OT: Ducks-Stars Game 1 -- 5 OTs!

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 11:00 am

Man, if anyone needs proof that the Stanley Cup is the toughest trophy to win in professional sports, just look at the Stars-Ducks five-OT thriller Thursday night.
 
 The game ended at 1:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, and the teams are playing Saturday afternoon. They have about 38 hours to recover from more than 140 minutes of intense, physical hockey.
 
 NHL playoff games take place every other day for two months, and the hitting and physical play is at its ultimate peak in the playoffs. The only team sport in which the athletes take more of a beating is football, and they play every six days in the playoffs for four weeks.
 
 Any time I hear an NBA player whine about the "playoff grind," I can only chuckle. They don´t have a clue.
 
 Roll on, Stanley Cup playoffs!
 
 Take care,
 PK [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 25-04-2003 08:01 ]

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 1:49 pm

"Any time I hear an NBA player whine about the "playoff grind," I can only chuckle. They don´t have a clue."
 
 You know what´s funny about that statement PK...is that hockey players usually play at most 30 min. a game. They play it pretty hard, but it´s no harder than a bball player playing 48 min. per game. Out of the 140 min. in the game last night the two leading ice time players were Zubov and Hatcher...both defensemen at around 60 min. with the rest of the players at or below 50 min.
 
 Is it really a grind if you only play 1/3 of the game? I know I know, hockey is much harder and there is hitting, but come on...at least play HALF the game.
 
 Go ahead and flame away, I just don´t see the arguement that hockey is so much tougher to play, physically than bball. It might be...if you played the same amount of time, but when you play 1/3 of the game...I´m not impressed.
 
 Commence flaming.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:27 pm

DB:
 
 I won´t flame away because I respect you and your opinion.
 
 But have you played competitive hockey? I have played competitive hockey and competitive basketball at equal stages of fitness, and hockey takes WAY greater a toll on your body than hoops. And I´m a defenseman in hockey and a banging, can´t jump forward in hoops, so I enjoy the physical parts of both games.
 
 Trust me, it takes way more energy to skate a 90-second shift in hockey than it does to play 90 seconds of basketball. Skating is much more unnatural activity than running and walking, so it alone requires more energy. Combine that with the greater physical play in hockey than basketball, and it´s more strenuous.
 
 And how often are there timeouts in hockey? Uh, hardly ever. And how much of basketball is spent standing around, during free throws, waiting for the play to come to your side of the floor, during team timeouts, TV timeouts, etc. Yeah, hoops doesn´t have anywhere near the pedestrian nature of baseball, but it´s not as strenuous as hockey.
 
 The only major team sport that compares to hockey and exceeds it as far as sheer physical effort, strength and endurance is soccer, where you´re running virtually non-stop for two 45-minute halves on a big, big pitch.
 
 I´ve played competitive hockey and hoops. I´m not very good at either. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif"> But I do know that I´m a hell of a lot more tired and sore after a hockey game than a hoops´ game.
 
 I know you´re a hoops´ guy, and you´re going to stand up for hoops and the NBA. But ask anyone who has played both games, and I think they´ll agree with me. Maybe you´ve played both and disagree with me. If so, you´re among the very few who disagree.
 
 Hope all is well, dude.
 
 Take care,
 PK
 
 [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 25-04-2003 11:29 ] [ This message was edited by: pk500 on 25-04-2003 11:30 ]

Neckthai · Post by **Neckthai** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:40 pm

DB...
 
 Why flame, you have you´re right to your opinion, and it´s obvious you favor basketball to hockey.
 
 I would say a hockey player works just as hard or even harder playing on average 30 minutes a game as the NBA player who plays an average of 40 minutes a game. But even saying so will get me labeled as someone comparing apples to watermelons.
 
 I´ll start with the point you mentioned. basketball isn´t nearly as physical as hockey. You mentioned the hitting aspect, but you failed to mention that the pace of your average NBA game is much much slower than hockey.
 
 Let´s look at an NBA playoff games, Jermaine O´Neal played 44 minutes of 48 minutes in the Pacers´ loss to the Celtics last night. That´s impressive, but how much of his court time was spent sprinting up and down the court? If basketball was played at the All-Star game´s pace for 48 minutes, how many NBA stars would play more than 35 minutes? Now let them play for 100 minutes? Would O´Neal have played 92?
 
 Maybe most of the players played less than half of last night´s marathon, (Dallas defenseman Sergei Zubov was the iron man among skaters, playing 63:51. Teammate Mike Modano led forwards with 55:29. Anaheim´s ice-time leaders were defenseman Keith Carney at 56:20 and forward Rob Niedermayer at 53:01.) But remember it was the first game of a best of seven series, and these guys played hockey in real time for more than five hours. If this game had been Game 7, I think the shifts would have been longer and the better players would have seen more time.
 
 What´s great about playoff hockey is that it´s the sport´s purest form to use the overused cliche. They played of 80:48 of overtime last night, more than a whole game.
 
 And despite being exhausted, the Stars and the Ducks played their hardest to get that one goal to win the game.
 
 I can´t wait for Game 2. Fortunately I don´t have to wait long. [ This message was edited by: Neckthai on 25-04-2003 11:42 ]

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:43 pm

PK,
 
 I´ve never played hockey on a competitive level, so I really have no basis for my arguement, I was just making an observation, no matter how off it was. I´ve played street hockey over the years with the boys, and you´re right it´s tiring, and it´s tough to go all out for that amount of time.
 
 Your only problem with your arguement is that you cited the stopping and starting that nba players do (free throws, timeouts, etc) but fail to mention that hockey players play for a min. then sit down for 2 or 3 min....so in essence it´s a timeout anyway. I don´t know, I guess I´m nieve having not played competitive hockey.
 
 I like the NBA, but I am no means a die hard like I am for baseball. I can´t sit and watch ANY bball game like I can for baseball but I still do love NBA hoops...

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 3:04 pm

DB:
 
 There´s a reason for shift changes in hockey: You´re absolutely knackered after a hard shift.
 
 Even when hockey players are relatively stationary, they´re josting or battling physically in the corners or along the wall for position or the puck.
 
 I´ve had bruises in too many strange places and pulled muscles I didn´t even know I had after playing on the rink for two hours. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 I have nothing against hoops, especially the college flavor. But it still amazes me the effort required to win the Stanley Cup, taking that kind of beating every other night for two months to touch and hoist the hardware.
 
 That reminds me of when the Stanley Cup was in the garage at Indy three years ago for an ABC promo. People always joke to me at the Speedway that I´m bolted to my chair in the Media Center, busy with work, and should get out to the garage more. When someone that afternoon in 2000 told me the Stanley Cup was in the garage, I RAN to Gasoline Alley.
 
 I had to see it. But I couldn´t touch it. As you probably know, one of the unwritten rules among NHL players is that you don´t touch the Cup until you win it. That´s why every player on every winning team reaches to touch the Cup when Bettman presents it to the team captain.
 
 Anyways, a bunch of people in the garage posed next to the Cup and were touching it. Not me. I didn´t dare touch it. Man, it pissed me off to see people touching the Cup!
 
 But you bet your ass I had a few pictures snapped while crouching next to it. It was perched atop an Indy-car tire, which made it even better!
 
 Man, I´ll never forget that afternoon!
 
 Take care,
 PK

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 3:11 pm

I would feel the exact same way if I was around the World Series trophy...In fact, I was at Bank One in Arizona (when i lived there) the year after they won it and they had it there, and this year at Edison a couple of times(I´m in So. California now and my girls an Angel fan, always has been too so that´s great) so I´ve been around the WS Trophy quite a bit and there is just an aww about it. It´s truely an awesome experience.

Galley · Post by **Galley** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 11:43 pm

I let my ex-wife and her daughter watch the game on DirecTV while I was at work. (They don´t have satellite or cable). Boy was I surprised when I got home at 1:00 a.m. EDT and saw them still watching the game!
 They are die-hard Stars fans. [ This message was edited by: Galley on 27-04-2003 20:43 ]

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:37 am

Galley:
 
 Die-hard Stars´ fans since when -- 1999?
 
 Sorry, couldn´t resist that one -- I hate the Stars more than any other NHL team because they always seem to eliminate my Oilers from the playoffs every year. <IMG SRC="images/forum/icons/icon_smile.gif">
 
 Take care,
 PK