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Pre-game reading: What’s it like to play the longest hockey game ever?

Congress Allows Pizza To Be Considered Vegetable In School Lunches

MIRAMAR, FL - NOVEMBER 18: Terry Cheung prepares a pizza pie to be served to students at Everglades High School on November 18, 2011 in Miramar, Florida. Monday evening the United States Congress passed a spending bill with a provision that would allow schools to count pizza as a vegetable. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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-- By now you’ve probably heard about that insane Norwegian League playoff game that went 11 periods (if not, click here). Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reached out to Storhamar Hockey’s Joey Tenute to ask what it was like to participate in a contest that started at 6 p.m. local time... and didn’t finish until 2:30 in the morning.

“I can’t describe the feeling of really thinking the game would never end,” Tenute said. “I can’t imagine that that could even exist. Playing in something like that, it’s surreal. The longer it got, it almost seemed like it was dangerous to an extent. Guys are getting their groins taped, guys are battling, everyone’s cramping up – it was just something I’ve never experienced before.

“You don’t even know what to do: Guys are eating pizza in between periods. You’re just kind of doing what you’ve got to do to get through the game. The trainers are coming around and passing out fruit and bread and peanut butter and jam. There was pizza and pasta in the dressing room.”

According to the IIHF, the Storhamar vs. Sparta Sarpsborg game is the longest in hockey history, surpassing the 176-minute, 30-second game between the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons in 1936.

No word on what the Wings and Maroons crammed down their gullets between periods.

-- With a number of NCAA teams getting eliminated from postseason play, college free agent season is officially underway. TSN has a good primer of some of the names to keep an eye on, including Northeastern senior senior Zachary Aston-Reese. He’s a 6-foot, 204-pound forward who had 31 goals and 63 points this year, in just 38 games. Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Vancouver, San Jose, Los Angeles and Detroit are among the many teams hoping to acquire his services.

-- We’ve written about Cam Talbot’s hefty workload in Edmonton this season (see here and here), and now CBC is asking -- are the Oilers at risk of burning him out?

No NHL goalie has made more starts (61), played more minutes (3,621), faced more shots (1,792) or made more saves (1,648) than Talbot this season.

Talbot has said he thrives on a heavy workload, and head coach Todd McLellan hasn’t been concerned. He keeps asking Talbot if he wants to play and the goalie nods in the affirmative.

Part of the reason for Talbot’s workload is the lack of a capable No. 2. The Jonas Gustavsson experiment failed, and now the club is relying on untested Laurent Brossoit to fill the void.