Friday night I was listening online to the Seattle Thunderbirds [site]/Tri-cities Americans game and noticed that one of my friends was also online. Figuring that she, too, would be listening to the game I sent her an IM and discovered she was a bit upset because the T-birds were losing the game by two points with two minutes left in the game. “Don’t worry,” I said, “we’ve still got time to get those goals.” Sure enouigh I was right - the second goal came with six seconds left in regular, sending the game to sudden death overtime.

Unfortunately, Seattle lost that game, but as it happens, that just meant that T-birds fans got to see an exciting final game in the series here at home on Saturday night. How exciting? Look up at the scoreboard images–those shots all were taken in the second period.

That’s right, the T-birds managed three goals in less than two minutes. Two of those goals were made by Aaron Gagnon who added those to the goal he’d gotten at 10:24 in the first for a well-received hat trick. Other goals of the game included Prab Rai’s goal earned when Tri-City defensemen Tyler Schmidt chased down the loose puck in his own zone and attempted to clear the puck by wrapping it around the boards from left-to-right. He sent the puck towards his own goal and wound up drilling it in the back of the net past Americans goaltender Carey Price. Oopsie. The third period started with the T-birds up by 6 and the Americans at 9; the Ams managed to squeak out two goals but the T-birda came back with another and a pumped=up T-birds fanbase stood and cheered as the seconds ticked out and the game came to a close with a 7-2 score for this game, making the series score T-birds 4, Ams 2.

Seattle now moves forward in the quarterfinals, awaiting the results of the Spokane/Everett series. If Spokane wins, Seattle will play the Chiefs with a home advantage. (That is, the series would start in Seattle.) If Everett wins, Seattle next plays the Vancouver Giants, with Vancouver having the home advantage. Everett currently leads the series three games to two, with the sixth game scheduled for today, April 1.