BMFS: Hero of the Stupid

According to the chart on this page, I have witnessed -- in their entirety, in one of the game's participants' home cities -- four of the five longest NHL games in modern* history.

Actually, no, the chart doesn't say that. It doesn't mention me. It just lists the games. But I slogged through the full telecasts of the first-, second-, and fourth-longest games, and earlier this very day, I witnessed in person the fifth longest game in modern* NHL history.

Highlights from my senseless odyssey over the years:

5/4/00, Round 2
PHI 2, PIT 1
5 OTs, 92:01
Watched the first four periods at friends' home in suburban Philadelphia. Probably ingested a stromboli there at a high rate of speed. Sped wildly through narrow streets back home into the city to watch the rest of the game. Had to test new software first thing in the morning at work the next day; didn't care -- plenty of other people at my office were gonna be zombies from watching this. In the second or third OT, I remember thinking Keith Primeau had more jump than anyone else on the ice. He'd missed some time that season with an injury. Maybe a lot of time. As a 9-to-5er, I'm having a hell of a time staying awake during intermissions at this hour, and actually resort to watching porn to keep myself awake during one intermission. Primeau finally puts Steve Levy and Darren Pang out of their misery by posterizing Darius Kasparaitis. Game ended at approximately 2:35 local time.

4/24/03, Round 2
ANA 4, DAL 3
4 OTs, 80:48
Early start; game ended at a reasonable 12:32 AM Central time. (By this point I'd moved to the Central time zone.) The tent-like Jean-Sebastien Giguere gives up a cheapie late in regulation to tie the score, then stops a preposterous 40 shots in the overtimes as we become convinced that he's on some sort of performance-enhancer. The following morning at work, I'm in the restroom, uh, eliminating all the poison I'd ingested while watching hockey 'til the wee hours, and I reach for some toilet paper, only to (1) see an enormous cockroach charge out of the dispenser as soon as I touch it, and (2) freak the fuck out. Fucking Texas. (And by the way, my place of employment was a hospital.)

4/11/07, Round 1
VAN 5, DAL 4
4 OTs, 78:06
First game of the playoffs. Snizza, one other guy and I head from our local bar over to a bar uptown where a Stars diehard friend works. Mental patient lurking at local bar overhears our conversation, follows us there, sits next to me, asks me incomprehensible questions. Doesn't do anything illegal or violent and is thus not ejected from the premises. We move to a spot in the bar where there are only three seats. Mental patient follows us, stands behind us, continues one-way conversation. Bartender introduces us to the Crown Kamikaze, apparently a local good luck charm that worked magic during 1999 run to Stanley Cup. Records are spotty, however -- it might have been the table-wide dunes of cocaine that did the trick that year. Crown Kamikazes don't make the Stars score, but embolden me to start screaming at the mental patient, who is still lurking behind us and finally leaves. Bar starts to get crowded and noisy; back to the local tavern after the first OT. Fast forward to last call and the game is still going on. I am starving. I idle around the corner to my apartment -- I shoulda walked for safety's sake, but I don't have a portable AM radio to hear the game. I round up some food and set up shop in front of the TV, and as soon as I settle in, one of those fucking Sedins scores. Shit. I gotta go to work in about three hours, don't I?

5/4/08, Round 2
DAL 2,SJ 1
4 OTs, 69:03
A well-connected associate manages to get us out of our regular seats in the Van Allen Belt and into the Platinum Club, which means closer proximity to the ice, full bars that stay open past the end of the game, easy access to smoking areas, waitstaff-shepherded beverages, and shorter restroom lines. (You're not getting a Crown Kamikaze in the nosebleeds.) But we don't have actual seating assignments, so we've gotta stand at the counter behind the Platinum-Level seats all game. (Normally this is no problem whatsoever.) Stars score first and then go into what Snizza's boy Shannon called the "35-minute penalty kill." The trap era is almost as finished as the heavy metal era, but if the arena entertainment maestros aren't aware of the latter, why should the players and coaches be aware of the former? Turco looks really sharp, but gets screened on a wrist shot in the third period and whiffs on it: 1-1. The 35-minute penalty kill does not work anymore. Morrow sends Michalek into next Tuesday at the close of regulation. Cleanest hit I've ever seen incapacitate someone.

Everyone expects OT to be short like it's been in all the other games. It is not. The bars around the Platinum Level are beginning to close, one by one. At this rate I'm going to have a hangover before I even leave here. After the second OT, I do a lap around the Platinum Level and find one bar that's been running credit-card tabs all night and is still open for a few waning moments while people are closing them out. I purchase what are possibly the last two beers sold in the entire building that night -- drafts, unfortunately -- and somehow ferry them all the way back around to our spots without spilling anything. We need some Crown Kamikazes now, but we're shit-outta luck. The shot discrepancy on the scoreboard -- in which the Stars have been on the short end since the second period of regulation -- is growing steadily larger. Gee, that's an awfully marginal penalty to be calling on the Stars in the third overtime. I think there will be a make-up call. The images of children sleeping in their seats are starting to crop up on the Jumbotron. People are starting to give up and file out a few at a time. Out on the balcony, the smokers are heckling fans walking out of the arena below. One guy yells, "I haven't seen ONE Sharks fan leave here yet!" (There were maybe a dozen in the entire building.) I yell, "I'm going straight to work from here!" People actually laugh. Everyone up here is wasted and punchy beyond belief. Fourth overtime: we just go sit down in some empty seats in one of the Platinum-Level sections in the end of the rink. No ushers even look at us. They've all dragged chairs over to their posts at the top of each aisle. What's left of the crowd -- probably 80% -- is making an impressive showing, and... Hey, it's the make-up call! And a power-play gooooooall!! And the tiredest, slowest team handshake of all time.

*No chicken-wire boards, the coach isn't a member of the team, players don' t spend the off-season working in a rock quarry, no frozen moose doot as a puck -- you get the idea.


.