How about those Wild?

I realize that NHL viewership is about the same as the XFL. If you aren’t watching this years Stanley Cup playoffs you’re missing some great stories. The Minnesota Wild are a recent expansion team, three years old. Expansion teams never make the playoffs, let alone go past the first round. The Wild had the incredible bad luck to have to play the Colorado Avalanche in the first round. The Avalanche have two Stanley Cups and are always contenders for the Stanley Cup. They had the Wild down 3 games to 1 in the first round, a situation teams rarely come back from. It’s happened, I believe, 36 times out of the thousands of playoff series. The Wild won the next 3 games and surprised everyone.

They weren’t supposed to get that far. Even their coach was making comments about how he never expected to get that far. In the second round they faced the Vancouver Canucks. A team, that while they have suffered in recent years, was a power house this year. Again the Wild went down 3-1, and no team has ever come back from 3-1 twice in one playoffs. The Wild don’t have any stars. They have one of the lowest payrolls in the NHL. They’re an expansion team. They should be happy just getting this far. Then they crushed the Canucks in the next two games and headed for game 7 in Vancouver. Even after that I never thought they’d win. In the second period Vancouver scored 2 points 61 seconds apart. In a game 7 situation, on away ice, when nobody expects you to win most teams fold after that. The Wild didn’t, and went on to win 4-2.

It is a stunning accomplishment. Only one other team, the Montreal Canadians one of the winningest teams in any professional sport, has won two game sevens on the road. Now they head into the conference finals against another improbable team, Anaheim. I don’t care if you like hockey, this is just a great story. This is exactly the kind of story people pay to watch at the movies. Listening: En Csak AZT Csodalom - Various Artists Feeling: awed