6:50 p.m. - It's a well-known fact that I'm usually a total wreck when it comes to game night. My stomach is in knots, I don't feel like eating and I need to go through my choral breathing exercises from those memorable years when I was in choir just to keep from hyper-ventilating.

But a couple of hours from puck-drop and I'm surprisingly calm. Maybe it's because I just don't know what to expect from this series. The Ducks are strangers to me, they're names on the board with no faces and all I know coming into this series is that the Senators are capable of some pretty darn good hockey.

So we'll see the state of my heart after the game starts. In the meantime, I've got a cold beverage and my jersey beside me ready to exercise its charm. I'm also going to be liveblogging on somebody else's laptop since it was already downstairs. It's also mostly in Chinese so you'll excuse me if there are any typos or foreign characters that pop up.

Oh and for those who are interested: The Governator knows that the Stanley Cup Finals start tonight! Hourray, validation! Too bad the other half of SoCal doesn't really care. Of course this is all done for a wager. If Anaheim wins, Dalton owes him a year's worth of Tim Horton's coffee, Ontario wines and a Roots Sweater. if Ottawa wins, Dalton gets a custom made California leather jacket and some wine. He should have held out for more!

7:32 pm - Trying to write about the pre-game show while eating dinner. Sponsored by Scotiabank! [the pre-game show, not the dinner]. That has to be good karma, right? When you're in the same house with a very persistent Asian mother, you eat dinner.

What the heck? Who is the crowd booing? Nothing's happened yet. People in SoCal might not care about hockey that much, but man are they loud. What's the over/under on what percentage of them are Sens fans?

7:44 p.m. - Ron is talking to Bettman about the salary cap. He insists that all of the teams either broke even or lost less money than they would have before the cap. That totally explains by Nashville was given $30 million in revenue sharing last year.

Bettman is trying to avoid the issue by telling Ron he's a party pooper for not talking about the Ducks and the Senators game. Ron insists on talking about the Sabres. Bettman insists he loves the Sabres. Bettman's looking a little flushed. Is he drunk?

Ron is foaming at the mouth to talk about the Sabres. Maybe you should just go marry the Sabres!

I have to admit I sort of sympathize with Bettman. Not for anything he's said or done. For the fact that I read somewhere that people who were taller made on average more money than people who were shorter. Seeing somebody who is also vertically challenged in such a position of power is very inspirational to me.

The Headliner is about the rebirth of the Senators. Man, watching that grainy footage of the announcement is making me a little teary. More beer!

Bruce Firestone has impeccable nails. Who's his manicurist?

Oh please, nobody is dumb enough to tank their season for Alexandre Daigle. Right?

8:00 PM - Pre-game montage. It's some sort of grungey male rock concoction. I'd love to be the person that puts these together. It would involve a lot of Indie Rock, wouldn't it be awesome?

A simple Google search tells me that the band is called Silkroad. Not surprisingly, they are used a lot in wrestling matches. You know, the fake ones.

By the way, if you guys know the code to make a jump tag for this entry, that'd be great. I don't want it to get too long and I'm not sure how to do the coding.

IT'S ARNOLD! PEOPLE HAVE TO CARE ABOUT US NOW!

Ron makes a joke that Don could be the Future Prime Minister and Arnold, the future President. That'd be an awesome premise for Terminator 4! And it'd be a documentary.

Two anthems away! Joining me on this liveblog endeavour are my friends Charles Dickens [a giant stuffed panda] and the Artful Dodger [actual, non-stuffed person]. When I invited my friends over for the finals last year no liveblogging got done because they were too distracting.

First Period
Pre-game - Here we go, the Senators in white [forces of ultimate good] and the Ducks in eggplant? Plum? [forces of evil]. Harry Neale and Bob Cole will be joined in the booth by Greg Millen. It's like a great big sandwich of incompetence. Do people not understand the concept of moment of silence? Are you drunk already? Nobody needs to hear you shout WOO-HOO over and over again.

Ryan Miller's younger brother Drew Miller will be in the line-up today, most likely on the top line. CrunchyJr has the same nose as original Crunchy.

Michael just dropped this off in my inbox. GO SENS GO!



19:24 - If there's rust, it's definitely on both sides. Good end-to-end action so far. Anaheim with two big hits so far.

19:07 - Scott Niedermayer off for high sticking. he can't possibly hurt us from the penalty box right?

18:22 - MIKE COMRIE WITH A POWERPLAY GOAL! Kind of a weird floater past Giguere. Comrie was just in the right place at the right time. That counts as "secondary" scoring right?

17:26 - Senators return the PowerPlay favour. Heatley trips up S. Niedermayer. Scottie, to his credit, didn't fall down like Heatley just shot him in the leg. Not that he would ever do something like that. I'm just used to seeing that happening. [Sorry Sabres fans, too soon?]

14:52 - Schubie just planted Pronger into the boards. I will never stop feeling a twinge of happiness when seeing something like that. Also, can somebody explain why he insists on wearing a helmet if the strap is going to be about 3 inches from his chin? That's just asking for trouble. Strap up your bucket properly, it's not cool.

Commercial break. Ottawa tourism commercials. Stop trying to tell me things, TV! Also, upon replay, it looks like the Comrie goal will go to Fisher.

13:26 - Senators have some trouble taking the puck out of the zone. heatley finally does but it's taken off of him again.

13:00 - Alfie takes a shot that floats by and Cole thinks he's scored but it ends up hitting something before it goes to the net. Somebody makes a brutal and blatant giveaway at centre ice. LET'S NOT DO THAT, OKAY?

11:25 - Great stop by Emery off of Perry at point-blank. Ducks continue on with the pressure. Pronger checks Phillips but he continues with the play and manages to get the puck out. We're spending an awfully large amount of time in our own zone boys, how about we do something about that?

9:34 - Dear Meszaros, you are getting knocked off of the puck WAY too easily than I am comfortable with.

9:05 - D'oh. Andy McDonald, high glove-side after Miller plants Redden into the boards and Redden can't clear the zone. See what happens when you don't clear the zone?

8:30 - Again with spending so much time in your own zone. Why are we setting up the box? Are we on the PK again and nobdy told me? Either these boys have forgotten how to play defensively or they are forcing Emery to face a billion shots so people will stop saying he's not tested enough. That's sweet, boys. NOW STOP IT.

Cole observes that it's mercifully sent down the ice. And we mercifully go into a TV time-out.

5:46 - Cole says that Pronger has one of the best outlet passes in the league. Hey, Redden, remember when that was you?

6:46 - Jackman goes all Wolverine on Comrie after he takes a shot after the whistle goes on the off-side. How about we make up for that poor lapse of judgment that was the last couple of minutes, okay?

4:03 - The crowd goes wild after Corvo gets dumped at the blue-line. See? Americans LOVE violence!

3:45 - Vermette with some good pressure in the offensive zone. Somebody get him a goal already! And a Selke.

2:56 - May jabs his stick in between Neil's legs off the face-off. Jackhole.

1:55 - Rebound in the crease. Emery thankfully freezes it in time. This is off of Emery wandering behind the net to handle the puck. I'm thinking we're better off him not doing that.

0:00 - Horn goes. THANK GOODNESS.

Charles Dickens says that he's not pleased with the Senators effort in the first period. Dodger tries to keep him from hijacking the HGcopter and flying down to Anaheim by telling him Murray is probably tearing a strip off of them right now. I go to the liquor cabinet and wonder if my parents would miss anything in there.

First Intermission - Don Cherry's suit is surprisingly tame tonight. A nice grey tweed number. Don goes on to tell us what a genius he is and make the poor interns roll out footage of past Coach's Corners for proof.

And special vintage footage of Chris Pronger with '80s hair talking about the Memorial Cup-----OH MY GOODNESS BABY REDDEN WITH BABY BIRON. And Baby Phillips. AND BABY SPEZZA. And by "baby" I mean before they were drafted.

I'm glad I was sober enough to see that. Spezza, you'll be glad to know was giggly then too. He's shown some improvement over the years.

Scott Oake asks CrunchyJr if his family is genetically incapable of bulking up. CrunchyJr is not amused but instead of telling Oake where he can take his question, answers rather diplomatically. Okay.

2nd Period
Elliotte tells us that the Senators were generally pleased with the way they played in the first period. I'm sorry, were they watching the same game as I was? I can't be that drunk already.

19:53 - Ottawa with some valiant forechecking but nothing happens. Until the Ducks take it back into the Ottawa zone.

19:01 - And of course Redden takes a penalty. Because why should anything actually go easy for these guys, right?

17:51 - From me to you: When you can clear the zone, lazily tipping it to the blue line onto the stick of Pronger might not be the most effective way to kill a penalty. Just a suggestion. Good stop by Emery to find the puck and freeze it.

17:08 - Getzlaf with an overly agressive cross-check on Comrie after fighting for the puck behind the net. Short-handed rush for the Ducks. Thanks guys, thats's real reassuring. Good on Redden for coming up to take away the odd-man chane and good for Emery for cutting off the angle.

15:49 - I know why I want bigger nets: STUPID CROSSBAR!

15:24 - REDDEN! A blast from the point after Giggy lost his stick. Let's try doing that five-on-five now! ISN'T SCORING GREAT?

13:48 - Emery is taking away all the angles as a point-blank shot is stopped. HOW DO YOU LKE HIM NOW?

Ryan Miller is here supporting his younger brother and Ryan Smyth is here as a guest of Comrie. Good times.

13:01 - Pahlsson with a slash. It'd be great to get another goal, actually it's IMPERATIVE we get a goal but the truth is our 5-on-3 has been surprisingly underwhelming this year. Giggy with a beautiful glove save off of Heatley.

12:05 - WOW that was a terrible PP sequence on our part. Why did nobody seem interested in the puck? DEAR EMERY: I DON'T CARE, STAY IN YOUR NET.

9:15 - Spezza, your blind passes stopped being cute awhile ago. When Alfie gift wraps it for you, you pull the trigger. Sorry, how's that for metaphors?

6:49 - Charles Dickens wants to know why the Senators insist on not getting it out. We have no answers. The Dodger asks to switch spots after seeing steam coming out of his ears. I wonder if maybe he's the one that's actually drunk.

Commercial break, I put on "The Sweet Escape" in hopes that Gwen Stefani magic will work. Dodger wants me to turn it off until he sees the Sidney Crosby Timbit commercial come on and asks me to turn up the volume to drown it out.

Elliotte is interviewing Ryan Smyth but I'm far too distracted by the gentleman sitting in front of him with a bright orange "Teemu" t-shirt sporting a mullet.

5:08 - Nice crossover from Alfie and Spezza but once again he waits a little bit too long to pull the trigger, still manages a shot on goal but it was a bit of a weak floater.

4:34 - These icing calls are starting to annoy me. How easily the Ducks are gaining the zone are also starting to annoy me. Man, I love that these two teams are getting scrappy ALREADY. Dodger rubs his eyes to make sure he just saw Vermette check somebody into the boards.

2:07 - EMERY MAKES A MIND-BLOWING SAVE off of a weird floating shot after once again the Senators make another lazy turnover. Volchenkov vacuums in another shot making his playoff total 106 blocked shots. 106?!!

1:57 - Cole tells us that it's time to vote for our 3-stars. Dodger wants to vote for Fisher. He might have a man-crush on him. I'm counting the number of times he said "That was awesome!" after he did something.

0:59 - That rebound off of Emery was horrendous but thank goodness it was cleared in time. THANK GOODNESS. NOW CLEAR THE ZONE.

0:00 - Shots were even for both sides 10-10 in the second period. Emery has made some pretty spectacular saves so far but he also has to watch his tendency to wander. I know you're bored hun, but excitement is not always a good thing.

That was a slightly better period from the boys. I think initially the Senators weren't used to the Ducks taking it to them physically but they managed to match that pretty well. They were skating much better but are still prone to really really really stupid giveaways, specifically at the offensive blue line. The fancy extra pass at the blue-line need to stop and they need to go back to getting it deep and coming in to fight for it.

Second Intermission - Ron is talking to Original Crunchy. He's not as hairy as CrunchyJr, with good reason I guess. Ron is asking him about the goalies now and is actually complimenting Emery's development. I guess he's a pretty cool dude.

GEORGE! Stroumbolopoulos [sp?] is talking about the "Bring Home the Cup" contest CBC is running and I try not to squee too loud lest I be mocked. Dodger wants to know why I didn't enter. I explain that one jersey and one stick on the wall does not a shrine make.

Mark Messier is on screen and I think I might hear Charles Dickens hiss at the TV.

Third Period

19:26 - And once again the top-line is knocked off the puck a little bit more easier than I would have liked. Thank goodness for an off-side call on the Ducks' rush.

18:50 - Fisher gets it in deep and then bumps his man. "That's Awesome" count is up to 6.

17:31 - Nice rush by Schubie and a back-hand that's stopped by Giggy. The boys are looking much better 5-on-5, oh wait Selanne with a good play and McDonald with a shot. No harm done though. Still, maybe I spoke too soon.

16:16 - I know that Rob Niedermayer is the less talented, less loved brother but he still has had a pretty good playoffs. So uh, how about we NOT give him that much room to walk in, all right? Also, why do we seem to not be winning face-offs?

15:00 - I have a heart attack after a huge juicy, Emery rebound.

14:36 - AH, CRAP. Getzlaf through the five-hole. Close that thing up next time! STOP GIVING AWAY THE PUCK NEXT TIME. [facepalm]

13:27 - The boys follow up that brilliant performance with Schubie taking a needless slashing penalty on S. Niedermayer. Charles Dickens rethinks his idea of benching Schubie.

11:43 - The puck is loose in the blue ice after Emery took some abuse from a Ducks player trying to poke the puck free. He thankfully finds the puck and covers up. I start to take names for people in Duck jerseys that need to be filled in next time.

10:24 - Alfie loses the puck to R. Niedermayer but Emery's not falling for it. THANK GOODNESS SOMEBODY ISN'T. And of course they are following up that sparkling performance by taking ANOTHER PENALTY.

9:54 - Millen tells us that the Senators have been outshot 8-0 in the third. I go rifling through the liquor cabinet again.

8:10 - Perry sends the puck to the blue-line but nobody is there. I breathe a little as the penalty is finally over.

6:52 - Scott takes a penalty and I am slightly optimistic. Cause we're certainly not scoring even strength!

5:31 - 42 seconds left on the powerplay. I'm not feeling so optimistic anymore. Muckler looks forlorne. I know how he feels.

5:00 - Neale congratulations the the Hamilton Bulldogs and the Hershey Bears and I am briefly happy thinking about how well the lil Dogs are doing. And then I'm brought back to reality that there's still a game ging on.

4:34 - Nice shot from Kelly but it's off the blocker of Giguere. Nice pressure from the Senators to keep it in and a couple of nice scoring chances. Let's do MORE of that!

3:07 - The Senators send it down the ice for an icing call. Because frankly when it's all the way down there, there's less of a chance it'll be in the back of the net. If you're going to keep doing that, you could at least try winning more faceoffs.

2:51 - Moen scores off a nice set-up from behind the net. I officially don't know how much more of this I could take.

1:45 - Fisher is working his arse off trying to make something happen. He also probably wants to know why he's the only one doing anthing. Charles Dickens wants to bench Meszaros now.

0:55 - HEY HERE'S AN IDEA ANAHEIM, you don't want us crashing your crease? Don't do it in ours! Yeah, I didn't think so.

0:44 - Pronger takes a hooking penalty. Last ditch effort for the boys to get the tying goal. It might be possible but I'm frankly not all that optimistic anymore.

0:00 - And it's done. 3-2 Anaheim. Giggy obnoxiously raises his arms like he just won the cup. SHUT UP! YOU DRINK FROM A STRAW.

So I had this really awesome post-game wrap-up typed up but the foreign computer crashed on me and I spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to make it stop typing in Chinese.

In any case, I'm surprisingly calm about this loss because to be honest, I don't think the Senators would have deserved to win this game considering they were dominated for most of the game.

Anyways, I think Emery had a really solid game although there were signs of nerve at the beginning. The Senators did come out with a lot of hustle but they did run out of gas eventually. The Ducks were really taking it to them, especially outhustling them 5-on-5. It was thanks to an effective powerplay that the Senators were even able to get on the scoresheet.

The Top line was badly outplayed by the checking line of the Ducks. They looked really out of synch and was definitely making one pass too many and some boneheaded giveaways.

However, I am still optimistic that the boys will be able to play much better. They just needed to get back into the groove of things and as much as I would like to think the layoff didn't effect them, it's still hard to recreate a game setting in a practice setting.

So don't despair Senators fans, this is poised to be a long series if the boys can find their groove back. In the meantime, they are going to have to try harder to look like they're interested because as far as I [and Dodger and Charles Dickens] was concerned, Fisher was pretty much the only one in this game.

This is the first time that the Senators have trailed in a playoff series this year. If we've seen anything from this team about the adversity they've faced, it's that they're capable of coming back strong. Let's just hope they managed to find that fight in them.

Here's some fresh Knob Hockey to maybe lift your spirits.



Charles Dickens still believes, do you?

GO SENS GO!

Labels: anaheim ducks, liveblog, playoffs, round 4: anaheim ducks