FRIDAY COMMENTARY – WE HAVE A SERIES

(Listen daily for the Rod Pedersen Commentary on Cat Country 98, Rock 98.5 FM & LTD Radio)

We have a series!

Carter Verhaeghe scored at 4:27 of overtime and the Florida Panthers knocked off the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 Thursday here at FLA Live Arena, cutting the Knights’ lead in the Stanley Cup Final to two-games-to-one.

For my first Stanley Cup Final game, it couldn’t have been much better.

Indeed, I arrived early to catch the Flo Rida pregame concert in the parking lot and he didn’t disappoint. If you don’t know his songs, you actually do. Look him up.

Then once inside, as I mentioned here yesterday, it was pretty much just another hockey game however, not surprisingly, it was just a much bigger deal.

The Panthers public address announcer Andrew Imber was going through a dress rehearsal of the team introductions two hours prior to game time. They wanted to get this right, on national TV in Canada and the USA.

And of course there were just far more dignitaries and media on hand than normal. The first two guys I bumped into when I walked in the rink were Ron MacLean and Mark Messier. Imagine; they’ve been doing this routine for 40 years.

I bumped into Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon twice before the game, and twice exchanged pleasantries.

About an hour before game time, in a hallway in the bowels of the arena, the waters parted and a contingent of hockey ladies came stampeding down the hall. I looked for a minute and it didn’t take long to know who it was: Janet Gretzky, and her entourage which I’m certain included a few of her kids. They were on a mission.

My mind quickly flashed to, “If Janet’s here, then that means Wayne’s here”, and I immediately set out to find him. Which I did, in a suite on the TNT panel along with Paul Bissonnette and that crew. They didn’t mind that I hung around and watched.

Along the way I was fortunate to run into Golden Knights people like Jim McKenzie and Shane Hnidy, and obviously my friends from the Panthers. All Dub grads.

And as I said earlier, the Panthers won which sets up quite a cliffhanger of a Game 4 on Saturday in Florida, and now for sure back to Vegas for a Game 5.

As we always say … the more hockey the better.

That’s today’s Rod Pedersen Commentary

(The Rod Pedersen Show airs daily at 12 pm ET on Game+ TV, WQEE & Streaming)