COLUMN: NHL playoffs as good as it gets
It’s finally that time of year.
Sure, this is probably something a person could expect to hear from me at any one of six or seven times throughout any given year when it comes to the sports world, but this particular thing is something I feel deserves more attention, and for that reason, I feel responsible to be the person who shines this sport.
I’m not talking about spring football, the beginning of Major League Baseball, or the NBA playoffs. I’m talking about something that has edge-of-your-seat action like no other sport can offer. I’m talking about the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
For whatever reason, hockey is not big around Utah, and the only reason that I could imagine why is because sports fanhood in Utah is generally more passive than it is passionate. Obviously there are the exceptions to that norm where there’s much more of a passionate attitude rather than passive (looking at you, Utah State fans), but for the most part, fandom in Utah doesn’t run quite as rabid as many other place, and when it comes to hockey, passion is a necessity.
With hockey, the action is almost non-stop, and when the Stanley Cup Playoffs roll around, that action is ratcheted up a couple more notches than the regular season. Because of this, though, an NHL playoff game requires pretty much 100 percent attention for the viewer to get the full effect of the experience.
For football, you can tune in for 10 seconds, watch a play, and resume hanging out and casually viewing again. If you miss something big, every play gets an instant-replay. Same with baseball. You focus in for each pitch, then resume whatever else might be going on.
Both of these are ideal for more social situations, but are a far different animal than hockey.
Hockey requires full attention for pretty much entire 20 minute periods. Play might stop here and there for 20 seconds at most, but then the puck is dropped and everything starts right back up.
Maybe the best part of all of this is that there are substantially fewer commercials during an NHL game than any other major sport. For an entire 20-minute period, you usually won’t have more than three commercial breaks, and even three is an abnormally high number. Often times you’ll see just one commercial break per period. Compare that to an NBA game, where you’ll get a minimum of three commercial breaks each quarter due to the media timeouts. In the NFL, league rules state that a 60-minute game must have 20 commercial breaks.
Forceful ingestion of marketing aside, the NHL is simply just entertaining as all hell. Sure, there isn’t much scoring, but that makes the importance of every goal that much more impactful. Not to mention, the total number of goals in an NHL game isn’t too far off from the total number of touchdowns in an NFL game. Learn to appreciate defense when you see it people.
It’s similar to soccer in many ways, but just imagine if soccer didn’t totally suck, was way more fast-paced, had men playing like actual men and three times the amount of scoring.
Basically, if you fancy yourself a sports fan, do yourself a favor and plop down on your couch for two-and-a-half hours during an NHL playoff game. Bring something to drink and maybe some chips to munch on to ease the tension, and focus in your attention 100 percent on your television for a Stanley Cup Playoff game. Nowhere else in the sporting world will you see such relentless hustle, passion and grit. More than any other major sport in America, and probably the world, do players care more about winning a championship and are as willing to grind through any amount of pain or adversity for their chance to hoist the Stanley Cup.
It’s difficult to not care when you see players that care as much as hockey players do.
Simply put, there is nothing better in all the world of professional sports than the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
– Matt Sonnenberg is a senior majoring in print journalism. Matt is an avid fan of Aggie athletics and can be found on the front row of every home football and basketball game. He can also be reached at matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu.