March may be full of madness, but April is an even better month to be a sports fan.

In fact, April is arguably the best month of the year when it comes to sports, and certainly the busiest month of the year, with a wide range of options to choose from and just about every base covered no matter what your taste in competitive spirit may be.

This weekend alone, sports fans can choose from the Masters, the Davis Cup, NBA, MLB, NHL playoffs, NASCAR or even the lowly MLS and the biggest sports star on the planet.

Next weekend, the NBA playoffs get under way, with one of the most wide-open fields in recent memory – at least in the West – and in two weeks time, football fans can get their offseason fix with the annual over-hyped NFL draft, providing the ongoing Arena Football season doesn’t satisfy that need.

About the only problem in April, in fact, is finding enough television screens or hours in the day to watch it all, or unearthing enough excuses to explain to your significant other the importance of it all and why you need to watch. The opening few weeks of the NBA and NHL playoffs are particularly exciting, with a ton of great games every night.

Especially in the chase for Lord Stanley, where a No. 8 seed stands for anything but rolling over in submission.

Last season in the NBA, it was considered a huge upset when the eighth-seeded Warriors knocked off the No. 1-seeded Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, the first time that had ever happened.

Compare that to the NHL, where it’s only news if an eight seed doesn’t knock off a No. 1 every couple of years, which is why the hockey playoffs are so wide open and intriguing every year.

In Canada, of course, the hockey playoffs are huge, more important even than the national curling championships or Celine Deion Day, not that the poor dears have had a whole lot to celebrate recently.

After all, they may live and breathe hockey north of the border, but they haven’t drank from Lord Stanley’s chalice in 15 years and counting, which must be killing them, especially when you consider that such hockey-tradition “hot beds” like Anaheim, Carolina and Tampa Bay have brought home the past three cups, all of them beating Canadian teams in the final.

But if June is no picnic for the poor Canadian sports fans, they can at least enjoy April as much as the rest of us.

In the NBA, meanwhile, this year’s playoffs are surely among the most anticipated in some time, with David Stern and his television exec buddies drooling over the possibility of a seven-game Lakers-Celtics finals.

The West should be a crap shoot with numerous worthy contenders and some wonderfully intriguing matchups on tap in the coming weeks.

In soccer, meanwhile, the Champions League is building steam this month, with last week’s quarterfinal showdown between Liverpool and Arsenal an instant classic.

The tournament resumes in two weeks with a highly anticipated semifinal matchup between Manchester United and Barcelona, arguably two of the three biggest clubs in the world.

And even golf is big in April, with today’s final round of the Masters shaping up to be a dog fight, with a certain Tiger Woods refusing to go away easily.

Indeed, all in all, April is a great month to be a sports fan.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

(Opinions expressed in columns do not necessarily reflect those of The Eureka Reporter.)