The Calm Before the Seventh Game Storm
Over a 75-minute period late Monday evening I fielded a dozen-plus phone calls from family, friends, and media, all waxing euphoric over an "It's ordained in the heavens" sense that Tuesday night was to be all about partying for Caps' fans.
The euphoria is understandable. Where this Caps' team is this morning is magical, miraculous, and marvelous. The sense that Uncle 'Mo is with the Caps is irrefutably accurate. The analysis that suggests that it's much better to be the Caps than the Flyers right now is spot on.
But there's this tempering thought:
Because what we're dealing with on April 22, 2008, at Verizon Center is a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, none of the preceding variables matter.
None.
If you think this Flyers' team is busing down I-95 in perfunctory fashion to play the patsy to our party, you're in for a rude awakening around 7:15 Tuesday evening. On this blog over the weekend we talked about a reversal of pressure, from an advantage for Philly toward one for the Caps. It reversed itself again around 9:30 Monday night. For the past three games the Caps have been the hunters. Beginning tonight, they're the hunted. And Alexander Semin's wrists and Alexander Ovechkin's new-found confidence, I'm loathe to report, don't mean a heck of a lot in the matter.
In a very real sense, the heart of the matter is articulated best by Flin Flon, Manitoba's, Donnie Schultzhoffer, television commentator for the big game in 'Mystery, Alaska,' when asked to sum up the small town's chances against the New York Rangers:
"This isn't exactly rocket surgery. Now send the kids out of the room. I don't care how fast a skater you are, if you don't play this game with a big heart and a big bag of knuckles in front of the net, you don't got dinky-doo."
From this blogger's perspective, there was a whole lot of dinky-doo in the doings of the Caps Monday night, particularly when down 2-0 in the second period amid the Philly frenzied, but there's also no guatantee it'll be back Tuesday.
But to take a step back -- and an important one -- Washington this spring deserves what's arrived here tonight. What will take place tonight at Verizon Center represents the summit of sports' hold on our culture. This is neither the file nor the forum (right now) for an elaborate debate about Game 7s in hockey versus those in other sports. They all have their virtues. But hockey's hold the greatest quotient for unpredictability.
They often deliver remarkable feats of heroism. When we learned that the Caps would be playing the Flyers two weeks ago we posted a video file of Dale Hunter scoring a Game 7, series-ending goal in overtime, against Philadelphia. It occasioned an outpouring of reminiscence here. To no surprise to us.
Incidentally, this spring marks the twentieth anniversary of that goal.
Often, Game 7s are scintillating in their drama. Moreso than any other sport's single night's sudden deaths they raise us out of our spectating seats precisely because every single rush of the puck carries such magnitude.
And Washington this spring, however accidentally and or fortuitously, has embraced hockey in all its culture and trappings. And so it should experience this rare vintage of a Game 7 sporting drama. And savor it.
Nothing that precedes Game 7 means that much -- not 20,000 maniacs in red, not the momentum earned just 24 hours before up the Interstate. Line matchups don't matter that much. Who's home, who's away is virtually irrelevant.
And as such that is their elemental and enduring appeal. These games -- and they occur rather rarely -- are their own islands, with their own tides, winds, and storms. That the Caps -- the Cardiac Caps -- should be involved in one this spring, and against an arch-nemesis of playoffs past, perhaps should be no surprise at all.
We are so lucky to host one.
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