I experienced a strange evolution of emotions in the past week and a half or so since the Sharks have been eliminated. At first I was sort of ok with it. Being in Maui when your team is playing in the third round is one of the best ways to not be at all worried about the series, even as you walk down the main drag in Lahaina swearing over the score. I didn't watch the hand shake because I was at a career thing, and while there were several Sharks fans there, we left the bar before the game was over. (which was for the best, really). I was pretty sure that I would be generally ok with the Canucks winning the Cup at that point. After all, the Cup would stay in the West, and I have some friends who are Canucks fans, and it seemed like a fine decision after two glasses of wine and a BART ride towards home. Then something started to change.

Perhaps it was that the temporary bliss from the wine wore off, or that the fuzzy glow of Maui faded and the sad gloom of the end of the season began to dawn. In all honesty, it was probably watching my twitter feed explode with some really over confident Canucks fans who had all about planned the damn parade already, and were tap dancing on the Sharks graves, that made me start to turn. (In the interest of full disclosure, I too, would gloat if my team were in the finals. Maybe not to the same level, maybe way beyond, but it would happen. That's a perfectly acceptable reaction, but as a fan of the team eliminated in round 3, it wasn't fun to read.) My rumination went something like this:

I did not invent rage comics, I just Gray-i-fied them

It was in panel four that I realized that I could not, and would not, under any circumstances related to this Cup Finals, root for the Canucks. Eff those guys, no way. Part of it is nationalism, I'll admit, but I mostly, I just don't want them to win. Period. No way, no how, no sir. Here's the rub though, I don't want the Bruins to win either.

Crap.

One of the teams is going to win. It's not like the series can end in a tie where each team agrees to joint custody of the Cup for the summer. No, someone has to win, and dammit, it will be someone I don't really like. 

Usually, I am able to find a finalist I at least prefer over the other. Sometimes that's "whoever isn't Detroit" or in the case of last year, it was "whoever isn't thee Blackhawks" but this year no such luck. I was fully willing to hop on the Lightning's bad wagon if they advanced, but they didn't, and so, my dreams of having a team I liked in the finals were dashed. So I had to make a decision.

I'm not paying attention to the finals. Oh, I'll probably watch some more of them, I watched part of game 1 because I just love hockey so damn much I feel compelled to watch it before it goes away for the summer, but I can't bring myself to get excited enough to really follow it. Like tonight, I went out to dinner instead of watching the game. I caught a passing glance of it as we sat, huddled in our winter coats eating ice cream, and I curled my lips back in disgust as I saw the Canucks celebrate. I said nothing, as I was the lone hockey fan in the group, but any desire I had to know anything about the game was lost in that instant.

Does this make me a bad fan? Maybe. Does it make me a bitter fan? Oh hell yes, and you know what, I'm fine with that. I gave my congratulations to the winning team, and now I have moved on. Sure, I moved on to bitterness and minor situational hatred, but I still moved on. So Stanley Cup Finals, you can go on and do your thing. People can enjoy you, and when someone wins, I will send them my congratulations, but I will not devote much time to you. It's a long summer, but I welcome it. As far as I am concerned, the season ended on May 24th, 2011.

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It's easy to take the common line and talk about how, once again, the San Jose Sharks turned out to be a set of perennially disappointing players, destined for little more than mediocrity and a lot of "what could have beens." It's easy because that's been the common sentiment over the past few seasons. If you don't watch the team on a regular basis, you don't see all the trials it goes through, it's triumphs and smaller victories, you just see the bad stuff. The crushing defeats, embarrassing losses, drops in the standings. The call outs by on air personalities who make no secret that they don't like your team's former captain and they think he's a lost cause.

Once again the Sharks come up short in the post season. Two back to back trips to round 3 and two back to back eliminations. Yet, I have hope. A lot of it, actually. I am disappointed with how the season ended, but I believe this season said more good things about the the Sharks than bad, and with some very minor tweaks, this team could go all the way.

 

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Tonight @ 6pm Pacific

Games 1, 2, 3, and 4 have gone. I return from the paradise in the Pacific to find a less my team in a less than blissful state, being down 3-1 in the series, with an injured captain, a beleaguered Ben Eager, a distressed Demers, and an entire team in a must-win-or-face-locker-room-clean-out-upon-their-return situation. It's not a pretty sight to return to, but it is also not a hopeless one.

There still exists a chance for the Sharks to come out guns blazing and take game 5. There still exists a chance for the Sharks to rally back and win game 6. There still exists a chance to force a game 7. Winner take all. It IS possible. The Canucks aren't better, though they have played that way. This deep into the playoffs seeding and regular season results mean nothing. It's about who's scoring, and who's not. It's about who can shut down the other team, and who can't. It's about playing hot, at the right time, for the right game, to keep a series going. It's about luck, and hope and grit, and yes, heart. The Sharks have all those things. The question is, can they combine them tonight, and play all out, to get them one step closer to where they so desperately want to be?

Only time will tell.

Go Sharks!
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Friday was awesome. But there is more work to be done. I will be in front of my TV clutching my security blanket/rally towel.  Where will you be?

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Things going for the Sharks tonight:

1) Gray will not be at the game. The 2 playoff games we went to together, the Sharks lost.  The one game I went to with someone else (Thanks for Game 7 Mom!), the Sharks won. Coincidence? I hope not.
2) I am going with my Canucks friend Rob. Every Sharks v. Canucks game I have gone to with Rob, the Sharks have won. Coincidence? I hope not.
3) 3 is my lucky number. Game 3 in Round 3.
4) Orange is my favorite color. The Sharks won Game 7 when there were orange rally towels. I am bringing my orange rally towel tonight. (I know it's not game 7 but does it really matter?)
5) Breaking out the Flying Hockey Hippo. (I found this magnificent picture here: http://mosshippohaven.info/)

All of this should create a recipe for a sure win. Either that or the fact that the Sharks don't want the possibility of being swept from the 3rd round of the playoffs for the second year in a row and finally put together their best 60 minute effort of the whole playoffs and make my friend cry.  One of those 2 things.

Shortly after securing victory last Thursday night over the Red Wings in what was one of the most nerve wrecking, stomach clenching, flip flop, shark hopping game 7s I have ever seen, the NHL's talking heads were already billing the series with the Canucks as a Tale of Two Failures. No heart, no grit, no success. Ignoring, of course, the Sharks amazing comeback in the second half of this season, the Canucks ability to overcome the Blackhawks in 7 games and best a playoff foe, the Sharks amazing game 3 comeback against LA, or how the Sharks had just bounced the team to beat in the West for the second year straight. Clearly, hope only springs eternal in historically lauded markets.

Had either team lost it's respective game 7s, both would have been labeled "chokers", a label not applied to those who faced them and lost. It's a narrative written by trite denunciation of both team's accomplishments, following outdated story lines and ancient criticisms. It's so much easier to stick to the lines of old that to realize that both teams have grown and the old story lines don't work anymore. Yes, someone will leave disappointed at the end of this series, but that's how the playoffs go. For so many teams, that doesn't equate to a lack of success, so much as it does a simple, but disappointing, defeat.

The playoffs aren't easy; they're not supposed to be. This isn't a tale of two failures, it's a tale of two teams who haven't met pundit set expectations. Two teams that have made those who make a living making predictions look bad. Hockey isn't played on paper, it's played on the ice. In the end, the only words that matter are those said as the teams leave the ice after 60 minutes of play. With any luck those words will be "Sharks win."

Go Sharks!


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Hope springs eternal, in the form of pooped out rainbows

Tonight at 5pm Pacific, amidst a sea of red and failing eight limbed beasts, the Sharks will take the ice to do the deed. Tonight, they will slay the big red wheeled monster. They will play a full 60 minutes of strong, opponent crushing hockey, and at the end, they will stand on Detroit's ice and shake the hands of their rivals in front of the Wings faithful.

Clowe is out. We don't know why yet, but that is motivation to win it for the one they had to leave behind. Marleau was thrown under the bus, backed over, and then run over three times by JR after Sunday's third period let down loss. Will he rise to the occasion? Hell yes he will.

At the end of the night, one team will stand victorious. One team will be ready to enter the semi promised land, one team, and that team will be the Sharks.

Stick that in your doubters pipe and smoke it.

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Tonight @ 5pm

 The Eastern Time Zone, making it hard for West Coasters to watch games since 1879

 

That's right everybody, game 3 is here, and with it, a chance to take a crushing lead on this series. The Wings and some of their fans are complaining, the Sharks are getting away with too much, snow is cold, stop covering Jimmy Howard with it, this game is unfair; welcome to how the rest of the league feels when playing the Wings. Yes, the snow showers are likely being done to get into Howard's head, but it's working. The Wings wouldn't hesitate to do the same, and their fans would likely support it if they did. That's justhow it is. What's great for your team is horrible to the opposing side.

The playoffs are both mental and physical. If you can't take the heat, you will be booted out of the kitchen.

For years now, we Sharks fans have wanted a bigger, meaner, tougher, grittier team. Well, now we have them and the rest of the league is starting to take notice. The Wings were a long time foe, a marker of where the Sharks need to be in order to have any hopes of getting to the promised land, a dream of what a this team could be. Now, they are a foe we can beat, one we have beaten, and one we can out play. Maybe it's not a new world order yet, but get ready Detroit, because the Sharks are coming, and they're coming for you.

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