From The Death of Hockey, this seems like something that any hockey fan can relate to. Enjoy.
There was a time, not so long ago, when a Stanley Cup game that went into overtime was a reason to wake the kids and call the neighbours. It was an event not to be missed, a tension-fraught, sweat-drenched, adrenalin-pumping crystallization of the best that hockey had to offer. Two of the game’s better teams, playing smart, tough, desperate hockey; players racing and battling for every loose puck while ever-mindful of their position, striving to create the one chance that could win it all, aware that any mistake, any overcommitment, any miscue, any lack of attention to detail could finish their team—it was an electrifying five or ten or maybe fifteen minutes, and then in an explosive flash of ecstasy or horror it was over. If the goaltending was downright heroic, and it went to second overtime—and a game or two would go that far every two or three years—it was cause to go to the medicine cabinet at intermission and gulp down some digitalis. And if they actually extended that into a third OT, my God, it was unbelievable, it was something you saw only a few times in your life, something you talked about for years. (pages 35-36)
Tags: Jeff Z. Klein, Karl-Eric Reif, or how a bunch of guys with too much money and too little sense are killing the greatest game on earth, sudden death overtime, The Death of Hockey
