Okay, I must admit that my Toronto Maple Leafs obsession might have gotten the best of me as of late. Game Four was not a game but a maniacal phantasmagoria in double time that extended for an eternity and then vanished in a haze. Phanuef’s missed hit, the shot under Reimer’s arm, the shot off the post, just wide, the 5-3 power play, the Kadri high stick, the giveaways – oh the giveaways!…it all went around in a rotor until I started to descend into an abyss. What could they have done for a better result? How do they make the puck bounce to the right and not the left? Damn Bruins. Damn undeserving, plodding, bumbling Bruins! I sat mute, inert, unable to think. Nothing.

I couldn’t write the next day. I couldn’t focus on anything and so took my axe and straightened out my pile of wood, split log after log – take that Krejci and Chara! – restructured every piece of the 2,000 into an indomitable wall.Ready for Game Five.