The best-of-seven series is now a best-of-one after the Pittsburgh Penguins forced a winner-takes-all NHL Stanley Cup Finals Game 7 Friday against the Detroit Red Wings after an exciting Game 6, 2-1 win at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, Tuesday night.

I couldn’t be more thrilled — being from Pittsburgh and a fan of all teams from the Steel City. The only problem is, I know very little about hockey.

As Chandler on the TV show “Friends” once said, hockey is a bunch of angry Canadians with no teeth smacking a puck. From the games I’ve watched this season, he’s mostly right. He forgot that most hockey players have red hair.

Despite my slightly misguided thoughts on the game, I watched as the Penguins pulled off a thrilling win over the Red Wings tying the series at three games apiece heading back to Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Last year when the two teams met in the Game 6 NHL finals in Pittsburgh, Detroit came away with the win and the shiny, silver Stanley Cup.

At least I know what the Stanley Cup is and that the Penguins have won it twice — in 1991 and 1992. I don’t know what the blue line is, what offside and icing calls mean or what determines a power play. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a fan.

As I watched Penguins’ goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and defenseman Rod Scuderi make three saves during the final seconds of the game to prevent Detroit from repeating as champions, I couldn’t help but yell at the TV and cheer after their efforts were successful. The constant flurry of players skating back and forth on the ice during the third period was frantic enough to make any casual sports fan intrigued about the game of hockey.

To me hockey is a lot like soccer, but less boring. Hockey in a nutshell: A bunch of guys skate around a ring of ice with sticks trying to get a small, black puck into a net being guarded by an angry man — probably because he’s constantly being hit by pucks — with lots of padding. I know there’s more to it than that, but what else do you need to know?

Well maybe some fishy trivia is useful about understanding hockey. I hope some crazy Red Wing fans don’t throw squid onto the ice during Game 7 that would inadvertently trip Penguins captain and center Sidney Crosby. That’s something that’s always puzzled me about hockey. Why do fans through squid onto the ice? Apparently it started with the original six teams in the NHL when fans would through octupus. Now Red Wing fans have continued this tradition by throwing squid, octopi, even calamari during playoff games. I expect they’ll be throwing some Friday night, whether their team wins or loses.

If the Penguins win tomorrow night and the Pittsburgh Pirates could get into the MLB finals this fall it would be a three-peat for all major league Pittsburgh-based teams — since the Steelers already won the Super Bowl this year. Oh who am I kidding, the Pirates haven’t won the Pennant for 30 years — but I’m still a fan.

Missy Thompson: missy@tooeletranscript.com