And while you enjoy your holiday and your cookout, or whatever you’re doing—not to mention Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals—take a few minutes to remember what we’re celebrating today.

Take a moment to remember and appreciate …

Not that anyone could have reasonably expected an answer to the question, but the answer is that there is no answer on what the Flyers plan to do with their goaltending situation in Game 2 of the Final tomorrow night. Neither Philly’s Michael Leighton nor Chicago’s Antti Niemi started their Cup Final resumes with gold stars, but only Leighton didn’t see the end of the game, pulled by Peter Laviolette late in the second period with five goals and 20 shots on Chicago’s board.

Laviolette said he hasn’t made up his mind as to whether to go back with Leighton or switch to Brian Boucher when the Flyers try to send a tie series back to Philly, and you can choose to believe the coach or not. Either way, it keeps both goalies in the dark: “I don’t know if I’m starting yet, that’s kind of up in the air. I haven’t talked to the coach yet,” Leighton said after the Flyers’ practice at United Center this afternoon. But if he isn’t, “Obviously I would be disappointed. We’re in the Stanley Cup Final - that’s not the time to be mad at someone if I’m not starting. … I’m not going to sit there and pout on the bench.”

I wonder how John Tortorella would have enjoyed all the questions about his starting goaltender the day before a playoff game, but I liked how Brian Boucher handled a question concerning the Flyers’ goaltending “crisis.” It seems the last 15 years have been full of Flyer goaltending crises, good teams lugging what-ifs in net.

“There’s been questions since Bernie,” Boucher said, referring to Bernie Parent, backstop of the Bullies’ back-to-back Cups in the ’70s. “He’s the last guy to win, and I’m sure until there’s a winner there’s going to be more question marks.”

There are bigger issues, though, coming out of Game 1 that have nothing to do with the goaltenders. A day after a sloppy opener ended in a 6-5 Chicago win, players from both sides echoed their desire to tighten things up in their own zone and in front of their nets, regardless of the Game 1 result.

“We should pretend like we’re down a game. We’re really unsatisfied with the way we started this series,” said Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, who line - with Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien - combined on zero points and a minus-9 rating in the opener. “As a line we’re going to be better, but it’s great we’re getting contributions from different players, from different lines - that’s what makes us dangerous as a team.”

“It’s no secret, we can’t open it up like that, that’s not our game. We have to be stronger in the slot, and we will be,” said Philly’s Ian Laperriere, who played in his first Cup Final after 1,144 games (regular season and playoff) in the NHL, the third most games among active players without winning a Cup. Asked why he thought the game took on the personality it did, Laperriere said: “I don’t know - it’s more fun to play like that. But it’s not our strength.

“Maybe we were a little bit nervous yesterday. Tomorrow we just need to go out there and be smarter about what we’re doing, especially in the defensive zone. … (The experience) was new for most of us. It’s surreal, everything around it - for an older guy, younger guy, everybody, it’s very surreal. Now it’s in the past and we can look forward to tomorrow.”

One of the more curious aspects of Game 1 was the fact that the Blackhawks scored six times without having a single power play. Imagine that, the Flyers, not going to the penalty box once. For shame.

“That’s Flyers hockey, buddy,” Laperriere said, followed by an epic roll of the eyes.

Some thoughts:

1) Couldn’t help but wonder how much better this series might be if they played it in Chicago Stadium and the Spectrum.

2) I love both of those uniforms, the Blackhawks’ red and the Flyers’ white (Seinfeld reference…

Whaddya say we clean that up a bit in Game 2, okay guys?

The Chicago Blackhawks took the opener of the Stanley Cup finals tonight with a 6-5 victory that was too sloppy to be the thriller a 6-5 Stanley Cup finals game should be. In fairness, it was the Blackhawks who seemed to find their game in the third, and they broke the last tie on a goal by Tomas Kopecky that was not without a hint of controversy.

Word coming out of the Flyer dressing room was that the winning play should have been whistled dead long before Kopecky’s goal because the puck had hit Kopecky while he was still on the bench, as he was preparing to jump on for his shift. Flyers coach Peter Laviolette was asked about it afterward and thought his Flyers got a raw deal.

“If a puck his a player on the bench, it’s supposed to be whistled down,” Laviolette said. “Well, that’s neither here nor there right now. They scored.”

It really is neither here nor there, because whatever happened, it did not directly lead to the winning goal - the Flyers’ leaving their zone too early had plenty more to do with Kopecky being so open on the left wing for Kris Versteeg’s cross-ice pass. That was one of many bungled defensive-zone plays by the Flyers, who admitted afterward that they had better be smarter with the puck and in front of their net from Game 2 forward.

One question that may come up on Sunday’s off-day is whether the Flyers come back with Michael Leighton - pulled tonight after five goals on 20 shots - or turn it back over to Brian Boucher. My feeling is that Leighton will be back, but I’ve heard many voices here saying Boucher should be the guy.

Another issue was the ice, which players from both teams said was pretty close to brutal and a factor in the game - as I said earlier, temperatures in Chicago yesterday were around 80 degrees, and then 22,312 people (incidentally, the Blackhawks’ 100th straight sellout) showed up to sit in and heat up the stands. It certainly was an issue for Braydon Coburn, who coughed up a bouncing puck to Dave Bolland during a first-period Flyer power play, leading to Bolland’s breakaway shortie under Leighton’s arm. (Laviolette took Coburn off the hook, saying “they got a nice bounce on the breakaway goal.”)

“(The ice) was definitely soft, because it was definitely hot in there,” said Philly’s Arron Asham, whose goal with 1:11 left in the second forged the 5-5 tie entering the third. “But what are you gonna do? We can’t complain about it - it was our fault we made mistakes defensively.”

Crooked officiating by design. How else can you explain what we witnessed?

Just got back from dinner and had to make a few calls.

Thought you guys needed a new game post (we haven’t had a game in so long I forgot).

The contest No. 1 is closed now.

Contest No. 2, I believe, is also filled up. Thanks to ddebened for…

It has been sunny and 80 degrees today in Chicago, and much colder inside the United Center, where the locals have been waiting a long, long week for tonight’s faceoff in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final - and let me take one guess who fans in New York will be rooting for.

As I wrote in the preview to this series, there are plenty of similarities to be found between these two teams, and a number of matchups to watch that could sway the tide of the series. The biggest, in both importance and stature, will be when Chris Pronger and Dustin Byfuglien hook up, two beasts who have been enormous players for their club. The 6-4, 257-pound Byfuglien has eight goals in the playoffs, four of them game-winners - including the last two games of the Western final here on Chicago ice - and if the Flyers can’t find the personnel to turn him back, it’ll make it hard to win the series. (By the way, in the category of how coaches look like geniuses if their teams win: It was Byfuglien’s play up front that almost single-handedly turned the tide of the Hawks’ second-round series against Vancouver; moving him back to defense for Game 3 was not one of Quenneville’s more enlightened moves.)

But another matchup that bears watching is anytime Dave Bolland, the Hawks third-line center and defensive/pestering specialist, is out against Mike Richards, the Philly captain who is the Flyers’ pace-setter. The Hawks have the last change in Games 1 and 2, so Quenneville can match at will, but it could be interesting to see if Bolland can have the same effect against Richards and the Flyers that he did against Vancouver’s Sedins and the Sharks top guns. Richards and Co. are perhaps more suited to scrapping and mixing it up than the forwards Bolland has seen so far.

Bolland hasn’t faced Richards much at the NHL level, but he recalled today his many encounters with the future Philly captain when the two were on opposing sides in juniors, overlapping in the OHL from 2002-05, Bolland with the London Knights and Richards with the Kitchener Rangers.

Asked what makes Richards stand out from other players, Bolland said, “Richie plays a lot harder than them. Richie’s always moving, he’s hitting, he’s throwing his body around - he’s doing a lot of the same things I’m doing. Getting under guys’ skin as well. He’s a hard guy to play against, it’s going to be a tough time.

“Playing against him in juniors was fun. We had some battles.”

“I think it will be competitive,” Quenneville said of the matchup, though he added: “We’ll see how the matchup works, if it’s going to be a strict matchup or not. It’s something we’ll see how the game progresses, in games going into other games. At the same time, he’s a competitor - I think Bolly is a comparable type of player (to Richards). And I just think that we’ll see how the game with the score goes. I’m sure it will be a good test for both guys.”

Bolland will have a different linemate tonight: Andrew Ladd, injured as the Hawks completed their sweep of San Jose last weekend, did not skate this morning and will be replaced in Game 1 by Tomas Kopecky. On the Flyers’ side, goaltender Brian Boucher is back healthy and will dress tonight as Michael Leighton’s backup.

Plenty of players were asked about their nerves coming in, whether they can feel the butterflies, and many in the Chicago room admitted that they’ll be feeling some of those nerves and hoping to harness them for good. “You’d be strange, you’d be different, if you’re not nervous - you have to be nervous for this,” said John Madden, the ex-Devil who is now Chicago’s fourth-line center and one of its few veterans. “But in a good way - channel it the right way. You don’t want to be that nervous guy who doesn’t want to go on the ice, you want to be nervous because you’re excited to play hockey and you’re chasing your dream.”

Speaking of chasing a dream, Ian Laperriere will suit up tonight in his first Stanley Cup final after 1,083 regular-season games in the NHL and 61 more in the playoffs. It seems he can’t stop flashing that toothless smile, but at 36 years old, his obvious excitement to be involved in this is really fun to see.

“Two, three weeks ago I didn’t know if I would ever be a part of this,” said Laperriere, who played 28 of his 1,083 games as a Ranger in 1995-96, and who returned for these playoffs at the end of Round 3 after taking a puck to the eye in the opening series against the Devils. “I look back at my career, I was wondering if I would ever have a chance to win. I know those injuries, forget about those. Right now it’s our time, it’s our chance to win it, and I’m going to give my all.”

The word around the Flyers’ room was “anxious,” not nervous. “ Anxious is okay. You don’t want to be nervous,” Laviolette said. “Nervous is something you don’t want to carry around the ice. It will eliminate you from thinking properly. … We talked about all the things we had to do - the last thing we said was, ‘Just relax. Go out and play the game.’ Because you have to be able to think, you have to be able to skate. These are talented hockey players out here. They have to be able to make plays.”

As Laperriere put it: “Anxious. I can’t wait to get started. You welcome the time off, but right now I can’t wait for the anthem to be over and to go.”

Personally, I can’t wait for that anthem to get started. I love that Chicago tradition of drowning out the singer. It’s loud and electric in November; can’t wait to hear it tonight.