My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Ice, Ice Baby"

Mm-hmm. God damn right, I did. Did so with authority, too. No, no. This is the right place. The one and only locale of the World Wide Web's newest, bestest weekly feature, My Sports Life is a Rock Song. In case memory fails, or serves and just forgets to come back with water refills, this is the beat-kickin', whisk-lickin' Friday specialty where yours truly makes the asinine ultimate attempt to blend music and sports, with genuine authority, stone-cold originality, and zero regard for the contemporary. That said, installment three has lept forward a couple of decades. Nevertheless, the perhaps soon-to-be allegations of distaste -- as accurate as they might be -- do not coincide with the point at hand -- the theme -- if you will, of the piece. And rest assured, there is one. If this introduction has not already shattered the collective literary compass, then I invite one, all to wedge a comb into the frost-filled 'do that appears as "Read More," and crack-a-lack on in, to the world of the extreme.

'Twas but half a decade ago, when a rift, a crack in the proverbial ice, split -- as rifts will do -- a percentage of the sporting world off from the majority. This fissure, in tune with modern trends, centered on network television contracts, ratings, and salary caps. The problem child of which I speak is the relationship between a profit-dried National Hockey League, and a shrewd-and-perhaps-greedy ESPN. In sum, the network did not wish to renew with the league, as ratings for ice hockey had fallen, greater things lied on the televised horizons, and frankly, the league was facing a catastrophe in renewing its collective-bargaining agreement with the NHL Players Association. If I had been President or CEO of ESPN, I can't say I would've acted differently. The problem, however, that resulted -- albeit, somewhat disjointedly unrelated to the network -- was that league owners and the NHLPA never did reach a common ground. Not in time to save the then-upcoming season, anyway. A lockout ensued. The sports books went on being written for the calendar year, never batting an eye at what was, at least to that point, number four of the four major North American sports.

So hockey vanished for a year, and sports fans, for the most part, went unaffected. Of course, by "for the most part," I mean those that lavish -- as do I -- the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and perhaps even the National Basketball Association. Said fans, perhaps at one time or another, may have paid attention to an NHL playoff game or two, perhaps a playoff series, or in some extreme cases, when their town's team or their childhood team was involved, the entire post-season. But with hockey out of the picture for a year, the struggles of the league no secret, and the universe of sports media exploding, the avenues for bullying the sport suddenly became freeways, and the sport on ice was left to have its milk money ravished by the masses.

A handful of seasons have passed since those cold, dark days. The league has fixed itself, for the most part, it has assembled television deals with a hodgepodge of networks, and its executive operators have reached out far and often to the fan base that stayed loyal, to show gratitude. Two days into the 2008 playoffs, the majority of these eight series look, at worst, impressive. The 2007 post-season was snow-banked with excitement; this race for The Cup promises the same, if not more. With that, I offer this self-proclaimed, embarrassingly brilliant tidbit:

Alright, drop,
that puck with a mission,
The Cup is back, and the players have a vision
Stanley! grabs a hold of them tightly,
They grapplin' and a-fightin' every other nightly,
Will it ever stop? Yo -- I don't know.
Extra-period overtimes can go and go.
To the extreme, they say the fighting's a scandal,
If they tried to play, we all know they couldn't handle,
Coordination! avoids them critics like a plague,
If they tried to D, I'd self-pass with a nutmeg,
Patience! is a virtue that they lack,
Rather see a homer, a slam dunk, or a sack,
The fastest game on earth, this fact you can't dispute,
Calls for teamwork and talent and skill and grit, to boot.
If there was some problems, yo they solved 'em,
The cap and the TVs and the fans, they involved 'em.























Now, that the playoffs are jumpin',
The Ducks look to defend, but the Stars are thumpin',
Quick to the puck while their D is checkin',
Dumpin' Niedermeyers like a force that's to be reckoned
With! There's the Devils and the Rangers,
They knock each other 'round, cause they ain't no strangers,
And the Avalanche, a corp of retirement community,
Took the Wild in OT, no diplomatic immunity,
The Pens are rollin', with Roberts and Crosby,
So fast that Ottawa don't even know who they in-laws be,
The Bruins, only wait to lose again,
Montreal wants them to know they ain't Canadian,
De-troit, tough, but gay as they can be,
Makin' Nashville...look worse than a bad rook-ie.
Yeah, Nashville's dead,
so the Red Wings will face,
I-don't-know...whoever's next in last place!
Calgary, took a bite out of the Shark;
The number-two seed is lookin' lost in the dark,
Philly! squares off tonight in D.C.,
Lookin' to take the Caps out from their three seed.
All of these clubs will be fightin' tooth and nail
Hopin' that in less than seven, they'll prevail,
So they, can save some gusto for the next round,
Where they're, one step close-r to be-in' crowned.
These Quarter Finals will be no easy feat
Each skater hoping for a well-conditioned sheet
Of Ice! atop which these games are made,
Naysayers welcome to drink some warm man Kool-Aid.
Now, the power plays and the one-times,
Come fast and from behind, like Kobe in the Alpines.
Into the Semis go the tough, the strongest,
Losers head home, their faces look the longest.






















Take heed, these playoffs will be here a while,
Hockey's back from dead, talent spread like the Nile.
The Ovechkins and the Lidstroms are but a few,
From the talent pool that in-cludes names like Tootoo.
'Cause this game's like shootin' up smack,
Give it once a shot, tomorrow you will be back.
The speed and the precision,
The split-second decision,
Creates an energy, that in sports goes un-matched,
NBC and Versus, together they have un-hatched
A re-birth of love for the worldest's greatest game,
Sports fans that never tried, their gripe is super-dope lame,
Notice the slickness, as closer come the Finals,
These guys pour through the stacks like DJs and their vinyls,
If you've no tie to any team or club,
You can always pick an' root, then not look like a chub.























Word to Lord Stanley.