Oh, Sharks, Sharks, Sharks. Why do you tease us so? A win tonight and San Jose advances to face the Vancouver Canucks in the Western Conference finals. Lose, and the season is over.

Talking heads like to say anything can happen in a Game 7, which is true, we guess, but just shows how irrelevant talking heads are if they all say the same thing.

Former Shark Jeremy Roenick, however, has distanced himself from the talking head pack by blasting Patrick Marleau’s performance in Game 5 as “gutless.” Nothing came of Roenick’s comments in Game 6, as Marleau remained pointless in the series by the time the meltdown in Detroit was complete. But here’s hoping the lip service gives the mercurial forward a spark. Then again, it’s Game 7, so who knows? Anything can happen.

Shoot. Now we’ve just become another talking head. Please step back as we pour this gasoline over ourselves. Just know you could have prevented this by closing out the series a long time ago, Sharks.

Earthquakes Starting To Rumble?

Results for the San Jose Earthquakes to start the season have been disappointing—OK, they’ve been dreadful—but that might be changing with the return of defender Ike Opara, who headed home an overtime goal last week to give the club a 1-0 win over the Portland Timbers.

After losing three straight, it seems the Earthquakes finally said “enough is enough,” and let out some pent-up aggression against the Timbers. The game was chippy at best—the ref handed out eight yellow cards. While San Jose now has only two victories on the season, a healthy Opara will be crucial in stabilizing the Earthquakes back line. Numerous foot and leg injuries have slowed the No. 3 pick of the 2010 draft, but Opara says he’s finally close to 100 percent. An away game Wednesday in Vancouver could give the boys a chance to put together their first winning streak of the season, before coming back home to host the Columbus Crew at 7:30pm Saturday at Buck Shaw Stadium.

Giants Gaining Strength

It’s good to be a Giant these days. Both San Francisco and San Jose’s baseball behemoths currently sit in second place, and the local team is just a game out of first place in the CAL North standings. A four-game series with the Lancaster Jethawks continues Wednesday through Friday, with a 7pm first pitch out at Muni for each night. A head-to-head matchup with the first-place Stockton Ports (which has to be one of the blandest team names in sports) will start Saturday with a three-game series that closes out Monday.

Along with the cheap prices for grub and beer, minor-league ball prides itself on promotions, and Friday’s night game will have several. The first 1,000 fans will receive thunder sticks, which in our mind has always made crowds resemble an angry swarm of insects. The raucous evening will culminate in a postgame fireworks show. If those don’t float your barco, on Sunday the Gigantes will offer a free baseball clinic a few hours before the game, and on Monday fans can wear their favorite jersey to score two free tickets for the future.