It was every suspense film you ever watched, every thriller you ever read, every nervous waiting room you ever sat in all rolled into one nail-biting, double-overtime evening at Joe Louis Arena, 19,000 exhausted fans, tapping their chests at every break to make sure the old ticker was still working.
And finally, a few minutes before midnight, the doctor emerged, smiling with the good news:
It’s a goal!
No chance, you told yourself. No way. Nicklas Lidstrom wound up for a slap shot, just a few feet in front of the blue line, and you whispered, “Forget it,” because that’s nearly 60 feet from the net, and in a game like this — a sweaty, hard- checking, goaltenders-like-flypaper affair — a shot like that, at best, only serves to set up another, right?
Lidstrom swung anyhow. The puck went screaming. Suddenly he couldn’t see it.
“Have you ever made a winning playoff goal before?” someone would ask later.
“Never before,” he would say.
Idon’t want to give the folks in Phoenix early indigestion, but when Joey Kocur scores two goals on your team, you’d better check your diet.
Yes, I know it’s only the first game of the playoffs. Yes, I know some teams need time to get loose. But two goals — by Joey Kocur? That’s like two touchdowns by Jerry Ball. Two home runs by Justin Thompson. Demoralizing? That wasn’t sweat on the Phoenix players, it was skid marks. The Zamboni had a better night than they did.
So this is how you make history. You wait until after the midnight hour, double overtime, when the voices are gone and even the sweat glands are exhausted, then send a young Russian — whose last name is easier to pronounce than his first — charging down the ice, have him wind up and fire and . . . bingo! With a game so exhausting it took two days to play, the Detroit Red Wings finally jumped the moat and are outside the castle, banging on the door with an octopus.
Knock, knock, Stanley.
Guess who’s coming for dinner?
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