Tonight I watched the Detroit Red Wings with the kids. The Wings faced elimination against the San Jose Sharks, but they battled back and won 7-1 (the first time in 45 years the Wings have won when facing elimination in a 3-0 situation—or something, didn’t quite catch that crazy stat).
Anyway, the Wings scored five times in the first period (on only 9 shots!), so I had plenty of opportunity to teach Milo how to say, “Goal!”
I also got to show Lexi an octopus (a Red Wings playoff tradition).
Oh, and the Red Wings won their fourth Stanely Cup in 11 years tonight. Woot, woot.
The Stanley Cup was in the house tonight as the Detroit Red Wings faced the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 5. The Penguins struck first with two goals in the first period and Detroit answered with one goal in the second. Detroit came alive in the third period and dominated, scoring the tying goal and the go ahead (you should have seen me jump up and dance to the computer to Twitter the GOALL!!!—I’m such a geek).
The Detroit Red Wings were 30 seconds from Stanley, but it’s not over till it’s over.
Pittsburgh scored in the last 30 seconds to send the game into sudden death overtime. Yikes, those things are tense. We made it through two and a half OT’s before the Penguins scored on a four-minute high sticking penalty and won the game, sending it back to Pittsburgh for a game six.
Wow. I love hockey. I love playoff hockey. But I hate watching for so long and having it end in disappointment. Arg. Now we’ll do it all again on Wednesday.
How sad is this? The Detroit Red Wings—currently on a franchise-high nine-playoff-game winning streak, in their 17th consecutive playoffs (best streak in pro sports) and one win away from their fourth trip to the Stanley Cup finals in 11 years (having won the Cup in all three previous finals trips)—is having trouble selling out the Joe Louis Arena. Last year’s playoffs saw an end to a 425-game streak of home sellouts that went back to 1996.
What’s the deal? The Detroit economy must really be tanking. Or if you get too good people stop caring.
Whatever. I had to move to Minnesota to see the Red Wings in person. I’d love to go to a home game, and I’d really love to go to a playoff game. If you live in the Detroit area, do me a favor and go see some hockey. I may live in the State of Hockey, but Detroit will always be Hockeytown. Just don’t let me down now.