It's here!!! It's here!!!

The finals start today.

Now I know the number one of the burning questions is... who did the TSN hockey panel pick to win it all?

Bob MacKenzie: Detroit
Mike Milbury: Detroit
Pierre McGuire: is remaining neutral? Can you do that?
Darren Dreger: Pittsburgh
Geno Reda: Pittsburgh

So with those predictions, it's tied 2-2 because of Switzerland over there screwing up the tiebreaker. Well, what better to replace Pierre McGuire with than with a MONKEY!

Maggie picked Pittsburgh.

And now the real burning question. Who do I think will win? Pittsburgh. Why? Because I have a blind faith in the magic of Sidney Crosby.

Kidding. There are also some other factors. Anyway, talk about a situation that's been over analyzed, pundits have had nothing to do for like 5 days now. And for the most part, it seems most are picking Detroit to take it home. Most seem to cite the team's recent past of overachieving in the regular season and underachieving playoffs, making them somehow more hungry. Don't buy it. They also seem to be saying that Chris Osgood is the more experienced goaltender with a few Cups to his name. Last time I checked Osgood was riding the bench for those Cup runs. Yep, I checked again... still true. I will agree that Detroit has the edge in faceoffs, but as long as Detroit is soooo fast. Um, so is Pittsburgh. Detroit is sooooo dreamy. Ok, well maybe they didn't say that. You get my point, I don't think there's an underdog in this one.

Some other notes about tonight.
Gary Roberts, despite being cleared by doctors after his stint with pneumonia, and was even quoted as saying,
"The rest has been great for me and I feel like I'm ready to go."
Yet for some reason... he is a healthy scratch. Seriously? How can you healthy scratch Gary Roberts in the playoffs. He's a playoff monster. He eats other teams for breakfast in the playoffs. He crushes their spirits. That's pretty hard to do from the press box.

Also, Chris Chelios will sit out for game one, he has a "leg-area injury" although he apparently wanted to play. And scoring machine, Johan Franzen is still out with "concussion-like symptoms" but could possibly be back for game two.