First of all, I wasn't at the game tonight. 10 minutes before the puck dropped I was still biking in my basement while listening to SNFU's The Devil's Voice (totally weird coincidence). I might try for Wednesday's game -- depends if the Scott Norwood Section is already packed with riff-raff. They may not have room for me.
Anyway, I know I wrote this on Sunday and I meant what I said -- still do. I'm not going to bag on the team when they're still doing so many things right. But that still doesn't change how ten years of history can affect you, and how you assume things might play out, in spite of the team demonstrating that they can actually break old habits.
A perfect example of this was at the end of the second period. I sensed frustration on the part of the Sens at the inability to beat Martin Brodeur. Typically in the past, the anxiety would fester into a full-blown cluster(expletive), and the team would be out of the series in five games. But whatever I sensed was off the mark. The Sens' patience demonstrated thus far has been utterly remarkable, as well as (and this is huge) their willingness to keep their foot on the gas, regardless of the situation. Remember the Toby Jug's version of shutdown hockey whenever the team garnered a lead? Remember how many times it blew up in their faces? Those days are over.
I think part of the reason why I'm still expecting the worst is due to watching so many games at home and becoming overly affected by the commentary. Greg Millen's verbal humping of Martin Brodeur is beyond relentless. He kept insisting that Brodeur was unbeatable and after a while, you begin to believe it. I felt like Audrey Raines after going a few rounds with the Chinese on 24.
(Aside: How buggered up is she, by the way? When you click on that Wikipedia entry, be sure to note her "current status" -- top-right hand sidebar. As long as you saw last week's ep, I promise it won't be a spoiler. Just don't scroll down on that page.)
If I can, it'll be nice to see a game live and experience any momentum switches in a proper environment.
A couple of quick notes...
- Elliotte Friedman asked Ray Emery at the end of the game about the significance of going against Martin Brodeur "head-to-head". Ray dodged the question. Friedman tried to re-word. Ray deked once more. A few minutes later, Friedman interviewed Mike Fisher and tried to get the answer out of him. For God's sakes, let it go.
- I don't know who several media members think they're fooling, but a few have been pronouncing Brodeur's name "Bro-deeyeur" (say the second half to yourself as if it were one syllable, and hope that your co-workers aren't around). One talking head actually forced himself to use the wrong pronunciation last night -- he was about to state the backstopper's name correctly, and then stopped himself. The NHL Media Guide lists the phonetic spelling as "broh-DOOR". TUC has inquired about the new pronunciation to several Francophones as well, and they've been left just as baffled. Memo to the Name Changers: Knock it off. You sound like jackasses. If you actually want to pronounce a name right while sounding wrong, use Andrej Meszaros (MEHT-zahr-ohsh) as a template.
- Say what you want about Bob Cole (undoubtedly a lot of it will be negative), but he's become an ironic oasis amongst a plethora of screaming play-by-play announcers/colour commentators. Mike Emerick's incessant caterwauling over the most insignificant of sequences has left me with a desire to punch him in the uvula on more than occasion during this post-season.
More later.
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