This news combines two of our favorite things: community team spirit during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and how to make the most of those relics left behind after the Olympic Games have been hosted by a city.

On Monday in Vancouver, two hours before the puck drops for Game 3 in Boston between the Canucks and Bruins, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark will re-light the Winter Olympic cauldron as a show of support for the local hockey heroes.

(Hopefully things go more smoothly than the first cauldron lighting of the 2010 Winter Games, when that Superman Fortress of Solitude structure failed to completely form. Malfunctioning cauldrons make Space Bear angry.)

Previously, Clark and the BC legislature had hijacked the happy vibes of the Canucks' Cup run for their own political gain gotten in the spirit of the Stanley Cup Final by raising a Vancouver Canucks flag at the BC legislature in Victoria:

Also, Clark threatened to jail Boston Bruins fan and Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom during the finals, saying, "I think that's going a step too far, but I know there is some movement in caucus in that direction."

She was kidding. We think.

Bottom line: There's an inescapable vibe right now that an NHL season that started several months after Vancouver saw Team Canada win Olympic hockey gold could end with the local team winning its first Stanley Cup. And, in both cases, having a U.S. team as its final obstacle ...

s/t Kukla

The difference between a good team and a championship team is the magnitude of their mistakes and their ability to cover for them.

Such is the story for the Vancouver Canucks, who are two wins away from a championship, and the Boston Bruins, who are not.

In Game 1 against the Canucks, it was a series of Bruins errors on the Raffi Torres game-winner. In Game 2, a bad clearing attempt by Andrew Ference led to one goal; Zdeno Chara's inability to slow Alex Burrows, and Tim Thomas's inability to cover for Chara, 11 seconds into overtime led to that game-winner.

The Stanley Cup Final has been close. One-goal-game close. Boston doesn't return home with a second thought about whether they can play with the Canucks.

But they do return home wondering about the errors that have them down 2-0 in the Final … and whether the Canucks are the reason they're making them.

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As you can see, Taran Killam of "Saturday Night Live" and lovely actress Cobie Smulders of "How I Met Your Mother" were in the house for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks. And that's pretty much where the sexy U.S. television news ended on Saturday night.

The blockbuster, record-setting Game 1 ratings have yielded to Game 2 ratings that Steve Lepore of Puck The Media calls "mediocre" for NBC:

Game 2 drew a mediocre 3.37 million viewers, and a 1.2 rating among Adults 18-49. This is down 43% from Game 2 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Final (which aired on a Monday, and drew 5.91 million viewers), and down 27% from Game 1 of this series (which drew 4.56 million viewers on Wednesday). The 1.2 in the demo, while good enough to win the night on broadcast television, was down 34% from Game 1. It was also a 50% drop from Game 2 of the 2010 Final, which again, aired on the more viewer-friendly Monday night.

This was the least-watched Stanley Cup Final broadcast on network television since Game 5 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Final, which drew 2.87 million viewers.

Which, not coincidentally, also featured a Canadian franchise in the Ottawa Senators against the Anaheim Ducks.

Lepore writes that the 2011 Finals are currently 23-percent down in the ratings from the first two broadcasts of the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers series.

Again, we all figured matching those numbers, or the numbers from the Detroit/Pittsburgh Finals, was going to be a challenge for the 2011 Final. The local ratings in New England led to a Game 1 surge that covered for the lack of ratings from the Canadian market (which don't count in the Nielsens). It'll be interesting to see the local market breakdown for Game 2, and which ones eroded the most from game to game. Remember, the action shifts to VERSUS for Games 3 and 4.

Again, it's a Saturday night, when viewership in the U.S. is traditionally the lowest (and where struggling TV series go to die); and it's a Saturday night in June, no less. Context is everything, and those reasons (plus the Canadian team involved) are key factors for the 43-percent drop year-to-year. But context was also key in the League's boast about "best ratings in 12 years" after Game 1.

Did the 48-hour gap between games hurt the ratings, too?

NHL.com had a cool feature from the Vancouver Canucks' Game 2 win over the Boston Bruins: Net-Cam footage of key plays in the game, even if some of them happened down the other end of the rink. The oddest clip was this one, right after Alex Burrows scored 11 seconds into OT for the 3-2 victory:

The NHL told us this is footage of Fin, the Canucks mascot, walking over and grabbing the puck out of the goal.

Now, we had our doubts about this, but if you look back at the Burrows' goal you can see that's where the puck ends up in the net, and it doesn't appear any Canucks players or the officials skate over to snag it.

Plus, Chris Pronger(notes) and that linesman who claims he didn't take the Blackhawks' Cup puck were nowhere to be found …

Also cool from Net-Cam was this glimpse at how Tim Thomas(notes) operates between the pipes.

Both of these clips, and the others found here, are arguments for having a raw audio channel for NHL broadcasts (uncensored, of course). Also an argument: Anyone with a microphone who stands between the benches.

Donald Brashear(notes) told us last month that you always remember your first one. He was talking about his first NHL fight against Bob Probert, but the same can likely be applied to his first MMA fight which took place last night at Ringside MMA 11 in Quebec City.

After two opponents dropped out of the fight due to injury, Mathieu Bergeron was finally chosen in a bout featuring two fighters making their MMA debuts. While having over 20 lbs. on Brashear, the former NHL enforcer made quick work of Bergeron by winning the fight in 21 seconds via TKO.

Click on the photo to go to the RDS video of the fight.

We imagine that's not the first fight Brashear's been in where the guy immediately turtled, except unlike in the NHL, he was allowed to continue punching him in the head.

Brashear signed a three-fight deal with Ringside MMA and while it's not a binding contract, after the fight he said he would do it again.

The clear cage around Manny Malhotra's face made him resemble a futuristic deep-sea diver. It's a full face shield that protects his injured left eye, and has allowed him to make a miraculous return to the Vancouver Canucks, a team that announced his eye surgeries by saying he was done for the season and postseason. But it also gives off an isolated vibe — ladies and gents, step right up and witness the man in the glass box.

Entering Game 2 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, things had been different for Malhotra than for his teammates. They spent the last several weeks on a run to the championship round; he spent that time getting back in game shape, waiting for doctors to clear him for practice.

They experienced the euphoric environment inside Rogers Arena for playoff games; Malhotra had yet to feel that kinetic exhilaration.

That is, until he stepped on the ice for first time since March 16, when a deflected puck to the eye nearly ended his career; and the fans welcomed him back into the family:

"Coming to the rink, I felt really normal, going through the same game-day routine," said Malhotra after the Canucks' Game 2 win over the Boston Bruins, 3-2, taking a 2-0 series lead. "Again, the nerves kept getting to me. I was telling the guys, right from warmup, it was kind of sensory overload, just the noise, the crowd into it, all the towels waving.  It was the first time I've seen a home crowd that excited in playoffs."

They were excited, and Malhotra's return was one of the reasons why.

"I said it this morning.  It's a privilege to play in front of fans like this. When you come to Vancouver, to say that the fans here are passionate would be a gross understatement," said Malhotra. "So just to be able to be out there again, to hear them cheering, to hear an ovation like that, it definitely makes you feel like a Canuck. You just feel like a part of this family."

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No. 1 Star: Alex Burrows, Vancouver Canucks

In a game that many believed he should have been watching from the press box, Burrows played a factor in all three Vancouver goals and put home the overtime winner as the Canucks took a 2-0 series lead over the Boston Bruins with a 3-2 victory in Game 2. Opening the scoring with a power play tally in the first, Burrow later set up Daniel Sedin's tying goal midway through the third period with a sweet pass and then took just 11 seconds to score the the winner in overtime:

No. 2 Star: Daniel Sedin, Vancouver Canucks

Sedin is now tied for second in playoff goals after scoring his ninth to help send the game to overtime. In the extra period, Sedin added his 18th point of the postseason assisting on Burrows' winning goal.

No. 3 Star: Alex Edler, Vancouver Canucks

Edler led all Canucks in ice time with 24:53, blocked three shots, assisted on Vancouver's final two goals, and finished a plus-two.

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Vancouver Canucks winger Alex Burrows wasn't suspended for biting the glove and finger of Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final because the NHL found no "conclusive evidence" that Bergeron had been chomped.

Fans around the NHL, former referees, the entirety of NBC's on-air talent … there were plenty who felt Burrows escaped punishment by the skin of his teeth. But he wasn't suspended, he played in Game 2 … and ended up devouring the Bruins' hopes to secure home ice advantage with a goal 11 seconds into overtime against Tim Thomas, giving Vancouver the 3-2 win.

It was Burrows' second goal of the game, to go along with a primary assist on Daniel Sedin's game-tying goal in the third period. A player many felt shouldn't have been available to his team in Game 2 was the difference in that game — and that's going to be tough for Bruins fans to swallow, even if Coach Claude Julien said the Bruins would be a "lame team" to use that as an excuse for the Game 2 loss.

Coming up, the Canucks' goals and Burrows' role in them.

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Maxim Lapierre(notes) of the Vancouver Canucks is one of the NHL's most pre-eminent pests. So how could he pass up the chance to mock the Boston Bruins' Patrice Bergeron(notes) over getting bitten by Alex Burrows in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final during Saturday night's Game 2?

This bit of taunting happened in the third period of Game 2 on Saturday night, as Lapierre stuck his glove in Bergeron's face and seemingly asked him to bite it. (Keep in mind some Canucks fans felt Bergeron was asking for it by sticking his glove in Burrows' mouth.)

The ultimate salt in the wound: Burrows factored in all three goals, including the game-winner 11 seconds into overtime, as the Canucks won Game 2, 3-2.

The Vancouver Canucks try to go up 2-0 in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night, and we'll be here to chat about it.

Please join your pals at Puck Daddy for our 2011 Stanley Cup Final Game 2 live chat. You bring the funny; we bring the abrupt changes in tone and Hamburger Women. That's how it works.