So, sports fans, where’s the best North American city to be right now if you want to be smilin’ about your local teams? New Yawk? Well, disappointing seasons for the football Giants, hardball Mets, and roundball Knickerbockers certainly have dampened spirits there, and the underachieving on ice of the payroll-heavy Rangers and Devils has also caused considerable consternation in Gotham. The gridiron Jets? Late-season collapses are becoming December traditions, and they were lucky even to make the NFL playoffs. And let’s not forget the Yankees, who were poised to wrap up their fourth straight World Series last November. Remember? Oh, that’s right, they lost, didn’t they? On the last pitch in the last inning of the last game! A downright shame.

Nah, New Yorkers aren’t exactly wearing ear-to-ear grins about their teams.

Philly. Well, both the Flyers and Sixers are limping to the finish lines, and though both should easily make the playoffs, they had much higher hopes going into their respective seasons than circumstances ultimately warranted. The Eagles had a terrific NFL year, but their loss to the Rams in the NFC championship game still leaves a bitter taste in fans’ mouths as they continue to mutter about what might have been. The Phillies should be decent this season, but their best player is threatening to walk after his contract ends this fall, and this standoff between management and third baseman Scott Rolen is taking shape as the team’s central issue until the August trade deadline. Shades of Mo Vaughn ’97.

Chicago? I could just say "Bulls" and leave it at that, but the Blackhawks have had a surprisingly successful campaign under former Bruins mentor Brian Sutter, and the Cubs and White Sox both have quietly optimistic outlooks for their upcoming seasons despite their histories. Da Bears also had a nice, surprising year, but the Bulls’ string of ineptitude brings down the whole city’s sports aura.

Los Angeles? Well, if it had a football team, then that might help matters, but it’s been seven years since that city hosted professional football, and there’s still so little outrage or activism to secure a new team that LA’s fast becoming irrelevant as a sports town. Had it not been for the fortunes of the Lakers, the city certainly would have been immaterial already, because the Mighty Ducks, Dodgers, and Kings have been virtual nonentities when discussing "hot tickets" in any context of late.

At any rate, I think you know where we’re going here. The Greater Boston area has returned to its position as the hub of the universe when it comes to our sports teams. When was the last team that all four squads had captured our imaginations at the same time? As we’ve documented in recent weeks, the Bruins and Celtics are both heading into the playoffs, shaping up as teams that nobody would want to meet in the first or any other playoff round. The Bruins are on the cusp of completing an improbable worst-to-first season; the Celtics have been entertaining all season, and a late-season trade has made them downright dangerous — as evidenced by their recent road wins in Indianapolis and New Jersey, which sandwiched a methodical home destruction of the two-time defending champion Lakers. When both teams get into playoff action later next week — the first time since the FleetCenter opened in 1995 (when both were summarily dismissed in first-round shellackings) that the two teams have advanced simultaneously — the interest should reach a fever pitch on both fronts, with the B’s for the first time in a decade legitimately talking Cup, and the Green having rebounded from the dark days of M.L. Carr and Rick Pitino to become a likable and exciting team that’s even emerging as a genuine conference-finalist contender.

Playoff basketball and hockey in Boston had become a distant memory, but the rejuvenation of the franchises and their return to relevancy on the New England sports landscape is like the return to town of an old flame, now single again and hoping to rekindle a relationship after many, many years apart. The playoffs will unfold just as our fair city regains its bearings after two other traditional spring-sports extravaganzas: the 106th Boston Marathon next Monday — an event that this year will be bathed in patriotism and could produce some record-breaking performances — and the first Fenway appearance of the dreaded pinstripers. A potential Rogers-versus-Pedro match-up on Saturday will highlight this four-game clash of the payroll titans and give the Sox their first real test of the season after prior tune-ups against weaker sisters Toronto, Baltimore, and KC.

An April to remember is indeed shaping up in Sports City, USA: down-to-the-wire hoops and ice races to determine final postseason seedings, Yankees-Sox for four, 26.2 miles of Yankee Doodle Dandy huffing and puffing, and then — les pièces de résistance — simultaneous playoffs for both local sports outfits, each blessed with home-ice or -court advantage for at least a round or two.

What’s that? I’ve forgotten something? All the aforementioned hoopla would seem sufficient to sate even the most jaded of playoff-starved sports fans, but we also have one other reason to carry around the brightest of warm smirks. Yes, we continue to reach into our closets every few days and grab that "New England Patriots Super Bowl XXXVI Champions" hat or sweatshirt; we still are somewhat taken aback when we read in a national publication about the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots; we still maybe even pull out that championship-season DVD or video and load it into the machine to relive once more the Snow Game or Troy Brown’s lateral or those final seven seconds in the Crescent City.

Even without the success of our other local teams, the presence of that silver obelisk residing in its trophy case in the shadow of brand-spankin’-new CMGI Field makes everything right in the wide, wide world of sports around here; everything else is bonus.

And that bonus coverage begins this weekend. It may even give us a magic carpet ride into June. Who’s to say it won’t? We are now believers in all that was previously impossible. We continue to embrace our Super Bowl championship, we line the roads to watch the best runners in the world run the best race in the world, we revel in the resurrection of our heretofore-last-place winter-sports teams, and we flock to the best ballpark in the land and hope against hope that maybe this is the year to extinguish the specter of 1918. All in all, who wouldn’t want to be us right now?

It’s all happening here. Now. Like that long-lost sweetheart who’s returned out of the blue, the Bruins and Celtics bandwagons are pulling up to the station, and additional seating has been added for your viewing pleasure. Seems as if that train hasn’t come around these parts for quite some time, but you’ve got to admit: it’s a sight for sore eyes.

All aboard!

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com