05 May 2010

"I don't want to talk about it."

So said Homer in his FSD interview during the first intermission, specifically in reference to the garbage goal we coughed up to San Jose in, literally, the last seconds of the first period, after playing a commandingly strong game at both ends of the ice.

And that's how I've felt during this entire series.

Because how can we really talk about it?

Take yesterday's game. Yeah, we killed off all six penalties, had a chance at a penalty shot, scored four goals (one of which was overturned), all of which were scored by our typical postseason rockstars, and managed to show up in the faceoff circle. So, what the fuck happened?

Various people during my workday ask me how the Wings are doing during playoff runs. Smart move by them, as it's really all I'm capable of discussing during the spring months. My new-ish coworker is a complete and total sweetheart (yeah, yeah, my polar opposite--the joke pretty much makes itself); she has absolutely no interest in hockey, but she always makes a point to ask me how the games go.

In order to express my angst, I've sketched a little interpretive ditty of each conversation thus far following each game in Round 2:

And then...

And, in anticipation of talking to her tomorrow:

And yeah, for those of you who don't already Facebookstalk me, I am actually a purple troll with unkempt pencil hair.

I have no words to describe adequately and completely how I'm feeling right now. Angry? Of course. Frustrated? You bet. Nervous? Sure.

Despite the Wings' lack of cohesive play at various times throughout the season, I was in no way, shape or form mentally prepared to watch them give up the goals they gave up last night. I'm further in no way, shape or form prepared to deal with being down 3-0 in the series against a team that I've lambasted as a disappearing act the likes of which are incomparable unless Marian Hossa's present. It's such a scary set of numbers, isn't it? What does this even feel like? How is it that the Sharks have capitalized on every single instance of the proverbial "letting our feet off the gas" in this series? This is the composition of TSO's current existential funk.

It's amazing how far a 3-0 series deficit and a white-hot team like the Sharks can foster hatred in the heart of someone who already hates plenty as it is. Do I have any real reason to hate San Jose? Not especially. There's no equivalent of cockface extraordinaires Matt Cooke or Georges Laraque or Chris Pronger on the team to whom I can easily point and jeer, "Yeah, look at all those assholes at the HP Pavilion, cheering for that motherfucking prick." Speaking of the HP Pavilion, it's amazing how much the denizens of Silicon Valley show up for that team. Aside from the superlame shark jaw motion they do to rile up the team (because what's more invigorating than seeing someone munch his/her entire arms in your general vicinity? A whole bunch of nothing, that's what.) and the superlamer Styx-esque sound effects they play after announcing the names of goal-scorers, I have to tip my hat to a city that gets behind its team. Furthermore, the team as a whole has refused to get shaken up, even when down 3-1 for much of yesterday's game. And for fuck's sake, the laser-haired Todd McLellan is a former Babcockian acolyte. There's so much NOT to hate about this team...

...but I do, anyway, for the time being. Sorry if you disagree, kids, but perhaps you're stronger people than I. Right now, there's little more I hate than San Jose. Major-league genocide? Yeah, that's probably worse than the Sharks. People who cram their religious views down other people's throats? Yeah, they suck at life a tad bit more, as well. Uninvited rimjobs? Welllllll...that might be pushing it.

For crunch time during the last series, I put on my Pollyanna hat and professed my staying in my proverbial seat until the final seconds of Game 7. Obviously, the same is true for all of us in this situation, except instead of knowing that our team's fate will be determined in 60 +/- minutes from the first puck drop, in our only good-case scenario, we have four sets of 60 +/- minutes to endure. For residents of Hockeytown at Large, it means an awful lot of nail-biting, whiskey-guzzling, nipple-clamping, tears, and cheers until time runs out in Game 7. Hopefully, there are more cheers than tears.

P.S. One final thought on last night's game: I would have bet Patrick Marleau's eyebrows against him scoring the game-winning goal last night. One of the fine details that chaps my ass the most about this series is the fact that Marleau and Thornton have each scored game-winners against us after being mostly invisible for the duration of the postseason. Fuck me sideways.

26 comments:

  1. I will admit, the "Jaws" theme song when they go on a PP is pretty cool.

    I can't understand Joe Thornton. This man is in my top-3 of overrated players in the NHL (right up there with the aforementioned Hossa and Roberto Luongo). He's done dick all series, but he scores a goal after a broken stick that turns into a 3-on-1, and then assists on the GWG after J-Will tried to shoot the puck physically out of the Joe with Ericsson as his winger. 2 fucking flukes and all of a sudden we're ready to shed the "choker" label? I don't fucking think so.

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  2. "And yeah, for those of you who don't already Facebookstalk me, I am actually a purple troll with unkempt pencil hair."

    Is your new co-worker actually orange and bald?

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  3. Graham, you are right on about Joe Thornton. His opportunistic success thus far has been salt in a VERY open wound. I say out loud during games that I "hate" him, which isn't really true; I don't hate-hate him. I just hate his essence, the very existence of players like him. And I fucking hate when opportunity strikes while they're playing US.

    Rob R, my artistic skills are obviously fabulous, aren't they? Suffice it to say I'm far too much of a lazy fuckbag to put detail into my coworker's appearance. I figured I'd spare her the pencil hair and give her some bald dignity.

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  4. First thing that happened to me last night whilst leaving work. Fuck face coworker: "Did you see the score Dena? Snicker, snicker." This was said to me by a person wearing a Gordie Howe Blackhawks jersey. Let me let that sink in....

    I haven't brought myself to watch the game yet. Maybe tomorrow. All I can say is that there is no way I can feel as horrible as I did on June 12th of last year. It just isn't going to happen. I laid around in my own filth, not showering until August for fucks sake. Cindy induced depression is not something I will EVER contract again. So, what happens tomorrow happens. I will still love the Detroit Red Wings, win or lose. They will continue to be the reason I breathe. If the summer's longer, so be it. With the Grand Rapids Griffins playing many games due to injuries for the Wings this season, I think that we have had an EPIC run this year. There are worse things than having our boys get a little extra rest this summer. But I still believe that they are going to come back and win this bitch. So fasten your seatbelts....

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  5. "I figured I'd spare her the pencil hair and give her some bald dignity."

    Fair enough. My roommate (a dude) is basically orange and bald so I wasn't sure if there was any relation between the two.

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  6. Dena, I live in Chicago, and I can tell you something unequivocally - all Hawks fans are douchebags. I had a guy in my office trash talk me the day AFTER the Hawks got butt-fucked 5-1 at home. I truly believe that Hawks fans would rather see the Wings lose than see the Hawks win.

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  7. Graham - Excellent use of "butt fuck". I'm pleased.

    there's excellent illustrations going on here. I'm very pleased there as well.

    I had a whole paragraph written out here and I deleted it. This season is just so.....strange.

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  8. Octopi, just thought to pay you due respect for some
    killing scribe.
    Make things worse. Your in Detroit and I sunny California! Have a cool Summer!
    Sharktown USA

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  9. Aw our chomp thing is cool! It's a tradition, I'm sure a wings fan can understand that.

    As a sharks fan you guys have my sympathies, the greatest tragedy of sports really is that only one team can win, even though there are tons of amazing teams and players.

    I just wanted to say though, that as much as people talk about how Joe Thornton is a playoff underachiever, hes been working very hard and doing the little things throughout these playoffs, and even if he isn't scoring he is contributing where he needs to, which is really what the playoffs are all about. If you can't score, that's fine, but EVERYONE has to contribute.

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  10. Are Sharks fans the new Pens fans? They can't seem to keep to their own blogs. No, the chomp thing is not cool. It's sad. Almost as sad as the two fingered fang thing the Preds fans do. Sorry. It's just how I see it.

    I don't mind losing this series. I don't think the Sharks are beating the pants off of us considering the upper hand they've had with the power play situations. All those little things that killed us during the regular season are plaguing us now. Yes, the Sharks are capitalizing on them and Homer summed up our feelings quite nicely. We are beating ourselves.

    I will be watching each minute of the games that remain with pride in my team because hands down, they are the class of the league. The fact that they made it this far after this season is amazing. If they don't manage to win another game or four straight, then I will root for a Habs/Canucks final and enjoy the summer.

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  11. Well it was nice to have the illusion that I'd found a decent place with wings fans who were also hockey fans.

    Thanks for showing me I was wrong Krononymous.

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  12. Sorry to have upset you there Moose. I didn't realize irreverence was not allowed. It's not my blog so don't allow my post to color your opinion of Natalie and her fine blog.

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  13. No, the octopi on the ice are not cool. It's sad. Almost as sad as the two fingered fang thing the Preds fans do. Sorry. It's just how I see it.

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  14. "No, the octopi on the ice are not cool. It's sad. Almost as sad as the two fingered fang thing the Preds fans do. Sorry. It's just how I see it."

    If you leave your name as "anonymous," do you really exist? Which means I could be talking to myself... Hmm, guess I'm delusional. I guess I might as well say this too: Wings in 7.

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  15. It's not a conspiracy. EVERY other fanbase in the league knows Wings fans are the douchiest fans in the league. You (not all respectable Wings fans, but all the retarded ones who would read this retarded blog) have a tremendous sense of entitlement over the entire sport of hockey, which ultimately makes you spoiled whiners and trash talkers, which also makes you blind to the faults of your team (which makes you blind to half of the game being played, which ultimately makes your commentary on the Wings a worthless waste of space and time.) This blog is the result of this idiocy: dismissive and empty statements like "We are beating ourselves," adorned with cheap, dated, overused and embarrassingly laughable words and phrases like "whilst," "proverbial," "general vicinity," etc. with no actual breakdown of the play. Does Hockeytown not have enough bad Op Ed writers that you feel compelled to write this garbage? Seriously, it reads like something a freshman in a creative writing class at a junior college would write. Bad*, just bad.

    *AKA "Abhorrent" to your bloated style of writing.

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  16. I'll concur that we're whiny and trash talking. If you've been to this site before, you KNOW that we thrive on trash talking. That's part of the hockey experience we most enjoy.

    Thanks for comparing my writing to freshman year at a junior college. I'm assuming that at whichever college you attended, they taught you how to misquote people, as you did when you alleged I said, "We are beating ourselves," which I did NOT say.

    My greatest source of confusion is why, if this site (A) is a complete waste of time, (B) features bloated style of writing, (C) juvenile, in that it sounds like the above-referenced freshman in junior college, why are you here? Doesn't that make you all the dumber for having stopped by here and come back several times to comment again? As dumb as this site may be to you, how much of a mammoth asshole are you to waste your time hanging out on here? Don't you have something better to do?

    In conclusion, go fuck yourself.

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  17. I love TSO!

    And anyone who has enough time to come to Wings blogs just to trash talk, lemme just say, I got plenty of dishes to be done and yardwork to be done, and if you're looking that hard for something to do, I can supply it.

    Or I guess you can just do what Natalie said, and go fuck yourself.

    Should keep you busy for about 2 minutes.

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  18. Also "moose" person, you seem aight, so my comment was not directed at you. And I don't think your Shark jaws thing is stupid, but it's a little... alligator... ish.

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  19. "EVERY other fanbase in the league knows Wings fans are the douchiest fans in the league."

    Did anyone talk to Canadiens fans about this?

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  20. Yeah, Moose, you are completely welcome here. In fact, the moose is one of my favorite animals. You seem like a stand-up guy. Don't take the above outrage personally.

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  21. "And I don't think your Shark jaws thing is stupid, but it's a little... alligator... ish."

    A little? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSd39-_ez74

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  22. When did Sharks fans become Penguins fans? Don't any of these fucking people have anything better to do than troll opposition teams' fan sites? Do you know what I've never done in my entire life? Gone over to a site about any team besides the Wings because A) I know I'm not particularly welcome and B) I could give a flying fuck what they have to say.

    I'm a hockey fan first and a Red Wings fan second - so I respect all teams and their real fans, but this is getting comical. Can one fanbase be any more Napoleon complexed? Relax, we know the Sharks are good. They've been good for a decade, not that there are any banners to show for it. If this is the year that things turn around, please don't go all Pittsburgh on us and sit at home harassing Wings blogs while the "parade" is going on. Be a fan. Mind your business, cheer your team on, and shut the fuck up. If you don't like what we have to say, ignore it.

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  23. Also, totally missed Krononymous' comment comparing Sharks fans to Penguins fans.

    Nothing to see here, move along...

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  24. Great minds and all...no wait, forget it. Technically, I'm a douche so I won't do you the disservice Petrella.

    Again, apologies to the Moose. I never meant to hurt you.

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  25. GO BRUINS!!

    I have to admit, I kind of skimmed through all of this.

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  26. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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