Spring is a Dynamic Sports Season

When you mention spring to most sports fans, the first thing that comes to mind is the earliest and least relevant portion of the Major League Baseball season, but as this year has proven, spring sports is about more than braving snowflakes at your favourite baseball stadium. This year's NBA and NHL playoffs have been amazing to this point, March Madness always manages to thrill, horse racing's Triple Crown has been exciting to watch, the Masters and the return of Tiger Woods has been must see television and the ongoing steroids soap opera in baseball has been like a car crash you can't quite manage to turn your head away from. Let's take a look at some of the real highlights that have graced our televisions so far this spring.

What once started as a promising NBA playoff series against the Old Guard Celtics and the New Guard Bulls quickly blew up into the Best First Round Series in NBA History and then the Best NBA Playoff Series That Wasn't in the Finals. The speed, youth and tenacious spirit of the Bulls turned out to be the perfect foil for the established stars of the Celtics. Experts wonder how different the series would have been if Kevin Garnett had been healthy, and chances are it might not have gone seven, but both sides were dealing with injuries, and really, would any real basketball fan tinker with a series that was such a masterpiece even if they could? Add in the incredible dominance of the Nuggets and Cavs so far this playoff season, the bizarre, almost mirror image of the Heat-Hawks series and the almost lawless nature of the Mavs-Nuggets series and you have an NBA playoff year that people will be talking about for decades, and it isn't even half over yet.

The NHL finally got the series they always wanted with the Caps-Penguins series featuring the duel between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. The duel didn't disappoint, with seven games of skill, hitting and amazing goal scoring. Debate even surfaced between hockey fans and basketball fans comparing the Bulls-Celtics series with Pens-Caps. There has also been a plethora of games finishing in overtime, and nothing, no other sports situation on the calendar, can beat sudden death overtime in the NHL playoffs. Best of all, the reimegence of several Original Six teams that may end up in the NHL's final four: the Blackhawks, who have already punched their ticket after scraping by Vancouver, The Red Wings, who at the time of this writing, were preparing to battle the Ducks in game 7, and the Bruins who are also on the verge of having three of the final four teams as original NHL members. Regardless of how these playoffs shake out, having so many northern teams and hardcore hockey cities represented can only be a positive for the NHL going forward.

Sports fans had better soak up this playoff atmosphere. Soon, spring will be over and the sultry days of summer will be upon us, with only baseball and NASCAR to entertain us. Thankfully, NFL training camps open up in just a few months.

 

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