The Last Hockey Post…

The Detroit Red Wing bench and goalie Chris Osgood are dejected after the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated them 2-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Friday June 12, 2009 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, MI. (MANDI WRIGHT/DFP)

… of this season. About last night’s loss: I’m still not over this. You might could say I’m obsessed or that this kind of reaction isn’t normal for a grown man. That may be true, but I’m not alone in my obsession. Go read the more than four pages of comments at the Abel to Yzerman blog if you want proof. Said comments began immediately following the game and kept coming into the wee small hours… and I DO mean “wee.” They’re still posting comments, as I type. And you’ll note… if you go… that there are some real class-act fans posting there. A few idiots, yeah, but class… for the most part.

I think hockey fans are different (to crib a line from the infamous NHL ad campaign). Below are a few from last night… note the raw emotion on display.

Julianne Sabon, 30, of Roseville puts her head in her hands while watching Game 7 of the NHL Finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Hockeytown in Detroit, on Friday, June 12, 2009. The Wings lost 2-1. (KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/DFP)

Eva Gratz, 21, of Southgate watches Game 7 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Hockeytown in Detroit, on Friday, June 12, 2009. (KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/DFP)

Red Wings fans Chris Hering, 24, Nickie Harting, 23, left, and Genevieve Hinkley react to the Pittsburgh Penguins win over the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals at Mr B's Pub in Royal Oak. The Wings were trying for their 12th Stanley Cup. Its the first time the Wings hosted a Game 7 title game in more than five decades. (WILLIAM ARCHIE/DFP)

I'm NOT the only one, Gentle Reader.

So. I was up to all hours this morning, reading…reading…reading. I tried to go to sleep on two occasions, once after midnight and again at 0200 hrs. I just couldn’t do it. And so I got up and read some more. Here’s one of the better pieces, from the inimitable Mitch Albom:

The last 6 minutes could have ripped out your insides. Fans on their feet, screeching their vocal cords. The Red Wings surging, their lungs burning, as they chased the only thing that mattered. One goal. One goal. One goal could make up for the whole night and turn this thing from hopeless to hopeful, reverse destiny, roll the stalled parade floats. Music blared in the breaks: “I want it all, and I want it now!”

Then Niklas Kronwall fired and HIT THE CROSSBAR! The whole building groaned! Valtteri Filppula shot! It was caught by Marc-Andre Fleury. The Wings pulled their goalie. They chased and chased. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Six seconds. The puck came off a rebound and there was one final shot, so close in, Nicklas Lidstrom stepped into it and fired and Fleury dove in the air as the fans gave one last collective scream …

And then.

And then, moments later, such quiet. In the tunnel. In the stands. In the dejected locker room. Quiet, as if the devil might hear you whisper and make it worse. Quiet is not what you expect in a Game 7 to determine the Stanley Cup. But quiet is what you get when the home team watches it slip away. Quiet is what you get when you are Lidstrom, who saw that last shot blocked by Fleury. Quiet is what you get when you are Marian Hossa, who watched the other team celebrate last year, and had to do it again Friday night, with the uniforms reversed.

Quiet is what you are left with on a night to forget, in a series to remember.

A night to forget, indeed. But it most certainly was a series to remember. Read the whole thing.

No excuses, but… (George Malik from Snapshots)

Per the post-game shows from WDIV, WJBK, WXYZ, and a few observations of my own...

Bernie Smilovitz and Mickey Redmond suggested that Tomas Holmstrom, Kris Draper, and Mikael Samuelsson were significantly banged up, that Dan Cleary wouldn't have been playing if it was the regular season, that Pavel Datsyuk was hurt a little more significantly than he let on, that the same could be said for Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski, and Henrik Zetterberg was "at 70%."

That much, I can confirm from looking at his equipment. Zetterberg usually wears a pair of 14-inch Easton gloves with "floating" wrist protectors. During the Blackhawks series, Zetterberg adopted a 13" Dan Cleary glove (you can literally see the "Cleary" stamped onto the glove in pictures), which has almost no cuff and a flexible, on his top hand, and his "normal" bottom hand glove had two extra stiff plastic slash guards affixed to its cuff. Something got torn or broken there.

Much was made about the Wings being “old and slow” during the Finals. I’m quite sure there’s much more to that particular story line than will ever be revealed, but some of the story will come out in the days to come. Part of hockey culture is NOT acknowledging injury and playing through pain when humanly possible. I’m thinking a lot of the Wings did exactly that in the Finals— they played on, regardless of their injuries — and to the unenlightened or unknowing it looked like they were old and tired, rather than hurt. Yet another case in point: Lidstrom admitted he had surgery after getting speared in the testicles during Game Three in Chicago. And he came back to play after that? Amazing.

Well. It’s over for this year. But we’ll begin again in October. I’ll watch when I can and I’ll be obsessed again come April. And possibly well into May, and hopefully June again. There’s this about that:

DETROIT – If you liked what you saw from this year’s Stanley Cup final – and if you didn’t you’re either a Detroit Red Wings fan or you might want to check to see that you have a pulse – you might want to consider getting used to seeing these teams steal the show at the NHL’s annual spring dance.

There’s no reason to believe the Pittsburgh Penguins and Red Wings won’t be treating the hockey world to lots of deep playoff runs in the next couple of years. And who knows? Perhaps we’ll all be back here watching the Red Wings wrest the Stanley Cup back from the Penguins?

[…]

Don’t laugh, it could happen. After all, who’s going to challenge these two teams in the next couple of years? The San Jose Sharks or Washington Capitals? They might want to try getting halfway through the playoffs without losing one of these times. The Boston Bruins? Maybe, but they have some holes to fill and need to find some playoff courage somewhere along the way. The Vancouver Canucks? Come on.

The fact is the Penguins and Red Wings were in the Stanley Cup final for a reason – something about them being the class of the league. Both teams face some excruciating decisions this summer – perhaps not such a difficult one for Detroit after watching their No. 81 look more like Maid Marian or Marian Cunningham than Marian Hossa during their playoff run. They will both lose players and they will be important players.

That’s Ken Campbell, writing in The Hockey News. Getting to the Finals three years in a row might be too much to ask for some folks, but not around here. I’m thinking Pittsburgh fans feel the same way.
Update, 06/13/2009 1220 hrs: The CBC's End of Season tribute. Lotsa faces and places you know in this one. Lotsa heartbreak, too.


Yeah... it was a great season, all things considered. (h/t: Kukla's Korner)