Hockey fans, the dreaded day arrives soon.
The day when no matter what beautiful goal Rick Nash scores, or what great shutout Roberto Luongo makes with 48 dazzling saves, or what huge hit that Alexander Ovechkin throws—it will never see national television in the United States.
Super Bowl Sunday. Ugh.
The fact is, a record number of people will tune in to see Tom Brady and Eli Manning's teams duke it out to see which is the best football team in '07-'08.
They'll tune in to see if the Patriots can go 19-0, and go undefeated.
So?
The fact of the matter is, most of the time in the Super Bowl, one team blows the other team out. It's best of one. The losing team doesn't get a second chance. The game is boring. The halftime show and commercials are debated more than who won, and why.
Aren't you glad for the Stanley Cup Finals?
They won't be watched by as many people. The NHL's brass will probably find a way to get it shown on the least amount of televisions in the United States possible.
But how many Lombardi trophies have been made?
Forty-two, it seems.
How many Stanley Cups are there?
One.
Ok, so there are three, if you want to get technical.
No trophy in sports is more recognized. No trophy has more stories about it.
How many times has the Lombardi trophy been punted into a river? How many times has it had champagne drank from it? How many times has it found its way into an alley, or into the bottom of a pool?
Fact of the matter is, the Stanley Cup means more.
And deservedly so—it's harder to win than any sports trophy there is.
Football players can play 19 games, and they get their rings. Baseball players have to play 162, and then maybe 19 more. But you only have to beat three teams in the playoffs. Basketball, it seems, you just need to get traded to a contender.
Playoff hockey is unlike any other sport, including hockey from the regular season. Holes are gone. Players get hit harder. Games can stretch on until 2 A.M. on Easter morning. And the tension in sudden death overtime? Oh, it's there.
To top it all off, you play a best of seven series against the other conference's best team.
The last time there was a blow-out in the Stanley Cup Finals, it was 1998. Four games of dominant hockey by the Detroit Red Wings, led by the honor of Vladimir Konstantinov.
Sure beats the Super Bowl, no?
Look on the bright side, hockey fans. From Super Sunday, there's only two months to go.
8 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Matt Eichel about 1 year ago
I don't think many fans care about how much US media coverage the game gets 'cause the most people who care and watch are in Canada...that's all that really matters.
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Danny D'Angelo about 1 year ago
Very well said, the only part of SuperBowl i like is the new commercials. It seems over the years those ads have taken the spotlight from the game.
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TJ Ferguson about 1 year ago
the commercials are pretty awesome, i think the nhl should air a commercial during the super bowl, they have had some pretty good ones lately, i think my new favorite commercial is the yo mamma contest ryan miller wins
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Bryan Thiel about 1 year ago
Although I do agree with the fact that the Stanley Cup has the most lore attached to it of all the professional sports trophies, I don't see your argument in how any of the other three mainstream sports are "less-important". Every sport's playoff rounds have a different feel to them than the regular season, that's why it's called playoffs. That's the same reason that the preseason blows so much compared to the regular season: It has different meaning. Football is one of the most taxing sports to play physically, and there's good reason why they only play once a week. Basketball requires different skills than hockey, but still puts it's players through an 82-game schedule (and just as a note, ANYONE can be traded to a contender in ANY sport...Doug Weight has done it once, perhaps twice maybe, and this is actually a much more acknowledged problem in hockey than basketball), and I don't care how many games the playoffs are, do you think it's easy playing a 162 game schedule? Players are worn out by August, so don't think for a second that they aren't putting their all into the game. I'm a fan of all the sports, and although I love the NHL, you can't say which trophy is the hardest to win. They're all hard to win, because each sport is different. Defend the fact that the Stanley Cup is the most legendary trophy in sports, but don't discredit what other athlete's are doing in their sports to achieve success.
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Dino Mori about 1 year ago
Me thinks the NHL should adopt MLB's format for their All-Star game. The winning conference should be awarded the extra home date in the Stanley Cup finals. Give them something to play for.
For the first 57 minutes we saw the usual no look passes, glaring giveaways, and defensive lapses. Yes, there were some highlight reel goals and great goalie saves.
But, in the final 3 minutes with the score tied at 7-7, you could see the competitive juices of all players come out. Hey, we even saw the one and only bodycheck to Atlanta's beloved Ilya Kovalchuk
with under two minutes to play.
That extra home date would be great incentive for any Stanley Cup participant. What do you think?
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Dino Mori about 1 year ago
Me thinks the NHL should adopt MLB's format for their All-Star game. The winning conference should be awarded the extra home date in the Stanley Cup finals. Give them something to play for.
For the first 57 minutes we saw the usual no look passes, glaring giveaways, and defensive lapses. Yes, there were some highlight reel goals and great goalie saves.
But, in the final 3 minutes with the score tied at 7-7, you could see the competitive juices of all players come out. Hey, we even saw the one and only bodycheck to Atlanta's beloved Ilya Kovalchuk
with under two minutes to play.
That extra home date would be great incentive for any Stanley Cup participant. What do you think?
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
The whole 3rd period was competitive, thats the way the All-star game should be.
Unfortunately owners and GMs will never let the All-star game be for a home date in the playoffs.
They'd rather not have injuries to their all-stars.
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Travis Loftis about 1 year ago
I don't think I was trying to detract from any other sport, but I can say from experience that no major four (I still consider the NHL a major four league) sport is more physically grueling.
I would argue that the super bowl was no more interesting than the all star game. I enjoyed watching the all star game. The Super Bowl was boring until the last few minutes.
Anywho, the article was intended to be directed towards fans of hockey who aren't football or basketball or baseball fans (Which, would be my personal perspective as well, to a mild extent).
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