First of all, I know what you're thinking: two posts in one day! My god, this is not the lazy and unproductive Frustrated Dinosaur we've grown to love, (or at least tolerate.) But like I said, it's a whole new ball game. Or Ice Hockey game.
Did you enjoy that super clunky segue? I hope you did, because this post is gonna be all about hockey. My beloved San Jose Sharks are on the brink of advancement or elimination as they face an irritatingly scrappy Calgary Flames team in game seven of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. If they lose, they go home after just one round in the playoffs, which would be more than a little disappointing as the Sharks, who have never won a Stanley Cup (or even played in the finals in the franchise's history,) spent the two last months of the regular season looking nearly unbeatable, going 20 games in a row without a regulation defeat, and overtaking the defending champion (and San Jose's rivals) Anaheim Ducks to win the Pacific Division. They've got one of the most talented teams in the league, with master puck handler and long time assist leader Joe Thornton leading the offense and Vezina award finalist Evgeni Nabokov providing a lot of heart between the goal posts, finishing the season as the goalie with the most wins in the league.
But regular season heroics become moot once the playoffs start, as playoff hockey features some of the most exciting and dramatic play in the entire world of sports.
Too bad nobody really cares about hockey in the USA.
It's becoming harder and harder to list hockey as a "major" sport alongside NFL Footbal, NBA Basketball, and MLB Baseball. I mean, Arena Football sometimes seems like it's creeping up on hockey in the ratings... if you can even find a hockey game on television. NHL games are no longer featured on ESPN, and most of the playoffs have been regulated to the sad and dismal Vs. Network, which airs bull riding and fishing competitions when there are no hockey games to show. Come to think of it, ESPN also shows fishing competitions every once in awhile. But not hockey. Neither does ESPN 2, the network that invented the X-Games, and it's a sad day in the world when street luge gets bigger ratings than an exciting, fast paced sport with as long and storied a history as any of the other "major sports."
Being a hockey fan is a lonely proposition. Sometimes I head out to sport's bars in hopes of catching a game, and have to ask a waitress to flip the game on instead of a Spring Training baseball game or coverage of the NFL draft. As much as I love football, and talking about football, I'd rather watch an actual hockey game than people talking about who might be drafted to eventually play in a football game.
It's a shameful feeling to watch the game on the bar as the rest of the patrons shake their head, wishing the bartender would switch on televised poker. Or fishing competitions. Or golf. I mean really, who can watch golf?
But what can I do? I can't fight being a hockey fan. I was born that way. You think I wouldn't rather follow basketball or baseball instead of hockey? You think I don't wish I could actually watch critically important games on television instead of being forced to listen to them over tinny, streaming internet radio broadcasts like some sort of resistance fighter hiding a bootleg radio from the SS as I huddle at my desk and pray for good news?
Standing up and admitting to the world that "yes, I am a hockey fan!" is to become an outsider in sports world. Nobody understands why you would ever want to discuss guys named Nabokov or Ovechkin when you could talk about Kobe and A-Rod instead. People don't understand why you are desperate to see the score in a hockey game, which often ends in 1-0 finals, when you can watch the Lakers score 120 points in one game (though nobody seems to complain when baseball games end with final scores of 2-1 after 22 innings...it's the "national pastime," after all.)
People don't understand the game. They can't follow the puck, that elusive tiny black disc that moves too fast for the cameramen to keep up with most of the time. And they're not wrong... hockey is probably the sport that translates the worst to television. Plus, the Canadian play by play announcers are much too polite to get Americans excited about the game, even though it's legal (and considered a sound defensive play) to slam another guy headfirst into glass boards and more fights break out than goals are scored.
But if you go to a game as a hockey fan, then you are finally truly with your people. People who share your obsession, your urge to watch a sport that mainstream America doesn't understand. Once you go to a hockey game, you will finally get hockey. You'll understand the intensity, the speed, the excitement, the bone crunching hits. And the fights, which hockey fans encourage with loud cheers. This is a sport played by athletes who play harder and with more heart than the overpaid whiners in more popular sports who complain if they don't think the media is paying enough attention to them. This is probably because superstar players in other sports are paid higher salaries than entire NHL team rosters. These guys are not playing for fame or millions... they are playing because they want to win a Stanley Cup, the most coveted and historical trophy in professional sports.
And if you go to a Sharks game, you'll get to see players skate out of a giant, smoking shark mouth with flashing, light up red eyes. Which is fucking awesome.
Go Sharks!
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