Shaw/lottery

Couple notes this morning....

The WHL will hold its' bantam draft lottery this week (I suspect Wednesday) to determine the order of the top six picks in the 2012 Bantam Draft which goes on May 3. The six non-playoff teams (in order: Prince Albert, Prince George, Seattle, Lethbridge, Swift Current, and Red Deer) will each get a number of bingo balls placed into a machine. Prince Albert gets 6 balls, Prince George gets 5, and so on down to Red Deer, who get 1. One ball will be drawn and that team gets to move up two spots in the draft order. So therefore, only the bottom three teams (Prince Albert, Prince George, and Seattle) have a chance at ending up with the #1 overall pick. The best that Lethbridge (at #4) could do would be to move up to #2. Etc, etc.

So the chance of winning the first overall pick, by team, are:

Prince Albert: 57.1%
Prince George: 23.8%
Seattle: 19.1%

The prize for winning the lottery? As mentioned the other day, Burnaby Winter Club forward Mathew Barzal. According to almost everyone you talk to, he is the best player in the draft.

Secondly - now that all the playoff matchups are set for the first round, it's time to engage in every WHL fan's (or the Canadian ones anyway) favorite playoff pastime: speculating on which series Shaw TV will carry!

The question that needs to be answered first, before we can take a stab at which series they might show, is what is most important to Shaw? Is it purely ratings, or do they genuinely care about giving every team a chance to be shown?

If ratings are #1, then in all likelihood the first round series will be either Edmonton vs Kootenay, or Calgary vs Brandon. Calgary and Edmonton are Shaw's second and third biggest markets in the league. Vancouver is the biggest, but Vancouver is playing a U.S. based team (Spokane) which would contribute very few viewers north of the border.

If they're interested in showing everyone and in giving both conferences fair treatment, then it's possible they will start with the Kamloops-Victoria series in the West. That's the only all-Canadian matchup in the West and it's quite likely that every West series in the 2nd and 3rd rounds will involve a U.S. team as well, which is probably somewhat less desirable to Shaw. So if they're going to show anything in the West, the Blazers and Royals in the first round might be their best bet.

The problem there is that it could be a short series. Most people will probably predict Kamloops to win that series in four or five games, meaning Shaw will miss out on the drama (and potentially higher ratings) of a game 6 or game 7 in some of the other series.

Or maybe Shaw just wants to pick the best, most entertaining series possible. In that case, you can probably exclude the Tri-City, Kamloops, and Portland series in the West (since Everett, Victoria, and Kelowna are probably going to get whacked in short order by those three powerhouse teams) but any of the other five series promises to be closer and more entertaining.

Vancouver and Spokane were separated by one point in the standings. Medicine Hat and Saskatoon offers a potential great goaltenders battle between Russian World Junior hero Andrey Makarov and the man many Canadians feel SHOULD have been the Canadian World Junior goalie, Tyler Bunz. Calgary and Brandon are meeting in the playoffs for the 5th time in the last 8 years and they've had some great series in that time (plus all games will be played in NHL arenas - from a technical production point of view, Shaw's crews might love that). Regina and Moose Jaw are hated rivals - if you want emotion and possible drama (and blood), this might be the series to watch. And while Edmonton appears to have a big edge on Kootenay, the Ice do boast a goaltender capable of stealing a series in Nathan Lieuwen. If he gives the Oil Kings fits, who'd want to miss that?

And just as a note to U.S. readers because I know my dismissal of their games as options is going to anger some: I personally have no issue with Shaw showing American based teams. I would watch. In fact, if it's Portland vs Tri-Cities in the West Final, that's the series I want to see in the third round. It's just the fact that Shaw has only Canadian subscribers and so they are going to have a big bias towards any series involving two Canadian teams.