OILERS-HURRICANES GAME 7 STANLEY CUP FINAL

Hello out there, we're on the air, it's hockey night tonight! Tension grows, as the whistle blows, and the puck goes down the ice. The goalie jumps, and the players bump, and the fans all go insane . . .

PREGAME

8:01. Prediction: Look for membership in CAN -- the Coalition Against Nickelback -- to jump 25% tomorrow.

8:06. Chris Pronger does a pregame interview with Hockey Night in Canada. The pride of Dryden, Ont., has had the best post-season of his career and is a Conn Smythe co-favourite (the feeling here is that Fernando Pisani's 13 goals, including the game-winners in the last two games, will overshadow Pronger's steady all-around game, should Edmonton win). This afternoon, a media-member friend suggested the only way Carolina might win is with a great game from Cam Ward and a Pronger giveaway. Please don't shoot the messenger.

8:13. Doesn't that Tim Hortons commercial with the Asian-Canadian grandfather and his adult son at the rink give you chill bumps? What? I thought I was in the trust circle, people.

FIRST PERIOD

8:22. Well, a team can look gadawful one night and gangbusters the next. Carolina makes it 1-0 barely a minute in, with Aaron Ward's seeing-eye slapper beating Jussi Markkanen, who had just made a pretty good save on Matt Cullen. (Cullen and Mark Recchi get the helpers.) The goal comes so early, you might wonder if Carolina might have a letdown, or might go past that optimal point where they start trying to do too much and make costly mistakes.

8:26. Whoa. Three hard checks by Carolina in the Edmonton zone. But Eric Staal bumps Markkanen. Goalie interference. At 3:17, the Oilers get the first power play.

8:30. Nothing doing for for Edmonton's PP. Kevyn Adams makes a great play to block a Pronger point shot. Seven minutes in, still 1-0.

8:35. Halfway through the period. As Bob Cole just noted, "Edmonton is finding its legs." A long camp-out in Carolina's zone results in a decent chance for Radek Dvorak in close, but there's not much room to get the puck past Cam Ward.

8:38. Jaroslav Spacek goes off for Edmonton, giving Carolina its first PP. The real culprit here is Steve Staios, whose turnover gave Carolina a chance to get the puck deep into Edmonton's zone. Staios has had an unsteady series, at best.

8:44. Only one shot for Carolina on the power play. After the teams get back to full strength, Ales (Pinto) Hemsky has a shot at Ward from the top of the circle and tries a baseball swing at the rebound, but can't connect. 5:50 left in the first.

8:46. Out of the break, CBC shows a graphic that shows Carolina having a 15-2 advantage in hits. Can't always trust the hometown stats crew, but this begs the question: what if Carolina only comes out of this period up 1-0? Are they in trouble then?

8:50. Matt Greene, who's had a couple undisciplined penalties in the series (see Game 2), goes off for elbowing. Second Carolina PP.

8:56. If this is a penalty shot, it'll be the first time there's been two in a final since '85.

8:59. This delay's giving me some time to get further along in David Maraniss' latest, Clemente. Harry Neale has been in hockey 100 years and he's saying he's never seen the tableau of a delayed penalty, penalty shot and a video review. Staios clearly seemed to keep the puck out of his net. How is this not a penalty shot?

Not a bad trade for Edmonton. It should be 2-0. The puck probably goes in if Staios hadn't rushed to save the day (by hook or by crook.) Instead they get off with facing a PK to start the second period -- and Carolina's power play has bogged down in the past few games.

End of first period: Carolina 1, Edmonton 0
Shots: 10-5 Carolina
Power plays: Carolina 0/3, Edmonton 0/1

Well, as noted above, it seems Carolina blew a bit of a chance by not opening a bigger lead. They probably had 70% of the play, and only have Aaron Ward's early goal to show for it. They can't bitch over the compromise call on the non-penalty shot; if you want to see a team bitch about the calls, go read Mark Cuban's blog.

Edmonton's weathered the storm, pardon the pun, and the good news is it's only one goal down.

This series has had so many ups and downs -- Edmonton losing Dwayne Roloson and going down 2-0 and 3-1, the Stillman giveaway in Game 5 overtime that led to Pisani's short-hander, and Carolina looking like a lost cause in Game 6 -- that it seems apropos to mention this nugget from Clemente, and Maraniss' retelling of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees, after the Bronx Bombers rolled to a 16-3 win in Game 2.

Arthur Daley of the Times, in pose only slightly more dismissive than his peers, wrote that "the Pirates may never recover from the humiliation of their horrendous rout. It was one that didn't just jar them to their shoe tops. It had to penetrate deeper, all the way to the subconscious, and create a fear complex that could destroy morale."

You know the rest. The Yankees won the next game too, in a 10-0 laugher. But the Pirates won the series in seven games.

SECOND PERIOD

9:21. Turns out Edmonton has the short-man advantage to start the period. Pisani turns a defender inside-out and skates in alone, but shoots high; Rem Murray also gets a short-handed chance.

9:24. Wondered about Dick Tarnstrom earlier in the game -- he had a defensive zone giveaway in the first. Here, a puck bounces over his stick at centre, leading to a 'Canes chance. But Markannen gets the pad out to stop Recchi. The Oilers quickly go the other way -- see why no one misses the red line -- and Jarrett Stoll is slowed down by the Carolina defenders. In October, that would have been a penalty.

9:25. At 4:10, Spacek's off for the second time after putting the clamps on Erik Cole, who was cutting to the net on his off wing, Glenn Anderson-style.

9:26. Frantisek Kaberle buries the power-play goal, which went in off Jason Smith and bounced past Markkanen. 2-0 'Canes.

9:30. Pronger, who's been known to take bad penalties when things are going badly (see the 2006 Olympics), just flattens Cole from behind a couple feet out from the boards. No penalty, and Cole gets back into the play eventually, but considering the injury Cole had earlier in the season (broken neck), that could have been a scary moment. No place for that in the game. None.

9:37. Halfway through the second and little doing for Edmonton. On the rush, Oilers centre Sergei Samsonov makes a drop pass that would have been intercepted in the Queen's University intramural league.

9:47. A long stretch without a whistle -- five minutes, six? -- ends with Ryan Smyth drawing a penalty. Edmonton's got a little life, and a power play with 3:43 to go in the second.

About three minutes earlier, there was a great illustration of the Playing Card Five. Stoll and Samsonov carried the puck deep into the Carolina zone, but all six 'Canes inside the top of the circles, there was nothing to do but pass the puck back to the point. The shot, predictably, was blocked.

9:52. Well, with Aaron Ward off for a dubious shooting-the-puck-out delay of game penalty (giving Edmonton a 1:56 two-man advantage), you had to figure there'd be an even-up call. Smyth gets called for tripping. With 15 seconds left in what's now a 4-on-3 advantage, Ward is able to see Pronger's point shot all the way and makes the easy save. No traffic at all for Edmonton with Smyth in the sin bin.

9:54. So in a space of four seconds, Carolina went from 3 against 4 to 5-on-4. That's pretty rare. Edmonton, however, kills off the truncated power play.

9:58. Second period's over. Twenty miles (or more) to go.

End of second period: Carolina 2, Edmonton 0
Shots: 10-5 Carolina and 21-13 overall
Power plays: Carolina 1/5, Edmonton 0/3

10:09. In between periods, Ron MacLean's true colours might have been shining through. First he notes that at one point in the second the hits were 24-10 for Carolina, but said something to the effect that the stat-keeping is dodgy in Carolina's rink. (Granted, I said that the hometown crew can be dodgy.) Then, when talk turned to Pisani missing the net on that short-handed chance early in the second, MacLean immediately asked, "Was he hooked?" Who, pray tell, could have hooked him? From here it seemed he'd made his move to shake his check and was completely clear of the defenceman.

Apparently you can take MacLean out of Alberta, but you can't take the Alberta out of him.

Third period coming up.

THIRD PERIOD

10:18. Edmonton gets what it needs -- an early goal, and in typical fashion, an ugly one. Pisani (who else?) jams in a rebound and it's 2-1. There's no such thing as a harmless rebound.

10:26. Hemsky made one of those mistakes a lot of people get on him for -- carrying the puck and losing it at centre instead of dumping it in. Incidentally, Shawn Horcoff has been mentioned very little tonight. Edmonton's first line hasn't had much impact.

10:29. Down to less than 11 minutes after a long stretch without a whistle ends with a offside. Ethan Moreau just had a good chance but Ward made the pad save.

10:37. Under eight minutes now. Shortly after Rod Brind'Amour hits the post, the Oilers get two good chances. First Raffi Torres gets stopped from 15 feet out. Then Horcoff and Smyth work the give-and-go. The puck was loose three feet from the net for a second, but Ward covers it.

10:40. Out of that chance, Edmonton drew a penalty. Carolina's holding on. A shot block -- looked like Kevyn Adams again -- helps the Hurricanes shoot the puck out and relieve pressure.
After a Markkanen save, it's down to 4:32. There's going to be talk about where this final ranks, all-time. For now, let's say it's the best I've seen since the '94 Canucks-Rangers championship series. Since then. I don't know how they compare.

10:44. Ward makes a game-saver for Carolina, blocking a rebound chance from, you guessed it, Pisani, who for once doesn't get the bounce.

10:49. Down to 1:17, faceoff in the Carolina end, Markkanen on the bench. Did you see Pisani put his hands to his head after that stop? You never see a hockey player do that! Most of them are stoic as Beefeaters after something doesn't go their way.

10:51. Well, what's Whyte Ave. going to look like now? With 61 seconds left, Justin Williams slides in the empty-netter clincher. 3-1. The play was keyed on Carolina pressuring Pronger off the faceoff. He could only get the puck down to the half-boards instead of the corner, and from there, it was Carolina's moment.

11:01. Take heart, Canada. The Stanley Cup is going north. Raleigh is north of Tampa Bay. So by 2009, it'll be back across the border.

Also, to clear up a misconception, it's not the franchise's first championship. Does the New England Whalers' 1972-73 WHA Avco Cup title not count?

What was the difference for Carolina in The Game? Cam Ward, the Oilers' struggles on the power play -- only two goals in the four games in Raleigh, and a blown 5-on-3 tonight -- and the Hurricanes line of Matt Cullen, Mark Recchi and Alberta's own Ray Whitney. They scored the first goal (setting up Aaron Ward) and had some dangerous chances.

Carolina also faced down two big challenges cited about three hours ago -- not getting too high or having a letdown after the goal in the second minute, and getting the second goal after coming out of the first up only 1-0. It's the second goal that often goes farther toward determining the outcome. Carolina got it, and small as a two-goal lead might seem, it was too much for Edmonton to surmount.

Hell of an effort, though.

11:07. Did you see the moment of pathos by Gary Bettman just now? Rod Brind'Amour comes out to accept the Cup, his crowning moment, and Bettman, in the midst of some extemporaneous self-serving remarks, turns to him and says, "I'm almost done."

Ya, Rod, I know you've waited 17 seasons for to hoist the Cup. But this is my moment.

That's the only sour note on this night, though. It was enough to make you forget that this is June 19, not May 19, which is about the time the Cup should be decided.

Why are there no shots of the disappointment back in Edmonton? A show of decorum by the producers, or was all of CBC's mobile unit set on fire -- taking the decision out of the producers' hands.

Is it too soon to point out that I took Carolina in 7? There's no satisfaction, though, in being right. The Stanley Cup is going to a team in North Carolina, and patriotism, in the end, always trumps punditry.