It was officially done yesterday, the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which by now will have leaders and trailers in several series’.
This piece makes the editorial page instead of the sports page because hockey is more than sport... a fact that’s as obvious in Castlegar as it is in Chicoutimi.
Here’s a fun fact – the Vancouver Canucks appeared in more playoff games last season than they did in their first ten-plus years in the league.
Warm weather and ice hockey... can it get any better?
To the non-hockey fan, our condolences. Maybe this is the year for the New Zealand get-away?
For the rest, including a lot of us in this province, at least, there is definitely a way this can get better. If someone wearing no blue nor green quaffs mightily from the Stanley Cup in mid-June, there will, or will have been, many tears shed among Nuck-heads. But there shouldn’t be.
What the faithful can ask for is a good effort. The squad, after all, could be done before the second round even gets going.
Everyone knows how the ‘fairy-tale’ finale - The Sequel should turn out. But let’s keep that to our own imaginations. With 16 teams trying to squeeze through one thin doorway it would be crazy to do otherwise.
No, the agony and the ecstasy begins now... and like the agonizing cliché puts it so well – whatever they do, they’ll do it one shift at a time.