Alrighty, so here we go. Remember, this is my first time at this so mistakes are bound to pop up.
Pre-game: Got my pizza, lots of Coke and some Gibsons. Should be good to go. Its Hughson(sp?) and Neale doing the call tonight on CBC. Wonder if Team 1040 have synced up the sound? Hope so.
Just waiting on the Anthem now. Better go mix myself a drink.
Love Mark
Donnelly when he does the anthem. Gets the crowd into it even more (don't know how
thats possible)
1st Period:
20:00 - Is it just me or does the first few bars of "Where the Streets have no name" send a tingle up your spine. Does every time. Christ I feel like a kid on
christmas morning.
19:51 - Well that didn't take long, already a stoppage.
19:00 - Kesler's playing?
17:30 - Bieksa just took a puck of his foot and is grimacing on the bench. Lets hope he's
ok.
16:46 - Bulis with our 1st big scoring chance.
15:40 - Daniel
Sedin scores!!! Looked like it bounced off a Stars
Dman.
14:54 - Bieksa takes the 1st penalty of the game.
14:32 - And the Stars convert, Morrow with a redirect past
Luongod.
13:something - Now we get our 1st PP, lets hope they can do something with it. And a TV
commerical break. Why don't they come out with new ones, kinda like they do for Superbowl.
13:19 - And now we've got a 2 man for 1:42
11:42 - Bieksa not playing very heads up and gets caught by
Hagman coming out the penalty box and has to take a stupid hooking call. And
Luongo makes a crazy stop with his head!
9:20 - Good kill
8:00 - Hopefully Alain
Vigneault talks to the guys in the intermission and calms these guys down.
7:21 - Dallas gets a delay of game penalty after shooting the puck out of play. I hate this penalty.
5:28 - Ohlund nearly caught
Turco wandering out of his net.
5:something - Dallas takes another penalty for slashing. Kinda looks like the Stars are trying to push us around.
4:26 - Wish our PP could score.
3:44 - Bieksa takes his 3rd straight penalty.
2:17 - Luongo grabs another one out of thin air. And the
Canucks take another penalty (not
Bieska this time) and 30 seconds of 2 man for the Stars.
1:02 - Didn't see who it was but one of the
Nucks just robbed a Star. Walked up and just took the puck off his stick.
End of the 1st - Hate to echo the CBC guys, but
WTF!! Wasn't this supposed to be tight checking, defensive series? Not that I'm complaining mind you. Right now I'm chalking it up to the excitement of the post-season. Oh well, time to take a little break here.
2nd Period:
20:00 - Starting to feel the
pre-game drinking a little bit, god its gonna suck going to work tomorrow. At least my sup is a big '
nucks fan so he'll know why I'm so hung-over.
18:30 - Hope that Team 1040 decides to sync their audio to the TV soon.
17:14 - CBC stat:
Turco is 0-4 in Game 1's.
15:26 - CBC feed keeps stuttering, rather annoying
14:27 - Looks like
McReary was trying to pull off a triple
axel or something there.
14:something - Nucks get the 1st PP of the 2
nd.
13:32 - Ohly!! Scores a nice one with a one-timer. Might have been deflected by
Pyatt13:04 - Turco takes out Burrows and takes a penalty. Dumb move, silly
Turco.
11:48 - Our PP may be a little anemic with the scoring but at least they make it look good with the setup.
10:46 - How the hell does
Luongo make some of these saves, he looks like
Gumby on some of 'em.
10:00 - Damn, Dallas ties it back up with a shot from Daley that I don't even think
Luongo saw with a 2 man screen in front of him.
9:something - Commercial break thankfully. Man this is a
lotta work. Don't know how
Alanah does this on a regular basis. Don't forget to check out
Mike who is also planning on live blogging a couple of games.
8:00 - Watching
Turco coming out to play the puck brings back some scary
Cloutier memories.
6:50 - What the hell, CBC guys are talking about the Swede's vs. the Fins in this match up
6:10 - Nazzy scores a beaut on
Turco. Nice
wrister thru the 5 hole. 3-2
Nucks!
5:40 - Cooke takes a tripping penalty to put the Stars up a man. Kinda nice having an awesome PK unit. My heart doesn't stop anymore when we take a penalty.
4:26 - Speaking of the PK unit, man is it great having
Kesler back there again.
3:30 - Damn, nice hit by
Bulis.
2:59 - Luongo makes another great stop with his toe. He uses every part of his body to make a stop.
1:46 - Further evidence of what J.J. was talking about in his
"rant" on
Nazzy. Markus makes a great defensive play with knocking the puck away from a Star and stops their rush dead.
0:04 - Another CBC stat: when leading after 2, the '
Nucks are 30-1-5 (doesn't sound quite right but who knows)
End of the 2nd - Well, we're heading into the 3rd with a 1 goal lead, who would have expected that? In this series, I'd be
surprised to see either team get up by more than a goal, maaaybe by 2. Alright bathroom/smoke break before the 3rd.
2nd Intermission - I hate the CBC. Just listened to Hrudey talking about how Naslund had a "horrible" season. BS.
3rd Period:
19:18 - Cooke hasn't come back since coming off the ice late in 2nd with an injury after a knee on knee hit he made on a Dallas player.
18:17 - Barnes takes a tripping penalty to put the Canucks on a PP early in the 3rd.
16:17 - Another fruitless power play. 1 for 7 so far.
15:29 - Nazzy is skating like a fiend tonight.
14:14 - Luongo with a couple of great saves. He makes them look almost ordinary somehow.
13:29 - Morrow misfires on near point blank one-timer.
12:24 - Smoke scores!!! Off a rebound from the glass behind the net. 4-2 Nucks!
11:29 - Miettinen scores for the Stars to bring it to 4-3. Caught Luongo slightly out of position after he made a save. Rare rebound given up by Roberto.
9:08 - Crowds chanting "Turco" then "You suck". Wonder what its gonna be like if this goes to 7.
6:14 - Nagy squeaks one past Luongo to tie it up 4-4
5:05 - The "Brabarian" just misses on nice shot on Turco and breaks his stick. That reminds me, check this episode from the Crazy Canucks for little tidbit on how the legend began.
3:26 - Scary bit there, Nucks couldn't get the puck out their zone. Need a change pretty badly.
2:37 - Shots are 14-2 for Dallas in the 3rd (38-21 overall)
0:35 - Good lord, get the puck out your damn zone.
0:04 - Nazzy sends a puck off of Turco's head.
End of the 3rd - Good lord we're going to overtime. This game might just kill me, and as Mike said, it's only game 1.
Well I've been complaining about the CBC crew, maybe I should count myself lucky. Mike is ready to kill the entire Versus crew. That got me to thinking "Who is worse, the CBC or Versus?". Well I just checked out Versus and the panel they had up? Who the hell are those guys?
Update on some of the other games tonight. Ottawa took down Crosby and the Penguins 6-3. Minny and the Ducks are tied @ 1 in the 3rd. And San Jose beat the Predators 5-4 in the 2nd overtime period (god I hope this doesn't go that long).
1st Overtime:
19:39 - CBC is reporting Cooke has a groin sprain, no word on exactly how long he'll be out.
18:18 - Maybe I'm overstating the fact, but hell its my blog, it sure is nice to see Kesler back out there.
17:11 - Shots are 40-23 for Dallas right now. All of you should bow down and thank the hockey gods we have Luongo in net for us. (Its become a near nightly ritual for me)
16:19 - Nice hustle from Bieksa to cut off a scoring chance for the Stars.
14:49 - Anyone else getting tired of the relentless media info about how alike these 2 teams are?
13:49 - Where has this Bulis been all year?
13:01 - This game is gonna kill me. Another great save by Luongo.
11:17 - Bulis f#@'s up with a bad back pass, then makes up for by coming back and helping out Mitchell to clear it out of our zone.
9:16 - Beautiful hit by Cowan.
8:something - Robidas takes a slashing penalty and puts the Nucks on thePP
7:42 - Turco makes a nice save, drops it and manages to tap it out of their zone.
6:49 - Surprise, surprise, we didn't score on the PP.
6:14 - And Cowan with another great hit.
5:47 - Seriously, where has this Bulis been all season?
4:37 - Nice shot by Morrison and Turco makes the save, don't think he even knew where the puck was.
4:04 - Burrows got slammed into the boards, his head bounced pretty nastily there. Couldn't get to his feet that well either. CBC noted Bernstein walked him back to the training room but appeared to be walking a little better.
2:06 - And the linesman damn near scores for the Stars, before Lou flopped out to stop the puck.
0:55 - Pyatt with another nice shot on Turco, who gloves it down. Looks like we're going to a 2nd OT period here.
End of the 1st OT - Oh goody, another OT period.
Update on the other game tonight. Anaheim takes the 1st game of their series beating Minny 2-1.
2nd Overtime:
20:00 - Burrows isn't on the bench to start this period. Not good.
19:something - Luongo holds off a quick flurry of shots to keep us in this game.
18:09 - Great save, Luongo. Nothing against Shorty but that does sound nice from Hughson.
17:49 - Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it a lot easier to score when the puck isn't in your end?
16:46 - Shots 51-30 for Dallas, and Bieksa gets another penalty for high-sticking.
15:46 - Couple of nice blocked shots there by Smoke.
15:21 - Krajicek takes a high-sticking penalty to put us down 2 men for 40 seconds.
14:43 - Killed the 2 man advantage
13:19 - Don't really know how, but we've killed the penalty and the fans are going nuts with the towels a spinnin'
12:22 - Henrik loses his helmet and stick and of course no penalty is called.
11:46 - Turco almost gets caught out of his net and a bit of a scramble in front of the Star's nets. Unfortunately nothing comes out of it.
8:55 - Luongo gloves it down to slow the game down a little. Would somebody please shut Neale up?
7:39 - Another snag by Roberto
7:12 - Turco stops a shot from Daniel Sedin, resulting in a faceoff with another shot from Morrison. Again a great stop by Turco.
5:49 - This is gonna be a long series.
3:04 - At this point you can start to tell how long the game has been going on. All the players are starting to look a little sluggish.
1:02 - Shots are 57-32 now.
0:24 - Barnes sends a shot sailing of the crossbar.
End of the 2nd Overtime - You know it, yet another overtime. I'm gonna run out of booze if this goes on much longer.
For anybody that lives in the GVRD, good luck in getting anything done tomorrow.
3rd Overtime:
19:24 - Why does it take CBC so long to get their time banner up? Seems to take a least a minute or 2 every period until it shows up.
17:56 - Somehow it seems that Cowan still has some energy. Not sure if anyone else does anymore.
15:27 - Pyatt has a great chance but can't pull the trigger to end it.
14:38 - Another nice shot by Cowan.
1301 - So who likes sloppy hockey? The longer this goes on, the worse both sides get.
12:08 - Krajicek with a nice shot on net that Turco stops.
11:33 - Turco grabs another one out of the air to stop play again.
9:11 - Sedin's get a good cycle going, unfortunately nothing comes out of it.
7:18 - Hughson note - "It's been nearly 2 and 1/2 hours since the last goal". Please don't remind me.
6:52 - Crowd looks to be thinning a bit. Guess somebody is actually planning on going to work tomorrow.
4:50 - Please, for the love of god, somebody please score (of coures, I'm only talking to the Canucks players)
2:11 - The ice looks like sh*t right now. Puck is bouncing all over the place. Although that could be coming from fatigue on the part of the players.
0:40 - Turco makes another stop. Looks like we're going to a 4th OT. Let me remind you. THIS IS ONLY GAME ONE!!!!!! Lord help us if this goes to 7.
End of the 3rd OT - Sweet Jesus. Why did I say I would live blog this game? I'm starting to have trouble focusing on the screen right now.
If this game goes much longer, we might see Cooke or Burrows back on the ice.
4th Overtime:
18:55 - I really don't know anymore, 3 Stars forwards with at least 38 minutes of ice time so far. CBC hasn't put up any stats for the Nucks yet.
14:47 - Nobody is really creating much of anything. If anything happens now, its gonna come from a mistake. And that mistake will be due solely to fatigue, nothing else.
12:49 - Well, we've made the top 10 in terms of longest playoff games ever.
10:26 - Are they even hitting anymore? Some of these hits look like they just don't have the energy to stop, so they just keep going.
8:26 - Another play just kinda fades out with a decent scoring chance developing.
6th longest game ever
7:33 - Shots are 75-53 (or something like that, I don't quite remember what was flashed up on the screen)
5:56 - Luongo makes another great save with a tip only about 5 ft in front of him.
4:03 - Another great cycle by the Sedins. And it seemed to be in slo-mo (just like the rest of the players) so you can actually see what they're doing.
1:54 - Its over, Henrik scores on a pass from his brother to end this marathon. 5-4 for the Nucks. One down, 3 to go (15 in total).
After game notes: Who the hell amI kidding? We f*&king won. I don't really care about anything else right now. Other than the fact that it took us 130 minutes to win. Damn right with CBC picking Roberto as the 1st star. Be sure to check out
J.J.,
Zanstrom and
Alanah for more post game reactions. And they'll probably be much more coherent than anything I could produce right now.
Now, if you'll excuse me, think I'm gonna go pass out now. Enjoy the rest of the series and I will hopefuly be able to live-blog another one of their games coming up. So keep an eye out for an announcement regarding the next torture session I'll be part of.
