Good for the NHL.  I’m actually feeling a little excited for Game 6 tonight, and I don’t think I’m alone.

I got a call yesterday from a friend who has moved around quite a bit, but is more Floridian than anything else.  I didn’t know this former Gator even realized the Stanley Cup Finals were being played … or what the Stanley Cup was for that matter.

However, he asks, ‘you see that game last night?’  It threw me for a loop.  At first I thought he was talking about the orange/blue spring football game in the Swamp.  

I’m still thinking, ‘game last night …  game last night …  what game is he talking about?’

My thought process was interrupted by him saying, “I couldn’t believe the Penguins scored.  Then I fell asleep and woke up like an hour later and there was hockey still on the TV.  I thought it was the highlights, but realized it was still the game in the third overtime and then the Pens scored, a few minutes after I woke up, to win the game.”

That’s when it hit me, ‘hey, we got a series here.’  If you saw game five, you may have witnessed the next coming.  While the Penguins may not win the Cup, we got a series here.   Pittsburgh showed a lot of moxie coming back and keeping the champagne on ice in the Red Wings’ locker room, but they still trail 3-2 in the best of seven series.

Will the Penguins be able to force a game seven by winning tonight at home or is the night Detroit hoists the cup, after all, they are 12-0 in game 6’s since 1996?  I’m not sure, and won’t pretend to know enough about hockey to take a guess, but at least I, along with many other casual sports fans, am going to tune in to find out.