Wall St. Journal: 2008 the Best Sports Year Ever?
Adam Thompson penned this piece for the Wall Street Journal that posits the question: is 2008 the best year for sports so far? He points out a number of stories that have been covered by the nation's sportswriters (and devoured by fans across the country across a variety of sports) to illustrate his point.
"For sports fans, the first six months of this year have been like a meal in a world-class restaurant, where one course repeatedly tops the previous one," Thompson writes. "First course in February: the Patriots miss out on perfection in a major upset involving a ball caught one-handed on a Giants receiver's helmet. Second course in March: an NCAA basketball championship by Kansas features a nine-point comeback in the final 2:12 of regulation. The feast has continued with a pair of wonderful playoffs in the NBA and NHL.
"A Coyotes-Lightning Stanley Cup could be fantastic, producing lifelong memories for fans of those teams. But a sport's health, arguably, depends on periodic tilts between storied franchises with long histories, encounters that come with built-in storylines for national consumption. This year, we've gotten that in bushels. We've seen almost uniformly iconic teams, the ones we grew up watching, playing for it all. Lakers-Celtics. Red Wings-Penguins. Even a less spectacular finale like the BCS championship featured LSU and Ohio State. And that's not even mentioning Danica Patrick's historic IndyCar victory or Jon Lester's inspirational no-hitter."