The NHL playoffs are the most underrated thing ever... Now GPA approved!!!

Maybe those Mayans really were onto something.

Today, I was informed that the Georgia Press Association - having obviously gone to the bar before their voting session - named one of my columns the best of 2011. I know... I'm scared, too. But on to more pressing issues.

I know that hockey isn't exactly at the top of the sports watching list for many people, but you should all do yourselves a favor and tune in. The early rounds of NBA and MLB playoff series are often boring and - in the NFL - even some conference championships and Super Bowls can be underwhelming. That is almost never true of playoff hockey.

This year couldn't be a better example. The first round has been underway for all of two days and there have already been multiple upsets and three overtime games. And that brings me to the best part of the NHL playoffs - sudden death overtime. There is no way to accurately describe the optimism, nervousness and anxiety that exists in every second of a playoff hockey game that has gone to overtime. Sure, there are walk-off home runs and basketball buzzer-beaters that can bring an end to a game, but they require a certain amount of setup that people can see coming.

In hockey, the game, the balance of a series, maybe even a team's entire season, can be made or broken with a play that begins and ends in the blink of an eye. In this season's first round, both St. Louis and Pittsburgh took their home ice advantage in Game 1 to overtime, only to have their raucous crowds silenced - and their advantage disappear - in an instant with an OT defeat.

I have a lot of great memories of cheering for the Phillies and Steelers, but few of those moments can match the drama of every Flyers playoff overtime game I've watched. Sitting through a pair of overtime wins - including a Game 7 series clincher - against Washington in 2008 had me losing what was left of my hair and I can still vividly recall the three-hour long nervous breakdown I endured during the Flyers-Penguins 5OT game in 2000.

Every game in every sport has its ups and downs throughout regulation, and most of those trends continue in overtime or extra innings. Basketball teams will use their same rotations, football teams will use the same offensive strategy depending on where they are on the field, and baseball teams will continue to go after most hitters while being wary of big bats in the middle of the lineup. Even though the game is in its most important moments, there is still a relative calm and normalcy about most of the game action.

Not in hockey.

From the moment the game goes into overtime, everything is ramped up to '11' on the intensity meter. A mistake in any other sport can usually be made up. In hockey, a game can be all over before the rest of your team realizes a mistake has even been made.

Even in the non-overtime games, it's hard to match the intensity of postseason hockey. It has all of the hard-hitting, grueling nature of the NFL, but the drawn out length of other sports' playoff series that really allows the hatred to build.

I think that even the sports networks are starting to realize this. Not a year goes by that SportsCenter doesn't have a talking head complain that the NBA playoffs drag on forever and actually take away some of the excitement of the postseason. In fact, the sports media showed almost no enthusiasm when the NBA changed its first round playoff series from best-of-five to best-of-seven, making the postseason even longer.

Now, granted, the NHL only gets about 30 percent of the coverage as the NBA, but they also have their talking heads, and none of them ever complain that the hockey postseason also drags on for over two months.

I think this is due to the more physical nature of hockey. In a couple of weeks, some very boring NBA playoff matchups will take place. Potential pairings like Miami-Philadelphia and Boston-Atlanta don't bring any inherent history and will likely just breeze by without much notice. The same can be said about the beginning of some hockey series, but that can all change once the hard hits start flying.

The Red Wings and Predators have never faced each other in the playoffs before and have never had any huge fights. There was every reason to think that only the actual hockey being played would be of interest in there first round series. That all changed once Nashville's Shea Webber used Henrik Zetterberg's face to test out the structural integrity of the plexiglass at the end of their first game. Numerous unassuming playoff series go by without much to talk about every season with other sports, but hockey? Boom. One game, and there's instant drama for the remainder of the series.

That's what makes playoff hockey a must watch. There's never a dull moment and - if a game can't be settled in regulation - there's no telling how many bone-chilling moments of hope, fear and dread can be had on any given night.

Now that I've done the easy job of selling you on the excitement of watching the NHL playoffs, I'll leave all of you to the much more difficult task of finding one of the games on television...