The best pieces of advice I’ve received in my life were from my dad and my brother. My dad told me Don’t shit where you eat. It’s applicable in every situation.

And my big brother told me he was a pessimistic optimist. It goes like this, sorta: You go into every situation expecting things to go completely wrong. Then, if things unexpectedly go right, it’s a lagniappe, a little gift, an unexpected happiness.

This philosophy has never steered me wrong. I expect the worst while hoping for the best. Facing Game 5 in the Stanley Cup series, this outlook also serves me well.

Ben and Sam both wear Chicago sweaters, mostly ’cause they look cool. I wear a Flyers sweater now that the Duckies went down for this year. I don’t get my hopes up. But if those boys win, total lagniappe. ‘Cause y’all, they are SO overdue.

I somtimes have problems with late May and early June, because I spend the whole time waiting for things. Waiting for the NHL finals to be over, because every year that is a super-huge deal to me. Waiting for the school year to be over, because although the last day of school isn’t until June 19, this is the fuck-you time of year, commemorated by Open House — which is tomorrow night, and which is the annual Woodland Elementary aren’t you glad this crap is almost done? celebration. We are looking forward to lots of late nights goofing around, watching too much TV and playing Wii. Oh wait, we’re doing that shit already. We’re all about late-spring fever.

The year goes by so quickly — I don’t mean the calendar year but the school year, which starts at the first breath of Labor Day and ends approximately now (or five minutes ago, if you ask us). The summer goes by in an eyeblink. We have a trip to Sequoia planned for the Monday after school ends, followed by a trip to La Quinta [Palm Springs area] for July 6-9 to celebrate Sam’s 8th birthday. No sooner do we get back from La Quinta than the Orange County Fair starts, lasting a month, on the heels of which are Boolie’s 4th birthday, Erika’s 25th, and then — gasp — the first day of school. All this is punctuated with trips to beach and pool. Summer is always a blur.

So I guess we’re lucky to have a pause right now. The boys’ school rather wisely suspends and/or lightens homework for the kids in June, and waiting out the end of the NHL season always goes by too fast. Meanwhile, we’ll welcome home our new baby, a juvenile pink-toed tarantula, who is due home tomorrow morning. You gotta love spider babies: they don’t require expensive car seats and don’t scream in your ear all night. Which is appropriate for the time of year when we all stop to take a breath before the next round of family life begins.

It’s all over. Detroit has won. And the deciding goal of the 2008 Stanley Cup finals was scored by someone’s ass.

Red Wing Henrik Zetterberg took a shot at Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. The puck ended up behind him, loose in the crease, while Fleury was down on his knees in the butterfly position. To put it simply, he sat back and pushed the puck into his own net with his ass.

This put Detroit up 3-1. Pittsburgh scored another goal, making it 3-2, but failed to score on a near-goal in the closing seconds (actually tenths of a second) of the game. Which means that the ass goal decided the Stanley Cup championship.

To be honest, I really feel bad for the Penguins. After that goal was scored, I just kept repeating of Fleury That poor man, that poor man. Imagine being the goalie who cost your own team the Stanley Cup. The Penguins, and the crowd, were just stunned. When the final buzzer sounded, the fans, who had been on their feet, just stood there with their hands at their sides. Poor guys.

I have never before felt guilty about my chosen team winning the Stanley Cup. I’m happy. But the poor guy put it in his own net with his ass.

So then there was the part where Detroit lost to Pittsburgh in triple overtime after holding a lead until 30 seconds before the end of regulation.

It was a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat game. Okay, it’s gonna happen – it’s gonna happen — IT’S GONNA HAPPEN — and then nothing happens. I now appreciate how guys feel when they wind up with a case of blue balls after a date.

I felt bad, especially, for Sam. He watched the entire game with me, beginning with the second period, rooting for Detroit. Why? Because I had promised him it would be raining octopus if Detroit won. I think he was more disappointed with the Pittsburgh victory than I was. Sorry, honey, I told him. It’s all over. There won’t be any octopus. (I’ve decided the word “octopi” really fucking annoys me.)

So the series goes back to Pittsburgh for game six, and now we face the Octopus Conundrum. There won’t be too many Detroit fans in the building, and the ones who are there are going to have a tough time smuggling in an octopus to throw. In fact, according to a Pittsburgh blogger, there is a local fish merchant who refuses to sell octopus to people with Midwestern accents or wearing any apparel suspected of being Red Wings-related. If Detroit wins game 6 and takes the Stanley Cup, it will be cool, but it won’t happen in Hockeytown, and that would be a shame.

I don’t really want to go to seven games, but I would like to see Detroit win the Cup on their home ice. Because of the octopus.

Last night Ben and I watched Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, Detroit at Pittsburgh, Detroit leading the series 2-1. It was, of course, a pivotal game in a seven-game series. If Pittsburgh won, the series would be tied at 2-2 and all bets would be off. If Detroit won, they would return to home ice with a 3-1 series lead, one win away from the Cup.

There is a longstanding tradition in Detroit, dating back over 50 years, that octopi are thrown on the ice when Detroit is poised to win the Stanley Cup. This is based on the playoff system at the time, which meant that eight playoff wins were required to earn the Cup. (Today, it’s sixteen wins.) It’s one of those odd hockey quirks I’ve always really enjoyed, and we’re hoping it will be raining octopi in Detroit at Game 5. (Actually, whether Detroit wins or whether Pittsburgh lives to fight another day, my forecast is chilly with a 100% chance of octopi.)

Detroit isn’t actually my team of choice, of course, and when they’ve gone up against the Ducks or Kings I’ve hated them with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns. But the playoffs are a lot more fun when you pick a team to root for in every match-up, and since I was originally a Philly Flyers fan, there is no team on earth I hate more than Pittsburgh. So it was kind of a no-brainer. Plus, you know, the octopus thing.

A few days back, we in our Internet girlfriend group were swapping our laminated lists. You know, our laminated lists — the permanent list of male celebs you’d absolutely sleep with, for the rest of your life, no matter what.

Our entries ranged from predictable to offbeat, but one of mine made absolutely no impact whatsoever, because none of my girlfriends are from L.A. and only a couple of them are possible hockey fans. They just don’t remember the guy who made the heart of every L.A. female hockey fan — shit, every L.A. female whatsoever — quicken in the ’80s. He’s Luc Robitaille.

The photo doesn’t really do him justice; I chose it mostly because it’s surreal. But dude, you should have seen this guy when he was a rookie. He was a fucking Adonis, which is not something you can usually say of hockey players, who aren’t renowned for their good looks. (Gretzky was cute enough, but he looked like he was separated from Princess Diana at birth.) Not only was Luc gorgeous, but he ended up being the highest-scoring left winger in the history of the NHL.

In L.A., the guy was a rock star. During games, the entire home crowd would roar “Luuuuuuc” when he took the ice. Shit, I once saw a vanity plate that read LUUUUUC and was insanely jealous. I wonder if it’s available now? I ought to look into that. There was even serious talk of naming one of my sons Luc, but we not being French whatsoever, it seemed a little pretentious.

So where is Luc now? He retired in 2006 and works in the Kings front office. And he’s still gorgeous. But I’ll never forget the poster (probably now impossible to find) of Luc that hung in my office in the late ’80s. Laminated list material, for sure.

URGENT LUC UPDATE: I found the poster! I found it! You can see it here although the image is a bit distorted and doesn’t really represent the original.

Preseason hockey has been going on for most of September. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that until today, so imagine all what I’ve missed. The regular season starts tomorrow. Dust off the Hockey News and the Molson’s.

In other news, now that the Ducks have won the Stanley Cup, the Orange County Register actually had a front-page article about the NHL last week. Imagine that! Southern California has been mostly ignoring hockey since Gretzky left the Kings in 1996.

THIS is a girl who DID NOT go to the Ducks rally in Anaheim.

And there was much rejoicing in the land; and the Lord smiled upon Anaheim.

Not to rub your Canadian nose in it, but I SO called it. Ben and I had the pleasure of playing Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye on the iPod in the last two minutes of the third period.

Crumpackers out. We are busy getting shitfaced on red wine, by way of celebration.

I swear I am going to die of a fucking heart attack by the time someone hoists the Stanley Cup. The Ducks played so stunningly badly in the first period of last night’s game that I wrote them off right then and there — the Senators outshot them 13-2 in the first 20 minutes! I can only conclude that in the locker room during the first intermission, Randy Carlyle tore each and every one of the Ducks a brand-new asshole, because they were a brand-new team when they took the ice for the second period.

The Ducks lead the series, three games to one, and only need to win one more game to take home the Stanley Cup. I think Ottawa might have another win in them, though — but not more than that. Here’s hoping. I’m not sure I can survive two more games.