Thursday, April 22, 2004
Sometimes I think I'm the only sane one left in the asylum
First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I'm not a hockey fan, I'm an Oilers fan. In a recent blog entry, Janet makes this distinction more articulately (and at greater length) than I care to - for me, suffice it to say that I would rather watch a Ryan Smyth garbage goal than a Pavel Bure top shelf wrist shot. It also means that I'm not sure what team Pavel Bure plays for now, though I think it may be the Rangers. That is, if he's still playing at all, since I vaguely recall hearing that his career might be over due to an injury of some kind (concussions? No, that was Lindros. Knees? Hey, is Lindros still playing? For who?). Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that, what with the Oilers being out, I haven't watched a single playoff game this year, even though many accounts are calling this year's the most exciting playoffs of the last decade. Still, though, I don't live under a rock, and it's nice to have at least a vague idea of who I'm cheering for.
According to Dan Barnes, I should be cheering for the Flames.
Allow me to digress a moment, and compare the present situation to that which occurred during the Stanley Cup finals of two years ago - Detroit against Carolina. I was torn. On the one hand, Detroit was a city which knew and appreciated hockey (even Paul Simon saw fit to note in "Papa Hobo": "Detroit, Detroit, got a hell of a hockey team"). It played a game based on skill and, as much as anybody did, offense. It was captained by Steve Yzerman, the only remaining throwback to the glory years to play his entire career with one team. It featured Brendan Shanahan, one of my favourite non-Oilers. Carolina, by contrast, is a state in which hockey ranks below Tractor Pulling on a list of most people's preferred diversions. Its hockey team trapped like an unemployed bushman. On the other hand, compare the teams' payrolls. In the end, I pulled for Carolina, albeit mostly so I could say "Go Hartford!" at the end of the U of A cheer song.
On the face of it, my choice this year in the Detroit-Calgary series should be much easier. While all of the good things about Detroit continue to apply, Calgary, unlike Raleigh, is a hockey town. The Flames play much the same sort of game as the Oilers - a skill game, despite not being able to afford more than a couple of players with both skill and consistency. On the other hand, they're the freakin' Flames!
It's been suggested to me that in today's hockey climate, an irrational grudge against our fellow small market team to the South is a luxury we can no longer afford, and that we should get behind all of the small market Canadian teams knowing that, as they go, so go we. After all, times have changed: both teams used to be consistently competitive for the Cup, now I can't even name the last year they both made the playoffs. The pride of St. Albert used to be an Oilers icon, now the new pride of St. Albert is a Flames star, while the old one finally seems on the verge of retirement from the New York Rangers. We used to have Fuhr vs. Vernon, now we have Conklin (who?) vs. Kripusoff (who?). And, truth be told, on some level I'm happy for the Flames fans - yes, Ross, Kail, Jake, Nick, Duncan, that applies to you - which certainly wasn't the case in 1989.
On the other hand, they're the freakin' Flames. And the fact that an Alberta team is in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs is enough to convince me that things haven't changed that much. The fact that the Flames are once again competitive is reason to cheer against them, not for them. Go Red Wings.
* * *
1. I know I promised that that rant would be one of my best, but I seem to have lost some of my passion for it with the whole "Sound(s) of Silence" thing.
2. Over on Duncan Taylor's blog, the following question has been posed:
"How the hell did Steve loose that election? Every fucking blog on the internet is linked to his. He has his own religion or something... Oh right. No Volunteers + No classroom speaking + personality of a broomstick = no presidency for you"
My response:
- Sadly, not *every* blog on the internet is linked to mine. Despite my repeated phone calls, e-mails, and visits to his house in the middle of the night, Paul Wells has yet to provide me with a reciprocal link.
- It's not surprising to me that I have my own religion. What *would* surprise me would be if said religion counted adherents other than myself.
- Back in my agnostic days, I harboured a secret desire to become a televangelist: "Your eternal soul, assuming that it exists, may or may not condemned to hell unless you live your life according to the dictates of the Bible! Or possibly the Koran! Send money." And not to brag, but I *do* have a knack for chastity.
- I actually did have volunteers, one of whom refused to be publicly seen volunteering since he was applying for an S.U. job post-election and was afraid that whoever beat me would hold the fact that I volunteered for me against him. He put up some posters for me in Corbett under the cover of darkness.
- I engaged in classroom speaking, too, until it became apparent to me that I was so bad at it that it was actually hurting my campaign.
- I've been told that I have more personality than my own stool, though the person who told me that admitted to never having met my stool (and expressed no desire to do so).
3. Kim "ravie" Unknownlastname has started a blog, and says nice things about mine in her first post. Aww.
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First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I'm not a hockey fan, I'm an Oilers fan. In a recent blog entry, Janet makes this distinction more articulately (and at greater length) than I care to - for me, suffice it to say that I would rather watch a Ryan Smyth garbage goal than a Pavel Bure top shelf wrist shot. It also means that I'm not sure what team Pavel Bure plays for now, though I think it may be the Rangers. That is, if he's still playing at all, since I vaguely recall hearing that his career might be over due to an injury of some kind (concussions? No, that was Lindros. Knees? Hey, is Lindros still playing? For who?). Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that, what with the Oilers being out, I haven't watched a single playoff game this year, even though many accounts are calling this year's the most exciting playoffs of the last decade. Still, though, I don't live under a rock, and it's nice to have at least a vague idea of who I'm cheering for.
According to Dan Barnes, I should be cheering for the Flames.
Allow me to digress a moment, and compare the present situation to that which occurred during the Stanley Cup finals of two years ago - Detroit against Carolina. I was torn. On the one hand, Detroit was a city which knew and appreciated hockey (even Paul Simon saw fit to note in "Papa Hobo": "Detroit, Detroit, got a hell of a hockey team"). It played a game based on skill and, as much as anybody did, offense. It was captained by Steve Yzerman, the only remaining throwback to the glory years to play his entire career with one team. It featured Brendan Shanahan, one of my favourite non-Oilers. Carolina, by contrast, is a state in which hockey ranks below Tractor Pulling on a list of most people's preferred diversions. Its hockey team trapped like an unemployed bushman. On the other hand, compare the teams' payrolls. In the end, I pulled for Carolina, albeit mostly so I could say "Go Hartford!" at the end of the U of A cheer song.
On the face of it, my choice this year in the Detroit-Calgary series should be much easier. While all of the good things about Detroit continue to apply, Calgary, unlike Raleigh, is a hockey town. The Flames play much the same sort of game as the Oilers - a skill game, despite not being able to afford more than a couple of players with both skill and consistency. On the other hand, they're the freakin' Flames!
It's been suggested to me that in today's hockey climate, an irrational grudge against our fellow small market team to the South is a luxury we can no longer afford, and that we should get behind all of the small market Canadian teams knowing that, as they go, so go we. After all, times have changed: both teams used to be consistently competitive for the Cup, now I can't even name the last year they both made the playoffs. The pride of St. Albert used to be an Oilers icon, now the new pride of St. Albert is a Flames star, while the old one finally seems on the verge of retirement from the New York Rangers. We used to have Fuhr vs. Vernon, now we have Conklin (who?) vs. Kripusoff (who?). And, truth be told, on some level I'm happy for the Flames fans - yes, Ross, Kail, Jake, Nick, Duncan, that applies to you - which certainly wasn't the case in 1989.
On the other hand, they're the freakin' Flames. And the fact that an Alberta team is in Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs is enough to convince me that things haven't changed that much. The fact that the Flames are once again competitive is reason to cheer against them, not for them. Go Red Wings.
* * *
1. I know I promised that that rant would be one of my best, but I seem to have lost some of my passion for it with the whole "Sound(s) of Silence" thing.
2. Over on Duncan Taylor's blog, the following question has been posed:
"How the hell did Steve loose that election? Every fucking blog on the internet is linked to his. He has his own religion or something... Oh right. No Volunteers + No classroom speaking + personality of a broomstick = no presidency for you"
My response:
- Sadly, not *every* blog on the internet is linked to mine. Despite my repeated phone calls, e-mails, and visits to his house in the middle of the night, Paul Wells has yet to provide me with a reciprocal link.
- It's not surprising to me that I have my own religion. What *would* surprise me would be if said religion counted adherents other than myself.
- Back in my agnostic days, I harboured a secret desire to become a televangelist: "Your eternal soul, assuming that it exists, may or may not condemned to hell unless you live your life according to the dictates of the Bible! Or possibly the Koran! Send money." And not to brag, but I *do* have a knack for chastity.
- I actually did have volunteers, one of whom refused to be publicly seen volunteering since he was applying for an S.U. job post-election and was afraid that whoever beat me would hold the fact that I volunteered for me against him. He put up some posters for me in Corbett under the cover of darkness.
- I engaged in classroom speaking, too, until it became apparent to me that I was so bad at it that it was actually hurting my campaign.
- I've been told that I have more personality than my own stool, though the person who told me that admitted to never having met my stool (and expressed no desire to do so).
3. Kim "ravie" Unknownlastname has started a blog, and says nice things about mine in her first post. Aww.
