Hockey - The most exciting sport of them all?

I used to be a casual New York Rangers fan. Besides the 1993-1994 season when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, the only other good thing about hockey for me was NHL 94. The NHL was fifth on my list of major sports in the United States. Number 1 was the MLB, number 2 was the NBA, number 3 was the NFL and number 4 was NASCAR.

Then 5 years ago something changed. I began my freshman year at St. Mary's College with the no interest in watching hockey because my New York Rangers were basically never on and I could have cared less about any other hockey team. Slowly, I started to watch San Jose Sharks games every now and then and I started to like the NHL more and more each day. 3 years later during my junior year something magical happened.

It was game 6 of the NHL playoffs that pitted the San Jose Sharks against the Dallas Stars. The game was exciting from the beginning and at the end of regulation the teams were tied 1-1. For the first time since that 1994 season I was hooked on hockey again. Sudden death overtime the most exciting way to end a sporting event that there is. Three overtimes later the score was still 1-1. I was on the edge of my seat, I couldn't stop watching, no one could have scripted a more thrilling and exciting sporting event. Finally but sadly (by that point, during that one game, I had become a diehard Sharks fan), Brendan Morrow scored the game winning goal for the Dallas Stars. Thus crushing the dreams of all the Sharks fans who had expected a Stanley Cup appearance for their team.

Fast forward to 2010. The NHL playoffs have now become my nightly must watch sporting event. They have constant action, incredible intensity, violence, and lots and lots of drams. If that is not the perfect combination of attributes for a sporting event to have, then I have no idea what is.