NHL 2K10: Game on!

1) The day we NHL die-hard fans have been waiting for since we saw Sid Crosby accept the Cup from Gary Bettman 3 1/2 months ago. The seemingly never ending off season is now over and real hockey is back. Their is a relatively small slate of games starting tonight with a couple of marquis match ups that easily could end up being previews of The Conference Finals.

2) In the East power houses Boston and Washington will face off in TD Garden while out west we will see The Flames play their divisional rival Canucks at the Saddledome. We will also see an original 6, and one of the NHL's longest/biggest rivalries in the Leafs-vs the Habs at the ACC.

3) Unfortunately many NHL fans won't be able to see some of those marquis games. Even if they have the NHL package or 'Center Ice, AND The NHL Network, many viewers who have the biggest satellite service in the states, Direct TV will not be able to tune in to see the games. The continued feud between Comcast (owners of Versus) and Direct TV will prevent millions from getting the game. Nice job Bettman in keeping the number of possible viewers to a minimum. He needs to get involved to end this dispute. Problem is one of the most influential owners, Ed Snyder(Flyers) also controls Comcast/versus.

4) Also due to popular demand we will again do our weekly Saturday picks. For new readers, last season each Saturday (usually the NHL's busiest day) we would pick the winners of every game and do One Lock of The week. Some might think its easy to simply pick a winner of a game. We challenge anyone out there to do what we did and do it better. Our goal is to stay above .500. Last season we finished the year with a 176-127 record for a solid .580 winning %, or 49 games above .500! On those 'Locks' each week we had an impressive 20-6, record or winning 78% of those weekly picks. We'll be hard pressed to match those figures in both categories, but we'll give it a shot. Look for it this Saturday when ALL 30 teams will be in action. Yes, 15 games in all including games in Helsinki Finland(Chicago-Florida) and Stockholm(Detroit-St. Louis). Game On Baby!