This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > December > 04
Thursday, December 4, 2008
UGA fans become disgruntled bystanders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech is still whooping it up. Nick Satan and the Urban Crier are bringing their teams to town to play for the SEC title. Has there ever been a worse moment to be a Bulldog?
Via e-mail, I asked Georgia fans of my acquaintance how they’re feeling and, being particularly nasty, for whom they’ll be rooting Saturday. Here’s what they wrote.
Eric Zeier, former Georgia quarterback and color commentator on radio broadcasts: “We have won a couple of SEC championships recently and finished No. 2 in the country last year. We have one of the best coaches in the country in Mark Richt and he has brought the program to a level where we are mentioned on a national scale. With that said, there is definitely some disappointment in the way this season finished … But it is still great to be a Georgia Bulldog!”
Vince Dooley, statuesque Georgia legend: “It would have been much, much better if we had beaten Tech and were playing in the SEC Championship game.”
Damon Evans, athletics director: “Our goal every year is to play in the conference championship game, so there is a degree of disappointment. However, we have a chance for a 10-win season, so that’s what the Bulldogs need to concentrate on.”
Jeff Dantzler, Athens talk-show host: “To have two halves and one quarter just unfold in disastrous fashion and have all three of those foes in the same city in the heart of the Bulldog nation is tough, but the sun will shine on Georgia again soon.”
Neil “Hondo” Williamson, tailgate show host: “From a macro-sense, nothing much has changed. Tech won. Hearty congratulations and best wishes. For all the talk-show junkies and internet kvetchers who believe that they witnessed some cataclysmic change in the universe a la Jon Landau’s ‘discovery’ of Bruce Springsteen, they need to relax. Tech won a close one. We’d won seven straight prior. I like our program, staff, facilities, players on a national basis and thus feel quite comfortable with our standing and direction state-wide, too.”
Zeier: “As a Dawg, you’re probably putting on the crimson sweater this weekend and yelling ‘Roll, Tide!’ “
Evans: “I’m just for the team that will best represent our conference in the national championship game.”
Bill King, author of the Junkyard Blawg on AJC.com: “I’ve heard more than one Dawg fan mutter, ‘Isn’t there a way for both of them to lose?’ … It would bother me less for Alabama to win. I’m not overly fond of Saban, but I can’t stand the Urban Crier. And we have to live with Florida every year [unlike the Tide] and they were so obnoxious after their national championship that I would love not to have to see that again.”
Mary Gerakitis, Georgia grad who is married to Richard Gerakitis, the Auburn fan who is also my lawyer: “I got an e-mail from Helen Alston, my Sunday school teaching partner for the past 20 years. She won’t be at Sunday school this week. She is a huge Florida Gator, and she thinks she and her Florida-loving cousins will be celebrating. I have to say Helen is very nice, but I’ve had to hold my tongue when she shows up at Sunday school draped in orange and blue, wearing Gator jewelry. In the stories of Noah’s Ark, she goes on and on about gators being the best animals. I don’t really think it’s right to put such ideas into the heads of our 4-year-olds.
“As a Dawg, there’s just no way I can pull for Florida. Especially not when Urban Meyer calls time out to run up the score - and not when they’ve overindulged in championships during the last few years. However, in being faithful to my Auburn-loving husband, I can’t pull for Alabama, either. So I told Helen that we’re not pulling for anybody. We’ll be disgruntled bystanders.”
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It’s time to trade Kovalchuk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We all expect Ilya Kovalchuk to leave when his contract expires after the 2010 season, but there’s no need for Don Waddell to wait. The general manager should clear the air that befogs his last-place team. He should trade Kovalchuk now.
Kovalchuk has flashed past the point of diminishing returns. He has averaged 42 goals over his first six seasons; he’s on pace to score 24. He has averaged 3.7 shots per game over those six seasons; he’s averaging 2.8 shots now. He’s playing like a man who wants to be elsewhere.
Can we blame him for that? Not really. The Thrashers have been awful for most of their existence, and Kovalchuk has been a Thrasher since 2001. Esteemed colleague Mike Knobler wrote an eye-opening story two weeks ago, posing the question: Why isn’t Kovalchuk team captain? And the man himself seemed to provide the answer in a quote: “I’m not here to be the franchise’s face or anything.”
On sheer talent, Kovalchuk is among the world’s five best players. The Montreal radio crew was buzzing over his skill in Tuesday night’s game, and in Montreal they’ve seen their share of hockey players. But the Thrashers lost to the Canadiens, and the Atlanta angle from that game wasn’t that Kovalchuk looked spiffy with a stick in his hands but that he’d been demoted to a checking line by coach John Anderson.
If you’re counting, Anderson is the fourth Thrashers coach who has tried to turn Kovalchuk into something more than a solo artist, but it seems clear he’ll only achieve true greatness by joining a team with other great players. The Thrashers are not that team and won’t be anytime soon. So why hang onto an ongoing distraction?
With the trade deadline at hand, Waddell managed to extract two useful players (Erik Christensen and Colby Armstrong), a prospect (Angelo Esposito) and a No. 1 draft pick in the February trade that sent Marian Hossa to Pittsburgh. Kovalchuk would surely bring far more, and there’s no sense waiting until February 2010 to move.
The Thrashers need lots of new players. As gifted as he is, Kovalchuk is only one man, and with every loss his case for being indispensable disintegrates. The Thrashers are already in last place. They can do no worse without him.
Permalink | Comments (150) | Post your comment | Categories: Thrashers/NHL
