Let us take a moment, Gentle Reader, to let our minds wander back and recall the ten things we found most memorable in the 2007 NHL Playoffs…
1. The emergence of the Kid Devils. The overall flameout that was the Devils postseason this year can do nothing to obliterate the joy we felt while watching our very own Zach Parise come into his own against Tampa Bay. He was an absolute beast in the first few games, and managed to hang on to a spot on the Top Goal Scorers list surprisingly deep into the playoffs. And while Zach was further making it easy for us to admit to including him on our short list of favorite Devils (previously it was pretty obvious he was only on there because he’s cute), Paul Martin and Andy Greene both asserted themselves as actual legit blueliners — Paulie finally stepping up as the dependable top-minutes guy we’d always hoped he could be and Bubbly Greene came out of nowhere to look like a bona fide NHL-caliber D-man.
2. The emergence of “Mic’d Up” as an art form. Slowly but surely, the good folks who bring us hockey on the TV are realizing that giving us some shaky audio feed of muffled hits and predictable shots ringing off goalposts isn’t going to cut it. This year we got some animated, fun, and sometimes even enlightening mic’d up action from the likes of Tom Preissing, Colby Armstrong and Sean O’Donnell. What seemed, when it first debuted a few years ago, to be a ridiculously unnecessary programming hijink is now entering a Golden Era. Look no further than Marty Turco at the All-Star Game to see the potential “Mic’ed Up” can have in bringing us hilariously closer to the action on the ice (without the aide of one Pierre McGuire).
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