Is that really Hockey?

April 22, 2008

I hate hockey. It’s not a sport that I can wrap my mind around and I skate as if someone replaced the bones in my ankles with cooked egg noodles. But last night I watched most of the Bruins/Canadiens’ battle in game seven of the playoffs and I could be a fair-weather playoff fan now.

I mean it.

The pace of play was fast, I could see the puck (and no, they didn’t do the whole FOX puck-is-on-fire graphic), and the announcers made sense.

Perhaps I’ve grown up or perhaps the caliber of play in the playoffs is such that random watchers are courted by the networks so they can build numbers and retain or create fans.

I know that hockey during the regular season is crap. I click past that beast of a game whenever possible. So what makes the playoff version better?

It must be some sort of dumbing down and more playing. I saw no fights last night and the game only had three or four penalties. That made the action continue and there weren’t innumerable breaks for commercials either.

Somebody is doing something right. Sadly, I guess I’ll have to wait until next year to cheer on my team. But I might stop the clicker next time I see hockey this month, just to see a little more.

More to come…