The View From Wisconsin

Game Two, the most surreal game I have ever witnessed.

It was a tight game. The officiating was bad, but it had actually evened out (it was bad for both sides) by midway through the game.

And then Vern scored the shorty.

All Hades broke loose after that.

The Pens, in short, came completely unglued - starting with Therrien, their head coach.

I have, in my years as a minor league hockey fan, seen a lot of things, but I have never seen a coach physically climb up onto the dividing wall and nearly climb over to try to throttle the opposing coach.

Therrien went berserk when Claude called the time out when the Pens dropped two guys in the third. He perceived it as a major dis to the Pens, and he went off, both on the refs and on Claude. (He used an Anglo-Saxon verb towards the refs, with "you" as the predicate; and he called Claude a commonly-used slang term for the rectal area in the press conference - which was terse and surreal, according to what I was able to find out from Eriks and Charles.)

Chiodo was chased, Caron came in and before we could finish seranading him in welcome we scored.

It was 6-1 before the third period even started.

Even though it was a pleasant thought, there was still that nagging feeling that there was 20 to go and we could get very sloppy. And, in fact, we did allow three goals in the third.

The Pens, however, were getting called for twos-and-tens constantly, and our power play finally showed up. Thus, the 8-4 final.

This was a potential turning point game. There will be a lot of bad blood in game three, almost like game three of the Chicago series. If we manage, as Haydar said, to "weather the storm" in that game, I think we'll be all right.

I hope that Claude shows the tapes of games three and four of the Chicago series on the plane/bus to WB/S to remind the guys of what they did - and what can be done.

This was a bittersweet game for me, because I do have the fear/hope/feeling that they may clinch it at WBS - making this the final home game of the year.

I don't want it to end.

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"However, if we win that 'big ol' fondue pot', it'll be all worth it..."