Why I like hockey so much

People I know who don't like hockey sometimes ask me, "Joe, why do you like hockey so much?"

First of all, any hockey fan will tell you that hockey's got plenty of fast-paced, physical action. My favorite sports to watch are football, hockey, Australian Rules Football and Rugby, so I definitely enjoy the ones with more contact and injuries. Hockey has lots of collisions, black eyes and bleeding, which help make it very intense and entertaining.

Professional hockey is so much better than pro basketball, baseball and football in that there is way too much chest-thumping, trash-talking and overall childish behavior occurring in those other sports.

Hockey players always say the right things. As tough as it is to score goals, they never participate in overexcessive celebrations. After beating the crap out of each other during playoff series, they all line up and shake hands.

It also helps to know that one of my heroes is the great Mario Lemieux. We were both born on the exact same day and year, which makes us contemporaries. Among his numerous accomplishments, Lemieux scored on the first shift of his first game, scored all five possible ways in one game, and won two Stanley Cups. After being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, he missed a month of the 1992-93 season in order to receive treatment, then still went on to win the scoring title. As the player/owner, he saved his Pittsburgh franchise from moving, but this year he was forced to retire because of a heart ailment.

PLAYOFFS

Stanley Cup - As of Wednesday evening, Anaheim, Buffalo and Carolina surprisingly held dominating 3-0 leads over their opponents. In the Conference Finals, the pick is Carolina over Buffalo in 7. Anaheim will await San Jose or Edmonton.

NBA - In the first round, all 8 teams that owned the home court advantage were favored and won their respective series in the predictable NBA.

San Antonio was the best road team this season, so expect the Spurs to split their next two games in Dallas before winning their series in 7. Phoenix and Miami should do the same and also advance in 7, while Detroit advances in 5.

NATIONAL ANTHEM

Two weeks ago I talked about how it was a disgrace that the national anthem was not being taken seriously enough at United States sporting events. It's not funny when people who don't know how to sing miss notes, forget words or even mock when giving their interpretations of the Star-Spangled Banner. Since then it has been made public that a Spanish language version of the U.S. national anthem has been produced.

President Bush's response to the Spanish anthem was that "People who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English." Although one doesn't need to be a citizen of a country to sing its anthem, certainly the President is correct in not accepting any version of the song that includes changes or is not done in English.

Should Americans living in Mexico change the Mexican national anthem and sing that in English? Of course not. That creates tension, not unity.

O Canada is sung in English and French because the French-speaking province of Quebec is officially recognized by the Canadian government. When the United States annexes Mexico as the 51st state, or even Puerto Rico for that matter, Spanish too will become an official language. But for now and always, it is important that we take the anthem seriously at all functions, and hear it the way it's officially supposed to sound.