Ducks Swim In Stanley Cup

The Anaheim Ducks may not be owned by Disney any more (they were sold a couple of years ago), but Donald Duck might have appreciated how they fought and battled their way to their first NHL Stanley Cup victory, defeating the Ottawa Senators in five games.

Led by the goaltending of J.S. Giguere and the goal scoring of Teemu Selanne, Justin Penner, Dean McAmmond and others, the Ducks survived the tepid Ottawa offense and the suspension of resident tough guy Chris Pronger (for putting the elbow on McAmmond in Game 3) for one game. Having seen them do the same thing to the Minnesota Wild in the first round, this does not come as a big shock.

What also didn't come as a big shock was the predictably abysmal TV ratings the Stanley Cup finals got, first on Versus and later NBC. Game 3 on the Peacock tied for the lowest-rated prime time program in history with a 2005 rerun of "The West Wing".

(In Minnesota, the playoffs did well in the local ratings, which is what you would expect in the State of Hockey. But they were all outpointed by Minnesota Twins games on FSN North, and most of them were replays of afternoon games. That's right. Taped baseball did better than playoff hockey.)

At least NBC tried to spice things up with an appearance by Don Cherry, the flame-throwing commentator on CBC's "Hockey Night In Canada", in Game 4. Dressed up like Colonel Sanders (minus the bucket of chicken), Cherry advocated more fighting as a way for the NHL to attract more American TV viewers. This is why, with idiotic comments like that one (others are much stronger), the CBC puts a delay on Cherry's between-periods segment. NBC must have heard enough, because Cherry wasn't around for Game 5.

The Ducks are the third consecutive Sunbelt-based team to win the Stanley Cup (Tampa Bay and Carolina are the others), while a Canadian-based team hasn't won one since the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens. Who's next? Phoenix? San Jose? Atlanta?