Every sport has its bounces, sure. Ever see a football as it slithers a path across the grass? Ever see a baseball hit a pebble in the infield? Ever see a golf ball hit a coin (or a leaf, or a twig) on its way to the hole? Ever see that ridiculous shot Don Nelson hit for the Celtics, to clinch the ’69 NBA title against the Lakers, high off the back of the rim?
Luck, Branch Rickey famously said, is the residue of design.
It is better to be lucky — Lefty Gomez, among others, said — than to be good. Luck, Sky Masterson implored, if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with… Hockey is different. I am not here to antagonize hockey fans and say hockey utilizes luck more than other sports … but it’s true. Pucks bounce funny on the ice. They ricochet funny off the boards. They hop over one player’s blade, and stick snugly to another player’s tape.
And goals … well, sometimes they come after connecting with a skate, a shoulder, a chest, a head … and sometimes after actually making contact with a stick.
Look at Thursday’s Game 3 between the Rangers and the Canadiens. Late in the third period it was 1-1. Then Montreal scored to make it 2-1, the Rangers evened it at 2-2 just before the regulation horn, and the Canadiens clinched it 72 seconds into OT … and all three goals were enough to make you gobble Rolaids like Cheetos if you rooted for the defense.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. That’s the game.
But it’s also what makes rooting for a hockey team — and in the playoffs, it almost seems to passive to call it “rooting,” because it feels more religious than that — so unique. Because logic rarely applies to hockey, even in comparison to the limited way it applies to other sports.
Look, you start with the goalie. One of the greatest terms in all of sport is one you hear ad nauseum this time of the year, about the goalie “standing on his head.” That is a metaphor, of course. But it also is about as true as true gets in sports, especially when you run into someone like Dominik Hasek back in the day, Henrik Lundqvist during most of these playoffs, even Dustin Tokarski for most of the other night.
Put it this way: In no other sport can a perfectly executed play be foiled. You hit a baseball 450 feet, nobody’s going to catch it. You throw a ball to an open receiver in stride, he’s going to the house.
You have an open lane to the basket, you will dunk the basketball. And in hockey, you can do everything exactly right, get a point-blank shot… and a skate can get in the way. Or a stick. Which means there really is no such thing as a perfect play.
And then comes the weird stuff: A bad patch of ice. A deflection. An accidental deflection.
And a game — and a series — can change just like that.
It’s what makes rooting for a hockey team such an exhausting proposition — well, that and the possibility of six overtimes on any given night. Again: Upsets happen in other sports. But even then, you can sense something coming in a short series. A hitter gets hot. A shooter heats up. A team’s carefully constructed chemistry starts to fray.
Momentum, built slowly and steadily.
In hockey? You can own a game from start to finish … and walk away from the arena muttering, “We owned that game from start to finish… how did we lose?” more often than seems possible. Games turn on bounces, series turn on angles, sometimes irretrievably.
It makes the game irresistible.
And also, occasionally, if you care enough, practically unbearable.
Whack Back at Vac
Brian Gfroehrer: No offence to Derek Jeter, but the greatest player of his generation is named Martin Brodeur.
Vac: Two things: a) the Canadian spelling of “offence” (as well as “defence”) is one we should adopt; b) our appreciation of Brodeur (three Cup wins) should increase exponentially as we watch Henrik Lundqvist battle to reach his first finals.
John Cobert: Instead of “A September To Remember,” the Mets are giving us “A May To Dismay!”
Vac: Which, as marketing slogans go, ranks just slightly north of “A June to Lampoon.” Which is coming soon.
@JosephGentile: Henrik Lundqvist is the face of New York sports now, not John Tavares, right?
@MikeVacc: Sigh. I remember when it was fun to be an Islanders fan in hockey arguments around here.
Harold Theurer: Here’s a good debate question — If Mel Stottlemyre had pitched for the Baltimore Orioles instead of the Yankees, would he have won 30 games before Denny McLain?
Vac: This is one I have always believed: If Mel had been born 10 years earlier (so he would have pitched for the 1954-64 Yanks) or 10 years later (1974-84), he would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Guess he’ll have to settle for those five World Series rings he earned as a pitching coach for the Mets and Yankees instead.
Vac’s Whacks
♦ Daisuke Matsuzaka says he is good to throw about 100 pitches Sunday, which, of course, begs the question: Who gets the ball in the fourth inning?
♦ So… can the Knicks trade d’Arnaud and Syndergaard for Kevin Love?
♦ I’d say it’s time for Don Draper to officially get his mojo all the way back Sunday, just in time for “Mad Men’s” final sabbatical, wouldn’t you?
♦ Kudos to one of the good ones, Jack Moran, lacrosse coach for my Chaminade Flyers, who not only won No. 500 the other day but did it by beating those infernal Friars of St. Anthony’s for the league title, too. Now that’s a daily double.