Mike O'Connell

Tonight and tomorrow night may bring the close of the NBA and NHL seasons respectively. Both teams up three games to one have a potential clincher at home, Denver tonight and Vegas tomorrow. Of course this would spoil the “Miami double” of Heat and Panthers championships, but this is nothing new. Nine times previously, teams from the same city have appeared in the NBA and NHL finals in a single year, and nine times we have not seen a sweep.

Looks like make that 10.

However…

Overlooked in all of this has to be the potential “Denver double” (love that alliteration) if the Nuggets prevail this evening. With the Colorado Avalanche winning the 2022 Stanley Cup it will mean that the city of Denver has technically won two of these things consecutively. The NBA finals ended before the NHL finals last year, so even though the games are 351 days apart it’s technically two in a row.

Day One at statistician school they tell ya, Be willing to adjust your hypothesis as new facts come in.

Forty-one laps around the sun complete. As goes the usual procedure I’m celebrating by producing a new episode of the “TV” show and posting it online. Yup, Politics After Dark episode 324 available here. This is the first one I filmed 21st-century style, straight-up phone to YouTube. Probably a lesser quality but a billion times easier. The episode’s only seven minutes long, but I figure with 15 minutes of podcasting every week I don’t really need 30 on “TV” once a year to say the same things.

So for the full story, tune in Friday to Math and Musings. Until then? Enjoy the vid.

This weekend marks two years since I joined the rest of the world in hosting a podcast. It’s been a really fun hobby for me, allowing me to regale listeners with tales like this one, in which I accidentally end up watching golf with a former president.

Enjoy.

I love the idea of a Memorial Day sudden-death NBA playoff game in Boston, though historically I’ve had some bad luck with such. (I had my car broken into in Boston back in May ’08 while watching the Celtics play the Pistons. Not a Game Seven nor Memorial Day proper, but just as raucous and, well, memorable.)

Game Seven tonight comes to the American South as well, as the Dallas Stars host the Golden Knights of Las Vegas in the NHL’s Western Conference Finals. Winner will play the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup as Stanley rolls over in his grave watching warm-weather teams compete for his eponymous award.

Memorial Day? We’re all spending the day looking at our watches waiting for the action to start.

Among NHL and NBA series it’s sweep city out there, with three of four conference finals completely one sided affairs. Thank goodness for the Boston Celtics, who staved off elimination last night with a win over the Miami Heat. (NBA execs and advertising folks did a little happy dance knowing there’s be at least one more game in this one.)

Stars and Hurricanes got chances the next two evenings to get that moneymaker hockey on TV this weekend, otherwise it’s baseball and golf to get us through.

Wait, this could work out.