I think my heart finally, after nearly 48 hours, stopped pounding at 100 mph. I was a fortunate soul and attended Friday night’s Penguins v. Senators game at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.

The atmosphere was ridiculous. The anticipation that built up in the arena actually heated up dried blood of Jean Claude Van Damme’s victims from Sudden Death and cause it to drip on Senator fans.

You knew the game would be awesome after the flawless rendition of Oh, Canada, and the Star-Spangeled banner by Jeff Jimerson.

The puck dropped and the place exploded.

Sergei Gonchar got the scoring underway with a 5-on-3 goal. Unreal feeling going through that arena. You could feel the pulse of someone 14 rows away.

Chants of GAR-EE, GAR-EEE, rang through the stands. Of course we were all referencing *Gary Roberts*and his beast like persona. At 42 years old, he is just a monster who will only stop once he’s eaten your heart. Well he was taking cheap shots from the Sens all night, all because he owns, and actually took over the mayorship of Ottawa after Game 1.

The game got physical, with the normal scrums in front of the nets, but no big brawls, no one was willing to take a game changing penalty. That would have to wait for later.

In the second the Pens added another tally to the board. After failing to score on a power-play. Geno, aka Evgeni Malkin, flies into the Senators zone at Mach 3, gets the puck to Sid who gets it back to Malkin who sparks up the bunsen burner and works some chemistry with Petr Sykora who buries it behind Gerber baby food.

The Pens Brooks Orpik goes off for Interference which leads to a couple scoring chance for the Sens, in particular a one-timer by Jason Spezza that was stoned by Marc-Andre Fleury.
After an unreal penalty kill, Jarkko Rutuu lays out and pokes a puck to Orpik who just left the box. Good-ol’ #44, with the stare of a serial killer breaks to the net. Brooks, however, has only 1 goal in the past 2 seasons, so seeing him on the breakaway was not only thrilling but also disheartening because you knew you would end up disappointed. Of course his shot was easily tossed aside by Gerber.

Ryan Malone, who we’ll get to later, keeps the puck in the zone, finds a fresh Malkin who finds his good buddy Sykora who slams it home for his second goal of the game and third of the young series.

The crowd is on cloud 9. A 3-0 lead midway through the second period. What a game, what a party, what a team.

Things soon would change.

30-some odd seconds later, two jokes, Chris Neil and Shean, pronounced Sean, Donovan hook up in the locker room and bring that relationship to the ice for the first Senator’s goal of the series.

Later the Pens’ Tyler Kennedy takes a penalty and the Senators make it 3-2, most of the air was out of the arena, but we still had a lead going into the 3rd.

The 3-goal lead disappeared after Lance Bass scored his first goal since the eighth grade picnic. Nothing was worse. From cloud 9 to hell in a matter of a few shifts.

It wasn’t time to panic but you knew that any shot could be deflected and put behind Fleury. This situation happened earlier against the Sens, with the Pens giving up a 3 goal lead and losing with 4 seconds left in OT.

But this isn’t then, those aren’t the same Senators, and we aren’t the same Penguins.

With a little over a minute left, Martin LaPointe, puts his stick in Rutuu’s face and a high sticking penalty is called. This is our chance, this was our chance, it is time to show we know how to finish a team. Everyone was on their feet. The energy was back and the players fed off of it.

Suprisingly, Petr Sykora wasn’t on the ice for the Powerplay. He was replaced by Marian Hossa, who has had a harder time scoring than a guy at a Lilith Fair concert.

Anyways the Pen’s come down for their first push and Hossa gets off a shot that Gerber can’t control. The rebound goes to Malone who takes the puck behind the net. From our seats we could see an opening on Gerbers left post. Obviously, Malone saw it too.

Buries it.

4-3.

Bedlam.

That next minute of my life is a blur, I have no idea what happened.

All I know is that there was a lot of heterosexual man love going around that arena. Everyone was best friends, everyone just won the lottery, everyone just slept with Jessica Alba, it was pure and utter bliss.

In a last ditch effort Gerber heads to the bench.

Hossa feeds Malone.

Count it.

5-3.

Series 2-0.

We’ll see you in Ottawa.