Dear NHL: Congratulations on not forgetting your east-coast bias

Now I don't want to over-emphasize the point of this post, as really, I don't care very much at all about the NHL's Three Stars of the Week. It's an announcement that pretty much every week escapes my notice, as generally it's a collection of east-coast players named Sidney or Alexander or something, with an occasional west-coaster tossed in for "parity".

But what is the poor NHL to do when the top three scorers of the week all come from the easy-to-neglect Anaheim Ducks? It certainly couldn't have a weekly ceremony without any mention of its favorite conference, could it?

Nah, of course not. After meeting late into the night, the NHL brass came up with a brilliant compromise: why not just combine all three Duck players as one three-headed "First Star of the Week", conveniently leaving two spots available to throw a nod to Boston's Tim Thomas and Philadelphia's Simon Gagne? Certainly it was a brave maneuver that had never been done before, but considering the outrage that would have surely resulted from an all-west-coast announcement, I think it comes off as a brilliant solution.

Anyways, congratulations are certainly due to the Anaheim trio. Had they not combined for 10 goals and 18 assists this week, it would probably have been yet another east coast three-star sweep (sigh).

Go Ducks.