After pouring all your time, energy and effort in to the regular season, your team is asking you to kick it into a new gear for playoffs. And a new gear you'll find.

I never experienced a regular-season NHL shift, let alone one in the playoffs. But I have experienced my fair share of postseason action. From my junior hockey days, where I racked up nine best-of-seven playoff series over three years, to my days in the ECHL where I saw the conference finals in back-to-back years, I can tell you first-hand that it isn't just NHL playoffs that are awesome – it's hockey playoffs. For whatever reason, the game just lends itself well to a best-of-seven format.

Before game one, you have to be prepared for anything. You have to know that at some point, you may be down 5-on-3, winning in triple-overtime or overcoming one of the many forms of playoff adversity. You have to process it quickly and move on. The peaks and valleys are so extreme it feels like you're a drug addict, and there's no time to be caught off-guard.

Players, coaches and media rehash the cliché about keeping an even keel. But how are you supposed to do that while maintaining the all-too important emotional involvement? It sucks when you lose, and it's great when you win. It's better to let yourself feel those emotions, deal with them, and have a clear mind for the next game.

But before you can even get there, you have to prepare. Prior to game one, there's an unbridled energy in every conversation. The routine is different, too. You have to have a couple team meetings – meetings that are unlike anything you had the entire season – to discuss your opponent.

In the regular season, coaches adopt a "just worry about us" attitude. Because really, prepping for 82 games with a meeting for each opponet, would be impossible as teams change and go on streaks.

With an 82-game sample size, however,you can find some trends in your opponent's style. You can identify strengths and weaknesses, find their key players and counter their systems.

With a fresh, crisp packet of paper in front of you, you do the homework before the test. And at these meetings, you usually feel great. Practice has been tempered to promote rest, you've been in peak game shape for a long time, and you know the equipment manager is going to make sure everything is crisp and new for the big game. It's a secure feeling, knowing you'll have new twigs, fresh steel on your wheels, and anything else you need. It's crunch time, so there's no room for a scratched visor to start the series.

When that puck drops, it's like the Legend of Bagger Vance: The crowd, music and other distractions fade into a blur, and all you can allow yourself to see and feel is on that ice. You're right back to relying on instincts, so it becomes just another hockey game, but one in which you pay attention to doing the little things right. Finish that check. Don't take chances. Whatever coach wants, coach gets. There's no experimenting in game 83.

Before warm-ups start, these are the things that a coach preaches. Systems and big topics are well-covered by now, and it's time to remember the little things that make success possible.

As the coach leaves the room and lets the team prepare there's an eerie silence, save for the sound of stretching tape and music. Usually there's a lot more going on – guys joking, chatting, stretching, and complaining. The team is always a little more serious on night one, and that can lead to bad things.

I've never really been the über-serious type, so this is when it's time for me to do my thing. One year in the ECHL, I was called into the coach's office just after showing up before the game. I hadn't even gotten out of my suit yet.

Coach: "Y'know how I sometimes want you to be a little more serious?"

Me: "Yeah, I've been made aware of that."

Coach: "Not today. It's like someone died in that dressing room. Go be ... a ... y'know ... a ..."

Me: "Clown?"

Coach: "A clown. Yes."

Me: "Done."

This is what happens before a puck ever gets dropped on night one. Before it starts in reality, the game starts inside your head.

The playoffs are a roller coaster, all right. I already miss riding it.

Here's to hockey playoffs!

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Great read

It just leaves me with one question...

How does one lighten up an uber-serious (yes, I used uber) locker room without getting tarred and feathered? Or at least vigorously beaten with a bag of pucks.

Blake Benzel , April 20, 2010

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