It's May, and the Blues are out of the playoffs yet again
Curiously, fans, media, and even the team's players and management seem to be relatively satisfied following the Note's second-round loss to the Dallas Stars.
Seems strange to me...a boast that your team is in the Elite Eight in the NHL?!
What doesn't seem strange, though, is the annual April-May renewal of this viewer's fascination with NHL hockey.
In fact, I think I've got it now--hockey gets interesting, to me, at about the same time that the US government gets interested in my money--April 15.
Why is NHL playoff hockey so superior to the regular season dreck that passes for a major league sport?
Here's a list of factors that reduce enjoyment of regular season NHL hockey--
-----
How many of these factors apply to the playoff variety of NHL hockey?
Bad ice is bad ice.
In fact, tax-time bad ice in the NHL is often more prevalent than the wintertime variety, because of the weather outside most NHL arenas.
But NHL hockey playoff-style is not afflicted by any of the rest of the list.
Expansion?
The worst teams are not invited to the NHL's post-season party, so the league's weak sisters don't infect the gathering.
And the effects of expansion, on NHL regular season hockey, means that fans have to get to know the names, skills, and tendencies of 600 or so players.
Contrast that with the playoffs, where fans are able to quantify the chin stubble on each player.
Meaningless shifts, periods, and games?
Not in the playoffs, baby...a setting in which every single icing-the-puck violation is scrutinized by all.
Dispassionate fans?
Even the corporate types who reside in the mega-buck lower-tier seats get excited during the NHL playoffs...and that excitement pervades the league's arenas as well as the TV coverage. Speaking of TV coverage...
Run-of-the-mill TV coverage?
No major professional sport, save perhaps soccer (insert soccer joke here), is as difficult a game to televise, as hockey.
And the way that regular season games are televised, with a reliance on a single, high, center-ice camera, stands in sharp contrast to the FOX playoff coverage that employs lower level cameras and extensive use of the in-the-goal cameras.
Quite simply, playoff hockey is a more enjoyable TV viewing experience, compared to the regular season brand.
Truly incomprehensible officiating?
Somehow, someway, the NHL's officials seem to get a grip on their whistles during the playoffs...calling, for the most part, a more consistent game...which is probably due, at least in part, to the players' on-ice conduct...
A World Wrestling Federation mentality?
Simply put, when the playoffs roll around, NHL team executives, coaches, trainers, and players recognize that hockey players that don't play hockey...but instead engage in bare-knuckled fisticuffs...do NOT win championships.
So Tony Twist-types sit.
There you have it.
That's why NHL playoff hockey is what it is...and why NHL regular season hockey...is what it is, too.