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MINSK, Belarus - Olaf Eller watched from afar on his computer as his son Lars and the Montreal Canadiens lost Game 5 to the Boston Bruins, and he didnt believe the series would end well. That changed after talking to his 25-year-old son that night. "He is always very honest," Olaf Eller said Thursday at the world hockey championship. "So I was a little bit surprised when I got the strong feeling from him that they would win that series. After Game 5, he was very clear and very sharp: Were gonna win that thing. That was not the opinion I had after Game 5. "After Game 5, I didnt think they would win. But he said, We are all very sure that were gonna run them out." Run them out, the Habs did 4-0 in Game 6 before finishing off the Bruins with a 3-1 victory in Game 7 on Wednesday night. That was not a result Eller, coach of Denmarks junior team, could have predicted earlier this week. But he felt OK going into the series, based on this past regular season. "You could see during the season that they had the assets, the tools," said Eller, who is in Minsk as a member of the Danish teams support staff. "You could see that in the games against Boston during the season, they were able to play a good game against Boston. ... I had a feeling that if they could come around Tampa, I had the feeling they could beat Boston." Its not easy for Eller and his wife to be in Minsk right now. In addition to Lars being in the East final that begins Saturday against the New York Rangers, 18-year-old son Mads is in the Memorial Cup with the Edmonton Oil Kings. Olaf Eller finds a way to watch all the games on his computer from in Europe — he only missed one game of the Habs-Bruins series — and talks to Lars after each one. The post-Game 7 conversation was a particularly enjoyable one. "He was very, very happy," Eller said of his son. "They were in the bus on their way to the airport, so everybody was very happy." Lars Eller has nine points through 11 games, leading Montreal forwards in scoring and trailing just star defenceman P.K. Subban. His father is proud of how his son rebounded from a rough regular season. "He managed to start another season, show that the post-season is another season and he has been good in the playoffs," said Olaf Eller, who plans to go to Montreal if the Habs reach the Stanley Cup final. Beyond just being a hockey dad, Eller is the coach of Esbjerg IK in Denmarks top hockey league. Because of that, he has an appreciation for the adjustments Montreal coach Michel Therrien and his staff made in these playoffs to get to this point. Eller praised Therrien for shuffling Daniel Briere, Brandon Prust, Travis Moen, Francis Bouillon, Douglas Murray and Nathan Beaulieu in and out of the lineup at the right times. 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Ending this fruitless exercise would be more like a tree falling in the forest and its not going to spark any meaningful debate with the dozens and dozens who actually still care about it. Interestingly it was Andy Daltons Pro Bowl recognition on Tuesday that set Twitter off as if an average quarterback playing in a meaningless football game is some kind of calamity. The laughable aspect of Daltons inclusion to the detractors is the fact that he was the seventh alternate at his particular position, a development that really highlighted the ridiculousness of the process. Originally, six QBs were named to the Pro Bowl and just two remain from that pool, Andrew Luck and Tony Romo. Ben Roethlisberger and Peyton Manning were the first to drop out due to injury and top alternate Drew Brees was tabbed to replace Big Ben. Philip Rivers was next in line to take Peytons place but the veteran Chargers star begged off due to his own injury. Third alternate Russell Wilson is busy with Super Bowl business so the fourth option, Detroits Matthew Stafford, got Mannings spot. When the Patriots won the AFC Championship Game last Sunday, that took Tom Brady, who was part of the original six, out of the equation and No. 5, Atlantas Matt Ryan, stepped up. It was only a matter of time before likely MVP Aaron Rodgers would throw his get-out-of-jail-free card into the middle of the table because of his high- profile calf injury and that domino fell Tuesday, making room for Baltimores Joe Flacco expect for the fact January Joe had no interest because his wife is expecting their third child. And thats how you end up with the seventh alternate playing quarterback in the Pro Bowl. Im expecting my invitation on Saturday. Whhile Daltons presence magnifies the nonsense that is the actual game, the real jump-the-shark moment for the Pro Bowl came last year when the NFL pulled the plug on the traditional conference format to cater to the millennial audience with a fantasy football for real mentality.dddddddddddd These days players are assigned to two teams through a draft and this year Pro Football Hall of Fame receivers Cris Carter and Michael Irvin are serving as alumni team captains for their Pro Bowl squads -- Team Carter and Team Irvin. Fellow Hall of Famers and former teammates John Randle (Team Carter) and Darren Woodson (Team Irvin) serve as defensive co-captains and the ex-Vikings and former Cowboys handled the draft process while being assisted by two active player captains and the winner of the NFLs Fantasy Coach of the Year program. Full disclosure forces me to admit a deep dislike for fantasy football, an activity thats lone contribution to society in my mind is FXXs laugh-out- loud sitcom The League. However, it would be disingenuous to say fantasy hasnt proven to be a cash cow for the NFL and everything from the Red Zone channel to rule changes skewed toward the offense have been put in place with an eye on picking the pocket of the short-attention-span crowd. And from a purely business perspective its a sound short-term strategy. On an average week, Ill do about a dozen radio hits across the country and the who should I play this week people now far outnumber the astute football fans, who are actually invested in the strategy of the game. Catering to the least common denominator, though, is never the long-term solution because theyre moving on quickly and not really invested in the product. Even fellow fantasy fans have no interest in watching one of their own live out his wet dream while Rich Eisen pretends its relevant. Which brings me to my biggest fantasy, halting the goofy game known as the Pro Bowl. Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys Jerseys From China Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys ' ' '