I suppose it's inevitable - the post season let down. Sure my favorite team won out, but here it is less than a week later and I'm all ready bored. No scoreboards to watch, no rushing home after half a day to sit and watch and bite nails and cringe when the other team scores or slam on the coffee table when your team scores. The phone calls are made, the bets all paid - all that's left is the tattoo to be gotten - sorry Mom! Oh sure, there's Xbox hockey, but it's not the same. And the Penguins goaltending sucks, unlike the real Marc-Andre Fleury. Lots of long late hours doing Poker Stars and exploring the depths of the 1900+ albums on my hard drive [Del Amitri's Hatful of Rain is pretty good, Sara Brightman's Harem is good, Faith Hill's Cry not so much...]. I found myself so bored, I actually went to a movie Sunday night. [Star Trek - interesting premise... no spoilers!] It must have been a while since I saw a non-matinee - when the hell did the price go up to $ 9.50?!? Maybe that's a premium price for the three level stadium seating extravaganza that is Rave at Northeast Mall - I really don't know. Who would have thunk in 1978 when the fourplex or the Forum 6 was a big deal that we'd have these enormodome movie theaters? As I was leaving the Sunday late show - I don't have anywhere to be Monday mornings - I noticed a pack of kids goofing off in the summer worthy heat. Five dudes and one girl standing around yapping, trying to decide their next move because it's summer and there's really nothing else to do. Even on a sweltering muggy summer night, there's only so much to do after midnight on a Sunday / Monday. Bowling? IHOP, Denny's, Waffle House? I smiled to myself as I walked to my truck. Oh, to be young and bored again. I figured they were going into their senior year - they had the look of 17 year old not yet terrified of jobs, SAT's or college. My junior summer started off grand - Cars tickets went on sale the Saturday after finals [though they weren't going to be here until September.]waiting outside Sears [where Ticketmaster was] About a dozen kids on a not too bad early summer morning, yakking about our schools and a whole lot of nothing. That was the summer of the "Limon," my faded green 73 Plymouth Duster. My first summer with a car, lots of going places just to be driving and not at home. First job - sorta waiting tables at this all you can eat Mexican place and sorta being busboy. The pay sucked, but they had a nice garden room I liked to eat in and read on my lunch. First drunk drinking those very missed short bottled Budweiser in the parking lot. Shoe polishing other people's cars. But it was a summer job and after toughing out a couple weeks in dish-washing [I HATED driving home in wet pant, wet shirt, wet socks and squishy shoes!] I quit in mid-August. I wondered if kids are really that much different today - I mean other than being wired to the gills. We had computers - "Trash 80s," "Crapples" and Commodores. We were getting cassette Walkman players [and cheap knockoffs] by my junior year. You could get cable in town [but not in the sticks where we lived] even tough it was only about 30 channels. But the rites of passage are the same - first car, first dates, first kiss - I'll leave it at that - it's all still so Fast Times At Ridgemont High, right? Driving around blasting your tunes, hanging with your buds and going someplace and drink iced tea or coffee beacuse going home is LAME. Isn't that the way kids have spent millions of sweltering Sunday nights?

Okay I am breathing again. Whew! WHAT A GAME that game 7 was.

I wish I could say I was sure of this game, "Never doubted for a second." I wish I could say I could feel that Detroit was out of gas and we were a lock on thins. But I can't.

And while I expected the good fight from the Pens, and I hoped like hell that Marian Hossa would not score the game winning goal, I kinda suspected Detroit would come out like the team they are [were?] and just steamroll four lines over the Pens.

But that's not what happened is it?

I didn't cheer too loud on Max Talbot's opening goal. One is one and it's nice to start the scoring. But the second one I whooped for a while, pounded the coffee table a little, scared the neighbors. But I was on the edge of m seat the rest of the game, too. I definitely howled like a couple of the neighborhood dogs when Detroit scored. [I was watching on Tivo, about two minutes behind real time and had tried calling my brother in law - bad connection - but he was like 'I can't believe you're calling now.' Now I know why.]

It's fitting that Marc-Andre Fleury [he was a #1 pick overall, too -remember?] should stone Niklas Lidstrom on that last shot to win the game. I knew Detroit could and would bring the pressure that came in that last two minutes - just like the end of the second when they got buzzing. But credit the Penguins no name guys - Craig Adams, Hal Gill, Rob Scuderi [ANOTHER monster game for Scuderi - resign him tomorrow, please!], Brooks Orpik, Matt Cooke, Tyler Kennedy and that "other guy" Jordan Staal - for playing hard, dirty defensive hockey, blocking shots and tying guys up. Pittsburgh blocked 20 shots in the game - Detroit just 3.

And hat's off to Jordan Staal - when Crosby went out he stepped right into those minutes and played like a champion on both sides of the puck. I loved just seeing him whoop when he got the Cup.

And congrats to Bill Guerin on his second Cup. Bill was a Dallas Star for a couple of years and was a weekly call in guest on one of the radio stations here and seems to be another one of the great, humble guys in the NHL. I think he can hang them up as a champ.

And I guess I still have a little crow to eat here - Ruslan Fedotenko and Miro Satan both played extremely well in the finals. Fedotenko was a guy who controlled the puck and took a lot of shots on Malkin's line and Satan was pretty good as an energy / 4th line guy.

I did give the TV the finger and curse at Marian Hossa again - "Detroit has a better chance of winning the Cup." HA! But in the morning stories, he does point out that if he had signed, Pittsburgh might not have been able to sign guys who were important to this Cup run. Well, maybe so. Maybe you've learned to keep your mouth shut, too.

In the end, Detroit just looked like a team that was totally out of gas. We'll never know what kind of injuries or pains guys like Lidstrom, Draper and Datsyuk were fighting through. Lidstrom made mistakes in the series that he doesn't normally make - although Pittsburgh finally picked up that the Wings like going up the middle out of the corners and managed to cut a few off - notable on Talbot's first goal. And the adreneline to get on the scorebord led to some bad decisions by Brad Stuart in games 6 and 7. But I don't feel bad for the Red Wings. 4 Cups in 11 years is one hell of a run [and 6 finals in 14 seasons - everyone seems to forget that they lost - got swept - by the NJ Devils in 1995, a year we were all betting on Bowman's Big Red Machine to just steamroll these nobody's from New Jersey. And Draper, Maltby and Listrom were there for that bitter pill] and it's not like they don't have the tools to come back next year. Although someone will have to go to bring up Darren Helm and Abdelkader [Mikael Samuelsson wouldn't be a bad fit in Pittsburgh!]

Anyway, it was a great nail biter of a game and a better series than I even hoped for - capped with a victory by my team! WAY TO GO PENS!!!!

Of course I could be wrong...

The Cup

Okay, we're back to even and I'm in off the ledge - okay, so the ledge is my back porch / deck railing and it's only about five feet up, but I could, you know, fall and wrench a shoulder or hurt my wrist putting it out to break my fall.

My cousins on Facebook are as excited as I am about this series and going into tonight's game 5, I am encouraged. Yes, I know this is now a best of 3 with 2 games coming in the other guy's barn. Yes, "The Joe" is a rough place for visiting teams. And yes, the Red Wings are a veteran team that certainly know how to win the Cup. But I think the Red Wings are tired. Their energy just drained after Pittsburgh's three goals in the second Thursday night.

I think this is the game Pittsburgh can steal from Detroit, if they can weather what is sure to be a big push from Detroit. They will try and feed from a returning Pavel Datsyuk, but I ask again - who do you take OUT of the Wings lineup? Super rookie Justin Abdelkader [yes, I had to look that up] sat so the Wings could insert veteran shutdown center Kris Draper back in the lineup. I don't think Mike Babcock can sit center Darren Helm - he's earned his spot. You'd like to keep some youthful legs in there with Ville Leino, but he is probably going to sit. You could make a case for sitting Valterri Filppula or Jiri Hudler, too, but I doubt Babcock will rest his veterans.

Anyway, I think if Pittsburgh can come out and hold on or even shove the Red WIngs game back in their face - hard forecheck, take the body, make smart plays [this includes NOT shoving pucks up the middle from behind the net!] and be aware of the lively boards at Joe Louis - they can take this game from a tired Red Wings squad. And I say let the Wings match up all night against Sidney Crosby! Let them get Zetterberg and Datsyuk and Nick Lidstrom out there against Crosby. Because Sid can turn you inside out and burn you, but it's clear to me right now that Malkin is going to be the key to the Pens winning right now. He is the hot hand this playoff. And yes, it's going to take an ugly goal from a Tyler Kennedy or Jordan Staal or Ruslan Fedotenko, but if Malkin can get going and feed those guys, that's going to be it for Detroit.