No One Else Is Writing About the NHL

Right about now-- maybe last night, maybe tonight-- there would have been a game 7 in one or more of the first round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs. By now, there would have been at least one implausible surprise, like a division champ, a President's Trophy winner or the defending Cup champ bowing out to a plucky eight seed running on speed and guts. There would have been at least a half dozen quality overtime games and a couple of double overtime games, each stretching into the early morning hours. Some previously-unheralded goalie would be burnishing a new reputation for standing on his head. And there would still be three rounds to go.

Hockey will always be a niche sport in America for two primary reasons. First, the sport requires ice and expensive equipment, and despite the best efforts of the sport's proponents, most kids will be warmed out or priced out of participation. Second, the sport requires some fairly advanced physical skills-- namely, the ability to ice skate deftly while controlling or chasing the puck. That makes it unlike the other major sports, all of which a group of young kids or half-drunk adults can play a rough facsimile with just rudimentary skills and limited equipment. Oh, I suppose there is the street hockey version, but once you've taken out the skating element, it's probably more satisfying to play lacrosse instead. So hockey will never threaten baseball, basketball or football.

Still, though, among the cadre of committed hockey fans, all you need to do is mention the superiority of the Stanley Cup playoffs to get nods of agreement. Even among people who follow closely the other major pro and college sports, if they're hockey fans at all, they usually won't disagree that the NHL has the most exciting playoffs. It's a combination of things. Non-fans have ridiculed the league forever for admitting teams that are hovering at .500 into the playoffs and, sure, there's an element of profit consideration driving the playoff structure (just as there is driving the 84-game schedule). The marvelous happenstance is that admitting sixteen teams creates an incredibly entertaining and competitive tournament. The top teams get the highest seeds, but there are no sure outs and sheer volume of talent alone is seldom enough to win four games against any opponent. There's always the chance that a team who underachieved through the regular season can show up with any number of things-- a novel strategy or matchup scheme, a ton of speed, a commitment to defense, a hot goalie-- and shock a more accomplished team. The best part, though, is that when a David topples a Goliath, it isn't a single-game fluke. It's the result of a team outplaying another team four times. It's a pattern, and there's no reason not to have confidence that the better team won.

That certitude applies to the more evenly-matched series as well. Contrast it with the NFL, where a single Earnest Byner fumble or a couple of inexplicable Neil O'Donnell passes can make a final score appear unjust, or with college sports, with their similarly thin margin of error. Sure, an errant clearing pass or a knuckleball from the blue line has just as much chance of determining a single hockey game score as a perfectly-placed slapshot or one-timer, but not four times. By the time there's a handshake line and somebody's offering congratulations, there's heartbreak and elation, but there's also the satisfaction of knowing the better team prevailed.

What's more, the Stanley Cup playoffs constantly redefine just what constitutes the better team. It may or may not be the team with the high-wattage stars. Winning a scoring title is irrelevant once the regular season ends and the goals are harder to come by. (Speaking of goals being hard to come by, while the NHL's apparent ban on goal-scoring during recent seasons has made it tough to justify buying tickets in November, it hasn't affected in the least the superior playoff play, where tight checking and infrequent but earned scoring opportunities are expected.) A playoff team might have the best player in the league and still lose four straight. Playoff hockey success depends on a team's depth-- its ability to throw out three or four quality lines that can exploit or contain the other team's personnel-- and even a team's superstars can find themselves reduced to decoys on a winnning team. The result is ridiculously and blissfully egalitarian: sure, it's possible that the big goal will be scored by Mario Lemieux or Steve Yzerman, but it's just as likely that it will be scored by Darren McCarty or Dave Lowry.

And then there's overtime playoff hockey. Really, there is no other overtime experience in sports comparable either quantitatively or qualitatively. Overtime or extra innings are rare occurrences in other sports, but because goals are hard to come by, it's commonplace to see overtime in playoff hockey. And unlike football, where the possibility of winning on a cheap field goal can sour the competitive fire, to win a playoff hockey game you've got to do the same thing to score that you do during regulation play. Of course, the intensity is turned up to eleven, with every faceoff, penalty or sloppy line change taking on series-changing importance. And then it ends, with either a bang or a whimper. A crowd is instantly either detonated with elation or crumpled with disappointment.

So, yeah, I'm missing the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. I miss tuning in an east coast game early on, then catching a west coast matchup afterwards. I miss the interminable overtime games where the crowd falls asleep at intermission and you can tell how much effort is required for the players just to keep their legs moving. I miss the two-man advantages that are impossibly killed off by the shorthanded team. I miss players being hit with dump passes off a line change who go in on breakaways. I miss the grinders who collect unforgettable goals. I miss the skaters forced to glove pucks away from the net when their goalie's out of position after an incredible save. I miss the unscripted and extemporaneous goal celebrations. I miss the handshake lines that say both "Congratulations" and "I'm sorry" (unless you're Claude Lemieux). I miss the fantastic Stanley Cup presentation ritual, the only one in American sport to actually have any poetry. Yeah, I miss the NHL.

I raise my can of Rolling Rock to you, Esa Tikkanen, wherever you are.