This is my favorite time of year. The weather is getting warmer (or it least it should be). The days are longer, and the ladies’ clothing is getting shorter (or at least it should be). Most of all, this is easily the best time of the year for a sports fan.
Both women’s and men’s national basketball championships were played this week, the Frozen Four starts tomorrow, Major League Baseball opened its season up and the NBA playoffs are almost here. This is a time when there are all kinds of optimism – especially this year – for a New England sports fan.
I was happy to see UConn’s double (and as you may remember, I told you all continuously that UConn was gonna win), I’m thrilled the Sox are back, Pedro hysteria nonwithstanding, I can’t wait to go to the Frozen Four games and I’m even happy to see the Celtics tell Ainge to go to hell with his talk of screwing this year as they make a playoff push.
None of this is better than this fact: The NHL playoffs started last night.
I understand the national fascination with the NCAA Tournament, the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals. Until recently, I thought the World Series trumped them all.
Now, I spend each year looking to April, ready for hockey’s second season, the Quest for Lord Stanley’s Cup. The best show of all is on ice.
Let’s forget for a moment that the NHL is truly the fourth of the big four sports, with regard to popularity, ratings and recognition. I dismiss that because I dismiss most Americans as morons who can’t understand the nuances of hockey, dismissing it as not as good as football. I don’t particularly care if hockey reaches a bigger audience. Hockey people are the best people to talk to about a sport and the most passionate about their sport. The hockey community on all levels is very different.
Nothing in sports can match the courage that NHL players routinely show in the playoffs. A couple seasons back, Steve Yzerman basically played 18 minutes a night on one leg. He still scored goals, he still made an impact. Last year, Paul Kariya got knocked out cold by a brutal (but clean) check from Scott Stevens. He returned in the same game to score a laser slapper. Peter Forsberg was knocked out of the playoffs a few years ago when he ruptured his spleen. He finished the game in which the injury happened, then headed to the hospital. Guys get bloodied, knocked out and broken apart, but the best ones always seem to get up and make a difference. As a Bruins fan, I’m hoping I see that kind of performance from Joe Thornton, who was injured with only two games left and has been questionable.
And who doesn’t love the endless overtime games that always seem to pop up. The regular season ties give way to four-OT games. As games continue into the early morning hours, they get slower, but more compelling. I hate the Philadelphia Flyers and I’m generally indifferent to the Pittsburgh Penguins. The game a few years ago when they went into 43 overtimes (OK, it was only five, but that’s still 80-plus extra minutes of hockey) and Keith Primeau ended it with a wicked wrist shot was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.
In 1999, as a junior in high school, I had one of my most vivid hockey moments. That night I stayed up late and watched then-Bruins right winger Anson Carter beat the Carolina Hurricanes in overtime. I went to bed happy and ready to wake up to take my SATs the next morning.
Stars emerge in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Jean-Sebastian Giguere was known as a solid up-and-coming netminder before he led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup Finals. Chris Drury is a second line center revered by hockey people because of his penchant for clutch play. As a rookie, he scored six game-winning goals in the playoffs. Ken Dryden led the Canadians to the Stanley Cup after playing only six regular-season games.
I haven’t even mentioned the trophy. There is not a trophy in sports that comes reasonably close to being worthy of same-sentence mention with the Stanley Cup. The World Series Trophy is a ridiculous looking object, the NBA and Lombardi trophies look the same, with their sport’s ball on top of a regular-looking steel base. College national championship trophies look like modified plaques. A gold medal is cool, the World Cup trophy is nice and the Beanpot Trophy is almost perfect, but nothing is quite like the Cup.
What other trophy has the name of every player on every team that won before on it? I can’t imagine how cool it would be to look at the Cup and see Ray Bourque’s name under 2001, and then look 29 years earlier to find Robert Gordon Orr. It literally connects different players of the past. The shape, with the barrel like base and an elegant cup at the top, is classic, and even non-hockey fans could probably recognize it in an instant. Plus, it’s the only trophy you can drink beer out of, and that is unassailably cool.
I’m just happy that it’s time to start dreaming again of what can be.
Just Because I Can
Frederick Augustus Meyer IV has been well received in his new(ish) home. He won two season awards: the Most Coachable Player Award and the Fans’ Choice Award. He will be a Flyer sooner – rather than later – if Bobby Clarke has any brains … Wow, my April Fool’s joke about Ryan Whitney came true really, really quickly. The Red Sox will win the Series. April Fools! The Bruins will win the Stanley Cup. April Fools! BU will make the 2005 Frozen Four. April Fools! I’ll strike it rich. April Fools! … Did I really just write optimistically that Bobby Clarke has brains? Yeah right – Freddy will get buried and the Flyers will continue to buy overrated older guys.
Nick Cardamone, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.
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