#156. Return of the NHL Playoffs (Friday, April 21, 2006)

#156. Return of the NHL Playoffs (Friday, April 21, 2006)

What was your best day…of living what felt like several nights in the span of a night?

It had been nearly two years since the last NHL playoff game. Two years of labor battles, hockey deprivation across Canada, and an Ottawa Senators championship window that never materialized. But on this night, it was finally back.

The first round of the NHL playoffs is comparable only to the opening rounds of March Madness in the sheer density of competitive sports action. (The NBA doesn’t count because of the general absence of “competitive.”) And on this night, there were four matchups opening what would become two straight months of playoff hockey.

The most interesting part, though, is that I didn’t race home excitedly for a full night of hockey. I didn’t even get home at a reasonable hour. We had our usual four-hour Friday session at Space Sim, and based on where we were in the year I was probably doing some mix of post-mission cleanup, quartermaster work (#101), eating another Subway Italian BMT (#123), and listening to Nigel Healey (#16) and Jake Carter (#65) cram for Reach provincials.1

I don’t remember the exact sequence. I just remember how full that period of life was.

But when I arrive home around nine, I become fully engrossed in the hockey already underway—flipping wildly between channels as two or three games ran simultaneously. I watched the heavy underdog Oilers blow a late third-period lead to the 124-point, top-seeded Red Wings, and lose in double overtime on a weird Kirk Maltby goal.2 I watched Nashville survive a frantic final-second Sharks flurry in front of one of the most intense home crowds I’d ever seen. I watched Calgary and Anaheim begin their series with the last-minute shock that 2003 playoff MVP Jean-Sébastien Giguère was out injured.3 I even flipped over to the Jays game4, catching pieces of an extra-inning rally that ended with them walking off the Red Sox.

But amid all those details about teams I barely cared about, the wildest part is that my own Ottawa Senators—also a top seed and heavy favorite—played that night too. They won with a third-period comeback. And somehow, that’s the game I remember least.

I mean, we already have evidence of me being a crappy Senators fan (#46). But this wasn’t that. It was more that my brain seemed to be processing the whole night differently. Nothing felt especially dramatic, even though an absurd amount was happening. The hours stretched out in this strangely mundane way, as if several ordinary evenings had somehow been compressed into one.

And if there was ever a period of my life when even average, inconsequential events felt worth preserving, Spring 2006 was as good as any.

  1. As it turned out, we really did have a shot. As noted in #10, Lisgar finished second in the round-robin before losing by 10 points in the first elimination round to ninth-seeded University of Toronto Schools, who went on to finish second nationally.
  2. I assumed that loss had killed any upset chance. Instead, Edmonton beat Detroit in six and eventually reached Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
  3. Giguère was replaced by the then-little-known Ilya Bryzgalov, who went on a remarkable run that postseason and soon became a recognizable NHL name.
  4. As if the night needed more sports chaos, prized Jays free-agent signing A.J. Burnett left early with an injury and missed the next two months.