i remember it like it was yesterday, except in all actuality, it was about six years ago. April 12, 2001 to be exact.

there i stood at the top of the stairs heading into the lower bowl at the Pepsi Center — that’s the arena in Denver where the Avalanche and the Nuggets play. just FYI. my eyes had to squint at one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever seen in my life. definitely an unforgettable moment.

before me lay 200 feet of fresh, unadulterated ice in its purest form — freshly zambonied and untouched by any skates, any sticks. a glowing, radiant white that i don’t think is even on any color spectrum, and 18,129 seats waiting to be filled. there was a quiet hum coming from the 60,000 pound, four-sided scoreboard above the center of the ice. that hum was the greatest song ever. and i mean EVER.

it was the first round of the 2000-01 Stanley Cup playoffs with the President’s Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche (52-16-10-4) taking the ice against the Vancouver Canucks (36-28-11-7). it was the start of the Avalanche’s eventual run to winning the Stanley Cup — most memorable because it was when Ray Bourque finally won the coveted trophy.

my seat was on the ninth row for that game. it was the closest i had ever been to professional hockey, and the excitement and intensity bled out of me like it did the Canucks’ players who got creamed against the boards.

that intensity is back. well, almost. i won’t have the chance at sitting nine rows up at an arena anytime soon, but the Stanley Cup playoffs do start in a week.

i realize it doesn’t mean much to the Rogue Valley. around here, hockey seems to just pack up its bags and roll on down I-5. i know there’s a handful of die-hard hockey fans and, as always, there’s the fellow skaters i face off against every week, but other than that, hockey is dead to the Rogue Valley.

it’s so dead that i can only watch hockey twice a week on tv on a channel that i can’t picture being around too much longer. and once in awhile, i can view a game on NBC, but that’s it.

frankly, it’s ridiculous.

but the intensity and excitement of the playoffs are still there.

there’s so much parity in the league right now that there’s not even a clear favorite to take the Cup. it’s anybody’s game.

sure, there’s going to be the usual playoff contenders like Detroit (whom i can’t stand and actually shudder to mention), New Jersey and Dallas all lacing up their skates next week, but look at the new faces who have a chance at winning the Cup.

take Pittsburgh for instance. a team who wasn’t even sure if it would be in the same city next season, who dumped all of its veterans over the years and decided to go with young faces. a team lucky enough to have the first pick in the NHL draft not too long ago and snag a Hall-of-Famer in the making (Sidney Crosby 117 points, 36 goals, 81 assists), but yet still had to start the season battling with Russia for the rights to another young player, Evgeni Malkin (85p, 33g, 52a). and now, the Penguins are poised to make a run in the playoffs.

and in the Western Conference? look at the Vancouver Canucks. they haven’t made the playoffs since before the lockout. granted, that’s not too long ago, but it makes a point. then they go out and steal goaltender Roberto Luongo from Florida who skates them into a playoff spot with his 2.26 goals-against-average, a .922 save percentage and ranks second in the league with 46 wins. all i can say is it’s gonna be tough to sneak goals past him when the playoffs start. and right now, it looks like Dallas is going to have that task. not even their star player, Mike Modano, can handle that.

but the seedings aren’t even set yet.

the East is still up in the air with four teams still competing for a spot. and in the West, it’s even tighter with the Avalanche and the Calgary Flames fighting for the one final spot. One Avs’ loss or one Flames’ win and that’s it for the Avalanche’s playoff hopes. if they miss the playoffs, it’ll be the first time since the 1993-94 season. back then, they were still in Quebec, they’ve always been a contender as the Avalanche. how is that not intense? how is that not exciting?

i guess i’ve rambled on here and there. maybe i just get overly excited about hockey, but hey, somebody in the Rogue Valley has to.

so get ready, ’cause the playoffs are coming.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Sports Insiders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.