This post is critical

I look forward to the playoffs every year, when hockey suddenly turns into a real sport again. There's nothing like it anywhere: two solid months of unrelieved national hysteria. Nor is there any championship that is as gruelling. Football? You win three games -- in three weeks -- and you're in. Basketball? Notice any playoff beards on those pampered prima donas? Baseball? Don't make me laugh. The marathon? Sure, it's tough, but it's over in two and a half hours. Now go out and do it again 27 times. The one thing I don't look forward to is the moronic hockey commentary. Hockey commentary is always moronic, but it reaches a special intensity of moronitude at playoff time. You know what I'm talking about: the "this game is critical" analysis, sometimes phrased as a question ("Pat, how critical is it to win this game?"). Fellas, can I let you in on a secret? In a seven-game series, every game is critical. Lose that first game, and you're down 0-1: you're behind the eight-ball right off the top. Then there's the critical second game: win it, and the series is all tied up, the momentum is all yours; lose, and you're facing a 2-0 deficit, and as we know, only 35 teams in 962 series have come back from 2-0 to win (gosh: you mean teams that lose games usually lose series?). But now we come to the critical -- I mean critical -- third game. Maybe the teams are tied going in: so whoever wins gets the all-important edge. Or one team's up 2-0: they win, and they're up 3-0, and you might as well just go home; they lose, and suddenly they're vulnerable, the momentum has shifted etc. Oh, but that's just the prelude to the critical fourth game: the clincher, or maybe the last stand, or possibly the one that ties it all up, or sometimes the one that breaks a tight series wide open. Of course, the fifth game, now the fifth game's critical...