BY KEVIN FRIEDENBERG

In print | Published April 10, 2008

Hockey will always hold a soft spot in my heart. Being raised in the “Hub of Hockey” and playing the sport for over a decade has branded a special feeling for the game that can’t be removed from me. No matter how many different sporting distractions may arise, such as the predictable Final Four, the meaningless early baseball season, or the molasses-like Masters, I try to always find a way to keep informed about the NHL playoffs. At this point of the year there is no other sport that can compete with the excitement of hockey, not even jai alai.

I used to follow hockey pretty closely. There was a time when I remembered all sorts of NHL players: who was fast, who could snipe, who couldn’t play hockey for his life but could bring the crowd to its feet by being a goon. Then something terrible happened: the lockout. The lockout was to hockey what a midterm is to Micro, an ignominious end. A whole season was lost because people apparently cared more about “Trick Shot Magic Pool” than they did about hockey.

I have never really regained my footing in the kingdom of hockey knowledge that I once had. All of a sudden it seemed like every U.S. born player on the Bruins roster that I was familiar with had departed, and all that was left were kids younger than I, making more money in one game than I could make in an entire year. Though the new rules certainly changed the tempo of the game and I do admit that I love watching shootouts, I felt like a younger and handsomer Rip Van Winkle.

It wasn’t until I was shoveling snow this winter that I realized that I still did like hockey, and even though all my old favorite players are mostly dispersed or on the verge of retirement, there is a breed of young new colts to get informed about. Whatever happened to the old gang, guys like P.J. Stock, Tie Domi, and Adam Foote? Those guys are harder to find than 70 percent of our student body on a Saturday night. Even though all the hubbub about March Madness has come to a climax this week, I urge the gentle sports fan not to forget about the fastest sport on two legs. Hockey isn’t hard to love and Canada loves it so much that it has a cameo on some of their paper money (though the national sport of Canada is indeed lacrosse). At this point in time I am still hard pressed to name another Canadian export besides hockey players.

The NHL playoffs are about to start and believe you me, I would love to give all the energetic column readers a prediction or some insight as to who I feel might be coming out on top of the rat race this year. However, I feel like at this point I am far too uninformed to make a truly educated guess (twist the knife), so based on personal preference and prejudice, I would personally like to see the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup. Those of you with your mouths agape may be asking, “But Kevin, how can you not pick your hometown, comedy-of-errors club, the Bruins?” The answer to that is simple: far too many times I have watched my hopes for those gallant boys in gold and black dashed by the Snidely Whiplash-like Montreal Canadiens.

Though I probably won’t be able to watch much of the NHL playoffs this year because of Swarthmore’s aversion to having TV available, thank God Al Gore invented the Internet so that I may stay thoroughly updated and in the fold this year. I am personally hoping for some late-game heroics to whet the appetite, and of course a smattering of playoff beards to seal the deal. In my opinion, the playoff beard is an NHL tradition, and even though many other professional athletes try to copy it, their beards ultimately look like the Oakleys you buy out of a trash bag in Times Square. So, if you haven’t watched any hockey before in your life, you should, especially now that the quest for the Cup is going to start to heat up. There are currently 16 teams still left in the hunt, but just like Highlander, in the end there can be only one.

Kevin is a sophomore. He can be reached at kfriede1@swarthmore.edu.

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