CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Ten ticks were all that separated Ian Cole from the sensation of a lifetime. And yet, he couldn't take his mind off the most mundane matter imaginable.
"The Sharks won the draw back to the point," he was recalling, and with crystal clarity, I might add, this week at the Penguins' practice facility. "They got a shot off. It was blocked by a pack of bodies right behind me. Sid got it, made sure he had it, turned over to the backhand and went really high and deep with it."
And then?
"And then, I watched the puck the whole way down to make sure they couldn't break it back out again."
The man was speaking, of course, of the sequence before the sequence that everyone else will remember from the remarkable summer's night in San Jose. Eric Fehr had just been sent to the box for high-sticking. And Mike Sullivan, who had been stamping out any semblance of giddiness on the bench, was in no mood to mess around. Even though the Sharks would need to score twice in those 10 ticks to tie.
"It was a kill, so the regular PK guys got sent out," Cole continued, now with a kindergarten-level grin in recounting he and defense partner Ben Lovejoy hopping the boards. "But honestly, I wasn't enjoying it right then. I wasn't thinking how I'd get to be on the ice. I was just thinking about the kill. Benny, too. Nothing changed."
Neither did the score ...
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