There are a few differences between Daily editor-in-chief-to-be Ed Ngai and I that you should know about. I’m a Sharks fan; he’s a Canucks fan. My team just swept his in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I can’t help but write about the NHL right now, but he’s so sick of hockey that he probably won’t even read this column, despite my effort to include (poke fun at?) him in this paragraph.
Even though hockey may be less appreciated than football, basketball and baseball by the national media, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a spectacle unlike any other in American professional sports: so grueling, so exciting, so stressful that there’s really no good excuse to not tune in.
The traditional White House visit for the defending Stanley Cup (yes, that’s hockey) Champions is always a sight to see. Even though each year’s MLB, NFL and NBA champions — along with a host of NCAA-title-winning teams — also get to meet America’s commander in chief, the NHL’s rendition is quite unique. It’s known for kooky mispronunciations, the usual lack of presidential hockey knowledge and its tendency to set annual records for the highest concentration of “eh’s” in White House history.