I usually have some kind of feeling about how a game is going to go, an intuition. Those notions are wrong as often as right but I have them. Tonight I have no sense of what the outcome will be. I have bought into the idea that the Sharks have been improving from game to game, but I don’t hear a lot of others doing so. It’s weird. I don’t know the Penguins well enough to really say whether their game has changed much since the series started. They seem much the same. It is a very high-level same but still it seems the same.

Nope, still no inkling, no sign-seeing or omen. My old cat who has been sort of getting ready to die for months… for a few minutes I thought he might have died but he had not. Cats are like that and even by a stretch I could not tie his fate to the Sharks. He’s just a very old black cat. Who is still alive.

To my eye, the Sharks found some holes in the Pittsburgh game and exploited them in Game 3. they also, and this is kind of surprising, won the faceoff battle… that seems like a specific mental adjustment the San Jose players made in themselves. They won more battles in general. Did they take enough shots, or are they too concerned about how well the Penguins block those shots and take the puck back the other way? Does it matter?

I don’t have a clue. And I still don’t have even a suspicion about tonight’s game.

The top prospects were here this morning. I listened to some of them being interviewed. I was struck again by the professionalism and maturity in the way they conduct themselves. I wonder who trains them, when do they start?

I mean, I look around in any setting and I will see most people acting insecure and inwardly focussed, fidgeting and looking at the floor and mumbling their words and generally not projecting an air of authority and civility. So yes, trained, someone must train these young men to present themselves effectively to the public, just like they train them to skate or shoot or eat properly.

Most of us do not get that training, most of us move clumsily and awkwardly through the world. That is fine, if we’re all doing it, it is not something we should be ashamed of. But those draft prospects are not only prepared to play hockey at a high level. They are groomed for positions in the public eye. Stuff like that can get you elected to office. It’s curious.

Nope. Still nothing. I do not know if that is good or bad. Never been here before.