Value For Money...

Believe it or not, this post has absolutely nothing to do with ticket prices...I've been there and done that to death over the past two days...

Today we return back to events on the ice. With the last weekend of the (league) season this weekend, and no real storylines left apart from the Basingstoke-Edinburgh playoff battle (which looks like a final-day thriller), I've been scratching around somewhat for things to put in that weren't anything to do with ticket prices, how bad Hull are or whatever. And, honestly? I was struggling slightly. Then, like a gift from the blogging gods, came an email from a friend pointing me to this article...and from that came the question...if the Elite League had a Hart Trophy (perhaps we could call it something stupid and made-up-by-a-marketing-panel like Man of Ice MVP award, or something equally sponsored and cringeworthy)-one which fans could actually nominate for as opposed to "let's pick the top-scorers/personal favourites", then what would be the Elite League's equivalent of Alex Ovechkin v Evgeni Malkin, and who would you pick? Indeed, who would you pick in Ovie v Malks?

I have to declare bias here...at least in the NHL battle. I've loved watching Malkin play ever since I was lucky enough to see him play live for Russia just before the Olympics-and when he ended up being drafted by my NHL team...well, that was my favourite NHLer sorted for the next fifteen years or so. However, ask a lot of casual fans and they will find it hard to look past the otherworldly scoring ability of Ovechkin when naming the best NHL player currently out there, with Malkin playing second-fiddle to the phenomenon that is Sidney Crosby, even on his own team. However, I still think the article makes a pretty good MVP case for the Penguin over the Capital...

In the UK, meanwhile, the nominees for the MVP award are...

Adam Calder (Coventry)
Colin Hemingway (Edinburgh)
Joe Tallari (Manchester)

Leaving aside the fact that I think the MVP award should have more than three candidates (maybe five) and that I really can't work out how on earth Sylvain Deschatelets and/or Joey Talbot didn't get nominated, never mind Steve Munn or Sean McAslan...surely there's no way the panel just looked at the top scorer's list in the league and ended up picking the three they like best, is there?...

Candidate by candidate...

Adam Calder: 100+points, title-winning team...top scorer, etc, etc. But MVP of the league? He isn't even MVP of his team. Maybe being fed by one of the top five centres in the league helps a little when it comes to scoring, as does playing on a team loaded with offensive talent, being on the ice whatever the situation on all the top lines, and being in the team solely as a goalscorer...In fact, Calds is the Ovechkin of the Elite League...everything on the team is geared towards utilising his (admittedly huge) goalscoring talent as often as humanly possible. And for those reasons, the MVP award, while easy to justify, probably wouldn't be fair in this situation...

Joe Tallari: Now I love watching this guy. If he were on the Blaze roster you could probably add another ten goals to his already huge total...he's absolutely superb and has been the standout player in Manchester this season by a fair distance.
Trouble is, you can use the same arguments against an MVP award for the Phoenix player as you can for his Blaze rival (except for the "team loaded with offensive talent" one). Even allowing for the fact that in Britain players can't be one-dimensional (and neither Tallari or Calder are-both are damn good hockey players), the fact that they're both the focal point of their team's offence means that, although Tallari finishes just ahead of Calder in the voting thanks to the Phoenix suffering more if he were out of the line-up than the Blaze missing Calder, they both lose out by the width of a gnat's wing to the player who should be your league MVP based on the available choices...

Colin Hemingway: Without Hemingway in their side, the Caps finish bottom. No question. 36+36 on a team who've been last-but-one in the league all season (15 more goals than the next-nearest Cap) is an awesome performance. Plus, he's great to watch, standing out with moments like this in the Capital's chase for the playoffs. The Caps will face a real fight to keep him at season's end...

So, there you go...tomorrow we have the last Round the Rinks of the 07/08 league season...check back and keep keeping your eye on the puck...