Crowd comes out to feed the Ducks, and it becomes a feast for everyone

So, Southern California doesn’t care about the Stanley Cup finals.

There’s no buzz being generated by the Ducks qualifying to play for Lord Stanley’s prize, no heat generated by their success.

“Californians cool to game played on ice,” proclaimed the headline in the Globe and Mail, a newspaper circulated throughout Canada.

Tell that to the 17,274 rally towel-waving fans who were at the Honda Center on Monday, the ones who roared their approval of not only the obvious feats in the Ducks’ 3-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators but the more subtle accomplishments that hockey heathens aren’t supposed to recognize or appreciate.

They applauded when Ducks rookie Drew Miller hit Senators defenseman Wade Redden in the first period and caused a turnover, which set the puck free for Teemu Selanne to pass to Andy McDonald for the Ducks’ first goal.

They roared when Brad May, Todd Marchant and Shawn Thornton, thrown together as a newly formed fourth line, played a grinding, banging shift that gave the rest of the team a new burst of energy late in the first period.

They rocked the building when the Ducks, continuing their postseason pattern, took too many needless penalties and gave the Senators a five-on-three advantage in the second period, only to escape unscathed.

And when goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere somehow got his glove on a shot by Daniel Alfredsson in the final frantic seconds, when the Senators had a power play and pulled goalie Ray Emery to get a six-on-four advantage, every fan made that save with Giguere.

They all exulted with Giguere when the final buzzer sounded and he thrust his arms skyward to celebrate the Ducks’ 10th one-goal victory in 13 postseason triumphs.

These fans, part of the Ducks’ 32nd consecutive sellout crowd, cared that the Ducks improved their home playoff record to 8-2. The players sensed it and fed off it and loved it.

“We’ve been taking some heat, especially from the Canadian media, about what the crowds are like here,” Ducks defenseman Sean O’Donnell said, “and I think anyone that was in the building, whether the home team or not, felt the chills in there.”

That’s chills as in spine-tingling, not as in cold shoulder.

“They were really into it,” Giguere said of the fans. “The people that are here right now are knowledgeable. They love the game. The price they pay for a ticket, they’d better like the game.

“It puts you into the game and it’s exciting. It really helps you when they’re for you, that’s for sure.”

The fans were clearly on the Ducks’ side Monday and they didn’t hesitate to put their emotions on display.

“I’m hoping some of the people took notice of what it was like when we came out on the ice at the start of the game,” O’Donnell said.

They stayed loud and involved through every shot, every save, an enthralled audience that became part of the proceedings because it gave the Ducks so much energy and inspiration.

Try telling Giguere that people in Southern California don’t much like hockey.

“That’s the Canadian media saying that. We know being from here that people care,” he said.

“I can’t go anywhere right now and not find people saying, ‘Good luck,’ and ‘We’re behind you,’ and something like that.... You can’t always believe what the Canadian media says.”

The Canadian media have cast the Senators in the role of Canada’s Team, even though the Ducks have more sons of the True North on their roster than do the Senators. And the label may not even be accurate.

Maple Leafs fans rarely care about anything that happens outside of Toronto, otherwise known as the Center of the Hockey Universe, so their support of the Senators is probably minimal, if it exists at all.

The Canadiens are a division rival of the Senators, so they’re probably getting little support in Montreal. In Edmonton, fans are still busy thinking evil thoughts about Chris Pronger’s demand to be traded -- which allowed him to land on the Ducks’ blue line -- and Calgary and Vancouver have little affinity for Ottawa as Canada’s distant capital.

But it makes for a neat story line, a them-versus-us theme, with “them” being the blase locals and “us” being the Canadians who are the game’s rightful caretakers.

May, a Toronto native, said it doesn’t have to be that way.

“Southern California is a wonderful place, but it’s great to be Canadian as well,” he said. “You can’t compare the two places, because everybody in Canada grew up playing hockey and it’s been a passion of every family for the most part. But down here, I’ll tell you what, the people that know hockey and support it, cheer for it. It’s a great atmosphere.

“I think the neat thing about hockey is that it has a cult following. The people that follow hockey and love hockey and get to see hockey live for one game, love it. I encourage anybody to come out and see one game.”

The game the fans saw on Monday was typical Ducks hockey -- hard-hitting, loud, dramatic.

“That’s how we play,” winger Corey Perry said, “on the edge.”

Enough to be cool, in the best possible sense.

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.