Say you were a goalie on a university hockey team, and you're busy studying for an exam the next morning. Then you're told that the local NHL team's goalie was injured and they needed you to suit up. Would you choose studying or suiting up?

Chris Levesque wisely chose the latter. I watched the game on TV last night, and after Pittsburgh scored the first goal, I yelled at the TV—yelling at the TV being a favourite passtime of mine—to put the guy in. (This was actually the majority opinion amongst my fellows as well.) But when Hedberg looked like he might be injured because of a collision—a rather spectacular collision no less—it looked like Canucks' coach Marc Crawford was going to put him in: “Levesque said there was always a chance Hedberg could get hurt or kicked out of the game, throwing him into the fray. And for several spellbinding moments in the first period -- with Hedberg flat on the ice after colliding with an opposing player and Canucks coach Marc Crawford unable to suppress a smile behind the bench -- it looked like it might be about to happen. But it was not to be.”

Crawford was smiling when Hedberg was laying on the ice, but there's a thin line between a smile and a grimace. (There isn't as thin a line between a smile and Grimace, however.) No, as the reporter says, it was not to be. But what a story that would have been.