Off Day

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We're less than 24 hours away from dropping the puck with Lord Stanley's junk all up in the Joe. I feel like an anxious mess, still fidgeting over last night's game and sitting restless with anticipation for the next one. I can't get over how tense the action of that 3rd period was. That is going to end up being quite the memorable game. Random thoughts...

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For you Pennsylvanians out there or whatever the hell you call yourselves, I found your Russian ballerina. Lo and behold he's been on the ice this whole fucking time. Who knew?

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Pens fans are suggesting Z's stick work on Sydney Cuntsby was obstruction. Please. I'm sick of hearing the word obstruction from this team and its fan base. Like that play is going to get called in that situation anyway. This isn't the Ottawa Senators anymore. Shut the fuck up.

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It doesn't matter that this could be the fourth Cup in my lifetime -- I'm equally excited for this one if not more so than the other 3. It never gets old. A jaded sports fan I am not, and never will be. This would be the first Cup of my adulthood (whoooaa, whooa, let's just call it my 20's), so I think my overall knowledge of sports and the Internet and not being a douche teenager makes me more appreciative of all this, or something. Not sure if that makes any sense. In any event, I am beyond stoked for tomorrow night. I'd sell everything I own to go to this game if my family wouldn't murder me over it.

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I really hope Homer is good enough to go. He deserves it. I think the word "warrior" is so cliche but dammit, that's what he is. If I took just one of 28 crosschecks he takes per power play I'd be on my back in a hospital for a month. Again, I don't know how these guys do what they do.

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If we do win it, I say it's 2 - 1 odds that Lilja drops the Cup. Maybe even 3 - 2. That fucker is clumsier than my mom at an open bar of a wedding reception.

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I'm more confident that this team will finish it off than I was about the Pistons winning Game 6. And I was 100% confident in the Pistons. Not that it has any effect on the present team whatsoever, but the Wings are now 15 - 2 in their last four Finals appearances, and they won the previous three clinching games on their first try, and pretty convincingly. The '97 Wings won the Cup with a 2 - 1 effort, but there was no way in holy hell that they were losing that game and going back to Philly. There's a reason only 1 team has ever come back from 3 - 1 to win the Cup(hasn't happened in 6 decades, either) -- when a team is right on the cusp, they sense it. They leave everything out on the ice and they become like 29% better than they actually are. OK that's a pretty weird estimate.

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And if they somehow lose tomorrow, I reserve the right to sob like a little bitch in this forum to my heart's content.

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If this game goes to OT, I will puke from the soul-crushing intensity. I will literally vomit. The Wings have miraculously only played one single solitary overtime game this postseason, and that one only lasted a couple minutes. So I think we're due for one.

I've always been fascinated by hockey overtimes ever since I started watching the sport. It makes the game (which is almost too nerve-racking to watch in the first place) even more unbearably suspenseful. Picturing the Wings win the Cup on an OT goal would be too much to wrap my mind around. Just winning it period would be good enough, but to have one of those classic, sudden shocks of joy when the red light goes on and you go from biting down on a pillow as hard as you can to jumping 3 feet in the air in jubilation in an instant would be an experience unlike any other.

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I don't want to come off as arrogant, because that's not where I'm headed with this, but today I've been thinking a lot about how fortunate I've been as a fan of all Michigan sports. I was talking about it the other day with Brent (when's that 3rd post coming, buddy? I need a photo-shopped picture of Crosby changing a tampon), how if I was a fan of all sports without a home and had to pick anywhere in the country to lay claim to, I would pick to be right where I'm at. We're right in the middle of Big 10 country, a traditional college sports heaven. We've got the most successful American hockey team in NHL history. We've got a storied baseball team that played in one of the classic old parks while I was growing up, and are outfitters of the best uniforms in sports (hey, these things count). We've got a great basketball team, and while they let you down from time to time, they're are run well and have been competitive for quite some time now, and are historic in their own right. And we've got a football team that, despite the infinite number of downfalls, has always been loved more than any of the others for as long as I can remember. For those of you not from around here, it might surprise you to know that Michigan sports fans on the whole want nothing more than a Lions Super Bowl -- it's a football state and always will be, even though the front office has driven a divide between itself and its fans (in a weird way I think this has made the Lions fans even more passionate.)

The championships are great, but they're not everything. I'm sure fans of Cleveland and Seattle sports feel just as great about their teams. Still, I can say with pride that for the past 2 decades I've definitely been in the place to be. Go Wings.