Montreal Canadiens vs Boston Bruins the Austin Powers NHL playoff matchup

Part 4 of our continuing series: An Australian on Ice Hockey.

Part 1: You make excuses for the Habs

Part 2: NHL All-Star Game shakeup a great idea

Part 3: Chara's Pacioretty hit means a lot for NHL - and pro sport

Part 5: The Psychology of Choking

When it comes to sporting rivalries, the Canadiens/Bruins East coast hockey rivalry is amongst the most intense, challenging perhaps only the Spanish Clasico and Glasgow's Old Firm derby. Understandable too: both are "Original Six" franchises - one of the six teams who sustained the foundling NHL from 1943-1967 when the league first expanded. Both have had amongst the game's most iconic players - from the Bruins' Bobby Orr (inexplicably selected by insert redneck adjective here Don Cherry as the best hockey player ever - I'm not debating he's good, just that Gretzky was better) to the Habs' Maurice Richard.

Both teams are ranked first and fourth on the all-time list of Stanley Cup champions and both haven't won the big shamu since the early nineties. This matchup sees Montreal, one of the world's best-looking cities (seriously guys, if you're single, MTL's the place to be), playing a seven-game series against the ugliest city - and we're not talking landscapes here - on the face arse of the planet, Boston, only six hundred kilometres away. Both teams feature supporters who struggle to pronounce lots of common English words. To quote Doctor Evil - "we're not so different, you and I".

And they've got recent history too. When Zdeno Chara put Max Pacioretty into the turnbuckle at the Bell Centre in March, any recent thawing of relations went out the window. The hit - resulting in a fractured C4 vertebra for the Hab youngster - reverberated not just around the Bell Centre boards but the NHL, prompting calls for new concussion protocols and to protect the head. It was announced Chara would be investigated by the Montreal Police department, but thte SPVM is yet to draw any conclusions. In the midst of a controversial year, the Habs won the season-series 4-2 but lost the Division to their rivals.

What's amusing (and mildly surprising) is that similarities between the cities don't just end with their hometowns. Both clubs rely on their Vezina trophy-nominated goaltenders (Carey Price and Tim Thomas) and both clubs have a fleet of busy skaters, rather than sublimely-skilled ones: Montreal will pit Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta and Thomas Plekanec against a (probably slightly better) Bruin forward core of Milan Lucic, Nathan Horton and Patrice Bergeron. Both sides have strength in depth, rather than in superstars. The Bruins' don't counterpunch like the Habs, but that's a result of yet more injuries to Hab defencemen. While not a vintage year for either squad, this could be each team's most successful playoff run for nearly two decades. In the words of the Highlander - there can be only one.

It could be that - good-looking women apart - the cities are rivals not just because of their clashes during the 1970s and before, but because each city was the jewel in their country's crown until recent times. There are a lot of similarities between both cities: a working-class city dotted with pockets of "old money"; a history of sporting success; decreasing global importance and the fans' appreciation for hard work and spunk. Boston and Montreal will continue to fight it out on the ice.

And, as fans, we love it.

Canada's World Cup hopes: stability

The tenth ICC Cricket World Cup hits off on February 19th on the subcontinent. Canada's rocky road to their third successive Big Dance looks finally free of incident as they prepare for their first match against co-hosts Sri Lanka on February 20. The final hurdle, obtaining Indian visas for four key players, appears to have been settled as the four-month wait for approval came through last week.

The quartet of players - including vice-captain Rizwan Cheema and key bowler Khurrum Chohan - were all born in Pakistan and given the state of relations between the neighbouring countries, visa processing was delayed. Cheema particularly is an important figure for the Canadians, being one of the more experienced squad members in the tournament's most inexperienced squad, which boasts seven graduates of Canada's Under-19s squad. At sixteen, Nitish Kumar of Ontario looks set to be the youngest player ever to take part in a World Cup.

The fifteen-man squad boasts an average age of twenty-six, with almost all the experience coming from World Cup veterans Ashish Bagai, the captain, opening bowler Henry Osinde and perpetual ace-in-the-hole Jon Davison. The Canadians' combined 225 games of experience is cumulatively less than that of eleven individual players competing in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in February and March.

Canada's past participation at the one-day cricket World Cup includes a standalone appearance in 1979 in England and qualification through the ICC Tournament for the past two Cups in South Africa and the Caribbean. Last year's tournament was in South Africa and involved all of cricket's "associate" nations - countries not playing full-time on the international circuit. Led by 39 year-old converted Aussie Davison, Canada performed well during that tournament finishing runners up among the twelve nations behind second-division powerhouse Ireland. Two other important performers were Ian Billcliff and Geoff Barnett who both play competitively in New Zealand.

Safely qualified again, the selection team chose a 30-man shortlist for the tournament, minus several players instrumental in securing their Cup berth, namely Billcliff, Barnett and Sunil Dhaniram. Davison, who keeps a home base in Australia, withdrew from the squad in support of his omitted teammates but was re-instated when after talks with Cricket Canada clarified the reasons for the trio's non-selection. Still Canada's most potent weapon, Davison - who boasts the fastest innings of one-hundred and third-fastest innings of fifty in World Cup history - remains the trump on whom Canadian hopes rest for a victory or two in South Asia.

Recent preparations started with participation in the Caribbean 20-over tournament in mid-January. A two week stay in Dubai follows before the squad flies to Bangladesh for the official World Cup warm-up games. The Caribbean venture was a successful one, with narrow losses to several West Indian nations but also a victory against a fully-professional Hampshire outfit while helping coach Pubudu Dassanayake focus on several areas to be improved upon. More importantly, it provided valuable experience for the team's array of youngsters, Jamaican-born Tyson Gordon and young batsman Ruvindu Gunasekera particularly impressive.

Success for a Canadian team comprised mainly of semi-professionals will not be measured in wins, but in competitiveness. Drawn in a group with heavyweights Australia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, they also face easier opposition like Zimbabwe and Kenya. Should the team emerge with even one victory, it would be a great boost to the sport in Canada and given their recent 20-over displays in Barbados, upsetting a fellow associate nation is eminently possible.

Announcement: Balanced Sports on WCW podcast

Hi all. Balanced Sports' principal author, Matthew Wood, featured on last week's One Hand, One Bounce cricket podcast from World Cricket Watch. In his 20-minute spell, he discussed cricket in Canada as well as reaction to the sentences passed down to Salman Butt, Mohammed Asif & Mohammed Amir. You can listen to it here or find it in your iTunes store.

NHL All-Star Game shakeup a great idea

Part 2 of our continuing series; An Australian on Ice Hockey

Part 1: You make excuses for the Habs

Part 3: Chara's Pacioretty hit means a lot for NHL - and pro sport

Part 4: Canadiens vs. Boston the Austin Powers NHL Playoff matchup

Part 5: The Psychology of Choking

The NHL All-Star Game is scheduled for Sunday 29th of January in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has changed format this year. Rather than the traditional fan-selected East vs. West match typifying All-Star games across the major sports, this year the league asked fans to select six players only. Those players, four from Pittsburgh and two Chicago Blackhawks, will be joined by players that the NHL's Hockey Operations department has selected to bring the number of players up to the Adamsian forty-two.

Here's where it gets interesting. Two captains will be selected from that shortlist of forty-two and each captain will then choose his own squad as if they are playing hockey out back on the pond. Rumour has it the NHL's most marketable players - forwards Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin from the Penguins and Capitals - are likely to be given the honour of selecting their own teammates.

Click here to see the full roster as selected by the fans and NHL.

While Gary Bettman has had a controversial and chequered career as the NHL's commissioner, this is a win. The NHL is a clear and distant fourth in America's sporting hierarchy and this change of direction for the league showpiece, while revolutionary, allows its millions of followers not just to see the best hockey has to offer, but also makes the game more approachable for the everyman. Every single hockey player in Canada has played pond hockey - perhaps even every single person. Pickup hockey is one of the nation's great pastimes and for a league facing as many struggles as the NHL does - chiefly issues of legitimacy outside Canada and the North East US - it stands to gain both notoriety and new fans by adopting such a novel approach. While playing in the NHL - or any pro sport - is out of reach for most of us, this concept of bringing the apogee of the game back to the grass roots allows Joe Public to identify more with the creme de la creme of Ice Hockey.

It's concepts like this match and the Winter Classic, where a match is played outside during the depths of winter - this year Crosby's Pens hosting Ovechkin's Caps at Pittsburgh Football stadium - which could bring a whole new relevancy to the national game of Canada. Hockey is facing a tough battle to remain in the US national consciousness as expansion waters down the talent pool and US cities find themselves unprepared for athletes speaking little English. (A quarter of the NHL's player pool comes from outside North America and many newcomers don't have a great command of the language). Soccer and Mixed Martial Arts (!) are rapidly gaining ground in the chase for the NHL's title of "fourth most identifiable sport in the continent" so it's encouraging from a position north of the border to see measures being taken to support the visibility of the league in the southern United States, no matter how few people play - or even care about- hockey there. Bettman's infinitely debatable strategy of relocating small-market Canadian teams and expanding south of the border - sometimes waaaaaay south - was aimed at growing the game in warmer climes and has achieved only mild-to-moderate success. To encourage that growth, there has to be exposure as to why and how the game is so loved in northern regions.

Where perhaps the NHL has dropped the ball - sorry, puck - with this new All-Star concept is the logical extension of this "pond hockey" idea: while the captains are obviously important, maybe there's too much emphasis placed on the skipper's role. To really capture the spirit of pond hockey, the essence of the grass-roots, perhaps it'd be preferable to suit the players up on All-Star Saturday and get them to throw their sticks in a pile to be picked at random onto one of two teams just like when playing pickup. It could be done according to position as well to ensure parity and so rather than relying on a captain's personal preference, another level of mystery to the game is added - no matter how they feel about each other, how would Malkin play with Ovechkin? Or Carey Price with Zdeno Chara?

Television cameras north and south of the 49th would love to see Bettman out on the ice, picking up a stick and throwing it into one team or the other's pile at random. It would just be magic publicity for the league - a draft of the best 42 players in the world and an All-Star game in the one weekend. I can't imagine this being anything other than a major boost for the event, and for the league as a whole. Perhaps that's the future direction of the All-Star game.

Perhaps the next generation All-Star game could follow the same lines that Australia has used recently for the AFL's one-off revival of it's State of Origin concept. In that 2008 match, the state with the largest number of clubs - and thus grass-roots players - competed against a team made up of players who played junior footy outside Victoria. The same could be done with the NHL, with a US/Canada combination being pitted against an International All-Star squad coming from Finland, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic. To make the numbers even more square, it could be players who played their juniors in Canada (Out of the 962 NHL players in 2009-10, 520 were Canadians) against The Rest. I'd pay money to see either match and, along with the Pond Hockey idea, it's perhaps more sustainable and easily regulated than two captains picking their own teams, probably rife with friends and brown-noses. This option may be unlikely as it divides players along national lines and could tread on the toes of the IIHF, but is at least worth considering.

There are a few other wrinkles to this game make it even more interesting. Identical twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin, of the league-topping Vancouver Canucks, have never played against each other during their NHL careers and could wind up on different teams. Brothers Marc and Eric Staal may find themselves playing alongside or against one another. In a game where knowledge of one's comrades is vital to good team play, it would be great to see Crosby not selecting m/any of his Pens/Team Canada alumni so as to increase the levels of uncertainty and make the event even more of a spectacle: let the public see how he would go against Marc-Andre Fleury. It's crucial the teams are really shaken up and the NHL should encourage the star-cross'd captains just to have fun and pick guys they'd like to play with, rather than know intimately. As usual there are questionable selections and "milk cartons" - players missing from the game for unknown reasons - which adds another level of intrigue to what is already shaping as one of the most interesting hockey games of the year.