NHL excitement beats boring NBA every time
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 9, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Vytas Mazeika Mazeika is taking
suggestions on how to overthrow the newly appointed 2001-2002
sports editor, Scott Schultz. E-mail him with ideas at [email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Vytas Mazeika
On Tuesday night, I was watching the Pittsburgh Penguins extend
their series over the Buffalo Sabres to seven games.
I had a choice of watching an NHL game or the Charlotte Hornets
versus the Milwaukee Bucks in the craptastic NBA playoffs. My
choice was easy because the chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup
provides for the most entertaining playoff games.
Mario Lemieux tied the game with 1:18 left in regulation after
the shot from Alexei Kovalev deflected off Curtis Brown’s
skate and went straight up in the air.
Replays showed that Lemieux was the only player who knew where
Kovalev’s shot had gone, and after letting the puck bounce,
he took a couple of stabs and pushed the puck past Dominik
Hasek.
Then, 11:29 into overtime, Robert Lang had a textbook forecheck
along the rear boards, stole the puck and passed it to Kovalev, who
was about 10 feet to the right of the net. Kovalev masterfully
one-timed a pass to Martin Straka, who deflected the puck upward to
the left corner of the net before Hasek could react.
Pens win 3-2.
I do admit that Pens-Sabres in an overtime affair is not a fair
comparison to Hornets-Bucks. So let’s talk about the second
NBA playoff game of the night, the Los Angeles Lakers versus the
Sacramento Kings.
This matchup had all the flash and flare of a game worth
watching. Shaquille O’Neal had a tremendous first game and
the run-and-gun style of the Kings should have certainly guaranteed
excitement.
So did I watch the Lakers/Kings? Nah.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dark
Angel” were on at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., respectively. Give me
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jessica Alba over Kobe Bryant and Chris
Webber any time.
Basketball is just no fun to watch. If I do tune in, it’s
only for the last five minutes. In a good NBA game, the first 43
minutes serve little purpose. Both teams will exchange 40 field
goals and find themselves within four points of each other, making
the last five minutes the only truly relevant span in an NBA
game.
If I did have the game on from the very beginning, it would be
more like background fodder, with me downing several beers and only
catching the game from the corner of my eye. Sort of like if I was
interviewing someone and instead of paying complete attention, I
downed that last bit of my tall latte while hardly listening.
Hockey is different because the scoring is so scarce and the
tension lasts throughout the game. If you tune in for the last five
minutes of an NHL game, you will certainly feel the tension, but
this feeling is heightened if you’ve been following the game
from the very beginning, paying attention to all of the missed
opportunities. Each time a player hits the crossbar, or a goalie
makes a kick save on a one-on-one breakaway, the tension builds and
builds.
After a while, your mind is in such a frenzied state that you
feel tired just watching a game.
I’m a San Jose Sharks fan, and they’ve been
eliminated already for a couple of weeks. But I don’t need my
favorite team in the playoffs to appreciate high-quality
hockey.
The little nuances of the game are gripping: a player sprawling
his body out on the ice to block an 80-mile-per-hour shot; a goalie
only stopping a shot he never saw coming because he positioned
himself perfectly; and a superstar like Lemieux letting a puck that
went 30 feet in the air bounce before taking a whack at it, being
so sure of himself to wait that extra half-second even with his
team 90 seconds away from elimination.
Without any doubt, give me Pens-Sabres over Lakers-Kings any
time. Hopefully, though, I won’t have to choose between
Pen-Sabres and my beloved two-hour block of “Buffy the
Vampire Slayer” and “Dark Angel.”
Of course, that’s the very reason VCRs were invented.
