Recording a new album can quickly become an exercise in doing a lot of waiting around. But for Wes Miles and Mat Santos, the lead singer and bassist, respectively, for the band Ra Ra Riot, their downtime over the last couple of weeks has been largely consumed by one thing: playoff hockey. Both Miles, who grew up a Devils fan in New Jersey, and Santos, who roots for the Bruins, are big hockey fans — and they've got the tattoos, Starter jackets, and national anthem performances to prove it. Grantland's Katie Baker spoke to the pair over the weekend, as their favored hockey teams (and Baker's) faced first-round elimination.

So you're down in Mississippi recording a new album, and you're also big hockey fans whose teams are currently in the playoffs. What are your days like?

Mat: Well, usually we've been doing six-day weeks, and we're usually here at the studio for about 12 hours a day. It sounds like a lot but it's relaxed because usually only one of us is doing something at a given time. Right now, in this phase in our recording, because we've been here for about four weeks, Rebecca [Zeller] is doing violin overdubs. So the rest of us just get to sort of hang out. You might hear a basketball being bounced around. And we bring our hockey net. So we play street hockey in the parking lot, watch hockey … we mostly do hockey-related things when we're not recording.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.

• The NBA suspended Lakers forward Metta World Peace for seven games after he elbowed James Harden on Sunday. Terrorists, who only saw the headline "World Peace Suspended for 7 Days," released a statement saying it was too short, but that what the hell, they'd take it.

I'm sure Tom Brady is going to take a ton of solace from the fact that the image of him sitting on the Lucas Oil turf, in a state of total dejection and disappointment, has become an Internet meme, which people in offices, outside of elevators, and pretty much everywhere else you can imagine (as well as a few spots you'd rather not) are replicating.

This was a very odd game — with a very dramatic finish.

Early in Sunday's Super Bowl, the New York Giants — aided by New England quarterback Tom Brady's safety — looked unstoppable. The Giants had a huge advantage in both momentum and yards, but despite all this, they only scored nine points. Then Tom Brady and the Patriots became, well, Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Brady went 16-for-16 with two touchdown passes sandwiched around the halftime show, and New England looked like it might simply run away with the game. And then … I'm not even sure.

The Giants kicked a couple field goals, Brady roughed his shoulder up on the turf, and then — with about four minutes left in the game — the Patriots had one of the most heartbreaking sequences in franchise history: Brady and Wes Welker, who know a thing about throwing and catching, failed to connect on a throw up the seam, where Welker was essentially uncovered. Then New York quarterback Eli Manning hit Mario Manningham on a nearly impossible throw down the sideline for a huge 38-yard gain. By now, you know the rest. The Giants scored the game-winning touchdown after Patriots coach Bill Belichick smartly let them, and Brady failed to make good on his desperation drive with a late Hail Mary. Giants win, 21-17.

Let's compare those two game-changing pass plays: the failed pass from Brady to Welker and the play of the game, Manning's fantastic throw to Manningham down the sideline.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.

• The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI. And that's after viewers were inundated with patriotic propaganda, from the national anthem to a crazy Clint Eastwood ad, without ever seeing one commercial featuring actual giants. Not one!

• Eli Manning, who threw for 296 yards and led the game-winning drive, was named the game's MVP for the second time in his career. "GEE WHIZ AND JEEZUM CROW!" he shouted, waving his hat around in excitement. "GOLLLLLY, THAT'S SWELL!" He then stared at the Chevrolet Corvette he won, and wondered when Peyton would take him for a ride to the dairy for some iced cream.

This late in the playoffs, nothing comes easy, and that was certainly true of the New York Giants 20-17 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers. Ostensibly the game was won — or lost — because of San Francisco punt returner Kyle Williams's fumble in overtime, which set up Eli Manning and the Giants for a short, game winning field goal in sudden death. But outside of a few mistakes, the game was incredibly well played. particularly by the defenses. And it was also the type of game where stats can be a bit misleading: 49ers quarterback Alex Smith, as a result of a couple of well placed throws to tight-end Vernon Davis, had the edge over Eli Manning in some key passing statistics, including passer rating and yards per pass attempt, which is my favorite non-advanced passing metric. But those belied the reality: Manning put in an incredible performance against an absolutely ferocious defense, repeatedly delivering key throws under pressure (which he was under constantly). It took him an incredible 58 pass attempts (plus six sacks, making 64 called pass plays) to generate just over 300 yards, but the Giants run-game was nearly non-existent until late. Indeed, if not for the symbiotic relationship Manning had with receiver Victor Cruz — who had 10 key catches for 142 yards — there would have been no 17 hard-fought points, no overtime, no Super Bowl berth.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.

• Eli Manning threw for 316 yards and two touchdowns and Lawrence Tynes hit the game-winning 31-yard field goal as the Giants advanced won the NFC championship with a 20-17 win over the 49ers. After the game, Satan lazily turned on his television and came across Tom Coughlin's post-game press conference. "Holy shit," he said, shuffling through some papers, "I still haven't collected that guy's soul from 2008?!"

• Billy Cundiff shanked a 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left as Tom Brady and the Patriots survived to win the AFC championship 23-20. After the game, former Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood placed a sympathetic phone call to Cundiff. "Don't worry," said Norwood. "People will forget this after a few- sorry, hold on a second Billy, someone's urinating on my window again."

It's easy to look at the last few months of the New York Giants' season as some sort of flashback to 2007. There’s the dismal expectations, the near-victory in a late-season shootout against an undefeated team, the big underdog playoff road win, the huge catch here, the New England Patriots hurtling toward the Super Bowl over there.

But for all the similar stats or the new spins on old narratives, this year feels markedly different. 2007 had the feel of one of those nights where you don't plan on leaving your couch and then somehow end up on a wild 18-hour bender. This year things seem a little more high-stakes, a little more real, the kind of season that's liable to make you wind up in rehab.

Hey, remember that time Craig Robinson, of Flip Flop Fly Ball fame, made that graphic for the baseball playoffs? That was cool, right? Good news: We asked him to do it again for the NFL playoffs. And this one even has an awesome bit involving the National Mall.

You can follow Craig on Twitter at @flipflopflying and buy his book, Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure, which is available now.

(Eds. note: Oops, sorry guys. We know about the 49ers takeaways/giveaways thing. Our bad. Working on it, stand by!)

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In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.

• The Texas Rangers reached a deal with Japanese pitching sensation Yu Darvish worth approximately $60 million. When he heard the news that he'd be going to Arlington, Darvish immediately learned the English translation for "T-Bone steak," "dude ranch," and, "I'm Japanese, so please stop calling me 'Jorge' in a vaguely menacing way."

• According to a source, Tim Tebow sustained serious injuries in the third quarter of the Broncos' loss to the Patriots. He soldiered on despite torn rib cartilage, a bruised lung, and fluid buildup. He laid pretty low on Monday, but gave hope and solace to his followers when he was back up and about on the third day.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.

• In his greatest act of humility yet, Tim Tebow threw for just nine completions and 136 yards as the New England Patriots crushed the Denver Broncos 45-10. The most awkward part of the game came when Bill Belichick demanded that Tebow acknowledge his own mediocrity as a quarterback, saying he had the power to blow him out or give him a close, honorable defeat, and Tebow was like, "You could have no power at all against me unless it had been give you from above, therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greatest sin," and Broncos head coach John Fox was like, "hey, wackos, leave me out of this."

Don’t buy into the hype. Week 15 wasn’t shocking. It wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t weird. It was normal. It is completely modus operandi in the NFL for good teams to lose (Green Bay Packers), bad teams to win (Indianapolis Colts), and the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL (Joe Webb) to not even get a chance to engineer a miraculous comeback. Do you know what was strange Sunday? The fact that Caleb Hanie started at quarterback in the National Football League. It wasn’t just bad quarterbacking from Hanie, it was performance art, it was interpretive dancing, it was desperation, it was emotion, it was terrible. Hanie’s start against the Seattle Seahawks was like an SNL sketch with the same punch line over and over. The punch line was “interception.”