Despite never having laced up a pair of skates (except for those of his two young sons) and growing up in Red Sox crazed Massachusetts, Rick Roos has been a huge hockey fan nearly all of his life. Inspired by often wearing a Canadiens jersey to the old Boston Garden (it’s a long story…) and living to tell about it, Rick started to join fantasy hockey leagues back in the 90s, where he found himself waiting eagerly by a fax machine for weekly stats updates. He has since been in – and won – leagues featuring elite fantasy hockey writers. In real life, Rick is an attorney, which made him the perfect choice to write his previous “Holding Court” column on DobberHockey, where he debated both sides of a fantasy hockey issue and rendered a verdict for readers to debate. Later, for several years, he did similar for the popular “Cage Match” series. Today, Roos is freewheeling through a variety of monthly pieces: Forum Buzz takes a look at some hot topics our readers are discussing in the forum; Mailbag allows readers to write in to Roos with fantasy hockey questions; Goldipucks and the Three Skaters takes a look at three players (in the spirit of the old Cage Match, except Roos determines who is too hot, too cold…and ju-u-ust right); The Tournament is where Roos polls the readers and the forum community on a certain topic, just the way Tourneys ran in the old Cage Match, until a winning player in that topic is declared.
Ryan Kesler vs. Jonathan Toews
The Blackhawks-Canucks rivalry is truly a thing to behold. Over the past three seasons no two teams have faced off against one another in the playoffs as much as these two have. The result is a familiarity that breeds tight-checking, hard-hitting action even in regular season contests and yet, the Blackhawks and Canucks are among two of the most skilled teams in the league so in the midst of their tightly contested matches there is plenty of skill, speed and creativity on display.