If you want hockey, I suggest you visit the very cleverly titled I Hate Your Favorite Team (how do these bloggers come up with such clever names?) Oops--that site hasn't been updated since January. Instead, I will suggest an actual hockey blog, "Puck Daddy". Regardless, my point is this--most of us of at IDYFT, including me, know more about 1995 NHL teams than we do this current batch of teams.
Why 1995 for all of us? Because we all went to college together, and the 1995 version of Sega Hockey for Super Nintendo was one of the best fucking video games of all time. I have yet to encounter a hockey video game that was more fun. I've encountered more realistic, to be sure. But more fun? I don't think so.
Andrew Wice worked the Devils of New Jersey; he made Stephan Richter the most dangerous man in the entire league, with Billy Guerin a close second, and even Scott Neidermeyer was trouble in Wice's hands.
I loved the Capitals of that era--Joey Juneau (the Ugliest Man in Hockey!), Peter Bondra, Mark Tinordi, Sergei Gonchar (who is still in the league!), and netminders Jim Carrey/Olaf Kolzig.
Barnyard liked the Blackhawks, and even though he never learned how to pronounce his name, Jeremy Roenick starred on his team, along with Christian Ruutu. A kid named Paddy Buckley used to show up and fuck up people with the Buffalo Sabres, back when they were a franchise.
My point (yes, there is one!) is that I don't follow the Capitals all that closely, or at all, really. I was aware they had a bad-ass in Ovechkin, and I had assumed they were the favored team going in to the playoffs against the stupid Rangers. But I saw that they were getting handled, and I put my hopes away for another year. We are good at doing that in Washington (it's been, what? 10 years? since any team in any sport made it to the Finals of their sport? And then it was the Caps getting swept in the Stanley Cup.)
But now, the Caps destroyed the Rangers 4-0 to get the series back to 3-2. Damn you, you stupid Capitals, for getting my hopes up. I mean, sure, being down 3-1 means having to win 3 games in a row, including at least one in Madison Square Garden, but the Caps already won the first one, and now it is only 2 games in a row. And hell, 4-0? Maybe they've figured out the Rangers. Of course they will win the next two games.
And that's how my heart gets broken, with a team and a sport that I don't give two craps about for 9 months of the year. Goddamnit.
5 comments:
I wasn't even aware that the hockey playoffs were on, to be honest. My excuse is that I live in New Mexico, where ice is rare at best.
Perhaps, as an objective blogger, you might have pointed out that HURRICANE was a dominant force through two years of THOTM, absolutely dominant. I used to have to beg you to play, because it was a stinging ass-whip every time.
Sega Hockey 95 was pretty damn fun. Richer from the blue line! Guerin across the middle! Brodeur with another amazing save!
Now I have a Mac and can't even play Ikari Warriors.
Your story is bullshit. You never had to beg me to play.
Yes, your bullshit Devil team was better than it should have been. But don't make it sound like I had to be coaxed to play. That's a fucking lie. Just like your story involving Sally was a lie.
Martin Brodeur is still the NJ netminder, a decade and a half after the fact.
If you have any reason whatsoever to follow this Caps team, do so. They're facing a disappointing first round loss this year, but this team is built brilliantly.
Basically the front office is doing the exact opposite of everything Dan Snyder has ever done.
The Caps dumped all their over priced vets, hoarded draft picks, and have put together easily the youngest, most talented corps in the league.
They still have a few missing pieces but d-mn this team was built beautifully.
PS. Playing with Chicago was never fair because Ed Belfour stopped everything, including The Move. Although I might be thinking of NHLPA '93, the greatest video game of all time.
And who swept those stanley cupless caps? That's right! The anti-lions.
The Devils team I played with won two Stanley Cups, so they weren't overrated. Belfour + Roenick was tough. Claude Lemieux and Scott Stevens was better.
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