The NBA and NHL playoffs just ended, and they seemed to go on for weeks and weeks. But the Democratic Party presidential nomination “playoffs” begin Wednesday and Thursday and – brace yourself – will last for nearly a year.

The Democratic National Committee is preparing to stage at least six presidential candidate debates this year and another six in the first several months of 2020.

Coloradans this spring had professional basketball and ice hockey teams that made it into the second round of their playoffs, and that was fun while it lasted. Colorado also has two entries, former Gov. Hickenlooper and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, in Thursday’s debate, although like the Nuggets and the Avalanche, they are unlikely to make it past their party’s second round.

NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo will host the debates from 7 to 9 P.M. (MDT) from a performing arts center in Miami. Wednesday night’s draw features, among others, Sens. Cory Booker, Amu Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren as well as former Texas U.S. Rep. “Beto” O’Rourke.

Thursday night’s debates promise to be more exciting for Coloradans. Included are U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Battigieg. Also included are Colorado’s Bennet and Hickenlooper.

The national Democratic Party decided that to qualify for these debates a candidate had to meet a minimum threshold in a few credible national polls and/or record 65,000 campaign donations, including 200 in each of 20 states.

Bennet was the last to qualify, and he and Hickenlooper barely met the polling requirements.

Early polling suggests Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Harris might be considered among the front-runners, yet everyone knows it is much too early to rank candidates. Just ask Jeb Bush, who led in the early polling in 2016 but lost the Republican nomination to Donald Trump.

Of note, however, is that several probable front-runners clash on the second evening of this doubleheader. That is the night our two Coloradans – self-proclaimed good friends with strikingly similar public policy views – get thrown into the performance playoff arena.

The stakes are high for every candidate. A gaffe or two at this early stage could be fatal.

Viewers, especially Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, will judge candidates on electability (can they win in November of 2020?), their competence and expertise (how they handle complicated policy questions), their fresh proposals for solving problems (such as trade, the environment, immigration, climate), and likability (do they have the charm and touch of a John F. Kennedy, or a Ronald Reagan, or a Barack Obama?).

Candidates, especially in the time-limited format, have to avoid over-attacking one another. In 2016 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hurt both himself and Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio when he went after Rubio for making too many canned comments.

Candidates can hurt themselves by inadvertent gestures. Al Gore seemed condescending in 2000 when he sighed loudly during George W. Bush’s answers and when he crowded Bush’s physical space. President George H. W. Bush lost points in 1992 when he looked at his wristwatch, making him seem bored and anxiously waiting for the debate to end.

President Gerald Ford was famously criticized and had to awkwardly walk back ill-advised claims that certain parts of Eastern Europe were not under the domination of the then Soviet Union.

Many viewers will be watching to see how far left these candidates will turn. Sanders and Warren are already crowding the left lane. Leftish politics may appeal to activist presidential caucuses and primary voters, but candidates in either major political party who veer too far from the American center generally do not fare well.

The memory of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972 is illustrative. Both took extreme stands and lost big time.

Thus the challenge will be great for Democrats who can define themselves as progressive pragmatists and as candidates who can unify their party (if this is still possible) and attract solid support from independents. Most of the candidates, if not Sanders and Warren, understand that being defined as the “socialist” candidate is an invitation to defeat in November.

Viewers will be asking a number of important questions. Is the candidate too old? Too young? Too strident? Too combative? Too complacent? Too bland? Is the candidate unlikely to be able to work with both parties in Congress? Or is he or she too inexperienced in foreign policy?

Expect Warren to try to win away Sanders supporters. Expect Booker and Harris to try to attract liberals and African-American voters away from Joe Biden. Expect O’Rourke to try to attract some of the younger voters that Buttigieg has won over.

It is hard to know what Bennet and Hickenlooper have to do. They are centrists and pragmatists with good performance records in elected office. But each of them needs a distinctive issue or personal narrative to make them catch fire. For both of them, this is a “do-or-die” moment. But the “do” is probably as unclear to them as it is to us.

Presidential nomination debates are a relatively new experience for this nation. Debating skills or performance or stagecraft may be important in the course of presidential leadership, but we should also value other qualities as equally important – qualities such as character, integrity, listening, conversational ability and judgment.

This question-answer debate format may or may not be the best way for voters to learn who is the most qualified person for the job. Cable news “town halls,” where a single candidate is grilled for a longer period of time, have proved a valuable new format.

The upcoming Democratic debates could well turn out to be a disappointing circus of attempted zingers and awkward plays at “one-upmanship.” Or they could prove to be a reasonable way to help winnow the crowded field of aspirants for this nation’s most important leadership position.

We are not certain we are ready for a year’s worth of political playoffs. But, ready or not, Hickenlooper and Bennet and a gaggle of 18 others will get things going Wednesday and Thursday with a brief national audition from Miami.

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy have observed and analyzed the fifteen presidential elections from 1960 to 2016.