I know you probably didn't watch Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night, but it was freaking incredible in every way. This was a game, and we can skip through the "Hockey's Still Around?" jokes, where the underdog Penguins took and early lead, blew it, and scored against a DOMINANT Red Wings team with 35.4 seconds left, then withstood a Mike Tyson's Punch-Out like flurry of Wings scoring chances in the first overtime, got scoring chances of their own in OT two, only to score the eventual winning goal halfway through the third overtime by a guy who had freaking called his shot.
Don't believe me? Well, part of the new hockey coverage includes a dude who's stationed in a small gap right between the two benches, so he can hear what the coaches and players are saying to each other. Late in the second overtime, the Pens' Petr Sykora tapped on the glass and told NBC dude, whose name I can't find, that he was going to score the game-winner. In the third OT, the Pens went on a four-minute power play after the Wings slashed some dude in the face, Pittsburgh brought back Sergei Gonchar — who had been hurt, seemingly for the game, in the second period, and as if that weren't enough, he was on the ice for less than one shift before Evgeni Malkin, the superstar who has been a straight goat in this series, fed Sykora for a slapshot that won the game. By this time it was like 1 in the morning, but I jumped in the air. This shit was too much.
As the OTs went on, Sidney Crosby did less and less, as the Red Wings' D got more and more physical and everyone got tired. There was a lot of talk by Eddie Olczyk about players eating pizza during the breaks to get energy, which was great. So to recap: one the best games you'll ever see in any sport, in the finals, a called shot, pizza talk. That's freaking awesome.
Note: The fact I didn't mention Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in this article by name upon first publishing is probably a criminal act. Don't take it from me, take it from Don Cherry, who said his performance was the greatest goaltending he's ever seen in the playoffs.
Yes: Don Cherry said that.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Astonishing, Bananas, Cockapoopoo
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I like it that he goes unnamed in the article -- but the bald, kinda whiny dude reporting from the dunce box between the benches last night was Pierre McGuire
The goaltending on both sides was amazing, and like in any great playoff OT game, the number of pucks off posts, crossbars and the top/sides of the net was staggering
Huge props also to Ryan Malone for taking a brutal slapshot to the face and being out on the ice the next period, cotton plug in (almost definitely broken) nose, taking regular shifts. You don't see that in baseball.
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