Man I really don’t know what my life would be like without sports. I’ve never really watched hockey but when I saw that my Florida panthers were in the finals in 2023 versus the Las Vegas golden knights I watched. We lost in 5 games including one 9-3 loss. I didn’t watch again until the playoffs but for some reason my level of interest increased more than last year.

I lived for hockey the past two months, love these group of guys and all Florida sports teams, but this team just felt like champions to me after seeing them beat swayman and the bruins and tarasenko and the rangers I was sure we’d beat the winner of the Dallas or Edmonton series. Going into game 7 it looked like Edmonton would domintate the Panthers and I was nervous. We got Edmonton and it was a crazy series. After getting to a dominating 3-0 series lead we let them come back and tie the series 3-3 including one 8-1 loss. It was looking like the panthers were going to go in the history books for the wrong reasons. No hockey team had blown a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup finals since 1947. But credit to the guys and coach because they just flat out controlled the game, scoring the first goal certainly helped but Edmonton came back a few minutes later to tie it 1-1. Both teams had a lot of chances but Reinhardt scored the go ahead goal in the 2nd period to give us the 2-1 lead which would end up being the final score.

What was the better story? An impossible comeback by Edmonton who has hockeys golden boy in McDavid or the team that lost last years finals to go back and win it. I’m biased but preferred the later. And how can you not love the look on coaches face when he gets the trophy.

To me though the best moment of the whole thing was seeing the emotion of the teams coach Paul Maurice when he gets to hoist the trophy. The emotion he shows is raw but relatable and you can’t help but feel his joy and gratitude for the moment.

Now my next obsession Karen Read.

Karen Read is a woman who has been accused of running over her Boston cop boyfriend after a night of drinking and bad weather. But the truth seems to be that it was all a massive cover up. When determining guilt investigators often use “consciousness of guilt” to determine guilt. What that means is how you act say after a murder shows that you were aware of your guilt. Things that could be considered consciousness of guilt would be a murderer leaving the state suddenly and without reason, having odd google searches or selling/ getting rid of some personal items after the crime in question. Something that this case has all of.

It was a cold Janurary day when Karen Read and her boyfriend, John O’Keefe had a night of drinking with some other police officers. After leaving the bar one of the cops, Brian Albert (a powerful and influential family in the area) suggested to keep the party going at their house. Which would be O’Keefe’s final resting place. Karen dropped John off but did not join the party. The evidence presented by the prosectuion suggested that Karen Read actually ran him over in the driveway and John actually never entered the home. The only evidence to support this theory is damage to Read’s tail light, there was testiomony that Karen Read said the words “I hit him” the day of he was killed, words funnily enough don’t appear anywhere on any of the police reports. You think a confession like this would end up on the police reporting of the incident but alas they don’t. The defense suggests a much different story. It suggests that John was in the house, got into a fight and was tossed outside in the cold to die. The evidence that supports this is that one of the people in the house had typed “Hos long to die in cold.” At “2:27AM. (consciousness of guilt)” only a few hours after John was discovered dead in the front yard of the albert’s home. Responding officers were also very careless with evidence collecting from the crime scene with red solo cups, not exactly professional and would cause blood collected in these cups to freeze up. Brian Albert also got rid of his phone right as it was supposed to be subpenaoed. Also the Alberts got rid of thier dog Daisy after the incident, seemingly unnotable until you learn O’Keefe had injuries on his arms consistent with bite marks from a dog, again remember consciousness of guilt. This is only some of the evidence on what has so far been a 33 day trial which is now currently under deliberation for a verdict. To me as someone who has been following this case closely for the past month or so it reeks of a cover up by the police and Ms. Read is innocent, curious what the jury will say.

John O’Keefe and Karen Read.