Am I crazy? Betting US Open odds against Tiger kind of crazy? Maybe. Because I’m about to defend Marian Hossa.

As much as we love to drag athletes through the mud, condemn them for being selfish and spoiled and call them bad role models — and I’m part of this populus — it’s time to point a finger the other way and call the lot of us sports predictions pundits a bunch of hypocrites.

Everyone giggled with glee at the site of Hossa being on the wrong side of the Stanley Cup result yet again. Har har! He shunned Pittsburgh, switched sides and gets shafted again! Everyone loved to see Hossa lose because he was “selfish” and bolted for Detroit.

Let me ask you something though — what is it that usually makes us call a player selfish? it’s greed, right? Being a merc, signing with a crappy team for a big payday, right? So why are we suddenly chastizing Hossa for signing with the team he felt gave him the best chance to win? Isn’t that supposed to be a virtue — caring more about the sport, about winning, than the money?

Keep in mind that…

(a) Hossa owed nothing to Pittsburgh — he didn’t sign there, he was traded there at the deadline.

(b) Hossa signed a one-year deal with Detroit in hopes of winning a cup. He could’ve hit the jackpot with a seven-year deal somewhere else but he risked, say, losing it all to a career-ending injury and chose Detroit.

So I say we leave Hossa alone. I never liked him a lot as a player — I’ve always felt he wilted when the going got tough — but I have no problem with his motivation. It’s not like was Johnny Damon in baseball or even Brett Favre hinting at going to the Vikings to boost their NFL odds — Hossa didn’t jump to a bitter divisional rival. He just left a team he’d been a part of for a few months.

If he had special betting software that could’ve told him the Pens would win, I’m sure he would’ve stayed. You can’t blame a guy for just wanting to win.

Well, anyone who bet on sports has to be smiling right now. The Pens and Wings treated us to one of the best Cup Finals in recent memory and the Pens shocked the sportsbook universe with their come-from-behind victory. It was a series of unsung heroes — Maxime Talbot, Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy proved that — but I want to give special props to a man unsung even among the unsung, if that makes sense: Brooks Orpik.

The beefy Pens blueliner was a MAN in Game 7, dishing out nine hits and blocking five shots. Huge! Better yet, he showed amazing discipline throughout the playoffs. He’s a rare player in that he can be physical without getting reckless and taking too many bad penalties. I’m betting management in Pittsburgh is pretty happy it signed him to a six-year deal at the end of 2008.

I hope you enjoyed sports wagering on hockey this season, my friends! Don’t worry — I’m not leaving. There will be plenty to talk about throughout this offseason…

I’ll leave you with the immortalized image of “the save” — one that should become iconic among those who wager online for years to come.

Well, after that nice lead-in, I can’t find the picture. So how about Penguins drunk instead!?

You have to love Dana White’s UFC betting approach. If a fighter loses more than two bouts in a row, he almost always gets booted from the league, at least until he finds himself.

It seems the NHL betting universe treats things a bit differently. The Dallas Stars just hired Marc Crawford as their new head coach — a man who hasn’t won anything significant in quite some time (boxing betting does it too — the Holyfields, Tysons and Foremans of the world got second, third and fifth chances).

I really, really don’t want to knock Marc Crawford. I met him a few years ago at a celebrity golf tournament and he was the nicest guy there — total class act. I respect his understanding of the game, too. But, aside form his success with the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche over 10 years ago, what has he accomplished?

Let’s look at his seasons with Vancouver from 1998-2006:

- Missed playoffs

- Missed playoffs

- First-round exit

- First-round exit

- Second-round exit

- First round exit

- Missed playoffs

Now, his most recent head coaching job with Los Angeles:

- Missed playoffs

- Missed playoffs

Pretty ugly. Now, in fairness to Crawford, he inherited bad teams in Vancouver and L.A., the kind that bled money at the offshore sportsbook, but it’s still concerning that he didn’t take those teams very far at all. I really like Marc and hope he succeeds — I think the Stars will be the best team at the start of his tenure since Quebec — but I wonder if he should’ve earned his way back as an assistant coach first.

I guess the Stars online wagering prospects have improved slightly, but Crawford needs to get some results fast.

Like Rafer Alston in the NBA Finals odds, it seems Dany Heatley wants to crawl under a rock right now. Well, he at least wants out of Ottawa, as he apparently indicated today. Just one year through his six-year deal that pays him $7.5 million a season, he’s not exactly an easy piece to move on the trade market.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though. My recommended destination: the Calgary Flames. Deal him straight up for Dion Phaneuf. Phaneuf makes $6.5 million a season and definitely seemed to wear out his welcome in Calgary after a horrible year in which he took silly chances with the puck and didn’t hit with his usual ferocity. NHL betting fans also probably know that he’s dating Elisha Cuthbert. If he went to Ottawa and joined Mike Fisher and Mike Comrie, we’d see Elisha Cuthbert, Hilary Duff and Carrie Underwood with boyfriends on one team! That would be worth sacrificing years of Stanley Cup betting appearances for Ottawa, right?

I’m betting management in Calgary considers this move…Brent Sutter just left the Devils and could very well return to Western Canada to join brother too (and Flames GM) Darryl. Also, most fans of betting online feel Mike Cammalleri is leaving town as an unrestricted free agent, so Heatley would fill his scoring void nicely.

Think about it, Calgary…everyone would win on that kind of deal.

Just when you make French Open Finals betting your priority, the NHL fights back and gives us a great Stanley Cup series after all.

Much of last night’s exciting Penguins win seemed to be about legs. Is it just me, or was the Penguins’ youth very visible on the ice? It’s not that the Wings are totally ancient, but they definitely have a few guys who have been around the block a few times. The younger Pens are hitting them hard, skating circles around them, and that’s really shifted the NHL betting landscape. Suddenly, sportsbook bettors are piling on the Pens bandwagon.

A big reason why? Poor Henrik Zetterberg is dragging his feet. He hobbled around the ice, finally giving Sidney Crosby room to breathe, and the results were ugly for the Wings. We can’t blame Henrik — he’s playing his heart out — but he can’t do everything on his own. Marian Hossa has to step up, as do Johan Franzen and Tomas Holmstrom. We still don’t know if Pavel Datsyuk will come back in this series, so that means Zetterberg still has the task of shadowing Crosby.

Luckily for the Wings, there’s lots of time between games after Game 5. But the Red Wings’ Stanley Cup betting chances for the next game, even at home, don’t look so great. Sid and Geno are firing on all cylinders, so it may be smart betting management to stick with the Pens tomorrow night.

Sorry. I’m mentally loafing like Rachel “vacation” Alexandra in Belmont Stakes betting. BURN!

But what else can you say in a headline when you’re discussing a guy named Max?

Clap, clap, clap. Anyone who caught Stanley Cup betting on the tube last night probably saw that Pittsburgh’s Maxime Talbot was the best guy on the ice. Back checking, breaking up passes, going into the corner, scoring a couple of goals (hey — even the empty netter was kind of impressive…he shot it from far away!)…he was a force out there for the Penguins.

Some more reasons why Maxime Talbot is cool:

1. He’s scrappy. Gets by on hustle, speed, worth ethic, smarts.

2. Don Cherry loves him even though he’s French. What’s up with that?

3. He’s an impersonator. Remember when he put Crosby’s jersey on during a practice? What a trickster! And I thought Pete Rose was the crazy one for bettin’ on MLB odds.

4. He’s a LADIES’ MAN.

5. He DELIVERS YOUR TICKETS!

Uh, I kind of want to be Maxime Talbot now.  He’s cool and he’s a big reason why the Penguins’ NHL betting hopes just got a lot better. I’m betting management in Pittsburgh didn’t know how much they were getting when they first got this guy.

Hmpf. And I thought Nadal’s French Open odds upset was a surprise. Then came Montreal’s hiring of Jacques Martin. Was I alone in being floored by it?

Your team is coming off a turbulent season and you’re about to lose half your team to free agency, so you…hire a guy who has losing deep in his blood? Martin, the guy who guided countless Sens contenders who fell flatter than the World according to Columbus? The guy who accomplished zilch in Florida?

Hmph.

Am I just not thinking this through? One thing Martin has done reasonably well is turn last-place teams around. Well, he at least did that with the Sens in the mid 1990s. Maybe this is Montreal’s way of implying that they’re going to let a bunch of guys walk and rebuild?  Martin does teach a strong defensive game, too. And he pulled it off with goalies like Patrick Lalime, Ron Tugnutt and Damian Rhodes. So maybe he’ll help Carey Price get back on track in NHL betting.

Either way, I’m officially predicting to NHL betting fans that the Toronto Maple Leafs will finish above the Montreal Canadiens in the standings next year. I’ll put money down on it now. Bad betting management by me, or am I onto something? The draft will tell us more…

Some NHL betting fans are tired of hearing that Chris Osgood is underrated. Others are tired of hearing that’s he’s overrated.

Well, when it comes to assessing the Stanley Cup Final odds, I’m sick of both sides! Why? Because it doesn’t matter. Pittsburgh has the goaltending edge no matter what anyone thinks. The Osgood haters will tell you he rides coattails, that he gives up soft goals, that he was garbage in the regular season (and he was — 3.09 GAA, .887 save percentage). The lovers will tell you he was good outside Detroit (Had a season with 30-plus wins and a .910 save percentage in Long Island and Detroit).

But neither opinion matters, as Marc-Andre Fleury is still better. He’s matched Osgood’s great playoff stats, he’s younger, he’s more athletic, he likes pressure and, perhaps most importantly, he’s good enough to steal a game. No matter how much you may like Osgood in NHL betting, he doesn’t steal games. Fleury can — and maybe he will against Detroit, just like he stole Game 5 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final odds. He’s a big reason why I think the Pens will win this series…

Worse than no Kobe/Lebron in NBA odds (well, it sure looks that way for the final), steroids — yes steroids — have suddenly been linked to the supposedly squeaky-clean NHL.

Ugh. Everyone knows Sudafed gets passed around dressing rooms like candy, but the NHL odds of steroid use seemed slim to me. But why? Why would NHL players be any different — in fact, speed, strength and explosiveness are as crucial to hockey as they are to any sport, so steroid use in hockey betting would make sense. So maybe I was just in denial.

Worse yet — the Florida couple busted with large amounts of PEDs on them claimed they sold to the Washington Nationals (I doubt that; we’d be seeing results) and, gulp, the Washington Capitals. Unless it was the Penguins, there’s probably not a worse team to pop up in this scandal. The prospect of the world’s best player, Alexander Ovechkin, being linked to steroids is heartbreaking.

How much longer until we concede that every athlete juices and everything returns to normal? Sigh.

Sorry for the downer post — I’ll crank things up tomorrow with a full-fledge rap song previewing Stanley Cup betting. The Penguins vs Red Wings odds should be a sports wagering doozie.

Sacrilege! Worse than a Belmont Stakes odds jockey saying “Triple Crown” to jinx his horse!

Yes, after the Penguins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final odds last night, Sidney Crosby did the unthinkable and TOUCHED THE WALES TROPHY. If you’re a hockey betting fan, you know it’s supposedly a curse to do so.  But is there really much evidence to back it up? Scott Stevens broke the rule in 2003, handing the trophy around to his whole team, and the Devils’ NHL odds didn’t suffer, as they went on to win the Cup.

Mario Lemieux touched the trophy in the years when the Penguins last won the Cup and, as Sid the Kid pointed out in a post-game interview, the Pens didn’t touch the trophy last year and they didn’t win the cup. Good on the Pens for mixing things up. As good as the Red Wings are (oh, and, uh, the Blackhawks if they win, haha), it’s looking more and more like Pittsburgh’s year at online sports book.