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The word “tournament” is generally reserved for March Madness. Why is that? We here at Blue Line Station say the real tournament is only beginning.
St. Patty’s Day and basketball – it is the order of business during the month of March.
At no other time during the year do we so often hear the word “tournament” and “bracket.”
March Madness brings us an inordinate number of pieces of paper and user profiles for which we need to fill out our brackets. Picking one mid-major college basketball team to knock off a basketball factory – although most of the nation can’t name one player on the squad – has never been so important.
It is, without a doubt, the most wildly popular tournament in the world.
But why?
Eyes On Isles
The National Hockey League has the quite the tournament itself. Actually, it’s a tournament not for the faint of heart. While the college basketball version features buzzer-beaters and drama, the professional hockey edition gives us obscene passion and unmatched excitement.
The only reason March Madness is the most known “tournament” in the world is because of the word tournament itself.
To many intelligent individuals out there, the NHL features the best postseason in all of sports.
It brings the physical nature of football, the movement and athleticism of basketball, and the hand-eye coordination of baseball; all while playing every other day, redefining the words grueling and toughness. It is the one time of year that brings casual hockey fans together as they scream at the top of their lungs and hold their hands up to their faces in a praying fashion.
The NHL Playoffs is never short on drama – especially at the very electric Madison Square Garden.
New Yorkers witnessed it first-hand in 2014.
Although the 2013-14 version of the New York Rangers were among the better squads during the regular season, they were never considered elite. It played out that way as the Pittsburgh Penguins took a dominating 3-1 series lead over the Blueshirts in Round 2.
As the NHL Playoffs generally do, it shocked us yet again in the rarest of ways – arguably even more so than that tournament that goes off in March.
To many intelligent individuals out there, the NHL features the best postseason in all of sports.
New York suffered through a couple of sob-stories involving Marty St. Louis and Dominic Moore, then took off from there, getting all the way to the Stanley Cup Playoffs before being upended by the No. 8 seeded Los Angeles Kings.
Yes, that’s right, a No. 8 seed.
This is the NHL Playoffs, where anything can happen.
Luckily for everyone, here at Blue Line Station we realize that sentiment rings true. We also realize with the new “Divisional Format” that allows for true brackets and no reseeding, it has changed the playoff game for fans.
This is why filling out an NHL Playoffs bracket is just as, if not more important than the college basketball version.
Here are several staff picks for what’s going to go down during the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs:
Next: The Playoff Takes