In the case of the Sharks vs. the Eagles, the Sharks won.
Except the Eagles are not an NHL team. They're a rock band for old people like me who used to play "records" on scratchy-sounding devices called "turntables." And we liked it!
But these Eagles had HP Pavilion, better known to Sharkie fans as The Tank, reserved to perform concerts this Friday and Saturday night. This scheduling created a conflict with the NHL Sharks, who are also old but are not a rock band, in their now-official round two match up with the Detroit Red Wings.
Well, the scheduling conflict has been resolved. The San Jose Mercury News reports that the Sharks' series against the Red Wings will begin Thursday night at 6 p.m. PDT at The Tank. The rest of the series schedule has not yet been determined.
Know-it-alls like for instance me spent early April freaking out over the possibility of the Sharks facing the Red Wings before the Western Conference Finals, calling Detroit "probably the worst... playoff match up possibility."
But the collective goings-on of the first round have me considering that perhaps I was full of baloney.
The Red Wings seemed like the hottest team in the NHL at the close of the regular season. But if they're so great, why'd they get taken the full seven games against a Phoenix team that was only the fourth-best team in the West?
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More importantly, the Sharks seem to have finally forged a post-curse playoff identity. As Sharks sages Barry Melrose said on ESPN and Time Kawakami said in the Mercury News, "This is (Joe) Pavelski's team now. It's not Joe Thornton's team. It's not (Patrick) Marleau's team."
So the Sharks leading playoff scorer and de facto team captain will lead his team back into battle against the Red Wings. And he's not going to wait for Joe Walsh and Don Henley before he does it.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who will still shout "Play 'Freebird'!!!", even when it's a Sharks game and not a washed-up, elderly rock band concert.
