It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Screw Christmas, mid April through June is the most wonderful time of the year. Between the NHL's and NBA's second season and the MLB season being in its first throes such that everyone thinks that their teams (Royal fans) and fantasy teams (Devo's Dumbasses) have a chance to do legitimate damage this year. Quite simply, there's a lot of intriguing sports on television, enabling you to finely tune that ass groove you cultivated during football season.

Some thoughts from a day of watching Caps/Flyers, Suns/Spurs, Mavs/Hornets, Yanks/O's, and B's/Habs.

-Now that Federov isn't on the Wings anymore and is playing the Jake Taylor role of "Grizzled veteran who wants one more chance at playoff glory," he's pretty likable. Of course Federov has roughly 3 more championships than Taylor, but just sayin.

-If the 1st game is any indication, Suns/Spurs is going to be one of the better playoff series of my lifetime. I mean, come on, a Tim Duncan game-tying 3? Really? That's only slightly less improbable than David Robinson coming off the bench and suiting up after Kurt Thomas fouling out. And it's about time that the Spurs got the Wes Mantooth Treatment: I hate you San Antonio, but goddamn do I respect you.

-The shame of the Suns/Spurs series-whoever wins is probably going to be too beat up to win next round.

-But along those same lines, if the winner ends up playing New Orleans next round, I'm ok with that. It took about 4 minutes of watching CP3 for me to decide on him as my new favorite player in the NBA. And the best part of Chris Paul has to be the fact that he's a bowling aficionado. Who knew?

-To all Knick fans who are made sick by the fact that Eddy Curry is eating a 32 oz. porterhouse while Tyson Chandler thrives, it could be worse: you could be Bulls fans watching this spectacle.

-The only thing more enjoyable than watching Jason Kidd lose is watching Byron Scott oversee the beatdown. In other news, Lawrence Frank missed the Dallas/New Orleans game, spending 3 hours trying to put two left shoes on.

-Switching back to hockey, the third period of the Habs/B's game is why playoff hockey is the greatest spectacle in sports. An intense TD BankNorth Garden saw 2 goals in 11 seconds and the winning goal 2 minutes later.

-But if the Bruins come back from 3-1 to beat the Habs, then the Capitals have to do the same against Philly. I refuse to live in a world where 3 of the 4 eastern conference teams include Philly, Rangers and the Bruins.

-And last and most certainly least, the Yankees. I know it's early, and they've probably begun this season better than most of their recent seasons, but I have a bad feeling. It seems like Mussina, Hughes, and Kennedy suck each time out, and when our pitching decides to crap the bed, the offense tends to take the night off as well. Again, it's early, but it sure smells like 82 wins up in this bitch.