Shoots Left and Writes

  Simon B Tonight is game 7. No matter what craziness went on Saturday, were all back to watch tonight. I know that it's going to be nerve-wracking tonight. I know that if you're a Leaf fan you've probably got 0% confidence because we've done this a million times. But do yourselves a favor and enjoy your day.  I'm posting this 12 hours before puck drop. Make the most of those 12 hours. Have a nice lunch if you can, spend time with family and loved ones, don't worry about the game because we've got to understand that life will go on after tonight, whether the Leafs win or lose. Good luck to both teams and enjoy the game! If you have any other sports topics you'd like to read about, let me know in the comments or send me a message in the "Contact me" section in the sidebar!  Thanks for reading! I'd love your comments and questions.  Please share with friends and take a moment to subscribe (head to the sidebar and sign up under the "subsc...

 Round 1, Game 6: Leafs vs. Habs Simon B No words can describe how I feel at this moment. Normally I write these post-game pieces the morning after games so I get a chance to sleep on them and reflect. But not tonight! I'm not going to look at any notes, I'm going straight from the heart. After all, this is the way life is. The Leafs go to game 7. Even when they dominated in games 2, 3, and 4 and it looked like they were cruising to a series win, I still doubted them based on one thing: the crest on their jersey. The part that annoys me the most about this is that every loss they've had in these playoffs has been avoidable. Game one: Tavares went down and they couldn't really pull it together, understandable. Game five: a terrible start where they storm back and have a chance to win in overtime but lose it on a horrendous turnover at the blue line. Game six: for the first 45 minutes of the game, it looked like they didn't want to be there! Frankly, I don't think...

 Round 1, Game 5: Habs vs. Leafs Simon B This game was a crazy roller coaster of emotions! From being down 3-0 to Jake Muzzin of all people scoring two goals to get them back in it to Nick Suzuki winning it a minute into overtime, a lot of storylines came out of this game. John Tavares gave the Leafs a big morale boost, back on the practice taking shots only a week after his collision. JT was also in the house for the game, cheering on his team who had a chance to close out the series last night. For the lineups, Rasmus Sandin was back in for Travis Dermott. I think this was the wrong move by head coach Sheldon Keefe because Dermott looked really good in game 4. Keefe should have given Dermott the chance to prove his consistency by showing he could do it in two straight. Sandin had been good up to this point in the series but game 5 was one to forget for him. He didn't have the same impact he had had in the first three games of this series and wasn't bringing the same amount of...

 Simon B This is the second part of my European Championship preview.  If you want to check out the first preview piece I covered groups A, B, and C in my earlier blog post,. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on groups D, E, and F. Group D England - Croatia - Scotland - Czech Republic I like the way this group has two teams that are going full out to win the tournament, and then two middle-class teams that aren't favorites to win but I'm sure will give the top teams a run for their money. I'll start with England . They're young, fast, skilled and they've got nothing to lose because this is just the beginning of a long road of success that England has built for itself. They surprised everyone by making it to the semis in the World Cup in 2018, and it looks like their lineup has only gotten better since then. A back four of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harry Maguire, John Stones, and Luke Shaw, show a lot of promise: dynamic on offense and big and strong in their o...