It’s not that I don’t like April, because I do. It’s the most enjoyable and overstuffed sporting month of the year and has a little bit of something for all sporting tastes and types. It is kind of like a double-stuffed Oreo cookie. It’s good for some, but a little too much for others. For starters, the National Collegiate Athletic Associations (NCAA) March Madness came to a screeching in halt in April, with an eventual basketball champion being crowned. This year it was the University of Duke Blue Devils, last year it wasn’t, and at no point in the last two decades has it been my team, the University of Villanova Wildcats. Ah well, there is always next year, or the one after that.

If you’re a fan of golf, the mother-of-all golf tournaments took place in April, the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Master’s tournament with all the world’s best golfers taking part vying for the “Green Jacket”. This year’s tourney welcomed back media lightning rod Tiger Woods and all his transgressions to the golf course, but it was good ole “Lefty” Phil Mickelson who spoiled the parade and took home the hardware, coming in first and winning the third “green jacket” of his career. It was a great story.

Other events that occur in April are: the always exciting start of the Major Leagues Baseball (MLB) season; the beginning of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) playoffs; and the National Football League’s (NFL) draft, where we get to see what our teams’, in my case the Philadelphia Eagles’, future is going to look like as over-hyped and un-proven college football players get drafted to their new NFL teams, and will ultimately get paid far too much money to do a whole lot of nothing… where do I sign up?

But, but, but, the biggest event that happens in April is… wait for it… the National Hockey League playoffs, and once again I will be waiting with baited breath for the Vancouver Canucks to win the Stanley Cup. the Calgary Flames are already out, not qualifying for the playoffs, which in its own right, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so I already feel like a winner. However, I have watched this movie before, the one where I grow a playoff beard, somehow thinking that the Canucks can’t be eliminated from the playoff until I beard fills in, which will take several months, and which would ultimately, therefore, take the Canucks to the Finals, but deep down inside I know, whether or not I want to admit it, that Vancouver will lead me on for a round or two and which is when it will all come to a screeching halt. Vancouver will blow a 2-1/3-1 series lead and be eliminated. But let’s hope that I am wrong.

So, there it is my friends, the reason why April is the best month to be a sports nut, like I am, and the reason why every month should be April. And yes, I do say that because statistics show that the Canucks typically play into June. So, if it always remains April, the Canucks will never lose. Just my theory.