This is a great time of year to be a sports fan. It’s true that it’s the off-season for football, but NFL fans certainly got their fix last weekend with the draft, and college fans had intra-squad scrimmages and all to keep their juices flowing. In other arenas, though, things are heating up: The Masters and the upcoming Players Championship in golf, a new baseball season to cultivate dreams of glory, the interminable NBA post-season (sorry, I’m not a fan of NBA hoops), and the best of them all - the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

There are not a lot of hockey fans in Jacksonville, but at least our cable TV system includes Versus, the “who-are-they” network that the NHL foolishly contracted with a few years ago. The bad news is that their telecasts are filled with promos for professional bull riding. The good news is that there is NHL playoff hockey on almost every night of the week, and there is nothing more intense anywhere in sports, especially when the games go to sudden-death overtime.

I’ve been a hockey fan for over 40 years, since attending my first New York Rangers’ game in the old Madison Square Garden. You may know that the Rangers went over 50 years between championships, but when they hoisted the Cup in 1994, I felt like I had somehow contributed (well, isn’t that the way all fans feel when their teams win?). The Rangers have a chance this year, but, as I write this, they’re down two games to none to Pittsburgh in their second-round series. I’d love to see them come back and win this series, and those that follow, but even if they don’t, I’ll be watching.

There’s a difference between hockey and basketball that goes beyond the surface they play on and the physical appearance of the players. Hockey players tend to be modest, even humble, when talking about a goal they scored or a save they made. And when they score, the celebration is only among their own team, and features big smiles. Basketball players, for whatever reason, prefer to look angry when they score, pounding their chests, screaming at their opponents. Smiles are rarely seen on the hardwood. Neither is sportsmanship. You might question how a sport that allows fisticuffs can be considered to have an edge in sportsmanship, but there is no doubt in my mind that it does.

Hockey can be a little hard to follow on TV, especially if you’re not familiar with the game. But even the casual fan can see the energy that the players provide, and feel the tension in a tight game as the clock ticks down, or the contest goes into overtime. Next goal wins. No bottom-of-the-tenth second chances, no fixed time period to see who’s on top after X number of minutes. One shot, one mistake, game over. Maybe series over. And maybe you get your name engraved on the oldest trophy competed for in professional sports, the Stanley Cup.

Yes, it’s a great time of year. When the Cup is finally hoisted in a month or so, and the hockey season ends, I’ll have a bit of an empty feeling inside, even as I gain back my evenings. Of course, then football is right on the horizon. Go Jags!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.