You can talk about the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, the Indy 500, etc. Those are events that I'd call, "bloated."  These events generate their size from the media and the hype. The events themselves are no different from regular events that are similar other than the artificial build-up.

There is no event more interesting, more exciting, more driven from the purity of its own intensity than...Game 7.  There is something about the finality of it, about the sense of the immovable object meeting the irresistable force that results in two teams, two sets of players, two entire fan bases, two universes finally meeting in the ultimate head-to-head showdown, where the winner moves on and the loser is gone forever.

I know I am biased about this, but I will take it one step further and state that a Game 7 of an NHL playoff series literally tops them all.  I love baseball, but it doesn't have the furious intensity of hockey.  Basketball players are incredible athletes, but I don't believe that the players have the personal investment health and safety wise that hockey players do.  A hockey player wouldn't rationally sacrifice an appendage in order to win a playoff game, but hockey players are rarely rational while they are competing in a playoff game.  Earlier this season, a player was literally hit in the throat with a slap shot.  The player skated to the bench grasping at his throat, but managed to gather himself in time so as not to miss his next shift.  Luckily, his only lasting injury from the shot was the inability to actually speak for two weeks.  Earlier this season, a player suffered from cardiac arrest, on the bench.  His first question upon barely regaining consciousness before physically leaving the building on a stretcher, was how much time was left in the game and could he continue.

There are few conflicts in sports as monumental as a hockey game 7.  I didn't get to see the Rangers-Penguins Game 7 last night, as we unfortunately had our roller hockey awards dinner.  It was fascinating to see, however, the huddles of kids and parents of all ages literally hovering around their smart phones trying to get a glimpse, earfull or just information as to the score and ticking down of the clock.  I couldn't help but think of how it related to the stories our elders told of crowding around transitor radios listening to sports events many years ago.  There is the ultimate high of victory, the glory...then there is the lowest of disappointments.  The exhaustion and complete expenditure of everything you have left in your heart and your gut, only for it to not be enough.  To abruptly and unceremoniously eliminate you from your quest and to detonate your opportunity to continue playing hockey.

There really is nothing like it.