Hockey: Interviewing Brent Seabrook, and why the Olympics top the NHL
Last week, I spoke with Chicago Blackhawks' defenceman Brent Seabrook for a South Delta Leader piece about what it was like for him to compete in the Olympics at home, so I figured I'd spotlight that here. Let's take a look at what he had to say, consider why Olympic hockey is special and think about if there's a way to use those lessons to make the NHL more exciting. One of the most interesting comments I thought Seabrook made was about how Olympic competition is in some ways even more intense than the NHL playoffs, thanks to the single-elimination format and the national, not city-wide, focus on the games. "There was so much at stake in such a short time after the round-robin," Seabrook said. "The qualification and the medal round, it's one game and you're out. Everybody was putting it on the line and making every shift count." That single-elimination format also makes it tougher to recover from a bad shift or a bad game. "I...