The Last Hockey Game of the Year

I don't get goosebumps often, but Game 6 of the NHL Finals in Edmonton was one of the most amazing sports-on-TV experiences I've ever had. Maybe some World Cup soccer games are louder, but probably not. That arena was ridiculous. It seriously makes me wonder why Detroit fans suck so much. Not the 1.2MM fans that show up for the parade after we win the Cup; the 20,000 that have season tickets. If any Joe Louis Arena season ticket holder saw Game 6, please take it as a lesson. But I digress.

So, Game 7. The 3rd Game 7 in a row in the Finals. 6 different teams in those 3 games. Parity, or whatever. I was watching on both CBC and NBC, so I got the best of both worlds - dialogue between Emrick and Davidson on the US side, and classic old announcing plus Don Cherry on the Canada side.

During the national anthems (not shown on NBC I presume), the Canes looked really nervous, and the Oilers looked really ready to go. But that didn't happen; Carolina came out hitting the shit out of them, forcing turnovers, and getting a goal off a rebound just a few minutes in. At one point in the 1st, they were outhitting Edmonton 15-2. MacTavish played the matchups brilliantly, given that he didn't have the advantage of last change - saved Pronger and Smith for the A-Line with Cole and Brind'Amour.

The non-penalty shot was a great call. I was really glad to see that NBC got the Head of Officials, Stephen Walkcom, in the booth during the intermission to explain that to everyone. Maybe they aren't getting the ratings, but they're doing the little things right during the telecast.

Ales Hemsky came as close as one player can to costing his team the game today, and no one seemed to notice. He turned the puck over trying to complete individual rushes on 3 power plays and one 5-on-5, and 3/4 of those turned into trouble. Just when it looked like the Oilers were going to get a shot in their 2nd period 5-on-3, Hemsky gave the puck away and forced Ryan Smyth to take a penalty for tripping. As far as I know, he didn't even get a talking-to. If Brind'Amour hadn't hit the post when Hemske let him go free to the net, it would have been 100% worse.

The save by Markkenen on Mark Recchi in the 2nd on that 2-on-1 was probably the best of the game (not the series - that honor goes to Cam Ward for the 3-on-1 save in Game 6). He kept them in it when they were getting outplayed, and I would say that the 2nd goal was a bad break...you try to ice it on a PK, it takes a strange bounce, and you've got no one to take the open guy...then the shot hits your defenseman in the ass and goes in. It was just one of those nights where the Oilers were one step off, one hit away, one faceoff away. In some of those games, most notably against the Michigan team they played in the first round, they got the bounces, but not tonight in North Raleigh.

During the 2nd, Harry Neale said that "it doesn't matter how you feel - the cow still needs to be milked." That was really funny.

After the Oilers failed on the 5-on-3, the pace of the game slowed for a while, until they got that goal to make it 2-1. The 3rd was just awesome end to end hockey, and McCreary and Watson put their whistles away and let the players have at it. The Oilers got one more power play when Hedican got a strange penalty with 7:22 left, but nothing was doing.

Want to know how to execute a PP? Get the film from this game and watch the team in red do it. Wow. Speed, position, shot blocking, trading matchups, the whole deal. Perfection, today.

So, all in all, Detroit didn't lose to the Champs, but they lost to an amazingly determined team. And my last hometown prior to SF has a champion. I wish I could be with all those kids I coached to see how excited they are to have THE Stanley Cup champs...as locals, as coaches, as dads. They'll remember, in 20 years, the time they were 8 years old and their team won the first Cup in its history, the same way that Oilers fans remember 1984. So cool.