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As is so often the case when the Stanley Sup Playoffs begin, I get to look back on my preseason predictions and basically make everything red. For the second straight year, a mere five of the teams in their correct spots in the final standings—although I has the top three teams in the Central and the Metropolitan right, just in the wrong order.
I correctly guessed seven of the eight Western Conference playoff teams, but only five of the eight Eastern Conference playoff teams. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I originally entered that predicted Lightning opponent as "Red Blue Jackets," which I'm assuming was intended to be Columbus and not Detroit—even though the Wings would've counted as another correct guess.) At least both of my final two teams are still alive this year—although both seem rather vulnerable from the outset.
While I'll certainly be rooting for the Blackhawks to repeat and win a fourth Cup in seven seasons, the team's defense is still somewhat of a concern. Of course, the most pressing issue this year may be how much hockey I get to watch. The hope is that holding a sleeping child while watching late-night playoff games goes over well with the wife, but the child's newfound love of the kid's apps on my phone could pose problems if I'm forced to rely on the NBC Sports app.
I'm fairly confident I'll find one way or another to watch as much hockey as I can consume, and I'm expecting surprises along the way.
I was surprised to look back and see that this here blog is nearly eight-and-a-half years old now. There have been numerous instances over By My Count's lifetime in which I've openly wondered what the hell I was doing here. For the most part, it has largely been about putting my predictions for various events in writing.
On October 14 of last year, the wife and I found out that we were about to become parents. I have mentioned this only briefly in some recent posts, but there's no getting around it now. The wife's water broke just as we were preparing to go to bed this past Tuesday night and our beautiful baby daughter arrived early Wednesday evening. The moment I heard the first cries of our child brought tears to my eyes as well as my wife's, and it immediately becomes the new favorite moment of my young marriage.
So is BMC now destined to become something entirely new? Tales about dirty diapers and baby burping? No, probably not. But I can say that I am anticipating that all of the posts that had become "annual" types (quarterly and final thoughts on the Four Bs, full predictions for each of the four major sports, etc.) will probably be abandoned. In all honesty, By My Count is probably the least successful of any social media endeavors of mine (I started a little Twitter account last month that already has more pageviews than this blogs had in its entire lifetime), but I never intended to make money off this account or break any new ground. For the most part, it became mostly just an excuse for recording my thoughts about my favorite sports teams (and the Oscars). If anybody else wanted to read them for some reason, that was cool.
If anything here is likely to survive, I would assume it would be the playoff predictions I've always enjoyed making. But I can't say for sure seeing as this is my first go-round with child-raising, and the baby's taking a bit of a priority over blogging. This is not so much a farewell as it is just a simple explanation why it could be a while before you hear from me again.
