O Where, O Where Has My Little Dog Gone

With a lot of carousing and heavy drinking still in my system from last weekend, I decided to sit on the couch with my favorite six pack (ok - twelve pack), and watch the beginning of the best professional sports postseason from the comfort of my house. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the Stanley Cup playoffs have started.

Now, before you get all caught up and question why it is undoubtedly the best postseason, let me clarify a few things. First, the Super Bowl is a much bigger and much more social event, but the play isn't necessarily any better or more physical than during the regular season. That isn't the case with hockey, where each player seems to skate harder, hit harder, fight more and in general give the public an awesome athletic display not usually seen in team sports. Add that to the fact that hockey sudden death overtimes are absolutely riveting from a fans' perspective, and you have the most drama in professional team sports. (This eliminates the "tie" issue that Sinickal wrote about in a previous post).

There was only one thing missing: THE GAMES. NONE OF THE GAMES WERE ON TELEVISION. OK, sure, perhaps you found the local coverage in Pittsburgh, Colorado or the New York Metropolitan area, but for those of us in areas without hockey, or playoff teams for that matter, we couldn't watch any playoff hockey. AREN'T THESE THE PLAYOFFS?

I had to (not that I was forced) settle into a nice NBA double header with the Celtics/Wizards and Suns/Spurs, both games having interesting implications for the NBA playoffs.

It wasn't until this morning that I saw the scores of the four games: Rangers 4 Devils 1; Penguins 4 Senators 0; Flames 3 Sharks 2; and Avalanche 3 Wild 2 - in overtime, no less.


Let's sum it up this way. A sports fan who understands that the Stanley Cup playoffs provide the most exciting and exhilarating post-season in sports cannot watch those postseason games. So basically 7 people outside of Colorado and Minnesota saw the exciting overtime finish in which NHL great Joe Sakic (pictured) scored the sudden death goal in overtime. That somehow makes sense.

Keep in mind, I said most exciting moments in team sports since THE MASTERS starts today. More posts on that as the "Tradition Unlike Any Other" develops.