Or much of anything else, for that matter.

"Your life goes on hold. Your friends go on hold. Your family goes on hold. Everything outside of hockey goes on hold," Hitchcock said. "The bills don't get paid."

Uh-oh, see above.

As Hitch considered the question -- "What makes the NHL playoffs so intoxicating?" -- his smile revealed that just thinking of the Blue Jackets making their first trip to the postseason was a pleasing enterprise. And it's more than soft speculation. Entering yesterday, the Blue Jackets were ninth in the Western Conference with 51 points, but only two points out of fifth place. And from all appearances, this team is on the rise.

The dubious and doubtful, with good reason, note that the Jackets have been in this close-but-not-really spot before. Fair enough. But the point is not whether Hitchcock and the boys will make the playoffs, but what they, and we, will be missing if they don't.

In eight previous seasons, there has been so much hope yet so little happening with the Jackets and the playoffs that a kind of emotional self-preservation has kicked in, a guard against the letdown of yet another empty postseason.

The safety device is understandable, but a better approach would be to press into the pain so that the experience of "loss" creates deeper desire to get there.

This is where Hitch, as well as players who have tasted the playoffs, can fill in the blanks.

"Fans will see a sense of desperation early in the playoffs that is about as raw as you can get," said Hitchcock, who won the 1999 Stanley Cup with Dallas. "And then as the playoffs move on, what they'll see is survival. They'll hear and see stories of players being carried off the ice, only to play 24 hours later."

And they'll hope to see it and hear it every other day as their team tries to secure the Cup by winning 16 games in two months. It is a long haul worthy of hockey's culture, where effort often outperforms talent.

"It's hard to explain until you're a part of it," backup goaltender Wade Dubielewicz said. "It's maybe not the best team that wins it, but the team that wants it more. It's beautiful to be part of."

More than in any other major sport, intensity, speed and crisp execution all increase during the NHL playoffs, which raises the question: Why don't players go all-out all season?

The answer is hockey honest, which is to say without apology.

"Regular seasons are too long in professional sports," said center Michael Peca, who has played in two Stanley Cup Finals. "They drag on. Obviously there's a goal, which is to finish as high as you can but when you're in the playoffs, now there's an endgame, a goal. It's just more fun."

And it's not about money. NHL paychecks, with the exception of Stanley Cup bonus money, have gone out by the time the playoffs begin in mid-April.

"You're seeing the level of competitiveness and pace of the game and toughness go up when you're really playing for free," said defenseman Mike Commodore, who has appeared in two Cup Finals.

Hitchcock agreed.

"It feels like it did when you were a kid, playing for a big trophy with no money involved," he said. "It's 100 percent hockey. No promotions. No radio shows. Nothing."

Yet at the same time, it is everything. This spring would be a good time to get a taste of that.

Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.

roller@dispatch.com