Canucks try to finish off ‘Preds in Nashville
Posted May 9, 2011 12:32 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NASHVILLE, TN. (NEWS1130) – The Vancouver Canucks will try to send the Nashville Predators packing from the playoffs again tonight. The team is back in the Music City and so is News1130 Sports Director Ann Schmaltz, who will be travelling with the Canucks throughout the playoffs.
Vancouver won Games three and four in Nashville, but fans in the south aren’t going to make it easy for the Canucks to wrap things up.
Expect Bridgestone Arena to be a very hostile environment. “The atmosphere really is unbelievable. It’s comparable to any Canadian market. The Canucks are just going to need to channel and feed off that energy to get the win,” says Schmaltz.
Forward Chris Higgins left the Canucks’ morning skate early but says he will be in the line-up tonight. Higgins left Saturday’s game after blocking a shot. Jeff Tambellini or Victor Oreskovich will take the spot of Mikael Samuelsson, who has a lower-body injury from game five. Keith Ballard and Andrew Alberts appear to be the odd men out on the blue-line.
Fans deal with game day stress
Fans here remain confident their home town team will win the series in six games. But some people on Vancouver’s unforgiving streets are blaming the Sedin twins and their “underproduction” for the main reason why the series has gone as long as it has.
So, how do Vancouver fans deal with the stress?
Your heart is racing, your blood pressure is rising and you are sitting on the edge of your seat. You could get an outpouring of adrenalin which will change the chemistry of the body causing white blood cells to increase.
But Dr. Kenford Nedd with the International Stress Control Centre says this is only dangerous when it is prolonged. “When the excitement is over it usually returns to the baseline, so the acute stress really isn’t as severe especially as it has sort of a happy connotation.”
With prolonged stress you have to watch your cortisol levels. “Cortisol causes the changes in the kind of immune chemicals that keep you healthy.”
He recommends deep breathing exercises for anxious people before and after the game.
Game time is 5 p.m.
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