The hockey playoffs are supposed to be a struggle.
They're about biting your nails, gritting your teeth and pulling out your hair. There is no seat in the rink, house or bar that will make you feel comfortable enough to escape the nerves.
This is standard operating procedure. These past three weeks have been a reminder for London.
Last season, things were a lot easier.
Sure, you had to sweat it out a little bit while Mitch Marner and Co. tried to figure out Owen Sound in the first round a year ago. But there was never a hint the Knights were in danger of being upset.
They got it together and raced to a record 17 straight playoff wins, including the Memorial Cup title. Yeah, the final in Red Deer was a world-class roller coaster, but you can't just steamroll everybody forever, right?
"We didn't really have any Game 7s last year," top centre Robert Thomas said. "We kind of just blew by teams."
The 2005 Cup champs went 20-2 in their post-season, too. They shut out Sidney Crosby in the Cup final, for crying out loud.
That was more of a coronation march than anything else.
So London has been lucky. They've been witnesses to some beautiful hockey moments.
But this is pretty in its own right, too.
It's just a lot more frustrating.
Is anybody but Max Jones, Janne Kuokkanen or Mitchell Stephens going to score? Are they going to just let Erie dominate the shot clock and the faceoff dot like that?
How many big stops does Tyler Parsons have left in him?
This is the puck version of the real world.
The Knights are one of the better teams in the Canadian Hockey League again, but they're not head and shoulders above everybody else.
The Otters are an elite squad, the best in the league this year. Owen Sound is up there, too. Throw in Windsor -- quietly working out in preparation for the Memorial Cup next month after falling in London -- and any one of them could win it all this year.
It's been that special in the OHL's Western Conference this season.
Because they finished in the Twilight Zone known as fourth place, the Knights will have to go through all three of them to win the title.
It would be, considering the depth of competition, the most difficult road to a championship in, likely, the history of major junior hockey.
No one knew what to make of the Knights this year.
One long-time hockey observer called them an elevator club -- "up and down all the time and you never know what floor they're going to land on".
But say this about them -- they're survivors.
They wade into the deepest muck and find themselves in impossible situations, then escape. They're Indiana Jones, only with helmets and sticks instead of fedora and bullwhip.
They have faced elimination four times already and the playoffs are not even a month old.
Yet, they're still hanging on, fighting for one more day together.
Parsons, for one, keeps finding excuses why he doesn't want to go home to Michigan yet.
Maybe this will be too much in Erie for Game 7 Tuesday. Maybe the Otters' scorers finally put it all together, like they started to last Thursday in a 6-3 win.
Or maybe the Knights fend them off again, and push them into the dirt.
The most shocking thing would be if they did it easily.
If London moves on, it will be because they absorbed everything Erie could possibly throw at them, and found themselves made of sterner stuff.
This isn't some dreamy constant party like 2005 and '16.
It's a daily struggle.
You find the joy in the little victories, then hope they will add up to something great.
rpyette@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/RyanatLFPress
SEVEN SIGNS
(Seven Knights-Otters factors to consider before Game 7 of the OHL Western Conference semifinal Tuesday, 7 p.m. at Erie Insurance Arena)
EXPERIENCE: The Knights got here by winning a Game 7 against Windsor on home ice. D-man Olli Juolevi clinched it by scoring in the third period. Erie? The franchise's last Game 7 was in the 2011 first round against the Spitfires. They lost.
SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS: You know the drill by now. The Otters have badly outshot the Knights so far. Why expect things to change in the final game? In the three Erie contests, the home side holds a 117-59 shot advantage (if you trust the way they're keeping track, which some don't). That's an average of 39-20 per game. Clearly, Tyler Parsons has to be be the best player on the ice again for London to stick around.
OPENING ACT: The Otters have outscored the Knights 7-1 in six first periods in this series. Though the Knights have shown a penchant for comebacks, this isn't the time to try that again. In Game 7, you want to get ahead early, then keep piling on. It doesn't always work that way, of course.
BIG GUNS: The Otters have five outstanding forwards -- Alex DeBrincat, Taylor Raddysh, Dylan Strome, Anthony Cirelli and Warren Foegele. If a couple of them score, London's in trouble. But if they don't -- like in Game 1 and 6, then the Knights are in good shape. London relies on three forwards to fill the net -- Max Jones (4 goals in six games), Janne Kuokkanen (5 goals), Mitchell Stephens (2 game-winners). If anybody else is going to chip in, now's the time.
POWER PLAY: London finally got a goal with the man advantage in Game 6. They're 1-for-15 on the power play in the series. That's pretty lousy, but the Otters have a stout penalty kill. The Kuokkanen one-timer has been the Knights' best weapon with the extra man all playoffs. You know Erie will be trying to close up that seam pass from Juolevi. The only reason London hasn't been burned on special teams is their own kill has vastly improved. Cliff Pu has been a critical shot-blocker in that regard.
COACHING: Remember when Dale Hunter left London for Washington in the 2011-12 season? He coaxed the Capitals to the playoffs and their results have been eerily similar to London's run this year. Back then, the Caps took out the defending champion Bruins in seven nail-biting games (four to overtime and all seven decided by one goal). They went seven in the second round again, but lost to the Rangers. He'll want a different result this time. And Erie's Kris Knoblauch. He won a WHL title with Kootenay in 2011, but this is his first Game 7 as a head coach.
FAN FACTOR: The Knights were at 8,400 attendance, even on Easter Sunday. The Otters' crowds are variable depending on the day of the week. They had nearly twice as many people for Game 5 last Saturday (with a walk-up of about 1,000) as they did for the series opener on a Thursday night. This is a Tuesday, so you never know what you'll get down in Pennsylvania. Needless to say, the less people in that loud barn, the better for London.