This series was set to be a titillating matchup before it even started. The two top seeds battling in the conference finals, the Sharks having finally got over the hump known as Detroit, and the Canucks rolling through the Preds and looking close to unstoppable. In fact, if you’ll recall from my second round Western Conference recap, I compared the Canucks to a great pair of breasts. It’s as if the hockey gods, who laughed at me by taking my best player in the second to last game of the regular season, apologized by turning my metaphor into the ultimate real life play on words. I think it’s time to seriously consider the possibility that either I’m psychic, or I am the chosen one. 

Game 1 was great. Vancouver scored two in the third period to win. Now on to the good stuff.

If there was ever a hockey game made to try and attract the red-blooded American male, average sports fan, it was game 2. It featured 10 goals, a Gordie Howe hat-trick (the previously mentioned one player notching a goal, assist, and a fight.), and then it happened….

San Jose’s Ben Eager sat in the penalty box and was given a treat for his troubles. A blonde Canucks fan approached the glass, lifted her jersey and took two for flashing. While the event was cut from the Versus network here in the states (see below), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Canada does not have a time-delay, thus marking another major nationally broadcast professional sporting event featuring live and uncensored sweater-meat. 

Sound familiar? Of course. We went through this during Super Bowl 38 in 2004 when Janet Jackson finally gave us what we’ve been waiting two and half painful decades for. Our media turned it into a bigger event than the game. And this brings me to my new feature I’m praying my editors won’t cut…

Mr. Ice Guy Political Commentary:

There are many, many reasons why I’m proud to be an American: World War II, our space program, Miracle on Ice, Fleet Week, Navy Seals, 9/11, the American college experience, spring break, Hollywood blockbusters, not giving soccer the light of day, Dodge Vipers, Batman and Megan Fox to name a few.

But every now and then, however, there is an event that temporarily embarrasses the Stars and Stripes and the American public’s reaction to the so-called Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” is one of them. Let’s examine this reaction. 

Every religious and parents’ group filing over 540,000 complaints resulting in over half a million dollars in FCC fines, a class-action lawsuit claiming mental anguish and damage (really? like really?), and new FCC regulations for time-delays on live events.

I was in Ireland a month later, and the incident was brought up in a pub, to which a group of Irish girls laughed at this great nation of ours, calling Americans far too uptight. And I couldn’t agree more. When did we become a bunch of oversensitive whiners that run to lawyers and demand apologies every time someone claims their feelings are hurt?

Now let’s examine the Canadian reaction to the same type of event. And before anyone tries to say, well a hockey game isn’t exactly the Super Bowl; you obviously don’t know Canadians very well. 

This was the conference finals, with a Canadian team not only playing, but poised to bring the Stanley Cup north of the border for the first time in 18 years. Over 3 million Canadians watched the game, and thus saw the flash. Not to mention this flash featured both breasts, while the Super Bowl only gave us one. So technically that doubles viewership to 6 million… just go with it. 

The Canadian media and public response? Well, there really hasn’t been one. No fines, no lawsuits as of yet, no little Canadian kids supposedly scarred for life. CBC’s head of media relations, Jeff Keay, did however offer a statement,

“there are no plans at this time to institute a tape delay to prevent a similar incident in the future.” 

Vancouver won the game 7-3 by the way. San Jose made a series of it by getting game 3 at home. The Canucks stormed out of the gate in game 4, scoring three goals in the second period, and a fourth early in the third. The Sharks got two back, but time ran out on their comeback and Vancouver had a commanding 3-1 series lead going back home. 

The Sharks fought hard in game 4, knowing that if this post-season has taught us anything, it’s that a 3-1 series lead is anything but secure. The Sharks overcame an early deficit to take a lead into the final minute, falling just 16 seconds short before Ryan Kesler tied the game, tipping in a Henrik Sedin wrist-shot. The game went to double overtime before Vancouver sent all of Canada into a Cup frenzy on a goal (I literally had to watch four times before I figured out how it went in).  Alexander Edler tried to play the puck deep around the net, high off the glass. The puck hit a scansion that connects the glass, and bounced back to the waiting stick of Kevin Bieksa, unbeknownst to absolutely everyone. Bieksa hurried a shot and although he got terrible wood on it, it had enough steam to slip past unsuspecting Sharks’ goalie Antti Niemi, caught still looking around for the puck.  And exactly like 1994, the Canucks won the Western Conference Finals in double overtime of game 5. 

As for San Jose? Once again, here in mid-to-late May, the Sharks have gone belly-up. They are fish out of water, they are the catch of the day. There. I noted in my last article that I did not exploit nearly enough puns the team name had to offer. Now I got my fill. No wait, I’m not done yet. 

As Larry Vaughn, the once proud former mayor of Amity Island once said, “This is not the time nor the place to perform some half-assed autopsy on a fish.” Well Mr. Mayor, just as Chief Brody and Dr. Hooper knew you were wrong then, we know you’re wrong now. After all, it didn’t take a genius to know the little Kintner boy was not about to spill out all over the dock from that particular trophy catch.