Sturm und Drang

This is not what makes the NHL playoffs great.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are the greatest athletic playoffs in the world - but for the World Cup. The NBA Finals are fine. The NCAA Final Four (and Frozen Four) is a fun diversion in March. The MLB playoffs can be gripping. The NFL puts on a great show, but more often than not kind of fizzles.

Hockey? Regular season hockey can be monotonous and unwatchable at times. The teams don't always summon forth the effort and certain players won't play with much passion - ESPECIALLY if their teams are a lock to make the top 8 teams in their respective conferences (thus assuring them of a playoff spot). For lack of a better word, some really talented teams sleepwalk through portions of the regular season.

But, once the Cup playoffs start, the game changes. Everyone hits. Everyone gives up their bodies to block shots. Everyone cares. And sleepwalkers? They're exposed - badly [I'm thinking of you, Mike Green and Alexander Semin].

There's a story from the 1980's regarding the once-dominant NY Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers. In the early '80's the Islanders were a dominant Cup contender and won a few. The Oilers were young Turk upstarts led by future Hall-of-Famers Gretzky and Glenn Anderson. The Islanders knocked the Oilers out in '83 or '84, I can't recall which. The story goes that, after the game, some of the young Oilers walked by the victorious Islanders locker room. Instead of seeing a group of champagne-swilling jubilant champs, they saw a MASH ward of glassy-eyed vets staring into space. Ice bags were everywhere, some guys were bleeding, and - they say -it was as quiet as a church. The Oilers learned the lesson and the next year went out and won the Cup.

The point being that playoff hockey is brutal, and winning requires physical sacrifice by each player in order to achieve the common goal. 16 wins get a team a Cup (and your name engraved on it, which is cool) but it's rare to ever see a team good enough to play only those 16 games. And each series is a war unto itself.

When have you ever seen an NFL player lose 8 teeth in a game and have a dressing-room root canal in between quarters and return to the field? Never. Eric Belanger did it for the Capitals last week. Stitches? No biggie, the NHL trainers patch eyes right on the bench in plain view.

Baseball? Forget it - in the Majors a guy sits out 2 weeks when he pulls a muscle in his back from a sneezing fit.

Basketball? Willis Reed and his broken ankle. Anyone else? I can't name one.

It is true that, in some seasons, the best team wins it all and does so rather easily. That's rare. The nature of playoff hockey almost always requires these teams to pass through the crucible. This year, for example, the 3 best teams in the East were bounced by the 3 lowest seeds. [I know, parity sucks and most consider the East to be weak].

Another great thing about the Cup playoffs is that it rewards the unknown players and creates heroes out of them. Role players, checking line guys, lunchpail fellas who can skate and hit but also happen to know a thing or two about getting a clutch garbage goal. In this, hockey is no different than other sports (remember Timmy Smith?). Still, it's fun to see the no-names get a chance to become "names." Real hockey fans love those guys, you'll see 'em sporting those jerseys when you go to a game (names like Bradley, Hartnell, or Lucic).

Best of all is the aforementioned Cup. I've seen it in Toronto. It's big and silver and has about 10- 15 years of teams engraved on it at a time. The team is named and each and every player's name is as well. Pretty frigging cool. It's in the Hockey Hall of Fame in a room that looks more like a basilica. If your team wins, you get to have it for 24 hours. Some have lost it, others partied with it....the stories are legend.

This year, I was hoping for a Cup in DC. It looked good for about 5 days and then deflated ever-so-slowly. I have no doubt that the smart folks running the Caps will rebound from this and put together another good team next year. But that's another year of tread worn off the tires of some very good hockey players.

If you're not watching these playoffs, you're missing a real spectacle. I've got a team I'm pulling for but I won't name 'em because I'm superstitious. I will say that I'm pulling for an all-Original-Six Cup Finals....