Toughest trophy

Compared with other athletes, NHL players face a torturous path to the Stanley Cup.

	[AP photo]
	Tino Martinez is greeted by Jose Cruz after the Tampa native's three-run homer in the fifth inning gave the Rays a 6-0 lead.

Try as he might, Denis Potvin just couldn't find the right way to describe the effort needed to win the Stanley Cup.

The former Islanders defenseman used words such as inhuman, demanding and burnout. But none really set the desired tone.

So Potvin told the story of running into old friend and Canadiens center Bobby Smith after Montreal won the 1986 championship. Potvin said Smith asked "in utter amazement" of New York's run of four straight Cups, "How did you guys do it?"

Smith didn't want to know how the Islanders won, Potvin said, but how they endured.

"He was so exhausted," Potvin said recently. "And they won just one."

You want Survivor? Then forget that dumb television show and check out the NHL playoffs.

Teams play four best-of-seven series that could add two months and 28 games to a schedule that already includes up to 11 exhibition games and 82 games in the regular season. That's 121 games.

And that doesn't factor in the physical demands of a sport in which players crash into each other at up to 20 mph, punch each other in the head and bash and slash each other with sticks.

Or the mental demands of a playoff schedule in which games, known to go into five and six overtimes, are generally played every other day and spark emotions from sky high to rock bottom.

"It's the toughest thing to win out of all the major sports," Lightning coach John Tortorella said.

"It's the toughest trophy to win because you're not going for a few games or for a few weeks. But you're going for a couple of months to get this done. And it's a fight every other night. No disrespect to the other sports, but I defy anybody to say there is a tougher thing to win than the Stanley Cup."

Football? Tough sport, but the Bucs won only three playoff games, including the Super Bowl, after the 2002 season. Meaning that with four preseason games and 16 regular-season games, the Bucs played fewer games in a season than the Lightning could play in the playoffs.

Baseball teams play about 30 exhibition games, 162 regular-season games and three layers of playoffs that can add up to 19. And basketball has the same regular-season and playoff setup as hockey.

But as Potvin said of those sports, and with all due respect, of course, "They don't have the risks of someone coming at your body 20 mph with a stick teeth high. That makes (hockey) a tougher sport."

Now before all you outraged football, baseball and basketball fans start writing letters, know that some who play those sports marvel at what hockey players endure in the playoffs.

Bucs running back Mike Alstott, as tough as they come and a Lightning season-ticket holder, said he expects Tampa Bay and Montreal, which begin the East semifinals Friday at the St. Pete Times Forum, to be "flying out there, banging off the boards, trying to hurt each other. It's the roughest sport out there as far as I'm concerned."

And Rays first baseman Tino Martinez, who went through three rounds of playoffs with the Yankees to win a World Series, called the NHL playoffs "survival of the fittest.

"It's got to be way harder than baseball. Every game is important, and I'm sure after each game they are exhausted, physically and mentally exhausted. And to have seven-game series all the way through. It's not only the best team wins, ... it's whoever survives. You're playing at a high level every night, and you can't afford to throw away a game. I can't imagine what they go through."

Darryl Sydor tried to paint a picture. The Lightning defenseman has been in three Cup finals and won with the 1999 Stars in a final that ended with a triple-overtime win in Game 6 against the Sabres.

Dallas played 23 playoff games that season, eight with overtime.

"It's the toughest thing I've ever been through," Sydor said. "We had guys (between games) limping around in casts and boots. The adrenaline your body has really helps you get through it, but that's why it's so mentally draining. You're on a high after a win and a low after a loss, and you have to come back within 48 hours for another huge game."

And another huge series in which the competition is better and intensity higher.

"I don't think any sport has that kind of grind to it," said former Lightning coach Terry Crisp, who won Stanley Cups with the Flyers as a player and Flames as a coach. "Nobody (in those other sports) is drilling you and wanting to drop the gloves and hammer you."

Sydor said you survive by simply finding enough time to rest. Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk said it is important to limit the distractions off the ice, such as demands of family and the media, which he said are just as draining.

Still, Lightning wing Martin St. Louis said, "It's a good problem to have."

"The further you go, it is a grind, but the players smell it," Tortorella said of the Cup. "The energy comes back because you're close. They're close to the biggest prize, and that keeps them going."

And going and going and going.

Today's lineup
Lightning