In the hustle and bustle of Rod Brind'Amour scoring the Hurricanes' first goal before leaving the game in overtime after getting hit in the face with a puck on the bench, and Sergei Samsonov scoring against his former team, and, oh yeah, Scott Walker of all people scoring to eliminate the Bruins, it's easy to overlook Cam Ward.

Now 4-0 in Game 7s after stopping eight shots in overtime, including a nasty shot from Chuck Kobasew on the right wing, and 34 of 36 on the night, Ward's play in the postseason has been near impeccable. The next playoff series he loses will be his first.

It does not surprise me that when the Carolina Hurricanes play a team from the higher latitudes, such as Michigan or Massachusetts, in the Stanley Cup playoffs, that newspaper columnists from the north make fun of us.

We are Mayberry. Or, as Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe recently put it, we are "goobers." Same thing.

This is what some writers do when they have no clue about what's south of Foxborough, or they are hurting on deadline for something to say.

I have lived south of the Mason-Dixon since 1971. I came down from the suburbs of Boston to attend college. I have never once regretted it.

Boston is a terrific place to live, but it is a very provincial place. If your whole concept of the South is derived from watching the Andy Griffith Show, then I guess you can't fathom how this region has changed in the past few decades because your worldview doesn't extend much past Hopkinton, where they start the Marathon.

Boston's nickname is the Hub. As in Hub of the Universe. I am not original with this observation: There's an old joke that if a celestial rock obliterated Los Angeles, the Boston Globe headline the next day would be "Hub Man Perishes/As Comet Devastates LA.

I'd like to take Shaughnessy over to Cary's SAS, one of the biggest private software companies in the world. Or over to Research Triangle Park. Or over to Centennial Campus at N.C. State. Or the American Tobacco Campus in Durham. Or to Red Hat.

I know, I know. I'm starting to sound like the folks at the chamber of commerce who, every time there is a slight to this region in an out-of-town newspaper, begin reciting all its cutting-edge companies, its swell amenities, etc. etc. Stern letter to follow.

Truth is, we don't have to defend ourselves. People vote with their feet. Between 2000 and 2006, the population of Boston was essentially flat, up 0.3 percent. It would have dropped, no doubt, except that the Hub's world-class technology companies and universities draw in lots of folks from all over the planet.

During the same period, Raleigh's population grew by 25 percent.

People didn't come here because they made a wrong turn on Route 128 and kept going until they saw "For Sale" signs at Wakefield. They came here because this is where you can get a house for less than $785,000 (the price of a falling-down shack in my home town of Newton), because they can get jobs, because they have grown tired of cranking up the snow blower every third day.

Some of the folks who came to Raleigh, no doubt, have Southie (not Southern) accents. To them, I say, wicket cool that you are heah.

Well, well, well. It seems that Dan Shaughnessy, columnist of The Boston Globe, has referred to those of us in Tar Heelia, specifically those of us who are fans of the Carolina Hurricanes, as "goobers." This comes from my colleague Luke DeCock, The N&O's hockey correspondent, who has been dueling of late with Mr. Shaughnessy because of the Hurricanes' battle with the Boston Bruins in the National Hockey League playoffs. Luke's the best in the business in my book.

But my task today has to do with "goobers." This term, applied to us in a derisive way, is meant to say we're rednecks and cornballs, I suppose.  Had Mr. Shaughnessy been comparing us to Goobers, the chocolate-covered, movie-theater peanut treat, well, that would be OK. You can't beat a Goober. Had he been playing off the song, "Eatin' Goober Peas," well that would be OK, too. Ernest T. Bass once wanted to sing that one to Charlene Darling in a memorable episode of "The Andy Griffith Show." Had he even been speaking indirectly of Goober Pyle of the aforementioned show, we would take no great offense. Goober was a fine mechanic, after all.

I doubt, however, that Mr. Shaughnessy intended such. My guess is he's never seen "The Andy Griffith Show." Friends, do we really need to know anything else?

The Boston Bruins score two goals early to beat the canes 4-2 and force a Game 7 in Boston.

The sleeping bear is now awake, and it turns out he has pretty sharp claws. It’s time for a few of the Hurricanes to awaken as well.

The Bruins’ top three lines all scored Tuesday to force a Game 7 in Boston on Thursday with a 4-2 win, while Carolina has gotten only three goals from its second and fourth lines in this series.

In the wake of last week's complaint about the music at the RBC Center, I requested the assistance of Superchunk front man, Merge Records founder and diehard Hurricanes fan Mac McCaughan, the official musician of the former Lord Stanley's Blog.

In 2006, McCaughan dropped off a Merge compliation and the arena's Jumbotron crew actually played a few songs off it during the playoffs. This time around, I asked McCaughan what his hockey playlist would be.

Scott Walker escaped a suspension for his punch to Aaron Ward's face late in Game 5, but it had as much to do with Ward's actions as Walker's.

Ward had exchanged shoves with Matt Cullen and Walker before Walker threw a punch that caught Ward in the left eye, as Ward stood with his hands at his sides.

The officials, Tim Peel and Brad Watson, assessed Walker an instigator penalty, which in the final five minutes of a game carries an automatic one-game suspension. But the league ruled Monday that Walker and Ward were engaged in an altercation and rescinded the suspension.

See a gallery of photos from game 5 between the Hurricanes and Bruins. Staff photos by Chris Seward.

The Bruins awoke from their three-game slumber Sunday, sending the series back to Raleigh with a 4-0 win over the Hurricanes.

Still, if history is any guide, Boston’s resurgence may be too little, too late. Of the 87 previous lower-seeded teams to take a 3-1 lead coming into this season, only 11 have failed to advance, and half of the winners needed six or seven games to finish the job.