It's late September, and we all know what that means - it's hockey season. By now, plenty of people are getting very excited and probably posting things on their Facebook pages saying how excited they are for hockey season and how awesome it was that Sidney Crosby scored a goal in the preseason game last night. Hockey is a very exciting sport. So let's all get excited, right?!
Now, don't get me wrong. I love hockey as much as the next guy. But it's September, everyone. And there are 82 games of hockey in the regular season. You can get excited about hockey now, and I respect that. I'm happy that it is starting up again too, as this is the best time of the year for sports; hockey is beginning a new season, basketball will follow suit, football is getting more and more exciting as teams begin to establish their 2010 legacy, and even baseball wraps up its season with another round of postseason games. Be we must all face the truth. Hockey during the season doesn't matter. That statement is a little extreme, but allow me to explain myself.
Hockey during the regular season is merely a show of who's still got it. The teams with the talent are still going to be the teams with the playoff berths. This isn't football, where every loss impacts a team greatly. This is 82 games of hockey. A loss is a loss. A win is a win. The teams that have talented players are still going to gain more checkmarks in the "W" column, while the teams who are in their "rebuilding" stages are the teams that will sadly miss the playoffs yet again. And hockey players agree with me too! Why do you think they all talk about "playoff hockey?"
Watch interviews. Read the paper. It's a fact of hockey. "Playoff hockey" is entirely different from regular season hockey. That's why teams that barely squeak into the playoffs are the ones who can cause upsets. Let's remember the 2009/2010 Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens entered the playoffs as the 8th and last seed of the Eastern Conference. They upset a "very good" (by regular season standards) 1st seeded Washington Capitals team. How was that possible? It was possible because the Canadiens started to fall behind in the regular season, realized that they didn't have the talent to cruise to the playoffs, and started playing playoff hockey before the regular season was over. When they came into the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they were still on a roll and playing playoff hockey. The Capitals were used to winning and expected their talent to easily crush the Canadiens in probably four or five games. They weren't ready for "playoff hockey," so playoff hockey crushed their regular season talent. The Canadiens ending up playing real playoff hockey against other teams with playoff hockey mentalities, and that is the beauty of what is known in the league as "playoff hockey."
The magic of it is that the postseason allows for any team at any time to win games and win series. That was how the Canadiens, a lowly 8th seed, managed to roll through to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing to the 7th seeded Philadelphia Flyers (another team who played to enter the postseason then used their playoff hockey abilities to make it deep into the Stanley Cup Playoffs).
So when I say that regular season hockey doesn't matter, don't take me too harshly. Teams such as Philadelphia and Montreal need the regular season to create their tickets to the playoffs. And it is nice to sit back and relax during the week watching a hockey game here and there, waiting patiently for the weekend to come and for football games to begin again. But for the most part, there will always be a very, very large gap between the 82 games of the regular season and the intensity of playoff hockey.
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