I’ve had it as one of my starting tabs for two weeks and haven’t bothered to listen to it, but this seems like something that other people who frequent this site might like.

I think I’ll wait for the RiffTrax to come out before renting it.

This is “Chelsea Dagger,” a song by the now-defunct band The Fratellis. You may know it better as “that dumb but catchy thing they play when the Blackhawks score.” With the Blackhawks set to play the Canucks tomorrow, it seems like an appropriate time to dig that out, given that I’m hoping the Canucks hear it so many times it becomes embedded in their nightmares. You know, again. Which leads me neatly into last night’s game, because holy shit, the Hitmen scored a lot of goals. The problem is, and this may also be a blessing, is that they didn’t entirely play their best game last night, and you know the Americans are going to be reeling from this spanking and out for blood. The blessing is, Mike Williamson has plenty of ammo for Video Time at today’s practice: heck, maybe he can even throw in a tape of the Kelowna series from last year, as an object lesson in the dangers of overconfidence, at least for the eight or ten guys who weren’t here for that one and don’t carry the memories of that defeat seared into every sulcus of their cerebral cortex.

Of course, there’s another good reason why the Hitmen weren’t exactly at their peak last night: this game was pretty much over by the middle of the first period. After a tentative first few minutes in which teams went through the traditional feeling-out process that often accompanies these cross-conference playoff games, Ian Schultz found a hole in the Americans’ defence and sprung Cody “Fernando” Sylvester, who scored his tenth of the playoffs, matching his regular-season total in something like a quarter of the games. A couple of minutes later, the Americans took the first of back-to-back penalties, when Eric Mestery cross-checked Brandon Kozun to the ice near the boards. Matt MacKenzie sailed home his fifth of the playoffs, and it was 2-0 Hitmen. Immediately thereafter, another Tri-City penalty, another MacKenzie goal. After the TV timeout, in which I dug out my pizza and began eating, Misha Fisenko drove around a T.C. defender and scored his first of two on the night, and I couldn’t even jump up and down because I had supper in my lap. 4-0 Hitmen eleven minutes into the game, and that was all she wrote for Drew Owsley, until now the best statistical goalie in the playoffs by a mile. The Hitmen killed a Del Cowan penalty with ease, it that was your score after one.

The second period started with another Americans penalty, in which backup Alexander Pechurskiy, the only player with an NHL game under his belt in this series, came up huge. At even strength, however, Brandon Kozun was left all alone in the slot with enough time to skate to the net, steal a drink from the goalie’s water bottle, then skate back and take the shot that gave him his eighth of the post-season. Tri-City’s defence was absolutely pathetic on this night, but Calgary’s started to slip more than a little after establishing a five-goal lead. After spending the majority of the last ten minutes of the period in their own zone, the Hitmen got a bit lucky with another huge breakdown by T.C., resulting in Fisenko’s second of the night with under a minute to go. 6-0 after two.

The third period…just kind of happened. I’ll be honest, I was scarcely following the play in the third period; I just sort of let it unfold in front of me and passively observed it without recording much. It was a pretty chippy period, as the teams started to foment distaste for one another with various behind-the-play shots and uncalled hacks and whacks. While the Hitmen got into minor penalty trouble late, they were able to get into the lanes when they had to. A bullet of a goal by Ben Wilson, a late shorthanded chance by Ian Schultz, and a fight between Cody Beach and Brock Sutherland were the only real events that got my attention at all. It’s very hard to care when you’re watching a six-goal (later seven-goal) game.

If I had to point out a player who had a truly bad game, it’d probably be Jaynen Rissling, who looked like a 16-year-old rookie defenceman in this game. He looked lost on his coverage, made a couple of bad turnovers to preserve T.C. pressure, and just generally seemed nervous and perhaps overmatched. I’ll be curious to see if Rissling trades chairs with Peter Kosterman, the other youngster who’s seen action in these playoffs due to the injury to Kyle Aschim (which I’ll be honest, I have no clue what it is). On the other hand, in addition to the pair of two-goal men, Martin Jones earned the third star for his shutout, to go along with Eastern Conference Final MVP (yeah, I forgot to mention that last time, didn’t I?) and WHL Goaltender of the Year (woo!) honours this past week. Game 2 goes tonight at 8 (late start due to the Roughnecks playoff game at 1). I expect a much better and better-prepared Tri-City team, and apparently, so do the Hitmen; let’s hope they’re as ready as they say they are.

And if I can’t get it for Christmas, I’d at least like to see this become an amusement park-style ride at future iterations of, say, PAX.

If you follow me on Twitter — and why wouldn’t you? — you’re already familiar with today’s embed. I don’t wish ill on many players, but Matt Cooke is an exception, so seeing him get hit right on the button and dropped like a sack of potatoes warmed my heart. It also has little to do with this game, so let’s move right along.

Last game was an absolute epic choke job. It started off so positively, with everything bouncing Calgary’s way. The first goal came 90 seconds into the game after Mark Isherwood took a penalty off the opening faceoff. While the Tigers got that one back on a power play of their own, just a minute later, Matthew Konan knocked a Tyler Shattock shot into his own net while sprawling to clear it. A few seconds later, Cody Sylvester continued his Fernando Pisani impression with his eighth of the playoffs — after scoring ten in the regular season. Seven minutes in, 3-1 Calgary. Then it all goes off the rails.

It started with the penalties. Shortly before the Shattock goal, there was a penalty shot against because of a Michael Stone slash. Then Kris Foucault took a tripping penalty. Then Sylvester got a double for high sticking. Then — the only real pisser of the bunch — Matt MacKenzie gets tagged for cross-checking while killing Sylvester’s first minor, which while technically a penalty, was a pretty iffy one to be calling under the circumstances. Call it bad game management. The Hitmen killed them all off, and in fact the last kill was done in style: Ian Schultz ate the puck for the last 15 seconds of the MacKenzie penalty, then drew a tripping call on the same sequence, negating the advantage for the last fifty-odd seconds of Sylvester’s second minor. They were hanging in there, and were able to get to the intermission down only 3-1, but you could sense something was up.

Next period should’ve been owned by the Hitmen because they got three consecutive power plays with which to work, but nothing could be done. They seemed a bit nervous, and tried to overdo it on the fancy-ass passing plays. They had a couple of opportunities bounce against them, but they weren’t doing enough with the ones they got on net, and they weren’t getting their rebounds, losing an increasing number of puck races and puck battles as the period progressed. Late in the frame, Medicine Hat’s persistence and superior play were finally rewarded with a pair of goals — the latter of which had to survive video review, as it initially appeared Martin Jones was pushed in with the puck — and we were tied 3-3. Cue the panic in the stands and, presumably, the dressing room.

Sometimes when the guys get to the room at intermission, someone steps up and says something, calms everyone down, rallies the troops, and they come out with renewed vigour after giving up a late-period goal. The easy recent example is the Olympic gold medal game a few weeks ago, in which Canada game up the tying goal to Ryan Kesler with around 25 seconds to go in the third period, but came storming back and won it on a broken play in overtime. This time, however, either no one stepped up, or the message didn’t get through, because the Hitmen went from looking a bit tense to full-on panic, and the Tigers pounced, scoring twice more in the third to take a 5-3 lead. Calgary lost pretty much every race or puck battle that mattered. We in the crowd couldn’t believe the collapse we were seeing. Giffen Nyren made it close on a play we’ve seen from him, Kozun, and Stone a dozen times in these playoffs, but even with the goalie out, the Hitmen couldn’t stay composed and pose a consistent threat. 5-4 is your final.

Tonight’s game carries much higher stakes, simply because the Tigers can now smell blood. They’ve got the Hitmen back on their heels, much as Calgary had the Warriors back on their going back to Moose Jaw last round. This is an experienced playoff team, but not one accustomed to adversity: there are very few players left from the 2007 and 2008 teams that did not have the red carpet laid before them as the 2009 team did. Hopefully, the experience of the first round will serve as a confidence boost, and if that fails, I dunno, look at the fucking standings. You’re better than them, guys. Go out and kick their asses, already. Brandon or Saskatoon await.