Credit to Eller, by the way, for com

SAN FRANCISCO - In the middle of a champagne-and-beer-soaked clubhouse after the San Francisco Giants won the NL Championship Series, Tim Hudson was given the chance to speak to his team.The message was as simple as Hudsons approach on the mound: World Series, baby!After 16 years, 214 regular-season wins and seven failed trips to the post-season, Hudson has finally made it to baseballs biggest stage at age 39.Hudson is set to take the mound Friday night for the Giants when they return home to face Jeremy Guthrie and the Royals in Game 3 of the World Series after a two-game split in Kansas City.Its almost a sense of relief that its finally here, that what Ive hoped and dreamed for throughout my career is finally here, and theres not going to be anybody on the field thats more ready than I am tomorrow night, Hudson said Thursday.Hudsons brilliant career began on the other side of San Francisco Bay as he helped Oakland make four straight trips to the post-season that ended with Game 5 losses in the division series.Hudson got back to the playoffs with Atlanta, losing in the division series in 2005 to Houston and 2010 to San Francisco. The Braves made it again last year when Hudson was hurt but lost again in the division series.After signing a $23 million, two-year contract this off-season with San Francisco, Hudson finally got to experience post-season success.You often wonder, is it ever going to happen? Obviously, last year the way my season ended with my ankle injury, things looked a little bleak there for a few moments, Hudson said. But Im just really lucky.Hudson got no-decisions in his first two post-season starts, allowing five runs in 13 2-3 innings against Washington and St. Louis.The limited work of late has paid dividends. Hudson looks much fresher than he did in September when he went 0-4 with an 8.72 ERA in five starts to end the season while dealing with a bum hip. He finished the season with a 9-13 record for his first losing campaign ever.Its hard enough to play this game when youre healthy, but when youre pitching and your hips bothering you a little bit — and hes a warrior, manager Bruce Bochy said. He was never complaining. He was never making excuses, but it was a fact. I think it was affecting him a little bit.Guthrie had a long wait just to get to the playoffs. He made his first post-season appearance at age 35 when he allowed one run in five innings of a no-decision against Baltimore in Game 3 of the ALCS.That start is Guthries only outing the past four weeks; he did not pitch in the division series sweep against the Angels. So Guthrie has done his best to stay sharp with side work instead of pitching in games.He has also spent time serving as a translator for some of Kansas Citys Spanish-speaking players. Guthrie completed a Mormon mission to Spain when he was in college, not picking up a baseball for two years.But Guthrie revived his career when he returned and transferred to Stanford, becoming a first-round pick in 2002 and eventually a major leaguer.He said he learned at Stanford the importance of going deep into games — something that was most evident when he went 13 innings to beat Cal-State Fullerton in the NCAA tournament his final year there.Four days before the draft, Scott Boras my agent, or adviser at that time, was there, and I dont think he was anticipating or hoping for 13 innings that close to the draft, Guthrie said. But it was 147 pitches. Again, it was a reflection of competing to the end, its yours to win, and watching kind of the pitchers pitch by pitch, and seeing how theyre doing versus kind of letting the number dictate when they were going to be taken out.With a stellar bullpen led by Greg Holland, Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis behind him in Kansas City, Guthrie knows he wont be asked to go that deep on a team that has had only one starter pitch into the seventh this post-season.Thats been the result, but were out there trying to get as deep as we can, Guthrie said. For us to win a game without having to throw all three of our relievers at the back end, Kelvin, and Wade, and Greg, will only give our team a better chance to win throughout the series.___AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report. 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Hes aiming for a third consecutive win at the Yeongam circuit and, most importantly, a fourth consecutive F1 championship.The Montreal Canadiens received a spectacular goaltender effort from Carey Price in Game One at Boston. Scott Cullen has notes on Price, Tuukka Rask, P.K. Subban, Rene Bourque and more. HABS STEAL GAME ONE Despite being soundly outplayed by the hometown Boston Bruins, the Montreal Canadiens emerged from Game One with a 4-3 double-overtime win, thanks to G Carey Price, who stopped 48 of the 51 shots that he faced. Price had a career-best .927 save percentage this season, but he had a .904 save percentage in the first round sweep over Tampa Bay, so its not like this game was standard fare. During the regular season, Price had a dozen games during which he recorded at least 35 saves, ranking fifth in the league. What is important for the Canadiens, though, is that Price is capable of stealing games like this because thats likely what is going to be required if Montreal is going to upset a superior puck possession team. At the other end, Vezina Trophy favourite Tuukka Rask stopped 29 of 33 shots and he was critical of his own performance. Maybe a little hard on himself, as goalies can be, but it could also reflect some frustration. For as great as Rask has been to this point in his career -- he has the best save percentage in the league since 2009-2010 -- but has had his problems with Montreal, including a .908 save percentage in 17 regular-season games against the Habs and has yet to beat the Canadiens in Boston, now 0-9 after Game One. Montreal got a pair of goals -- their first and last -- from D P.K. Subban, who played a game-high 33:49 in Game One and now has seven points in five playoff games this season. Likely the most pleasant surprise of this postseason for the Habs has been LW Rene Bourque, who scored three goals against Tampa Bay in the first round and came up with a goal and an assist against Boston. The Bruins controlled play so thoroughly that LW Daniel Paille hhad their worst possession numbers, and he was still on for 51.dddddddddddd9% of 5-on-5 shot attempts. Defencemen Dougie Hamilton and Zdeno Chara as well as C Patrice Bergeron and RW Reilly Smith were all on for better than 70% of shot attempts. There was an interesting allocation at the bottom of the Habs puck possession chart for this game. LW Travis Moen (17.4%) was at the very bottom, but the next four, all under 26%, were the shortest Habs -- RW Brendan Gallagher, C David Desharnais, C Daniel Briere and D Mike Weaver. The only two Canadiens over 50% in shot attempts were Bourque and Lars Eller. Its just one game, so this could mean nothing at all, but it might be worth watching to see if the Canadiens smaller players continue to have possession problems as the series progresses. Credit to Eller, by the way, for coming up with positive possession stats while starting with one offensive zone face-off compared to 17 in the defensive zone (5.6%) in Game One. One of the subplots of the game, from Montreals perspective, is that head coach Michel Therrien demoted RW Thomas Vanek from the first line to the fourth line from a point early in the second period until midway through the third period. Vanek finished the game with 18:58 of ice time, which ranked ninth among Montreal forwards. Certainly getting a Game One win on the road is favourable under any circumstances, but getting it in a game in which they were so thoroughly dominated is especially good for the Canadiens, who had to lean so heavily on their goaltending to even have a chance. Now, can they close the possession gap and try to take Game Two in Boston without requiring Price to deliver another out-of-this-world performance? Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. ' ' '