My favorite season is spring. For several reasons. I love the weather of spring. Baseball season is kicked off. NBA playoffs role around. And my favorite, the Stanley Cup. The most grueling playoff setup in all of sports. The Stanley Cup playoffs never cease to excite. It has the perfect combination of grit, style, superstition, and surprises. I love these playoffs. So I have chosen to give you the 5 reasons why I love playoff hockey more than any other postseason competition.
5. Intensity. Hockey is fast paced with hardly any breaks. Shifts are 2 minutes at best and then the players are cycled through. People are flying around and hitting each other at full speed. Its like a never ending football play. Like rugby on skates at times. And its twenty minutes straight. Its physical and rough and all at a high speed. All of this is amplified in the postseason just like any other sport. However few other sports have the combination of speed and physicality for a long duration of time that hockey has. And when it gets to the win or go home situations? The intensity I love so much instantly doubles.
4. Fights. Oh the fights. In any other sport, suspensions would be doled out accordingly to the guilty parties if a brawl ensued. Case and point in the Dodgers and Padres which started when pitcher Zack Greinke hit batter Carlos Quentin of the Pads? Greinke fractured his collarbone while Quentin suffered (and later appealed) an 8 game suspension. In hockey, you get to sit in a box for 5 minutes and then you come back into the game. Tying into the intensity, fights are more likely to occur in the playoffs as tension is at its highest mark. More skirmishes are due to tempers flaring because of the stakes on the line. Fights are awesome to watch and add to the game an added excitement and the more there are, the happier I am.
3. Beards. One of the manliest things in the world is the ability to grow a full beard. It is a symbol of toughness and grit. It's a part of playoff hockey. Every bit as much as the puck. Once the Stanley Cup rolls around, the facial hair grows to a ridiculous level. Every player on every team does it. Some people argue that fighting should be a part of NHL All-Star weekend. I propose that a beard contest be part of the All-Star celebration because some the beards that are on display throughout the playoffs can get wild. Once they lose, the beards are gone. But while they win, the hair remains. No other superstition in any other sport is as prominent as not shaving during these playoffs. The beards truly are a symbol of what it takes to go the distance in the Stanley Cup.
2. Trophy. They have a guy whose job is to take care of the trophy. Honestly? That's awesome. Take the Lombardi Trophy or the World Series Trophy or any trophy in any major sporting event. The Stanley Cup is just simply bigger. It is the largest reward for the most grueling playoffs in all of sports. There are even restrictions for having a player's name engraved on the side of the trophy. Currently a player must have completed 41 regular season games or the players must have played at least one game in the Stanley Cup Final in order to be eligible to have their name inscribed on the Cup. The Stanley Cup is truly something the players must earn. It's not everyone gets a championship ring like in baseball or basketball. For a name to be etched on the silver and nickel alloy trophy, it must be earned by being an integral part of the championship team.
1. Anyone can win. Last year's Stanley Cup final was between (6) seeded New Jersey Devils and (8) seeded Los Angeles Kings. The Kings won. To put into consideration, in this year's NBA playoffs the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference was the Atlanta Hawks with the 8th seed in the Western Conference being the Houston Rockets. The NBA Finals would have been the Rockets and the Hawks with the Rockets winning it all. No NBA fan, or sports fan for that matter, would even fathom that being the case. But in the words of the NHL and NBC, because it's the cup no team is out of the running. One of my favorite lines only applies to the NHL and March Madness, all that matters is getting in.
So there it is, my five reasons for my love of the Stanley Cup. It has every aspect of every other sports postseason drama throughout it. The tradition of October, the unpredictability of March Madness, the thrill of the NBA playoffs, and the drama of the Super Bowl, all wrapped into the postseason that is the Stanley Cup. Go Pens and go Blues!
2. Trophy. They have a guy whose job is to take care of the trophy. Honestly? That's awesome. Take the Lombardi Trophy or the World Series Trophy or any trophy in any major sporting event. The Stanley Cup is just simply bigger. It is the largest reward for the most grueling playoffs in all of sports. There are even restrictions for having a player's name engraved on the side of the trophy. Currently a player must have completed 41 regular season games or the players must have played at least one game in the Stanley Cup Final in order to be eligible to have their name inscribed on the Cup. The Stanley Cup is truly something the players must earn. It's not everyone gets a championship ring like in baseball or basketball. For a name to be etched on the silver and nickel alloy trophy, it must be earned by being an integral part of the championship team.
1. Anyone can win. Last year's Stanley Cup final was between (6) seeded New Jersey Devils and (8) seeded Los Angeles Kings. The Kings won. To put into consideration, in this year's NBA playoffs the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference was the Atlanta Hawks with the 8th seed in the Western Conference being the Houston Rockets. The NBA Finals would have been the Rockets and the Hawks with the Rockets winning it all. No NBA fan, or sports fan for that matter, would even fathom that being the case. But in the words of the NHL and NBC, because it's the cup no team is out of the running. One of my favorite lines only applies to the NHL and March Madness, all that matters is getting in.
So there it is, my five reasons for my love of the Stanley Cup. It has every aspect of every other sports postseason drama throughout it. The tradition of October, the unpredictability of March Madness, the thrill of the NBA playoffs, and the drama of the Super Bowl, all wrapped into the postseason that is the Stanley Cup. Go Pens and go Blues!
