Sports Excitement........in April????????

There are no summer professional or popular college sports occurring in Columbus, Ohio. The college football season is still four months away (grrrrrr) and the Buckeye basketball team wrapped up its season in March. So what's this I hear about the Ohio capitol getting geared up for a BIG sports playoff series tomorrow night!?!?!? Oh yea.....THERE'S HOCKEY IN CENTRAL OHIO FOLKS!!

For the first time in its history, the Columbus Blue Jackets are heading to the Stanley Cup Playoffs! Tomorrow at around 4pm (my time), the Jackets face-off against the Red Wings in Detroit, thus ending their drought and creating some unusual interest in Ohio professional sports at this time of the year.

I REALLY hope I get a chance to watch some Stanley Cup playoff action this year. I've always felt that I've been much more of a "hockey fan" than a fan of any particular hockey team. I LOVE the Stanley Cup playoff season. It completely eclipses any passing interest I might have in the NBA and, as a playoff-type season, is only beaten by the NCAA men's basketball tournament in my opinion. I don't want to be a complete hypocrite here and devote my undying love for the Blue Jackets and their plight in the playoffs. After-all, I think I can name about 4 guys on the team right now (Nash, Mason, Umberger, uh....is Micheal Peca still on the team?). But once again, I don't usually follow the NHL season inently until this time of year anyway.....and its pretty damn hard to follow an ice hockey team in Ohio when you live in Las Vegas, Nevada!!

The Blue Jackets are definitely my favorite NHL team though, and I wish them good luck tomorrow. If they can't pull off the epic upset of beating Detroit, I'll most likely root for the Wings for the remainder of the playoffs. It should be a good one. Some higher seeded teams like New Jersey come into the playoffs faultering, while lower seeded teams like St. Louis are red hot! I hope I can enjoy this year's playoff season. When it ends each year, I'm always hit with the realization that the only sports occuring for the rest of the summer is a declining NASCAR season and a ridiculously long and drawn out Major League season.