Every athlete dreams of winning a championship ranging from a national NCAA title, a big tournament championship, or a championship at a professional level. When we think of professional sports championships, several trophies come into our minds.
The National Basketball Association has the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Major League Baseball has the Commissioner’s Trophy. The National Football League has the most anticipated championship every year, the Super Bowl and the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
However, when it comes to which sport has the most difficult championship to win, none come close to the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup, 134 years old that has the name of every winner engraved in it.
When it comes to the NHL regular season, it comes down to 82 games starting in October and going until April with an All-Star break. With how physical the ice hockey game is, being one of the only sports to allow hitting and giving only a 5 minute penalty after a fight, injuries happen often and can be detrimental if a team’s star player gets hurt for a long period of time.
“The athletic ability it takes to play hockey at such a high level makes it way harder compared to other sports,” freshman roller hockey player Zack Osborne says, “the fact that it takes a full team not just one or two guys makes it extremely difficult to win.”
Only 16 teams make into the playoffs, 8 from the western conference and 8 from the eastern conference. Once the playoffs start, it’s a 2-month battle in which team can win 16 games and claim Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Each playoff series is a best of 7 series, and with there being 4 rounds of playoffs, the maximum games a team could play is 28 which is about a quarter of the regular season.
In addition to this, there are no shootouts after overtime like the regular season. Each team keeps playing overtime until one team scores.
“You have to play a best of seen after a long 82 game season. Overtime is continuous in playoffs; the longest game ever went into 6 overtimes which is basically playing 3 games back-to-back to back.” Says sophomore Preston Goshorn, “Some of the greatest talents to ever play retire empty handed because of the competitive standard that the NHL playoffs have. No lead is safe, and it shows the true stamina and endurance of an athlete.”
Players will do anything to claim the ultimate prize, playing through several injuries.
In 2002, Detroit Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman played through a blown-out knee, Tampa Bay Lighting goaltender Ben Bishop played through a torn groin in their 2015 playoff campaign, star defenseman Erik Karlsson played through a fractured foot in 2017.
Last year, Florida Panther Matthew Tkachuk after winning his second straight Stanley Cup, revealed in an interview that he was playing through a hernia and a torn adductor muscle.
With the Stanley Cup playoffs underway currently, it’s only a matter of time until we see more upsets, game 7 heroics, and learn what injuries players were playing with. All these athletes go through a difficult 82 game season and a 2 month war for one reason; because it’s the cup.
