Here's the Guy Watching Versus: A "Live" Blog of the Preds-Sharks Game 3

Hello sports fans! It is 10:06 pm here on the East Coast and it can only mean one thing: NHL Playoff time!

I am going to do my best to bring this excitement to you in real-time. Unfortunately I am an idiot savant when it comes to this stuff so it may not actually be real time, but close enough...

You, dear readers, get to be the guy I'm watching the game with, since Mrs. Jewbacca doesn't get most of the jokes anyway.

10:08pm- Hmmm, Isles-Sabres still. Ok. 2:25 left in the 3rd, desperation time for the Isles.

10:09- Toni Lydman needs to get off the ice? To figure out why his name is pronounced Lood-man?

10:10- Nice play Robitaille. Glad the Flyers traded you for Mike York. Actually, not sure who got the best of that. On the replay, maybe Robitaille has a point there. A phantom penalty at best.

10:11- Wow. Stay classy Long Island. Nothing your team wants to see more than crap on the ice with 1:34 left. Hey Islander fans - you know the penalty clock doesn't run while the Ice Girls clean all that trash up, right?

10:13- Glad I'm missing the Preds-Sharks to listen to announcer banter.

10:15- Blake "finished" Talinder? Yikes.

10:16- All right. Let's get to the better game. Hope it's the CBC coverage. But wait another one of those "You Wouldn't Make it in the NHL Commercials." Thank goodness for that. This is the weaker one with the guy trying to get off the bench. I like the locker room one better. Especially when the scrawny dude gets shoulder checked walking out.

10:18- Now we're talking. Unfortunately, it's VS coverage. I had no idea John Vanbiesbrouck was an announcer.

10:19- (15:30 left in the 1st)Barry Trotz. Tee-hee.

10:21- Damn, Tootoo can hit. Ehroff ran him and ended up taking the worst of it.

10:23- I think Nabokov is vastly underrated as a goalie. You hear a lot about that Lolita stuff, but not too much about his goaltending stats. I don't know about you, but with all of the fuss in this world about being PC, he should focus on hockey and not on trying to get into the pantaloons of a 12 year old girl.

10:25- Wow. I had no idea. According to Wikipedia, that's a different Nabokov. Good for him.

10:26- Goc. That's a tough last name. If only it didn't rhyme with lock, rock or tick tock (and you don't stop).

10:27- Has there been a better name matchup than Tootoo vs. Cheechoo? I'm not sure.

10:29- Forsberg's playing? Glad to see they finally found a skate for him. Maybe it was that Swedish sandal maker friend of his that did what no orthopaedic specialist or multi-nation sporting good company or all the foot and ankle doctors in the world couldn't do. Why didn't the Flyers just go to a Swedish flip-flop maker first? Maybe we would have kept Forsberg and not gotten the 1st overall pick in the entry draft. Oh wait....

10:31- Hmmm. Comcast commercial with Cal Ripken Jr. I guess that's why my cable bill goes up every month. They're paying ol' Cal a buttload of money I guess. True story- I saw Cal Ripken in front of the All-Star Cafe that is (used to be?) in Times Square. I played it cool and just nodded. He just nodded back. And he was probably thinking, "Great. Another freakin' idiot who thinks I'm Cal Ripken Jr. If only I wasn't cursed with such chiseled good looks. If only the world knew that Clarence Thudpucker IV had an iron-man streak of his own...if you know what I mean."

10:33- Someone tell Radulov to take his mouthguard out. He's not playing. Aww, and he apologized. They should end his suspension right now and let him play. That's all I had to do to get sprung from my room after beating up my little brother. Mama Jewbacca would say I had to stay in there until I could act like a big boy and apologize. So, apologize I would. That Atari 2600 in the living room wasn't going to play itself.

10:34- SCORE! Predators 1, Sharks 0. Wow. That was some beautiful passing. Maybe Nabokov should take up writing. he was barely in the same end as that shot. I had Dumont on a fantasy team years ago and he did bupkis for me. But I'll give him that pass. We used to practice stuff like that on the street in front of the house with a trashcan in the net. Never looked that nice. About 7 minutes left in the first.

10:38- VS keeps playing that commercial about Crosby not cracking under the pressure, but I saw him play junior hockey against the Lewiston Maineiacs of the QMJHL in Lewiston, Maine and all he did was whine after almost every play to the refs. Made him a true fan favorite.

10:40- That's not a penalty. He was in the neutral zone. And the refs got it right! Of course, they blew the penalty on that last Sharks breakaway. Oh. McGeough is one of the refs. Expect him to lose control soon.

10:45- (1:01 left in the first) Preds are playing this kill nicely.

10:47- According to Vanbiesbrouck, Voukon is at his best when he's eating pucks. I sure hope that's an old goalie cliche.

10:48- What the hell was Hannan just doing to Forsberg. If that's not a penalty it's at least illegal in 27 states.

10:49- End of the first period. Come back and join me for the second. I can't handle the between period stuff.

Click here for the "Live" coverage of the second period...
Click here for the "Live" coverage of the third period...