Cup Fever

The Memorial Cup starts tomorrow, so here's some reading material to get you into it.

This article is a good quick look at all four teams in the tournament. Who the players to watch are, etc. Another, similar quick-look kind of preview, is here. And from Sportsnet, a look at four players to watch in the tournament.

Donna Spencer of the Canadian Press offers up a piece on the tournament.

Article on the Bulls' departure for Kitchener, from the Belleville paper.

Here's one on Olympiques sniper Claude Giroux, who has 51 points in 19 playoff games.

From what I have heard and read, the Rangers appear to be the heavy favourites going into the tournament. OK, maybe not HEAVY favourites, but they are definitely favoured. And really, they probably should be....they've been ranked #1 in the CHL for 17 of the last 18 weeks, they owned a ridiculous .809 winning percentage in the OHL regular season (to compare, Tri-City's #1 overall percentage in the WHL was a mere .750), and they squished their competition in the OHL playoffs, going 16-4, and they scored 96 goals in those 20 playoff games. (And three of those losses were to the Bulls in the OHL final, so the Rangers were 12-1 through the first three rounds).

But, they gotta play the games.....in a tournament like this, one bad game can do serious damage to your hopes of winning. Two bad games will probably see you going home emptyhanded.