As the second round turned out to be a rather unentertaining affair with mostly hard, but not too exciting hockey (which I still appreciate), I decided to cancel a further discussion of the six games against the brave Nashville Predators and wrap it up by naming the main reason why we are still in the quest for the Cup: RYAN KESLER!

Now, with that being said, I give you an insight at what it's like to watch the NHL from a timezone that is 6-9 hours ahead of America.

Here are my DOs and DON'Ts:

DON'T:

- complain about a loss of sleep after game six in the first round. There are up to 22 more games to come. You knew you would need a lot of self-sacrifice to make it through the whole playoffs

- even bother to watch all games of your favorite team if you don't believe it yourself that your guys could possibly win the Cup. If you have doubts, be content with watching elimination games (with your team being the eliminator). This has nothing to do with bandwagoning. I know that neighbors won't like it, when you complain too loud about a loss in the second round against Chicago at 5.30 am!

- expect to get any sympathy from your friends & family for what you do every night. Chances are that being an NHL fan in Europe is a lonely business with rare opportunities to share your opinions on the game. That's why we really appreciate canucks.com! Those few people who care about the NHL are not likely to be met after April, because the European hockey season has already finished by then. Frustratingly, it's easier to talk about meaningless regular season games somewhere before Christmas at your local hockey arena than about the most exciting games of the year.

- expect to win the series in less than six games. I made the mistake twice and was hoping for some consecutive days with regular sleeping times and got mad at my own team, because they screwed it up.

- think you can fall asleep immediately after a nerve-wrecking double overtime game, no matter if you win or lose! Chances are that you are so full of adrenaline that it might take an hour to calm down. Please consider that in your sleep calculations.

- even dare to hope that someone recognizes what kind of shirt you are wearing on the day after a great win. An angry orca breaking through the letter "C" is not associated with hockey in these parts.

DO:

- be angry when your Pay-TV-provider who has the broadcasting rights for the NHL cannot come up with an announcer who is able to correctly pronounce the team names "Canucks", "Predators" and "Bruins". You have paid a lot of money to watch people who should be experts in sports, and now you end up banging your head on the table when you hear that Ehrhoff has scored for the ['keinags] against the [prid'eitors].

- consider moving to Vancouver when the ESPN America HD broadcast freezes yet again and you end up looking at all of these playoff losers like Toews, Kane, Ovechkin, Lundqvist, etc., whose station IDs you have seen like 5,000 times already through the regular season.

- ask yourself why they don't show the original commercials in the first place.

- then realize that TSN has blocked all of its content, except of the game itself from European viewership all season long on the ESPN online subscription. After that, you will be quite happy to be able to watch Coach's Corner.

That's it. I hope we can all enjoy round 3. There are only 8 wins left, so keep on pushing and

GO CANUCKS Go!