There's an old adage in hockey that a series doesn't begin until a team loses on home ice. Does that mean this series has begun?

The Chicago Blackhawks came out in the first period with some jump, scored on their first power play of the night, then pissed away 1:17 of 5-on-3 time to not put any distance between themselves and the Vancouver Canucks. This proved costly as the Canucks took a 3-game lead in the first round of the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, taking a 3-2 decision in the United Center tonight.

Let's get to this:

THE GOOD:

Leaving the house early enough tonight to hit Portillo's on the way to the United Center instead of forking over an assload of dough for a United Center burger. There's never a bad time to hit Portillo's, my friends. However, that was pretty much the highlight of the night.

The stars coming out. Yeah, the game was a kick to the dick tip, but Jonathan Toews notched two assists, Patrick Kane got one, and Duncan Keith and Handsome scored the goals. At this point, their only focus should be winning Tuesday night. They can't do that without these guys getting it done. Hopefully one of them can find out wherever it is that Marian Hossa is hiding while they're at it.

THE BAD:

2-for-7 on the Power Play. As much as people want to channel their inner Ty Conklin and say the Hawks got gift penalties, the fact is the Canucks were throwing elbows all night, and leaving their skates on hits. The calls were all good, but that's not the point. The Hawks look like a circus with the man advantage, spending too much time looking to make the pretty play instead of just throwing the puck at the net and seeing what happens. If they don't straighten this out in the next 48 hours, they've got all summer to think about it.

John Scott. Forget about how much fun it is to watch him pummel guys, this guy has no business being on the ice in an NHL playoff game. He took an interference penalty because he was too damn slow to get out of the way. He almost leveled Hossa. He was just a hot mess out there.

THE UGLY:

Being damned by success. Since the Hawks won the Stanley Cup, the guy who dances the jig to the Dropkick Murphys managed to get a couple Binny's commercials. That's cool, I guess. Except now there's a bunch of people trying to do the same thing. There's that one asshole with the long hair (no, not Block) who does...actually, I'm not sure what he does. He just kind of gets on the scoreboard camera, makes some crazy eyes for a second, then keeps waving his arms as he looks at the scoreboard. Is this his career path? I saw him standing on Madison trying to act like some sort of rock star. Good luck with that, pal. In section 323 there was some dumbass wearing a #69 jersey (although, "Dumbass" and "#69 jersey" is redundant) standing up and waving his arms to get everyone up. You're not making anything happen when you're 5 rows from the ceiling there, slick. The best fan thing of the night was the guy behind me on line for the head doing some rant about Patrick Kane getting whacked off in a Chinese bathhouse. That was some solid stuff.

Next up for the Hawks is Game 4 Tuesday night. Hopefully we're not rolling credits after that.