There really is nothing better than playoff hockey. Not even the NFL playoffs.
GO PENS!
by John Cole| 57 Comments
This post is in: Sports
There really is nothing better than playoff hockey. Not even the NFL playoffs.
GO PENS!
Comments are closed.
Publius39
And this is a widely held view amongst the 45 people in America that actually watch hockey.
ranchandsyrup
The only thing better than playoff hockey on TV is watching it in person. Hockey and TV don’t really get along. Have to see it in person to really appreciate it, esp. for casual fans.
rikyrah
this is the strange time of year where you can enjoy
hockey
baseball
basketball
so odd
go BLACKHAWKS
NotMax
Not even a pedicure?
Old Dan and Little Ann
Fuck to the yeah for Playoff Hockey. Since the Sabres suck I’m rooting for the Pens.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
I can think of a few things that are better than playoff hockey, but those are between me and my mistress.
eric
hockey is okay if you like watching guys wimp out and sit out with minor injuries.
Quicksand
Yes.
Yes.
NO.
NotMax
(light bulb illuminates)
That’s what Congress needs.
A penalty box.
dedc79
I agree, except for the “go pens” part
smintheus
@efgoldman: Looks to me like the Bruins of old are back. They turned it way up, fast, and they’re looking magnificent so far.
Bonnie
Wrong!
smintheus
@ranchandsyrup: It really does feel like an entirely different game when you’re watching it live. The action is so fast and complex, and hearing the sounds of the play gives you a feel you can’t experience on TV.
smintheus
@efgoldman: I agree that they’re still not finishing as well as they can and should, but they took control and played like they had total confidence and a lot of heart during the second half of the first period. Also, I’m pretty sure that Redden’s shot was well below the crossbar.
Lot of fans have been so down on Redden. I’ve been thinking that he (like Daugavins) was improving vastly during the last few games and probably had earned a starting role in the playoffs.
MikeBoyScout
Get in the fast lane Grandma, the Pens are ROLLING
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
FTFY.
PsiFighter37
Yeah, I can think of plenty of better things…one of which would be Knicks-Celtics on TNT right now.
dmsilev
@efgoldman:
http://xkcd.com/386/
lamh35
Go which ever teams have the hottest guys!!!
smintheus
@efgoldman: The newer arenas have a way of killing fan passion. I remember when the RI Reds were forced to play in the new Providence Civic Center, friends predicted that it would never feel the same. And they lasted, iirc, just one season before the Reds were sold and moved. Sad; what a great and fun team.
JenJen
Nothing better than Stanley Cup playoffs! Haters be damned.
geg6
@smintheus:
See I have the exact opposite view. Too hard to follow the puck live, too many assholes around you, too many distractions. I’ve been to many a game, even Stanley Cup wins and I much, much, much prefer watching at home.
Oh, and GO PENS!
geg6
@lamh35:
GO PENS!
geg6
@smintheus:
Never been to the Consol Arena, have you?
Yutsano
@JenJen: ALLEZ LES HABS!!
Bullsmith
People say you can’t see the puck in hockey, which is true enough, but when you watch football live people four feet away from the line of scrimmage can’t tell whether Payton’s hand off was real. Folks in the stands don’t find out till the replay.
In a playoff hockey game you get moments, overtime in particular, where 20,000 people are breathing in unison, all watching the same tiny rubber disc with an intensity that cannot really be described.
Most intense sporting experience I know of.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Whatever floats yer boat.
Don’t recall Mr. Cole ever waxing poetic on that topic.
raven
What horseshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Go Blackhawks!
mellowjohn
HAAAAWWWWKS!
NotMax
@efgoldman
Gotta wax them before storing the grapes of Wroth.
(ouch)
smintheus
@Bullsmith: I can follow the puck much better live than on TV, even from distant seats.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I got to see a stanley cup game once. what a great experience. That said, even with great seats (8th row!) it was sometimes difficult to follow the action. And that was in an older arena (Reunion in Dallas). The arena is for the energy. And the one thing you never quite understand watching on TV is how fucking fast those folks are on skates!
also, someone somewhere made the observation that the difference between football and hockey is the interminable delays in football. You can have 5 minutes of high caliber hockey without a stop in action. In football, you’ll get – at most – 20 seconds before a whistle is blown.
Basketball is somewhat similar, but they have out-of-bounds plays.
Violet
I like going to hockey games, but not watching them on TV all that much.
John O
Gimme a Pens-Blackhawks final, God.
I don’t ask much.
Lori
Nothing beats seeing hockey live, except seeing playoff hockey live. (Unless you’re at a Pens game and rooting for the other team, that’s just best avoided.)
GO CAPS!
smintheus
@John O: I want to see a Hawks-Bruins or a Hawks-Rangers final. Those are the only Original 6 finals match ups that haven’t occurred yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I am okay with any of the original six -except for the Red Wings, those fucking Chelios stealing bastards.
raven
I saw the Kings in the Forum 30+ years ago. There were so few people there that toking up was no problem.
geg6
@efgoldman:
No. I root for baseball to die a quick death. Hate that game. Most boring sport ever. I’d rather watch golf. And before you blame it on the horrendousness of the Bucs’ last 20 years, I felt the same way in 1979, too. Baseball is good for putting one to sleep and pretty much nothing else. But I like spending a summer day at the gorgeous PNC Park even though I don’t watch a minute of the game. It’s a glorious venue with a fabulous view, great food and relatively inexpensive beer.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@efgoldman: Or St. Louis. You’d think being in a town with a brewery, the beer would be cheaper.
smintheus
@geg6: You need to spend a little time watching cricket.
geg6
@efgoldman:
Well, when I say relatively, I mean in comparison to NY and Boston and Atlanta. I’ve actually been to ball games in all three places and I know that the 6 bucks we pay here is a great deal. I actually like going to baseball games because all the distractions are good since I hate the game so much. Games I care about, like football and hockey, I prefer to watch at home with fewer distractions.
raven
@geg6: In Atlanta you can find a little booth:
“Courtesy of ARAMARK, guests who would like to be their group’s designated driver can go to the Designated Driver Booth located in the plaza near Aisle 145 to sign up and receive a coupon for a free soda.”
Back before they started their incredible run of division titles you could get “skyline” seats for $1. I’d get one, sign up for a free soda, buy peanuts on my way in and read a free Creative Loafing between innings.
Wow, they still have them!
” $1 SkyLine seats are available two and a half hours before every home game at the Turner Field Ticket Office.”
MattR
@geg6: PNC Park is gorgeous. Thoroughly enjoyed my trip there.
@raven: I helped a friend work that booth at Camden Yards for a couple games during the 1996 Wild Card series vs Cleveland (obligatory Fuck You Jeffrey Maier). Was a great gig since it closed after the second inning leaving me free to wander the stadium and watch the game. (EDIT: During my time I think it was two free sodas in exchange for wearing a wristband that prevented anyone from serving you alcohol)
raven
@MattR: Yea, you have to put on the wristband at Turner.
John O
@smintheus:
I didn’t know that, and yes, that would be cool!
I just want to see the two best teams slug it out.
MattR
@raven: Of course I had a better wristband that gave me free beer :)
I got that gig because I had worked at the stadium delivering food on the club level the season before (and the reason I took that job was to be on hand when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record). Let’s just say I learned a lot about the gritty parts of Baltimore from my coworkers long before the Wire was on HBO.
raven
@MattR: We have friends that worked at Towson and we visited there once about 17 years ago. We went to some blues joint and had a pretty good time. I didn’t know diddly about Balmore then.
S. cerevisiae
Bite me Blackhawks – GO WILD! They almost stole one last night in Chicago when Zucker hit the crossbar in OT. If they can keep up that kind of intensity and get Pom back this series could be close, but Harding will need to keep playing like last night and with his MS I don’t know how his stamina will hold up. Again, GO WILD!
Excel center is a great new arena.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Go Sharks! I really want to see them smack the Canucks.
Dexter's new approach
@S. cerevisiae:
No offense, but game 1 was their best punch, and they lost. The Wild can’t win 4 0f 6 games playing Suter 54% of minutes, they can’t win with Suter not playing 54% of minutes.
Pominville might come back, Bolland might come back, that’s a playoff wash.
But if the Wild win game 2, there will be a freakout here in Chicago.
Redshift
@Lori:
Yeah! We’ve got tickets for tomorrow night; it’s gonna be awesome!
Redshift
@eric:
Don’t know what team you’re watching. I was at the game where Ovechkin got his front tooth knocked out, and went back in and played the rest of the game.
Uncle Cosmo
Especially “not even” when your sorry excuse for a team can’t get a ticket for the dance.
Even more especially “not even” when the team you most despise ends up hoisting the Lombardi.
Enjoy the Ice Capades–between the Parts’ eternal suckitude & the Stealers’ ongoing suicide-by-cap, this is probably the last playoffs you’ll be able to enjoy until this time next year…
Wally Ballou
@PsiFighter37: Hockey fans and basketball fans live in different universes. I’ve never known a serious fan of one who didn’t view the other with total disdain.
And, Geg6, to each his own but regarding baseball as “boring”, I can only quote the great Roger Angell:
“Sure, it’s boring. There are boring innings and sometimes there turn out to be bad games, but you’re not going to have a feeling for the good games unless you’re willing to watch. I think I wrote once that baseball in many ways is very much like reading. I said there are more bad books than bad ballgames, or maybe it was the other way around. I can’t remember. But each have formal chapters. There are wonderful beginnings that don’t stand up and boring beginnings that are great in the end. You just don’t know. They’re both, baseball and reading, for people who aren’t afraid of being bored.”
Ben Grimm
Speaking as someone who’s lived most of their life in the South, hockey is the one they play on the stuff that comes in iced tea, right?