, and the rest of the hockey loving community, know that they are in this thing to win the cup and finally hoist it under the Gateway Arch. The Blues are earning respect.

The series are still young, and a lot can still happen, but the Toronto Raptors and St. Louis Blues came into their respective championship series as afterthoughts. They are not being looked over anymore. Toronto and St. Louis know that by winning just a few more games, they can change the narrative. What was once a nice story can become a tale of legend.

The Raptors and Blues have earned our respect in these finals. They just may end up earning their first title along with it.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. 

Is this the first time SeedSing has written about hockey? What’s next, Ty’s views on Major League Soccer?

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What the Death of Dave Mirra Tells us about all Sports

We should study CTE, not just lay blame

It was recently released that deceased BMX biker Dave Mirra had CTE at the time of his suicide. This is a tragic event that could have been stopped had Mirra gotten the correct medical attention. He clearly had a lot of demons in his closet and he had some brain trauma from all the trick bike riding he did in his life. This was an avoidable tragedy.

The reason for my blog today is how little coverage this story is getting on major sports networks. Once again, the Fox Sports and ESPN's of the world are criminally under reporting this story, and I think it has to do with Mirra's chosen profession. Had he been a football player, this story would be reported on ad nauseam. I know that this is a touchy subject, but dammit, all the pro and non pro athletes that suffer from CTE deserve as much coverage as all football players get when they die and their brains are studied and it's found that they have CTE.

ESPN and Fox Sports have not stopped talking about Junior Seau's untimely suicide, and they strictly blame it all on football. Well, Seau chose to play football. He was very good at football and he turned it into a hall of fame career, but when he took his own life, the people that are trying to rid the world of football strictly blamed it all on the hits he took on the field. Yes, that is the main cause of the brain trauma, but there has to be some other things, non football related things, that went into his suicide. I don't think he woke up with a football headache one day and decided it was time to punch out, I'm pretty positive there were some other things going on.

The people that want football outlawed are on a mission to make this game seem so violent that it causes people to take their own lives. They want everyone else to think that the only reason former football players do the weird and violent things they do is because of all the hits they took and nothing else. I understand that football is a violent game, it's meant to be, but the people that play know what they are getting themselves into. You go into football knowing the possible repercussions. I knew when I played that I could get concussions or broken limbs or tear muscles, it was a part of the game.

I also played baseball and basketball, and let me tell you, I could have gotten just as badly injured playing those other two sports. I was a pitcher in baseball, and any time I stepped on a mound, I could have been hit in the head with a 100 mile per hour line drive. I've seen in real time, and on TV, pitchers get hit in the face and it is not pretty. There is so much blood and blurred vision and, sometimes, even loss of consciousness. Basketball, while I think it is the most athletic of any sport I have ever played, there are many times I have banged my head on the hardwood floor, or was smacked across the face and head by an opposing player, or I was hit in the face with a basketball coming at me at a decent speed, all those things and more. I knew those risks and I still chose to play. But, no one ever bad mouthed me for playing baseball or basketball the way they did when I played football. Baseball and basketball where never considered as dangerous as football was. The people that didn't like me playing football said that I would get injured and I would suffer headaches the rest of my life and I would be sore and my knees and legs would hurt forever, but, I have more soreness from basketball in my knees and legs than I do from football. Baseball was more terrifying to me because of the constant threat of a smoked liner back to my face than someone blind side blocking me in a football game.

Football was, and is, dangerous, but it is no more dangerous than baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or now even, BMX. Hockey and soccer are just as violent as football. The players helmets in hockey are so much smaller and have such little padding, I bet way more hockey players than football players suffer from CTE, but it never gets covered like football. I instruct young kids in soccer, and I have seen so many of them take a soccer ball to the face, and I think, at least they aren't pros, because that would have been a concussion, but no one bad mouths soccer. Soccer is the most played sport among kids in the US, and I bet a ton of retired soccer players suffer from CTE from taking too many soccer balls to the face or from doing headers, but it never gets reported. Even cheerleading is so much more risky than football. At any moment, while doing a human pyramid, or a drop from a twist or flip, you can be dropped directly on your head. I can almost guarantee that current and former cheerleaders greatly suffer from CTE.

To bring it all back to my original point, we now see that BMX can have just as dangerous results as football. No one would have ever thought that Dave Mirra would have CTE. Hell, I barely knew anything about Mirra until I heard that he had taken his own life. It is a tragedy and my heart goes out to his friends and family, but why won't ESPN talk about him and what happened more? He was a legend in his particular sport, and the only thing ESPN has done is put on their crawl that he committed suicide and that he had CTE. They have done little to nothing as far as an anchor talking about Mirra and the demons he had, and his CTE. BMX has always looked dangerous to me. Those bike riders do some of the most daring and reckless stunts that I have ever seen. I get nervous going down a big hill on my bike, so to see these pro BMXers do things like flips and twists and jumps off humongous ramps, it was equal parts exciting and terrifying to me. I always thought that it was dangerous, but it was also pretty cool. Then, as I got older, I noticed that the helmets and the padding these riders wore weren't that protective. BMXers looked like they cared a bit more about cool looking pads that actual protective pads. Whenever they took a fall, I was very worried that the riders wouldn't get up. When they did get up, they looked woosy and wobbly. They clearly had a concussion, but they kept going back out there. I know a lot of people bad mouth the NFL's concussion protocol, but if these BMXers could go out and do a stunt an hour after a brutal fall, what was their concussion protocol like?

I would hope that channels like Fox Sports and ESPN would give this more coverage and explain the dangers involved in BMX riding after what may be their biggest star ever takes their own life, but they instead want to focus on what Johnny Manziel is doing or how the Yankees are playing or who is LeBron blaming now. It's sickening that they have barely covered the Dave Mirra tragedy at all. They have all but pushed it to the side and that is sad. If the Fox Sports and the ESPN's of the world are going to continue to tell us how dangerous football is, they need to tell us how dangerous every other sport is. There is danger everywhere you go when you choose to play sports, it's not just in football. The big wigs at the big channels need to inform the general public of this. It is their job and they are doing shitty work. They may want to end football, but former pro athletes, in every pro sport, most likely has some form of CTE, and until they get the same coverage, the war against football will wage on. That is a sad state of affairs. It's tragic that Dave Mirra took his life, but it's disrespectful and tasteless the way that the major sports channels and media outlets are barely talking about it. It's truly a shame.

RIP Dave Mirra.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.