Published: April 23, 2008 11:13 pm            

Amey Takes Aim: NHL postseason is great to watch, but I’m not growing a playoff beard

TERRE HAUTE — If the folks at Rapid Cable up Clinton way would ever add Versus to their lineup (hint, hint — and Comcast from Chicago would be nice too) this would still be my favorite time of year — even though I’m married now.

Back in the day, I could count on spending any free evening in April or May switching from NHL playoffs to NBA playoffs to the occasional major league baseball game, never watching a commercial and usually keeping up with all two, three or four events. On the really good nights, the hockey game would go into overtime and I could rest my clicker finger for awhile.

It would be almost as fun now if there were more than one network doing NBA games. But right now there aren’t that many matchups — none in the Eastern Conference — that I want to watch as my main focus without the option of switching to some skating during the 23 seconds that Chauncey Billups is pounding the ball while everybody else stands around (I exaggerate only slightly). And now that the Cubs are harder to find too, it doesn’t seem the same.

My three favorite hockey teams didn’t make the playoffs this season — don’t know what the odds are for that, since seemingly every team does — but that wouldn’t matter.

Even teams I get sick of are palatable in the playoffs. I actually got screamingly involved when two of those teams I get sick of — Rangers and Canucks — played a multiple overtime game during my honeymoon.

The Chicago Blackhawks aren’t one of my very favorites (for the record, the top three in order would be Coyotes, Lightning and Oilers), although they didn’t make the playoffs either. But mention should be made of their rebirth this year.

After years of being the undisputed worst-run professional sports franchise in America, the Hawks — arguably the most important Chicago team during my formative years — made themselves matter this year. The NHL — slowly but surely, and pretty much in spite of itself — may be undergoing the same transformation.

Part of the reason might be a standings quirk. Since overtime losses now come with a point attached and therefore don’t go in the loss column of the standings, almost every team can have a winning record. Coyotes? Yep. Oilers? I think so. Blackhawks? Ditto. Lightning? Well no, but we may have traded for a

goalie late in the year so there’s hope.

I would have no problem believing that this was an unintended consequence for the league, which doesn’t have a reputation for sagacity. But it seems to work. It’s a lot easier to support a team with a winning record, even if it’s near the bottom of the standings.



Opportunity missed — Surely some headline writer in the nation (unlike Kyle McCall and Jason Koch) had the presence of mind Sunday, after Will Power’s victory in the last Champ Car race ever, to work the phrase “now or never” in big, bold type.

I know I was pretty disappointed last summer when I used that very phrase after Power’s win in the Toronto Grand Prix, which took place while Jenny and I were enjoying our trip to Canada, and nobody called me on it.

Attendance at that Gary Puckett concert last year must have been pretty dismal.



Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

        

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