It's tough to win the Stanley Cup or beat the joys of Game 7

The seventh game of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final has already been played in the recesses of minds and in recreation rooms and on driveways and rutted roads and in the temporary rinks that sprout in city parks during the northern winters.

Joe Louis Arena is no different than Sidney Crosby's street or Brad Stuart's basement, except for bigger crowds and better music during stoppages of play. There isn't a hockey player who hasn't experienced the thrill of playing a Game 7 for the Cup, starting at the age of six or maybe eight.

On Friday night, shortly after 8 p.m. in a city dizzy with expectation, the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins will be their stand-ins, proxies for anyone who loves a magnificent sport. This is their right after a nearly two-month trek through some of the hardest hockey you can imagine. And it is our privilege to watch them.

Stuart is a defenseman for the Red Wings, but he first won a Game 7 of the Cup final for the Calgary Flames when he was seven. He was Al MacInnis then, or, more properly, "a left-handed shot Al MacInnis." Stuart admits that he did not always win the Cup in his basement when he was playing against his buddies, but he almost always managed to take the trophy when he was by himself.

The Cup is a tough thing to win, even if there is nobody in the opposing net.

This is the joy of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup: around 11 p.m., or later if the Red Wings and Penguins produce the first overtime game of the series, players will line up, shake hands and the 2008-09 season will have its champion. There will be a blessed finality, a winner and loser, the kind of definitive answer that is one of the primary reasons in a gray-tinted world that we turned to sports in the first place.

The one-game-for-the-championship might run counter to NHL culture -- "This is unique because it always seems we have another game," Detroit defenseman Brett Lebda said -- but it dovetails nicely with, say, the Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament or the Olympics. If the NHL's team owners didn't make so much money on a playoff series, then a Super Bowl or Champions League hockey final with a neutral site might be worth a look. A guaranteed Game 7.

For a hockey fan, Game 7 is the apex of the sport, a crashing final chord after a long crescendo. But even for someone who doesn't follow hockey but was born with the sports gene, there is nothing more satisfying than this game. To borrow from the NBA, basically Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final is the last two minutes. There is no need to have invested emotionally in the NHL.

To enjoy this match, you don't have to know about the sudden celebrity of Penguins star Evgeni Malkin's parents in Pittsburgh -- they are called the Genos because of their boy's nickname -- or that Detroit star Henrik Zetterberg is engaged to Swedish pop star and TV personality Emma Andersson. You just have to give up three hours on a Friday evening in mid-June, a relative bargain given the possible wonders in store.

"The anticipation," replied Kirk Maltby, the grinding Red Wings forward, when asked on Thursday about what grips people most in a Game 7. "It's not Game 1. 'Yeah, only three more wins to go ...' One team is going to (be skating with) the Stanley Cup that night. It's that intrigue. Sudden-death from the get-go. It's kinda like Survivor. The Tribe has spoken at the end."