And so it begins (or does it continue?)

The Stanley Cup finals have finally started, and with that the world has jumped on the hockey bandwagon. Every other feed on my Facebook homepage says “Go Wings!” Newspapers are posting hockey news on the front page. Even youtube.com is jumping on for the ride. I’d ask where these people are the other 351 days a year, but I know the answer.

They’re watching football.

As tonight’s game came to a close, I started racking my brain for a word to describe it. Unfortunately, no such word exists, so a long string of adjectives will have to do. It was stressful, gross, fast, amazing, ridiculous, exciting, and above all, (what else?) pukey. But the Wings came out with the win, and that’s all that matters in the end. It was great having Nick and Fabio back on the blueline, and it will be even better when Pavel finally gets healthy.

How long has it been now? Maybe in my brain three minutes without Pavel Datsyuk just feels like ten years, but I’m almost ready to call complete bs on the “bruised foot” thing. Whatever it is, it needs to go away soon; I want the Russian-on-Russian deke-battles I’ve been dreaming of.

Now, onto things that make me irrationally angry. DENNIS-FREAKING-LARUE. Who let him into the Stanley Cup finals? Wasn’t it enough fun last year when O’Halloran ref-ed every other game? It’s a miracle that the Red Wings didn’t end the first period with two game misconducts, five fighting majors for standing too close to Sidney Crosby, and down by nine goals.

But the Wings deserved that win. They killed off two back-to-back penalties, had the better goaltender, and just all out played a better game. I’ve been hearing that all three of the goals they scored were lucky bounces, but clearly these people didn’t see the goal from Justin Abdelkader. He knocked it out of the air and then put it in the net. That doesn’t sound like a lucky bounce to me.

At the rate they’re going, Crosby and Zetterberg are going to end up scheduling a full on cage match for the off-season. The last thing I want to see is those two trying to hurt each other as the series goes on, because as much as I’ve got my money on the Viking, Hank has a history of back spasms that I’d like to keep as history.

And I don’t know. I sort of expected more violence against Hossa. I know there was some, but I was sort of hoping that their retribution-anger would have distracted them from the game, like it did Chicago. Like taking stupid penalties and going WHAAAAREVENGE!! instead of I am going to force him toward the boards and pass the puck across ice to the neutral zone. Maybe tomorrow.