The OT Zone

Regulation has just ended in Game 3 of the Dallas-Vancouver series. And so I find myself faced with the classic conundrum that all hockey fans must wrestle with at one point or another. Do I hang in there for what could potentially be a repeat of Game 1, where the result wasn't determined until the wee hours of the morning? Or do I slink off to bed, defeated by the gravitational forces that pull my eyelids lower and lower?

It's part of the beauty and torture that is playoff hockey. Because while overtime is some of the most thrilling and intense hockey of the playoffs...it's also some of the most thrilling and intense hockey of the playoffs. As you get more and more exhausted, as the hours tick on and the sun starts to rise, every nailbiting second becomes intensified until you are a bundle of nerves. And this is when I'm relatively neutral towards the two teams involved.

It's tricky - the sane person that occasionally surfaces is pleading with me to drag my tired carcass up to bed. Meanwhile the crazy, obsessive hockey nut that has most of the control is jumping up and down and clapping in excited anticipation. Overtime! Yay! Maybe it'll go two rounds...three rounds...even four! Bring on the sunrise, I'm not going to bed until there's a winner!

So who wins? Will it be sanity, logic, and rational thought? Or will it be the hockey fan dying to see the conclusion?

Tough choice.

Looks like I'll be awfully sleepy at work tomorrow.