RALEIGH, N.C. -- Win or lose, the NHL season ends Monday night for the last two teams standing in the
battle royal that is the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Someone will win tonight and hoist that big silver chalice that has made the toughest of NHL tough guys
shed a tear of joy and gratitude. Someone will lose, forced to choke back the bitter bile of a missed opportunity that may well never present itself again.
While the outcome still remains up in the air as a picture-perfect day here turns into evening, one thing
is certain: Tuesday will be a day of rest.
For the players from both Carolina and Edmonton, tomorrow will be the first of too few off days before training camp convenes again in less than 90 days. There will be no morning skate, there will be no practice, there will be no team meal, their will be no video session. There will be nothing hockey-related -- aside from a few housekeeping details for the losing team and a much-deserved celebration for the winners -- to do come Tuesday
morning.
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"I guess the end has to come to end sooner or later," said Carolina defenseman Mike Commodore. "This year, it
came later."
Commodore, then with Calgary, played in Game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup, the last time the trophy was
contested, but he did not play this late into June. In fact, Game 7 in 2004, won by the Tampa Bay Lightning,
was played on June 7. Monday's game takes place almost two weeks later, a lifetime in the intense atmosphere
that defines the Stanley Cup Playoffs year after year. This year's Final was pushed back to accommodate the participation of NHL players in the 2006 Olympic ice hockey tournament in Torino, Italy
Commodore admitted Monday that he has given brief thought, amid the other more-pressing details running
through his mind, to the fact that this will be the last time he plays hockey this season. The same routine he has followed
for close to nine months will be no longer. There will be no more pre-game meals of chicken and rice, no more
afternoon naps on game day, no more plane rides with teammates to the next city and the next game.
All of those givens in the life of a hockey player will be put on hiatus until September. Instead, they will return to a more normal life, free to heal from the body-punishing grind of playing too many games -- more than 100 for the heartiest of the lot -- and also spend precious quality time with family and friends.
"It's a weird feeling," Commodore admitted as he sat in the 'Canes dressing room after the morning skate on
Monday. "It's been a long year. June 19. Today is my brother's birthday. I've never still been playing hockey
on my brother's birthday. Not even close."
Carolina alternate captain Kevyn Adams also said he has spent some rare idle time in the past two days contemplating
the end to a magical 2005-06 season that saw his team win the Southeast Division Championship, top 100 points
in the regular-season standings, rally from a two-games-to-none deficit in the Eastern Conference
Quarterfinals against Montreal and, then, a month later take the Eastern Conference Championship in amazing fashion with a Game 7 win against the Buffalo Sabres.
"We're an extremely close team, and I'm sure Edmonton will say the same thing, and we have been through so
much this year," Adams said. "Those things play through your mind at a time like this and you start leaning
on those experiences that you have shared throughout the season."
So, for him, Monday was a bittersweet experience. He knows that glory awaited him in Game 7 if his team
could muster the fortitude to snap a confidence-sapping two-game losing streak. But, he also knew that his
team, no matter the outcome, would never be the same.
Therefore, as Monday moved from morning to afternoon, it was not only a time for Adams to prepare for the
biggest game of his life, but also to reflect on all that has come before to deliver him to the doorstep of
this seminal moment. He admitted that a personally crafted highlight reel of a season to remember was his occasional companion during a somewhat sleepless Sunday night.
"This is the first time ever in my career when you go into a game where, no matter what happens, you're not
playing another game. It's pretty exciting when you think about it that way."
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"This is the first time ever in my career when you go into a game where, no matter what happens, you're not
playing another game. It's pretty exciting when you think about it that way." -- Kevyn Adams
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Separation anxiety was not confined to the Carolina room, however. Edmonton has already postponed the end
of its season by 5 days, winning Games 5 and 6 to make tonight's Game 7 a reality. Now, it knows it can
push the series no more. It ends Monday; hopefully with it completing a comeback of epic proportions from 3-1 down in games, one
that has only been engineered once before in the history of the Stanley Cup Final.
Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish knows that the finality of Monday's game at the RBC Center hangs over the
Game 7 preparations for his team. And, he admits he has done his part to negate the melancholy that could
become a by-product of such ruminations by his players.
"I think it is just important to keep your routine the same, and we have been able to do that through
these playoffs," MacTavish said. "And today we have kept the routine the same. It is a little different
because, you know, it's your last morning skate and last pre-game meeting, all that sort of stuff.
"So just really keep the focus on what you have done well, what you need to prevent, what you need to
accomplish in the game. Not try and take a scatter-gun approach to the game where you try and talk about too
many things. Focus in on three or four areas on both sides of the puck and try and accomplish those things.
If you do that, you should be able to win the game. But just keep the routine the same."
Come game time, concerns about the finality of it all will no longer matter. Because when that puck drops at center ice of the RBC Center to start the winner-take-all Game 7, both sides hope everyone around them plays with the desperation befitting the last game of a season, if not a career.
