Had the Blackhawks not won Game 7 against the Red Wings twice Wednesday night they would still be awaiting the explanation for what happened with 1 minute 47 seconds left in the third period why their dramatic game winning goal was not a game winning goal because a referee saw players getting pushy half a rink away and blew a whistle destined for the referee gaffe hall of fame until Chicago scored the game winning goal again a few minutes into overtime.
Yes Chicago did not have to win Game 7 once. It had to win it twice. This is no easy feat especially when you re doing it with one referee tied behind your back. Stephen Walkom s call coincidental minors on players tussling by the bench nowhere near Niklas Hjalmarsson blasting a puck past Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard as the United Center erupted in delirium was akin to an umpire at Citi Field calling time in the middle of a home run swing because the line at Shake Shack was getting unruly. The level of disbelief registered on the Richter scale.
To the great relief of Walkom and his security detail Brent Seabrook clipped a shot off Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall and into the corner of the net in overtime lifting the entire N.H.L. off the hook for its continuing adventures in refereeing. There was new delirium a rightful winner a Blackhawks comeback crafted out of grit and stubbornness Jon Greenberg writes on ESPN.com. This was the team that had barely been tested on its way to the league s best regular season record Nicholas Cotsonika writes on Yahoo.com having to bounce back from a 3 1 series deficit brain cramps by some of its best players and then the game winner that wasn t Jesse Rogers writes on ESPN.com.
The Red Wings meanwhile played the role of proud competitors to the end writes Bob Wojnowski in The Detroit News the team that wasn t supposed to be there doing all it could to teach the Blackhawks a lesson in playoff hockey. That lesson nothing comes easy and don t count on the referees to get anything right. Sometimes you have to win games twice.
Seabrook s winner means the N.H.L.'s off ice attention can circle around the postseason circus in New York where the Rangers had mercy on their players and axed Coach John Tortorella who given a little more time in the job would have blamed them for global warming the Postal Service s financial woes and perhaps cicadas. As Larry Brooks writes in The New York Post it was the players who prompted this move led by the exasperated franchise goalie Henrik Lundqvist without whom this team is the Florida Panthers. It was Tortorella s special talent that absolutely no one is sorry to see him go and as Brian Cazeneuve writes on SI.com the highlights of his tenure read like Edgar Allan Poe. The mystery left is how Glen Sather s personnel roulette game does not get him fired as Filip Bondy writes in The Daily News.
But if you want something that truly defies explanation you really need to watch the coming HBO show Vice Goes to North Korea to experience the once in a lifetime intersection of a true sports lunatic and his friend the brutal dictator. Dennis Rodman s visit to North Korea with three Harlem Globetrotters and a Vice Media Group crew is the kind of thing that makes you wonder what planet you just woke up on. The trip was in February and the show screened Wednesday for the news media will be broadcast June 14 when you get to see Rodman at the strangest basketball you ve ever seen sitting next to Kim Jong un. They arrived as the country was celebrating yes parade and all a successful nuclear test and putting on its best fake prosperity face for the Vice cameras. As the Vice correspondent Ryan Duffy said it was like being in a real life Truman Show starring the strangest basketball player anyone ever met.
Alongside that Wednesday night s Blackhawks win looks completely normal.
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