Best Picture nominees comparable to NHL

Around the Kuhl-er: A column by sports reporter Nick Kuhl

Despite devoting the majority of my time to following sports, I’ve already seen eight of the nine Best Picture nominees for the upcoming Academy Awards.

So, being a sportswriter, I decided to pool together my thoughts about the NHL season, at its all-star break, with the nine Oscar-nominated films.

The Help: A split decision between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Edmonton Oilers, as both teams (the NHL’s two worst) will likely help you get to the playoffs by providing you a near automatic two points when you play them.

War Horse: Despite the Oilers playing as if they’re gunning for the No. 1 overall draft pick yet again, good old Ryan Smyth has been his typical self this season. He’s always been about heart and character, plus he bodes a bit of a resemblance to the protagonist of Steven Spielberg’s First World War epic.

Moneyball: The Phoenix Coyotes may need to channel a Billy Beane-inspired system of sabermetrics to field a competitive team, at a reasonable price, and actually bring fans to hockey games in the desert.

The Tree of Life: Brad Pitt’s other nominated film could easily be the name of the Sutter family biography, rather than the 50 per cent poignant, 50 per cent pretentious film it was. Six Sutter brothers, Brent, Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich and Ron, played a combined more than 5,000 NHL games and won six Stanley Cups. Six Sutter offspring are now in various stages of getting to or playing in the NHL.

The Descendants: Twenty-six sons have followed their father’s footsteps to playing pro hockey in the NHL. Two of the more famous sets are Bobby and Brett Hull, and Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe.

Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen’s return-to-form can be compared to the Ottawa Senators’ renaissance this season. The team also features the only player currently in the NHL, Stéphane Da Costa, who was born in Paris (possibly at 6 p.m. Ottawa time).

Hugo: This one was tough and didn’t immediately come to me. So I ended up conducting a Google search. Hugo + NHL led me toward the discovery of Hugo Carpentier, the 118th overall pick by the Calgary Flames in the 2006 draft.

The Artist: Henrik Sedin has 41 assists so far this season, many of which came from seemingly impossible passes. Plus he and brother Daniel seem to have an unspoken form of communication similar to that of a silent film.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (the only one I haven’t seen yet): Sean Avery. Enough said.

Why couldn’t 50/50 be nominated? It was a great movie and the punchline is so obvious: 50/50, aka the Flames’ best-case scenario chance at making the playoffs.