The Stanley Cup Playoffs Cherry Style
By – Jim Williams
The Examiner
Friday April 13,2007

The Caps are not in the playoffs but Washington is still a great hockey town and NHL fans will have plenty to watch starting tonight.

This week the quest for Lord Stanley’s Cup begins and Washington hockey fans are in for a real treat. NBC has decided to add legendary CBC hockey broadcaster Don Cherry to their roster of broadcasters and that is great news.

I spoke to the legend via conference call from Toronto on a number of subjects.
Cherry on who he likes in this years playoffs :

"I think the semifinals, it will be San Jose and Anaheim. I really think that could happen. I like Anaheim for a lot of reasons. I like Selanne. But the reason I like Anaheim is that Giguere has been there before; he's the MVP. In the east, I like Ottawa. If Ottawa doesn't do something this year, there's going to be a lot of guys paying the price, I tell you that. They just cannot choke again. Anaheim and Ottawa."

Cherry on what it will take for NHL ratings in the US to get a boost:

‘You need consistent playoff appearances from Chicago, Boston, LA, Philadelphia, Detroit and the New York area teams. This season you will have all three New York area teams in the playoffs as well as Detroit and that should help but until we see Chicago, LA, and Boston back in that mix you can forget big ratings in the states.’

VERSUS will offer hockey fans first round double headers starting every night this week beginning with the pre game show at 6:30pm with all the games being done in HD and NBC will start their coverage this weekend NBC's playoff coverage begins Saturday at 3 p.m. With Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins visiting the Ottawa Senators. Sunday at 1 p.m Detroit the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, host the Calgary Flames. Also, both NBC and VERSUS will offer puck heads plenty of pre game and post game extra’s on their websites.