Running for Your Life: Hockey Hockey Hockey Hockey

It’s that time of year. What my pal Coach Tully and I call the best time of year, the last two weeks of April, the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs !

My team, the Penguins, limped in, and any reasonable observer would say their odds of getting past the first round and the powerfully built Rangers, the best team in the league, are pretty much nil. Indeed, these guys should harvest my Penguins in a sweep, like park rangers on a church group without a permit.

But wait a minute. The Penguins have a Sutter. Brandon Sutter. The only starting Sutter among the 16 teams in the tournament.

For the uninitiated, the Sutter family is hockey gold. His father Brent won the Cup twice with the New York Islanders. (The family from Viking, Alberta, counts six Cups as players, two as head coach [Darryl of the LA Kings]). And Brandon played hockey gold in the final game of the year, scoring both goals for the Penguins in a 2-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.

The odds are long. But we got Sutter gold. (Even Uncle Darryl’s Kings are in the show.) Let the games begin !

Running for Your Life: Running Season?