Last week was the beginning of one of my favorite times in sports for the year. It’s one which more passion and effort go into playing the game than any sport. I’m not talking about baseball or NBA basketball either. Instead, I’m talking about the Stanley Cup playoffs.

I’ll admit I’m not the biggest hockey fan in the world, and it’s hard to keep up with it during the regular season since games aren’t broadcast nearly as much as the NBA thanks to NBC covering one game occasionally on Saturdays and the Versus channel (which not many people know about) being one of those stations placed conveniently in between the Food Network and the History Channel.

But once the tournament for Lord Stanley’s cup begins, it’s an entirely different sport. Sixteen wins is the requirement to declare yourself a world champion in this sport, and it’s filled with probably more sacrifice and traditions than any other sport.

The first one that I think of is the players for every team will not shave until their respected team is eliminated from contention. Usually by the Stanley Cup finals, players are unrecognizable from their media guide pictures because of the beards that develop and can almost be reminiscent of ZZ Top. Then you have the superstitions of the captain’s decision to touch or lift up the trophy for winning the Eastern and Western Conference. Perhaps one of the classiest moments in sports comes after a winner is decided in every series and both teams line up and shake hands, even after the finals.

You never see that in any other sport. In the Super Bowl, some players will shake hands but a bunch celebrate or head back to the locker room. In the World Series and NBA finals, it’s either one extreme or the other. Not in hockey. Every member of every team shakes hands, no matter if they literally hate each other or not. That’s pretty impressive considering the rivalries can get pretty intense.

Think New York and Boston in baseball or Ohio State and Michigan. Rivalries in hockey comparable to those include, locally, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. That’s not even the strongest feud. The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadians have a storied past as being two of the original six teams. The New York Rangers and New York Islanders are like the Mets and Yankees of hockey. Then the New Jersey Devils aren’t too far off from them. In the west, and more specifically Canada, the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames is one of Canada’s biggest rivalries.

As for the effort, hockey players will play through anything it seems. Remember that scene in Monty Python’s search for the Holy Grail where the Black Knight loses his limbs and says it’s merely a flesh wound? I think he was a natural-born hockey player before his time. When’s the last time you saw anyone jump in front of a piece of vulcanized rubber flying at 120 miles an hour just to win a game? I’m not talking about a goalie either.

There’s a different story every year of the playoffs. Last year the Pens made an impressive run to the finals but were defeated by a vastly superior Detroit Red Wings club. Personally, I’m hoping my favorite team, the Carolina Hurricanes, can pull off another run liked they did in 2006 and win the entire thing. Right now they’re behind in a series with the Devils at 3-2 after winning one of the most exciting hockey games in recent memory with a 4-3 score and the last goal coming with .2 seconds left on the clock. Amazing.

So while many people are concentrating on the Pirates, other baseball teams, or any crazy such things in the NBA, I’ll be cheering on the Hurricanes and a distant, second-favorite Penguins to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

I only wish the Hanson Brothers of the 70s could face off against Hanson Brothers of that band in the mid-to-late 90s, Logan