Moments ago, it all ended. The Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup, and another bunch of millionaires is off to the golf course.
Finally.
The players’ playoff beards would trail past Crystal Gayle’s hair in a wedding procession.
The running joke in my hometown of Montreal is: there are two seasons; winter and construction. Hockey doesn’t really have a season up here, because it never stops. Much like Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, fans in Montreal can’t get enough. Never enough dull quotes from the dressing room, never enough replays, never enough press conferences with coaches giving no answers.
The last time the final game was played in the month of May was 1991, when the Penguins beat the Minnesota North Stars in 6 games.
I used to love asking to leave the dinner table early to run and watch the Canadiens and Bruins go at it. Now, the long NHL season is skating into a short summer. Two days after summer begins, the two-day NHL draft will plaster the front pages of sport sections across North America.
A whole new crop of wannabe’s will be “giving their 100%”, and “helping the team anyway I can”. Less than two months later, these fresh faces will “give it everything they’ve got” at training camp (you’ll read all about it); it will still be summertime.
No, I’m not bitter because my team hasn’t won the cup in nineteen (can we just say twenty?) years. It’s just that the hockey playoffs have gone from being a rite of spring to an early summer gone wrong.
It’s easy for L.A. fans to celebrate hockey in June; they don’t shovel snow in Hollywoodland.
There is talk of labor negotiations between the league and the players’ union leading to a possible lockout for next season (you’ll read all about that, too).
Would a year off be so bad?
Maybe they could emulate baseball and shorten the playoffs.
Or follow basketball’s lead and just lose the first couple of months to futile bargaining.
If so, I’ll be in my back yard, reading all about US Open Tennis, or PGA’s Tour Championship, or MLB’s Wildcard race, or a good feature piece about doping…or maybe just reading Dear Abby.
