Seven Oaks Magazine.

This holiday long weekend atheists and believers alike observed religious rituals. Whether nominally or zealously observing Easter, Vaisahki, or Passover, millions were religiously watching the first weekend of the National Hockey League playoffs. In Vancouver, an old rivalry was renewed, as the Canucks opened their first round series with the Calgary Flames.

For someone like me - raised playing and watching hockey often to the point of obsession - the first round of the NHL playoffs exerts a massive gravitational pull. And I don't mean the kind of relatively harmless bandwagon jumping of the casual fan, sticking one of those annoying Canucks flags on the family van or lamenting Bertuzzi's absence at the water cooler. I'm talking full-blown irrational urges to surreptitiously check the scores on the Internet and watch SportsCentre at 10, 10:30 and 11 p.m. My aversion to billboard king/sports anchor Don Taylor has mysteriously vanished. I need to know the scores. Not just who won the games. But who won, who scored, who got hurt, who's blaming the refs (well, that's everybody), etc.

I know that I have better things I need to do. I'm intensely aware that the attention paid to professional sports - and the egomaniacal millionaires who play them and the billionaires owners who run them - is a distraction from the real injustices in the world (i.e. injustices even more egregious than the Cam Neely-Barry Pederson trade). But nevertheless, it seems I have to watch. And I'm not alone.

In Canada, following the marathon run for the Stanley Cup requires a massive investment of time. We may look incredulously upon the slow-paced pastimes of other nations, boasting of hockey's combination of speed, skill, and physical play. We mock the days-long ordeal of a cricket match, politely declining that sporting colonial legacy. We've never really been able to sit through nine innings of America's pastime. Except for a brief bout of 'Blue Jays fever' in the early 1990s, we can only watch baseball while flipping between at least two other channels. Soccer, the world's sport, has become popular to play as a cheap alternative to minor hockey, but as spectators, we've never really appreciated the methodical, strategic play and the subtle skills of the players. Perhaps no other country, though, devotes such long, un-seasonal months to the national pastime. The NHL playoffs, following a six-month regular season, are a two-month ordeal that absurdly leaves residents of this intemperate country fastened to their couches from April right into June. This unusually warm and sunny long weekend was a perfect example, as Vancouverites substituted CBC, TSN, and Sportsnet for sunscreen.

But enough with the self-flagellation. There is a myriad of good reasons to watch the playoffs, especially this year, with its classic first-round rivalries. Match-ups like Vancouver vs. Calgary and Boston vs. Montreal bring memories flooding back. I remember watching the heartbreaking 1989 overtime loss to Calgary at an awkward late elementary school co-ed party. Mike Vernon robbed gritty captain Stan Smyl of the winner, while at the other end Joel Otto, the face-off king and palindrome everyone loved to hate, kicked the puck in past Kirk McLean.

Reliving old transgressions against the home team is but one of the ways that the playoffs force us to spend some quality time with family and old friends. The rest of the year, we neglect loved ones for work, leisure, and other pursuits. But the Stanley Cup reminds us of our real priorities and brings us home to watch hockey. Moments of great excitement - an overtime goal, a brilliant game-saving glove stop, a punishing body-check against a bitter foe - can motivate 'intimate' moments, with high-fives all around. Most of the interaction, it's true, is dependent on, and mediated through, the actions of the professional athletes on our television screens. But interacting with the television is, of course, one of the most enjoyable things about watching the playoffs.

Who doesn't, secretly at least, enjoy mocking the inane chatter that passes for "colour commentary." On this score, the CBC's Greg Millen provides plenty of fodder. Millen is part of a bizarre phenomenon at the national broadcaster, which appears to be implementing affirmative action for goalies, with Glen Healy doing the Toronto games and Kelly Hrudey alternating nights bantering with Ron MacLean with the Toronto centric , Euro- and Franco phobic Don Cherry. The weird thing about Millen's on-air persona is that he is always yelling at the viewer. Greg, it's a microphone, so tone it down a notch.

Millen also seems incapable of making observations about a player without referencing a recent conversation he had with them. "When I was talking with so-and-so at practice this morning." Yes, Greg, you're still one of the boys. And, yes, we know you used to play in the NHL.

It would be unfair to single out Millen, though. The players and their mechanistic answers to questions are as guilty as the colour less commentators are. "We just need to take it one shift at a time." "The important thing is getting the win for the team." "We just want to take care of our own end first." "We need to work hard and take it to them." But there's something comforting about the whole production. The inane banter, the platitudes and the clichés: It's all part of what makes us want, and need, to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs.