The Best Playoffs in Sports

It's April. And we all know what that means.

It's time to file your taxes, clean out your garage, and admire the sudden arrival of hockey fans in the Bay Area.

It's easy to understand why ice hockey isn't extremely popular in the Bay Area. For one, hardly anyone plays it. Kids don't grow up playing hockey the way they do in other parts of the country. If a Bay Area kid in mid-January has a choice of watching a Sharks, Warriors or Raiders game, which would he choose? Well, probably none of them. He'd probably tweet a 3D YouTube video of himself shotgunning a 4-Loco. But that's beside the point.

No, the NHL barely registers in the Bay Area from July to March, but when April rolls around and the Sharks enter the playoffs yet again, we get a small taste of what place like Detroit and Buffalo enjoy year-round. Minus the sub-zero temperatures and everyone looking like they want to hurt you.

I'm no hockey expert. I follow the Penguins pretty closely, but that's about it. I'm pretty indifferent toward the Sharks. I watch them a lot, because they're the only team on, but I'm not going to be the on a Muni bus when the win the Stanley Cup. But if the Penguins can't get it done, the Sharks winning the Stanley Cup would be a great thing for hockey in the Bay Area.

Regardless of what team you support, how much you know about hockey or how many minutes you can keep the TV on Versus before your girlfriend changes it to House Hunters International, there is one thing we can all agree on: The Stanley Cup playoffs are far and away, without doubt the most exciting post-season in American professional sports. And I'm here to tell you why.

As I'm sure you can tell by the 98% of this blog's content, my favorite sport is baseball. So I'm not even being a "sports homer" when I say the Stanley Cup drives Zamboni circles around other league's playoffs. And this is not even to say that other league's playoffs are lackluster. It's simply that the NHL Playoffs are just that much more exciting.

The ratio of excitement to game time in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is miles ahead of any other sport. Listen to a crowd at a playoff hockey game. The amount of "OOhhh!" and "Ahhh!" is off the charts. There is no 30 seconds between pitches, there is no play clock, there aren't 4 minutes commercial breaks every 8 plays. This is non-stop, breakneck speed, relentless action for 3 20-minute periods. The action is so fast, the shots so many, all it takes is looking down for one instant to Tweet to your 39 followers and you can miss the most exciting moment in the game.

And that brings me to my next point -- attention. The very attractive reader we wrote these hockey posts for made a great point about our country's estranged relationship with hockey. It's our attention span. If you go see a hockey game, or watch one on TV, you have to watch that damn game. At a baseball game or football game, you can get away with hemming and hawing with your friends in between innings or gossiping about work drama when your team is at its own 20 yard line. There are very obvious times when you need to shut up and pay attention. When the bases are loaded, or your team is in the Red Zone.

But in hockey, you have to be on all the time. The changes of possession are so rapid and scoring chances so sudden, there is no room for the cock and bull. And that's why people have a hard time getting into it. Watching hockey, especially in the playoffs, is a chore. It's exhausting. And for most, sports aren't meant to be exhausting, they're supposed to be entertaining. It's leisure not work, right?

Wrong! If you're willing to put in the time and invest in a team (even half-heartedly) throughout the regular season, the NHL Playoffs will give you more thrills per minute than riding a 5 mile roller coaster in space.

And then it goes to OT. The true glory of playoff hockey? Sudden Death Overtime. No, that isn't the name of the next UFC match, it's playoff hockey's ultimate death match. It's golden goal, winner take all. And when a playoff series, or praise God, a Stanley Cup comes down to Overtime -- it's quite possibly the most exciting moment in sports. It's right up there with the last second 3 in basketball, a bottom of the ninth in the World Series, a penalty shot in the World Cup or two minute drill in the Super Bowl.

But in fact, it's better than all of those things. All other sports' best moments are fleeting. They last but a second. That 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded. 4th and Goal with 10 seconds left. It's all gonna end right here. But OT in Hockey can last hours. It can go on forever. And that intensity and tension lasts the entire time. In no other sport are you on the edge of your seat, continuously for such an extended period of time.

Even if the Sharks win the Stanley Cup, now or in the future, hockey will likely never become a huge hit in the Bay Area. Don't get me wrong, the Sharks have a great, devout fan base. But they just pulled out one of the most miraculous comebacks in playoff history and it was still #2 on the nightly news sports recap behind the Giants 6-3 regular season win in April. That tells you everything you need to know.

And no, it isn't just because the Giants won the World Series. The Sharks could win the Stanley Cup in a month and still be No. 5 in the Bay Area behind both baseball and football teams come next Fall. There are a lot of reasons. Fighting may be one of them. As is lack of fan relationship to individual players. Going to a hockey game isn't as much a social event as a baseball or football game. Hockey in the Bay Area is almost like following a college team. If you went there, you're always into it. But if you didn't, it's hard to have the same attachment. When they do well, you'll watch, but otherwise -- is Timmy pitching tonight?
But right now, we can all enjoy this annual thrill-ride that is the Stanley Cup playoffs. If you've never been into hockey, I urge you to check out even one game -- just one game. Watch it with someone who knows hockey and ask them to explain things to you (but not during the 3rd period). Take a few seconds and watch just one player. See how fast he moves down the ice. Watch his hands as he handles the puck. Watch how hard he gets hit against the glass. And watch him as he flies through the air after scoring the game winning goal in OT.

There quite simply is nothing else like it.