Slapshot, the New York Times’ hockey blog, considers Michael Ignatieff’s hockey watching, as revealed in Adam Gopnik’s profile for the New Yorker.

Ignatieff notes the contrast between being a professor, writer and navel-gazer and being a politician. “The thing that politics most strongly resembles is being on soccer teams and hockey teams when I was a child,” he says. “It’s not a lonely writer in his den thinking thoughts.” He mulls the question further and tells Gopnik of an experience he had not too long ago with his wife.

“What is it that a great politician knows? What is that form of knowledge?” Ignatieff asks. “Last night, Zsuzsanna and I were watching the Detroit Red Wings goalie, and he knows something; what is it that he knows? What is it that a great politician knows? The great ones have a skill that is just jaw-dropping, and I’m trying to learn that.”

Presumably Ignatieff was watching Chris Osgood. (Disturbing news for Canadians? They’ve got to hope he was watching Osgood in the playoffs, not the regular season.) To American ears, it’s a bit weird to hear a national politician comparing anything to a living, breathing goalie — although to these particular American ears it’s a real pleasure.

The 1987-1988 Detroit Red Wings included five players who finished the season with 130 or more penalty minutes (Doug Halward, Lee Norwood, Gerard Gallant, Joey Kocur and Bob Probert). Their coach was a bit intense too.

Demers explained the above to the New York Times in 2005. Continue…

It’s shinier in person.

That might explain why 17,000 Pittsburgh Penguin fans stuck around tonight to clap eyes on the greatest trophy in professional sport—even as they booed the Detroit Red Wings for winning it. But the Stanley Cup got it’s proper reception when Henrik Zetterberg, the Conn Smythe-winning forward, took it out of Daniel Cleary’s hands. You could hear him up in the press box, hollering with joy as he hoisted the 35-pound bad boy over his head. 

More than making you forgive the Wings their automatonic play, it was a scene to remind you that the Cup’s effect is universal. Swedes, Finns, Russians, Canadians and Americans alike understand the meaning of winning it. 

“It’s just a great feeling I have right now,” beamed Zetterberg after the on-ice celebration, with the Conn Smythe perched beside him. Pittsburgh’s last-gasp effort was close enough to scare him, he acknowledged. But holding on for the 3-2 win was more than enough to make his year. “When I saw the puck behind the [Detroit] net, I looked at the clock and saw zero minutes and zero seconds, I was a pretty happy man.”

A number of things got settled here tonight. The age of wimpy Euro—or the Euro as addendum to a core of Canadian “leaders”—is officially over. To merely credit Nicklas Lidstrom as the first European captain to hoist Lord Stanley’s mug is to criminally understate the man’s impact through every shift of every game in this series. He is, in Pierre McGuire’s tired phrase, a monster in every respect. Zetterberg is dominant at both ends of the rink, never skirting the rough stuff, maintaining breakneck speed even as he’s clipped and smacked and head-hunted. Tonight, he scored one of the stranger Cup-winning goals in history by pulling the puck through his skates as he wheeled through centre, unleashing a shot that caught Pens goaltender Marc-André Fleury off guard; as it dribbled between his pads, Fleury sat back, knocking the thing in with his butt.

Tomas Holmstrom, another Swede, takes more abuse in front of the net than any player since Phil Esposito. Niklas Kronvall is an outright menace in the open-ice hitting department. Datsyuk stands his ground. So do Franzen and Filppula.

So Lidstrom had every right to claim his due when he appeared before the press horde tonight. Being the first Euro to captain a Cup winner is “something I’m very proud of,” he said. “I’ve been over here a long time. I watched Steve Yzerman hoist it up three times in the past, and I’m very proud of being the first European. I’m very proud of being captain of the Red Wings. So much history with the team and great tradition.” How can you argue with that?

Better yet that Lidstrom made one of those class-act gestures that would bring a tear to Don Cherry’s eye, handing it the Cup off first to Dallas Drake, a career plumber who toiled 15 seasons on four teams without winning a title. 

Second thing: the Penguins are closer to championship form than their critics thought. Yes, they were at least a couple of good defencemen short of beating a team like Detroit. Yes, GM Ray Shero will have a devil of a time improving the team while staying under the salary cap—especially if he plans to keep Marian Hossa. But the spectacle tonight of the Pens storming back on the Wings for the second game in a row, almost tying it on a Sidney Crosby backhander with centi-seconds left on the clock, is proof enough of what’s going on here. They showed character, as well as youth and talent.

Finally, the “system” is back in hockey. It is hard just now to pinpoint exactly what Detroit’s system is. “Venus fly trap” might fit, given their capacity to lunge from a full-bloom, run-and-gun game to collapsing around their prey back in their own slot. Yet there was Lidstrom himself uttering the dreaded word, crediting coach Mike Babcock with selling his charges on a strategic formula that would limit offensive opportunities. Again and again tonight, Pittsburgh rushes fell apart in the neutral zone under Detroit’s patented high-speed checking. It’s not obstruction, per se. Just very rapid recovery.

That’s the good news: the Red Wings’ template requires very fast forwards, very mobile defence, great stamina throughout the lineup. And they execute it brilliantly. I’m one of those who complains incessantly about their robotic efficiency. But it must be a joy for their partisans to behold.

Almost as great a joy as that shiny old Cup in Henrik Zetterberg’s Midas-like hands. What lucky fans they are.

A brief venture into the belly of the Pittsburgh beast reveals a stunning level of attention to the Penguins—as much or more than I saw in Ottawa when the Sens reached the final last year.

Saw “Go Pens go” signs up in windows, banners on the buildings. School kids wore white to school today in solidarity with the team. Dozens of people on the street wearing jerseys.  Personal favourite was a gangsta kid—cornrows, Timberland workboots and all—wearing one of those ’70s era baby-blue replica jerseys. On the back: Evgeni Malkin, #71.

Wow. White Russian meets urban America…

UPDATE: They’re showing the game live on a jumbo screen outside the building, rain or shine. Right now it’s raining, and there’s an enormous crowd out there starting to party. I think we should give these people honorary Canadian citizenship.

Lots of prattle about Detroit needing to come out of the gate with their fangs bared, stedda letting in two goals early like last time. Shockingly, Coach Mike says the key will be control. We need to concentrate, he says. Pay attention to detail. Do the little things right … so tired, hmm, zzzzz …wha? oh yeah. “There’s so much motivation here right now,” the lantern-jawed bench-boss adds. “Both teams are highly motivated. It’s not like you need to get them jacked up.”

Those, like me, who are perplexed by Detroit’s ability to pump in goals while boring the pants off you, will giggle. We will fall over sideways at a maxim Babcock just issued from the pulpit: “Work ethic first, structure second, skill third” is how you win as much as the Wings do, he says. Nothing about fun. But hey, who are we to argue? You wish sometimes Zetty and Datsyuk would go off the leash, but Detroit finished the year 54-21-7. They scored 252 goals, 73 more than they allowed. They’re one win away from a Cup and you can’t argue with results.

Other than this, and a few platitudes about how wonderful it is for the city of Pittsburgh that this is all happening, Babcock had little to offer. Asked whether the team has collected its wits after the Game 5 rollercoaster ride, he argued they had collected their wits by the second shift of the second period in Game 5. True enough.

NB: Now I know why they used to call this the Igloo. It’s cold as a Laplander’s kiss, which seems weird, because it’s like a steambath outside. Turns out Dan Craig, the NHL’s ice guru is working very hard to keep the surface in this 1950s-era pile useable during this week’s tropical monsoon. Evidently this requires turning the thermostat to 0 degrees Kelvin in the hours before the game. And Coyne thinks he has it bad at the B.C. Human Rights Commish …

That’s right, folks. The biggest Ball of Them All (six-three, to Frisco’s five-foot-nothing) is holed up in the Mellon Arena dungeon (aka the “Print Media Lounge”) in hope of catching a glimpse of Sid the Kid. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final promises to be a dandy, after Petr Sykora’s triple OT heroics on Monday night. And hey, they let us in! There must be some mistake…

A few notes following the Penguins’ morning skate:

• Fear and loathing over refereeing reigns. Detroit coach Mike Babcock teed off yesterday over a couple of goalie-interference penalties called against the Wings during overtime. Neither resulted in the deciding goal, but hey, who knows what might have happened if Zetterberg and Cleary hadn’t lost four of the 54 minutes of extra time? Notice Babcock’s pissy reference to “the other guy,” namely Pittsburgh skipper Michel Therrien, who’d spent the past few days beefing about subtle obstruction on the Automatons part.

First, Therrien laughed it off. “I’ve been going around this morning introducing myself as the other guy.” Then, in the true spirit of the game, he counter-punched, noting that the refs had been just as over-zealous protecting Wings minder Chris Osgood. “[Babcock] is complaining about calls and we’re complaining about non-calls,” Therrien said. “Obviously, he didn’t have a problem when Osgood got bumped and fell down on Ryan Malone. I didn’t hear any complaining about that.”

Ah, the sweet sound of playoff bitchiness.

• No line-up changes for the Pens. That means Sergei Gonchar, who left Game 5 with what appeared to be a wrenched back—yet returned to assist the winning goal—is playing. So is gritty Ryan Malone, who took a point shot to his schnozz, yet claims there are “no fractures.” Which is to say, no new ones. Big lift for Pittsburgh. Then again, says Sidney Crosby, this is the Stanley Cup Final: “It doesn’t surprise me. Unless they’re physically unable to get out there, they’re going to play.”

• Someone asked Crosby if he had determined whether he would drink champagne should the Pens win the Cup, not being of legal age in and all (it’s 21, and Crosby’s 20). Jesus, talk about an invitation to jinx yourself. Ever brilliant in the tap-dancing department, the Kid fobbed it off with clichés about having “a long way to go.”

Wings are on the ice now. Stay tuned.

When the Detroit papers are celebrating a Pens win in the Stanley Cup final, you know the series has gotten a little stale. But be careful what you wish for, boys. Momentum’s a fickle thing, and as invincible as the Wings have looked lately, they did go into a swoon around the middle of the season…

‘Nother common take: Sid the Kid put the team on his shoulders, a la Messier, and brought them back from dead. Like this writer, I’m a little less sure. It was a helluva game for Crosby, but his manner of taking over a game may never be as obvious as a Messier “guaranteed win” night, or a Gretzky flourish. I’ve been struck in the past (and written about) Sid’s peerless ability to make plays with one touch of the stick, which today’s style of play demands. His goals last night reflected that uncanny ability.

Either way, it is nice to see Pittsburgh back in this thing. Malkin wakes up and who knows what could happen.

Sometimes those post-game quotes fail to capture the emotional undercurrent of a series. Luckily, we here at Balls are pretty wired with the big-league types. So straight from the inbox to you, dear reader.

From: Chris Osgood

Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 3:18 a.m.

To: Balls (WTF?!)

Dear whoever the hell you are,

Listen, I heard some talk about “diving” after my masterful performance in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final, and if I see my name in another Mitch Albom sobber I’m going to puke like Morrie on 222s. So I might as well vent on whatever this thing is, stedda whining to him again. Pay attention, kiddies, Grandpa’s got a story. Continue…

We here at Balls are quivering in anticipation of Gary Roberts’ return to the Pittsburgh Penguin’s lineup tonight against the Detroit Red Wings. but we are inclined to give Michael Therrien a break for scratching the old warrior for game one. (That is to say I’m inclined to give the guy a break, and since I’m the only one who seems to be posting lately, I am invoking the “Royal We.”) Continue…

As any NHL fan who is honest with himself will admit, the Detroit Red Wings are boring. Flat, bloodless and efficiently boring. Like an automobile assembly line. Or a CTV movie.

So I probably should have cheered last night when Kelly Sutherland waved off this goal because Tomas Holmstrom was, er, interfering by standing outside the blue paint and not touching the goaltender.

Continue…