We are entering my favorite time of the year. Playoff hockey
time! The time when every hockey player steps up their game because it’s do or
die. You don’t have to play lights out hockey down the stretch but you do in the
playoffs.
The regular season is a grind. Players are going to have off-nights when they
don't have their legs, or suffer those mental lapses when they forget who they’re
covering. When playoff time comes players push it to the limits. Every shift
it's all out; they’re finishing every check and making sure they’re getting the
puck deep every time. Why? It's the
playoffs. Not just any playoffs, but the Stanley Cup playoffs. The motivation
to win the cup drives hockey players to do incredible things.
Teams began preparing for the playoffs before the trade
deadline. GMs start looking for missing pieces to the puzzle with one thought
in mind: winning the cup. They look for someone who has been there before,
still has skills in his bag and fire in his belly. In the spring of 2009 the
Pens had fired their coach and were looking for such a guy to light a fire
under their young team. A guy like
18-year veteran Billy Guerin who was the Isles captain when the Pens acquired
him for a song might do.
Known as much for his quick wit as his quick wrister, Guerin
made it his job to not let Sidney Crosby take himself too seriously from day
one. He may not have seemed like much of
a fit to the casual observer but by the time the Pens played the Flyers in
game2 of the quarterfinals, no one remembered that Billy hadn’t been with the
team all season. The game was in overtime and the Pens were on the power play,
5 on 3 to be exact. Billy G score on a Sergei Gonchar pass to win the game and
put the Pens up 2-0 in the series. It was, many would agree, the turning point
in the run for the cup.
There is nothing like the playoffs
.
I believed that the Stanley Cup playoffs are in fact the
best playoffs in all of professional sports. It's the oldest trophy in all of sports, and
that's not even the reason why it's the best. There is only one Stanley Cup
literally. The Lombardi Trophy, Commissioner's Trophy, and O'Brien Trophy are
all re-created every year, but not the Cup. When you win it, you really win it.
No one else in the world has one when it's in your possession. AND you get your
name engraved on it if you win.
I will concede that my obsession for hockey might be just a
little unhealthy especially when it comes to the playoffs. I don’t care if there is a swine flu epidemic
sweeping the nation if the playoffs are on, I’m watching them. I once thought I
was in love with a man who didn’t like hockey. When playoff time rolled around
I realized I was wrong.
Here we sit, on the cusp of the playoffs. The Pens have a
strong team and the top seed in the Eastern Conference. All is right in my
world.
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