The whining, barking, complaining, grousing, groaning, growling and griping about the NHL playoffs absolutely amazes me. Your favourite team gets eliminated and all of sudden they're a pack of underchieving bums and it never would have happened if it had been for devine intervention on the part of the other team.
I don't have favourite teams any more. I use to when I was a kid. I remember my brother and I were sitting in the living room watching a Canadiens - Maple Leaf game. He was an itty bitty Bud backer. I bled the rouge, blanc, bleu. Leafs beat Habs...and I actually cried. Probably because my brother got bragging rights and I had to eat crow, although you can turn it into an alamande corbeau and it's really not that hard to get down.
I have watched more playoff hockey this year than I have in my entire adult life. Don't have to get up in the wee hours these day to get to work which means I can stay up late with the big kids. It's been 5 months of,....every night's a Saturday night.
At the beginning of each playoffs in the big 4 sports I like to pick an underdog. A team that has no right winning anything. NBA: Oklahoma City. NHL: Phoenix and Colorado. I cheered for New Orleans during the Super Bowl even though I thought The Colts would smoke them. Instead Indy became the somkee.
The bitching that came out of the Washington-Monteral series blew me away. Long time Washington fans were wimpering that their Caps were saps and of course the Habbies had horseshoes planted squarely up their collective kiesters. It's this simple. Ovechkin and his, all of sudden, crappy Cappies ran broadside into a hot goalie. It was a classic drive by. No one saw it coming.
I don't understand the dislike and in some cases hatred for Sidney Crosby. Washington fans want to see Pittsburg clock the Canadiens. Habs fans want Sid the Kid pilloried. He's a yapper, he's a moaner, he's a whiner. And he is. So was Mario Lemieux and Gretzky. Skill players whine because every time they hit the ice they get mugged. You'd bitch about it too.
Some times sports works like this...the other team actually played better than your team. Sport is about mistakes. The goalie guesses wrong...whoops...goal! In the Washington-Montreal series...Halak guessed right. In theory the Canadiens have no business being where they are. Theory looks good in a physics lab...not so much on the ice.
I was talking with a local Toronto athlete years ago. We were discussing the impact his team had on the city. It was considerable. But I said to him..."if you guys win..or loose it really doesn't matter to me. It doesn't raise my taxes, I still have to get up for work in the morning, it has no bearing on the health of my kids. I realize it's your job and your reputation's at stake but really in the grand design...it doesn't impact on my life". He understood. And that's the way I look at sport. Entertain me for 3 hours and I'm a giddy kitty.
But for a lot of fans cheering for their team is a love - hate relationship. They use you, they abuse you and you keep coming back for more because...maybe this time it will work. Maple Leaf fans spend hours each day venting about their local heroes. Come Saturday night, there they are, sitting infront of their flat screen, wearing their Wendal Clark jersey with a bowl of pork rinds and of course a "Bud" lite figuring tonight's...the night...they'll get it right. They don't, they yank your heart strings. Will you be back next Saturday? Damn straight you will.
A lot of fans need to chill and take a pill. Hey, your team lost. Get over it. Move on. I did. 'Course not wanting a second helping of crow had a lot to do with that.
I never liked Crosby because most of his goals - that I'd seen (being a non-hockey playing guy) appeared to be cheapie side of the net rebound shots from four feet vs. the skate-in creations of Malkin and Ovechkin.
From this year's playoffs I like Crosby's playing a lot more - but he's still a boring young man as a marketing personality. And he still didn't deserve so much of the star treatment (including that Olympics penalty shot plus TWO shootout attempts exclusive of his teammates). I think, however, he's the type of young man who'll "grow into himself" very well once he ages toward a 28 or 33.