The Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup last night as you must have heard here (because it has barely been mentioned on Sportscenter), winning the Stanley Cup as an 8 seed in the Western Conference going into the post season. My question is this: Should we be surprised at stuff like this anymore?
Every year, it seems, in the NCAA tournament, there is a Cinderella that makes a run, often all the way to the Final Four. VCU, George Mason and Butler stand out, but even Connecticut, who won the tournament a couple years ago, finished ninth in their conference.
This NFL season, the New York Giants, once left for dead in the regular season, came back and won the Super Bowl after narrowly finding their way into the playoffs. The year before, the Packers were a Wild Card team, and made a deep run to eventually win the Super Bowl.
Last season, the St. Louis Cardinals made it to the playoffs on the last day of the season, after being dead in the water with just a few weeks left in the season. They were 10.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in September, and STILL managed to come back to earn the Wild Card spot, eventually soldiering on and defeating the Texas Rangers.
What I am wondering, then, is what is the point of a regular season? The teams that play the strongest all season, rather than being remembered for their talent, or how they dominated for months, are remembered as chokers. The teams that stunk for months and got hot at the right times are remembered as these great squads. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for these teams meeting their success, but I also don’t think that it’s as big a deal that they are seeded lower going into a season ending tournament anymore. Because of that, if my team isn’t involved, I am going to start rooting for the favorites in postseason now. It’s time we start seeing better teams rewarded, instead of just the hotter teams.
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