Devils vs. Lightning – Game 5

Devils 3, Lightning 0

(As we are writing this Boomer is sitting to the side, narrating her own blog post to herself, “Like a vintage Rolls, Marty was priceless… And Patty at auction wouldn’t draw a bid.”)

Well that’s a bit more like it! That was 60 minutes of classic Devils hockey; they gave up a zillion shots but Marty was only called upon for monster saves on a few occasions, they took only a handful of shots themselves but managed to score when it mattered most, and somehow it just never seemed for a second that the outcome was in doubt. Tonight we named Marty, Matvichuk (recently upgraded in IPB nickname parlance from “Matvisuck” to “Matviclutch”) and Gomer the three stars. Yeah, that’s right: Gomer! (The anti-star award goes to Zach Parise. What is up with him not scoring even one goal? We expect so much more from him!)

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Hockey Ate My Brain and Puked it on the Floor

Devils 4, Lightning 3 (OT)

At one point during a goal-mouth scrum, Chico exclaimed that, for the first time in this series, we were seeing some real playoff hockey. He was right. Game 4 was a heart-attack-inducing, crazy-mood-swinging, vomit-in-my-own-mouth, leap-off-the-couch-and-jump-with-joy reminder of why the hockey playoffs are the greatest thing the world of sports has to offer.

Tonight we got to watch a simulcast of sorts, Pookie down in DC watching CBC’s feed, Schnookie back home in Jersey watching FSN. The FSN pregame gave Dano a chance to demonstrate how much of a difference two days can make for his disastrous sunburn from Monday. Before Game 3 he looked like he was doing a clinic on how not to take the sun in Tampa, but tonight he looked tanned and fresh. But crazy tense. Meanwhile over on CBC Kelly Hrudy gushed about the Devils superiority to the Bolts but when it was pointed out that they’re not too good at stopping pucks, chipperly added, “No, no, they’re not so good on the defense!” Pookie loves Kelly. He puts on postive spin on everything. If she ever gets fired, she wants the news delivered by Kelly. (Schnookie, by the way, is pleased to see Thunderbug off the St. Pete Times Forum roof. It was probably a very close thing for him, hunger striking until the Lightning sold out, but then drawing the impossible-to-sell-out Devils. Poor guy. If he was stuck up there for even one more night, he might be forced to eat his own mascot-sized plush Stanley Cup ring. Pookie suggests he came down from the roof because Kelly convinced him that sell-outs are overrated, and that there’s a lot to be said for having empty seats.)

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