Syndication23 Mar 2009 - 09:49:19 pm
"I don't care what the experts say, I'm gonna whup yo butt"
It's about the four minutes into the third period of the Flyers-Devils game at the Wachovia Center on Versus...Doc Emrick has just shouted "Simon Gagne and he SCOOOORESSSS". They are beating Marty Brodeur and the Swamp Things 4-2.
Wait a minute.
Aren't the Devils supposed to be the best team in the East right now? Isn't Mighty Marty supposed to be the heir to Saint Patrick? Isn't he supposed to be rested and ready for the playoffs?
So how come the Flyers are making Philly Cheesesteak out of him?
Could it be that Marty just got socked with a multimillion dollar alimony bill by his ex? Nawww, couldn't be...could it?
Or maybe it's just that the Flyers really don't give a rat's hiney about what the 'experts' say. They just know they LOVE to beat the Devils.
Whenever I read or listen to the 'experts' talk about one team or another's chances against their opponent, or go on--using an endless stream of tripe cobbled together from "The Book of Hockey Clichés"--I ask myself how many of them have actually ever even held a hockey stick.
While there are some excellent people in hockey media, the increasing showbiz trend that infects journalists and broadcasters is contaminating the way more than a few people perceive the game. How many times have you gone on a hockey forum and read people's posts where they regurgitate something blurted out by the talking heads?
What happened to making up your own mind about hockey, and, by the way, not necessarily having an opinion because you're not afraid to admit you just don't know enough about a particular team or player?
Fortunately, players--most of the time, it seems, anyway--are too busy just trying to keep body and soul together while skating their tail off and getting bashed in the chops with the latest designer carbon fiber or being smacked around by other armour clad dudes at breakneck speeds, to pay attention to the hooey dished out by armchair jocks.
That's why I like former players as colour commentators. These guys have earned the right to speak their minds as they've had their eggs scrambled more than once and lived to tell about it. There's nothing like a grizzled vet who played for eight different clubs--most of them bottom feeders--sharing his unvarnished view of the world's greatest sport.
Whether I agree with them or not, I'm always somewhat in awe when I get a few minutes with one of them on a hockey call-in show and get to hear them answer my inevitably naive questions. Because they've forgotten more about hockey than I'll ever know. And though they've actually played in the best hockey league on the planet, they've usually the most humble and unassuming people you'd ever want to talk to.
Which is another reason I love hockey, and have for almost fifty years...geez, I'm dating myself...but how lucky was I to be a four year old when the likes of Rocket Richard, Jake the Snake, Mr Hockey and the Golden Jet were all playing in the NHL? And how lucky am I that I've seen hockey evolve from a six team league to a global family?
So getting back to where we started, hockey players will tell you, over and over again, that on any given night, any team can beat any other team; that a 'slump' sometimes isn't a slump at all, but a period of adjustment as a team or player re-tools their game, or maybe really IS a slump, because the magic just isn't there and you don't know why.
Though I love playing hockey, and hope to play until I can't lace up a pair of skates any more, I knew from the age of thirteen, and the first time a monster kid skating straight at me with a look that could kill whistled a puck past my right ear, that I'd never be a professional hockey player. Ever since then, I've had nothing but the utmost respect for those brave enough to sacrifice everything for The Game.
Oh, and about what it takes to win...Cory Clouston is one of those feisty guys who didn't care what people said about him. He apparently played hockey with everything he had, knowing that if he wasn't the biggest man on the ice, he had to have the biggest heart and the smartest head. That's the way he coaches.
That's probably why the Senators are now making a lot of people scratch their heads. They've stopped worrying about what people say about them. They just go out and play hockey. And as the New York Rangers found out Sunday night, the Sens are saying with their play "I don't care what the experts say. I'm gonna whup your butt".
The elbow benders and the donut eaters masquerading as hockey writers (as opposed to the true, and few, sage scribes) might call it 'swagger', but it isn't swagger at all. It's a Zen thing. It's what martial artists tell themselves using other, more elegant verbiage like "strike decisively and with overwhelming force to overcome your opponent". Yeah, whut he sed.
Hockey is the sport of the skating samurai.
Well, the Wings-Flames game just started...so I'm out.
Thanks for reading.
Dave
Wait a minute.
Aren't the Devils supposed to be the best team in the East right now? Isn't Mighty Marty supposed to be the heir to Saint Patrick? Isn't he supposed to be rested and ready for the playoffs?
So how come the Flyers are making Philly Cheesesteak out of him?
Could it be that Marty just got socked with a multimillion dollar alimony bill by his ex? Nawww, couldn't be...could it?
Or maybe it's just that the Flyers really don't give a rat's hiney about what the 'experts' say. They just know they LOVE to beat the Devils.
Whenever I read or listen to the 'experts' talk about one team or another's chances against their opponent, or go on--using an endless stream of tripe cobbled together from "The Book of Hockey Clichés"--I ask myself how many of them have actually ever even held a hockey stick.
While there are some excellent people in hockey media, the increasing showbiz trend that infects journalists and broadcasters is contaminating the way more than a few people perceive the game. How many times have you gone on a hockey forum and read people's posts where they regurgitate something blurted out by the talking heads?
What happened to making up your own mind about hockey, and, by the way, not necessarily having an opinion because you're not afraid to admit you just don't know enough about a particular team or player?
Fortunately, players--most of the time, it seems, anyway--are too busy just trying to keep body and soul together while skating their tail off and getting bashed in the chops with the latest designer carbon fiber or being smacked around by other armour clad dudes at breakneck speeds, to pay attention to the hooey dished out by armchair jocks.
That's why I like former players as colour commentators. These guys have earned the right to speak their minds as they've had their eggs scrambled more than once and lived to tell about it. There's nothing like a grizzled vet who played for eight different clubs--most of them bottom feeders--sharing his unvarnished view of the world's greatest sport.
Whether I agree with them or not, I'm always somewhat in awe when I get a few minutes with one of them on a hockey call-in show and get to hear them answer my inevitably naive questions. Because they've forgotten more about hockey than I'll ever know. And though they've actually played in the best hockey league on the planet, they've usually the most humble and unassuming people you'd ever want to talk to.
Which is another reason I love hockey, and have for almost fifty years...geez, I'm dating myself...but how lucky was I to be a four year old when the likes of Rocket Richard, Jake the Snake, Mr Hockey and the Golden Jet were all playing in the NHL? And how lucky am I that I've seen hockey evolve from a six team league to a global family?
So getting back to where we started, hockey players will tell you, over and over again, that on any given night, any team can beat any other team; that a 'slump' sometimes isn't a slump at all, but a period of adjustment as a team or player re-tools their game, or maybe really IS a slump, because the magic just isn't there and you don't know why.
Though I love playing hockey, and hope to play until I can't lace up a pair of skates any more, I knew from the age of thirteen, and the first time a monster kid skating straight at me with a look that could kill whistled a puck past my right ear, that I'd never be a professional hockey player. Ever since then, I've had nothing but the utmost respect for those brave enough to sacrifice everything for The Game.
Oh, and about what it takes to win...Cory Clouston is one of those feisty guys who didn't care what people said about him. He apparently played hockey with everything he had, knowing that if he wasn't the biggest man on the ice, he had to have the biggest heart and the smartest head. That's the way he coaches.
That's probably why the Senators are now making a lot of people scratch their heads. They've stopped worrying about what people say about them. They just go out and play hockey. And as the New York Rangers found out Sunday night, the Sens are saying with their play "I don't care what the experts say. I'm gonna whup your butt".
The elbow benders and the donut eaters masquerading as hockey writers (as opposed to the true, and few, sage scribes) might call it 'swagger', but it isn't swagger at all. It's a Zen thing. It's what martial artists tell themselves using other, more elegant verbiage like "strike decisively and with overwhelming force to overcome your opponent". Yeah, whut he sed.
Hockey is the sport of the skating samurai.
Well, the Wings-Flames game just started...so I'm out.
Thanks for reading.
Dave
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