AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 25
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Like fine whine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First off, let’s set the record straight:
This is whining: Why do they have to play the music so loud at the areeenaaaa? Why is a soda eight dollars? I hate it when you sit next to some guy who doesn’t know anything about hockey and he just wants the team to score goals!
OK, that’s whining.
This is a critical hockey fan taking an honest look at his favorite team: Gosh, we sure got our asses whipped the past two games. Even though I still feel we have a good shot at making the playoffs, this definitely isn’t the way I want to go into the postseason. I don’t want to back in simply because other teams couldn’t catch us. I don’t want to fall back on beating crummy teams just to scrape up enough points to make it.
OK, that’s a fair and critical look.
Understand the difference. Now, I realize some folks chimed in with some comments the other day that read like “Chicken Little.” The franchise isn’t in ruins, by any stretch, a playoff berth is still very much in our own hands. But I’m not going to blame any Thrashers fans whose hands are trembling right now. They’re the ones who were paying attention last season, when we missed by two points. TWO POINTS. And if you blanketly think that CAN’T happen this year, then you haven’t been paying any attention to the past 10 days or so, because the teams behind us are storming the gates like rabid dogs. There is plenty of play in these standings with 6-7 games left.
And forgive me if I prefer to see the Thrashers take care of their own business without saying, “Well, Toronto plays Montreal twice, and the Rangers play the Islanders twice.” …. I mean, a week ago we were watching at our team play like a contender. Now we’re sitting here saying, “Well, we’ll beat Florida and Washington, so it doesn’t really matter what we do against the other teams.”
Funk that, my friends. It matters. It matters how you represent yourself at this stage in the season, it matters how you go into the playoffs. Teams that sit on a big points lead and piss away the last two weeks of the season are dead meat against a team that’s been scratching people’s eyes out just trying to get in.
After the San Jose game, we said, “Well, it’s just one bad game.” Now after the Pittsburgh game, we’re saying, “Well, it was just an unlucky bounce.” What will say Wednesday night if this team can’t produce more than one goal?
This is a streaky team. It has nine streaks of at least four consecutive wins or losses this season … and I sure don’t want to see this two-game losing streak turn into a five-game losing streak. Not with only six to play. On the flip side, the team had only three four-game stretches where it went W-L-W-L … In other words, we either win a lot or we lose a lot.
Ironically, a lot of these overtime and shootout wins that we’re so proud of could very well come back to haunt us, because our regulation-win total could come into play in a tiebreaker, if it comes down to that. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
OK. Lest people start asking to see my Official Thrashers Fan Membership Card, let’s turn the mood to the positive. This team has been resilient. This team has veteran leadership. This team has everything it needs to run the table if it wants to.
So let’s stop calculating the math of the LEAST that can happen and start counting by twos again and make the MOST of this run.
(Stepping off soapbox.)
Let’s leave on lighter note … all those “Slap Shot” references the other day made me remember something, and I’m not sure if I mentioned it before or not …. but a few weeks ago, I was watching the original “Miracle on Ice” movie, the one with Karl Mauldin as Herb Brooks. … and I’m watching it, and suddenly I go, “Hey, that’s Dave ‘Killer’ Carlson out there!’ … and sure enough, the same guy from “Slap Shot” is playing Les Auge in “Miracle on Ice.” … I was closely watching the practice scenes and the exhibition game scenes for any mention of “Waddell” but there was none. The story that he was the ‘last’ player cut from the ‘80 team is something of an exageration, I think. Not on his part, probably, but just you know how stories evolve over time. …
OK, people, positive thinking. The Thrashers are good enough. They’re smart enough. And doggone it, people like them.
