Scheduling all 30 teams to play at the same time is neither cool nor sassy. It’s incredible lame. It’s like broadcasting an entire new season of Mad Men on ten different channels during the same 3 hour period. It’s like eating all three meals at lunchtime. It’s like sleeping for 48 straight hours and then trying to stay awake for the next five days. It’s the stupidest plan in the world.
Sincerely,
Katebits
Have you ever wondered what happens when there is a crazy person on your flight? I can now tell you.
First the whole plane becomes aware of her during boarding. She’s talking too loudly and too rudely about the very young flight attendant.
Then, the entire plane gets veeery nervous about her when she loudly and shrilly demands to know what the guy filling the gas tank is doing out there. “HE’S BEEN OUT THERE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES. WHAT IS HE DOING?! HE DOES NOT LOOK HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING AT ALL. NOW HE’S UNDER THE PLANE. HE’S UNDER THE PLANE.“ Then, everyone pretends not to eavesdrop when the flight attendant comes over to try to calm her down. Everyone is very very very very wary of this loud lady traveling alone.
She is trouble. She is both belligerent and terrified.
Then, when the plane starts to pull out of the gate, the lady screams (yes, screams), and begins shouting and sobbing, “THAT PLANE IS COMING RIGHT AT US. OH MY GOD. WHY WOULD THEY PARK HERE! Oh MY GOD. I”M NOT GOING TO MAKE IT OFF THIS FLIGHT. I’M GOING TO DIE. I KNOW IT. I CAN’T DO THIS. I HAVE TO GET OFF THIS FLIGHT.”
This is when the flight attendant (who really does look too young to be doing this job) begins to look very nervous, and she leaps out of her seat and gets on a little phone, presumably to the cockpit. There is a long phone conversation while the crazy lady is being loud, and those of us near her are trying to calm her down and everyone else on the flight is silently willing the plane to stop.
Please don’t put us in the air with this lunatic.
Then, after about twenty minutes the plane begins to move back towards the gate. Some people groan, but most of us are relieved. The crazy scared lady begins to complain that the flight attendant is over reacting and that if she had any idea how to do her job this wouldn’t be happening. “I’VE BEEN UP SINCE FOUR AM! I JUST WANT TO GET HOME. THERE IS NO NEED TO STOP THE PLANE,” she screeches. None of us argue with her because she is sobbing and the plane is already stopped and the wheels of airline justice are already in motion. Why risk provoking her further?
Then, after another half hour, the foxy pilot comes back and first asks her what’s wrong, and when she starts bitching about how everyone is overreacting, he basically tells her to can it. He informs her in a loud enough voice for those of us nearby to hear, that some people from inside the airport are coming to talk to her. Innnnteresting, we all think.
Then, after another twenty minutes two cop cars pull up next to the plane and we all think, “Holy TOLEDO! Are they going to arrest her?!” The crazy lady FINALLY begins to understand that she has freaked everyone out and caused a major delay, and that she might be in BIG TROUBS. She stops bitching, and starts whining.
Then, finally, a very authoritative man, with a very calm demeanor walks smoothly through the plane, leans down to the woman and speaks very quietly, so that we cannot here what he says. It becomes clear to us that this is his job. Getting uncooperative and disruptive people off planes is this man’s job. Specifically this. He’s good at his job, because whatever he says to her works, and she stands up and leaves the plane without resistance.
Then she is gone, and the entire plane starts talking to each other about what a crazy loon she was, and OMG I’M SO GLAD WE DIDN’T TAKE OFF WITH HER IN THE PLANE.
Then we finally get home and we immediately write about it on our blogs, because although we have flown on many, many flights, we’ve never seen anything quite like that.
I can’t TELL you what a shift in perception I’ve gone through with the Sabres in the last two weeks. It’s amazing! Basically, I suddenly have this long term view that I really didn’t have before. Last week, if the Sabres lost, everything was terrible. That was the beginning and the end of the story.
But now….it’s different. It’s partly different because I don’t see any easy way out of the current sucky situation (besides firing Lindy, but I seriously doubt that’s going to actually happen). I think the best we can hope for is that Darcy gets fired, which I just don’t see translating to much change on the ice, at least not for awhile. No matter what, this team needs big time change. I’d LOVE to be wrong about this, but unless something pretty drastic happens in the coaching/management arena, we might be looking at a few years of mediocrity.
Oddly, I’m not that freaked out.
Here’s why:
1. It’s kind of a relief to stop worrying about the dumb old Sabres all the time. For two years we’ve all been pulling our hair out trying to understand this team. Why aren’t they winning? WHAT’S wrong with them? Blah blah blah blah blahblahblah.
They suck! That’s what’s wrong with them! The management is kind of sucky, the coaching is kind of sucky, and the players are kind of sucky. It’s just suckage, all around.
Am I the only one who feels liberated by this?
Remember back before it became a book and a movie, that episode of Sex in the City when Miranda first learned the concept of “He’s just not that into you” and it really DID make sense? That’s how this feels. Like, OOOOOOOh, they’re just sucky. So, I should stop analyzing every single thing they do, because none of it really matters? They’re just SUCKY. Huh. Well, okay then.
2. At the game on Friday, I started thinking about how it would feel to go to games that weren’t sold out. What if there was lots of room to spread out, and you could sneak into much better seats than you had paid for? That….might be TOTALLY AWESOME. I mean, even if the Sabres really suck, they’re still playing hockey, and there will still be big beers at the game. I really wouldn’t mind being able to put my jacket on the seat next to me and my feet on the chair in front of me.
3. I might actually be able to get season tickets.
4. The playoffs are just so stressful. It’s kind of nice to have a whole little second hockey season without the Sabres.
5. Okay, I know that last one was a bit of a cop out. I DO want the Sabres in the playoffs again. I do. Which leads me to my next point, which is that the Sabre WON’T suck forever. They just won’t. Maybe this group will find a way to pull it together, or maybe it will be the next generation of Sabres who will stop the suckage, but sooner or later, we’re going to get some relief from this mediocrity. I promise. There might not be dozens of Cups in the history of the Sabres, but it’s not wall-to-wall suckage, either. The day will come when the Sabres don’t suck.
6. And when that day comes, and the Sabres stop sucking, it will be sweeter because of this time we are in right now. I am a new fan, but I am not a bandwagon fan. I am earning my stripes right now, and so are you. Someday, when the Sabres are good again, we can pat ourselves on the backs for being badasses who loved the team even when loving them was difficult. We are hardcore, and we are awesome.
Well, at least they’re not half-assing it. They’re not just bad, they’re horrifying.
If I were the GM of the Sabres, I would fire Lindy Ruff. Not because I think he’s a bad coach, but because he’s obviously a bad coach for this particular team, and this is the team we have signed for the next four years.
No offense Buffalo, but you’re beginning to sound a little unhinged. I always get kind of nervous when you start to act like this. Yes, the Sabres are soft. No, you don’t have to have to go all Cuckoo for Crankypuffs about it.
It’s not that I don’t think the Sabres are soft, it’s just that my distaste for the tone of this dialog is far outweighing my interest in the subject matter. Furthermore, it’s not like the Sabres being soft is even the most significant issue right now! The way I see it, we’ve got plenty of other things to freak out about, including, but not limited to:
1. Tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future, Patrick Lalime is our goaltender.
2. I don’t understand why Crunchy hasn’t taken a little more heat for this whole mess. What, is Ryan Miller too good for ankle steroids? If Crunchy had spent the summer bulking up his spindly little ankles instead of gallivanting around Europe with Goose, maybe this whole fiasco could have been avoided.
3. Has anyone considered that Ryan Miller is faking? If I were pissed off at my teammates for being reluctant to stand up for me, and I lived in a city prone to sports-related mass hysteria, I might limp around in a walking boot just for fun too.
4. If Thomas Vanek doesn’t have a blowhole drilled by tomorrow, I’m going to flip the eff out. Enough of this bullhonky! Man up, Thomas! If we don’t have Ryan Miller, we’re going to need a LOT more goals. Get your gimpy jaw back in the game, RIGHT NOW.
5. The Rangers hired Tortorella. This pisses me off because he was my go-to coach in case Lindy ever needed to be fired. (I know, I know. You guys don’t like to think about these things, but SOMEONE has to come up with a Plan B. Tortorella was my Plan B.) I kind of love Torts, and now he’s a disgusting Ranger. Sad.
To review: Everyone stop shouting about the Sabres being soft, and start shouting about blowholes and ankle steroids. Thank you.
1st Power Play: Hm. That…..wasn’t very good.
2nd Power Play: They seem out of sorts. I guess Vanek’s jaw was an important part of the power play. Bummer.
3rd Power Play: DUDE! They NEED to score here.
4th Power Play: I’m getting scared now.
5th Power Play: *gentle crying*
6th Power Play: *loud sobbing*
7th Power Play: *stunned disbelief, and violent rocking back and forth in chair*
8th Power Play: Oh, COME ON! SOMEONE NEEDS TO WAKE UP VANEK! I DON’T CARE HOW MUCH VICODIN HE’S SWALLOWED TONIGHT, THE SABRES ARE NOTHING WITHOUT HIM! GET HIM ON SKATES, AND PROP HIM UP! DRILL THE BLOWHOLE! THIS IS AWFUL!
9th Power Play: Hold me.
10th Power Play: *vomiting begins*
11th Power Play: *vomiting continues and crying begins anew*
12th Power Play: *vomiting and crying continue, and I begin threatening Sabretooth at knife point*
13th Power Play:
*finger hovering*
14th Power Play:
*Press*
15th-20 MILLIONTH Power Play:
Press press…..press…..presspresspress….press
presspresspresspresspresspresspresspresspresspresspresspresspress
Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss
PRESS
_______________________
We = screwed
WordPress just totally deleted a post that I was working on. Bastards. This has never happened before, and I am quite sad. The post was a super funny/sublime/poignant one- perhaps the greatest, most awesome thing the internet has ever known- and now, it is lost forever.
Here is a short summary, as I am too depressed to recreate the post it its entirety. When you read this, please imagine that it is much funnier/sublimer/poignanter.
1. Huh. Tim Connolly is good at hockey. I totally thought you people were crazy, but now I see what you’ve been going on about.
2. Pierre McGuire is….yucky.
3. Lindy, you should have played Lalime. I meant to email you earlier to remind you to play Lalime tonight, but I forgot.
4. Um, is this really our blueline? For how long?
5. What’s going on with the all-blizzard-all-the-time action we’ve got going on in Buffalo this winter? Give it a rest, snow.
The Sabres are supposed to come back against Tampa. Not fall behind and stay behind. That was lame.
Pregame
Mood: I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to even watch this game, much less blog about it, but I’m going to give this a shot. The Caps game was a real turning point for me. For the first time since I became a Sabres fan, I really had to face the fact that regardless of the winning or losing, lately I’ve found the Sabres fundamentally unlikeable. I mean, they’re not just bad at hockey, they’re lazy douchebags about it. I hit the wall with them on Tuesday. I hit the wall, and then the Sabres threw up on the wall, and then I painted “Fuck you, Sabres” on the side of my bulldozer and I bulldozed the wall. It wasn’t pretty.
As most of you know, I’m a fairly new hockey fan. I don’t have a long history of this, and the sudden realization that I don’t even LIKE the Sabres has been disconcerting, to say the least. As someone who lived quite happily without hockey for thrity years, when I find myself very miserable over hockey, I tend to take it seriously. Unlike some of you, who were born into sports fandom, becoming a Sabres fan was a conscious choice that I made, and it’s a choice that I still question from time to time. The fact that hockey now occupies so much of my time and energy still bewilders me, especially when I find the Sabres this frustrating. Why on earth am I doing this to myself?
I think sports fandom is a really complicated and fascinating thing. When I started watching hockey, I did it because I wanted to be a part of this town. I wanted to stop feeling like I was on the outside looking in. I wanted to be a Buffalonian. So much of my sports fandom has been wrapped up in this “Yay! Buffalo!” thing that until recently I’ve not had to confront the flip side of that coin, which is that BEING A BUFFALONIAN SUCKS. THE SABRES SUCK ASS AND I HATE THEM WITH THE BURNING PASSION OF A MILLION WHITE HOT SUNS. I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THAT LINDY REARRANGED THE LOCKER ROOM STALLS AND THEN THEY WROTE AN ARTICLE IN THE PAPER ABOUT IT LIKE IT’S FUCKING NEWS! I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M CHEERING FOR A BUNCH OF A-HOLES WHO ARE SO CHILDISH THAT THEIR BOSS HAS SEPARATED THE TROUBLE MAKERS! WHY DON’T THEY MAKE DEREK ROY SIT IN THE CORNER WHILE THEY’RE AT IT?! I DON’T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT THEIR DUMB ATTEMPTS TO “HOLD THEMSELVES ACCOUNTABLE”. ACT LIKE PROFESSIONALS YOU FUCKHEADS. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! I HATE THEM! I HATE THEM! I HATE THEM!
But I digress.
I’ve realized something amazing in the last two days. Even if the Sabres disintegrate into full blown irrelevance, I can NEVER not be a Buffalonian again. In a weird, awesome way, that makes me feel really happy. I think all along I’ve had this wacky fear that as quickly as the Sabres turned me into a Buffalonian, they could somehow UNturn me. It’s not true. The Sabres are no longer my primary emotional connection to this town. That ended a long time ago. I have a whole life here now. I can afford to kick the Sabres around a bit, because I don’t really need them anymore. Not like I used to.
So, without further ado, here is a gameday post, completely devoid of affection for my team. Because I can.
Favorite Sabre: Okay, I lied. I still have affection for Goose. He’s the only one who made it out of the Caps game with a little piece of my heart. Goose not only played with a shred of dignity, but he’s also the only Sabre whose postgame interview was at ALL appropriate to the situation. I think if Adam Mair had given an interview he might have maintained a scrap of my respect as well.
Least Favorite Sabre: HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Prediction: The little assholes are going to win this one. Then they’re going to give irritating post-game interviews about how they stuck to the system and worked as a team. Then, after that, they’re going to lose three in a row. Lather, rinse, repeat- for the rest of the season.
Item representing my love for the Sabre: I just googled “smallest thing in the world,” and Google tells me that a “Quark” is the smallest thing in the world.
This is the first thing that comes up in an image search for “quark”. I can’t believe that he’s the smallest thing in the world. Quantum mechanics are so weird.
After the 1st (0-0)
Mood: See above
Favorite Sabre: Meh….but I remembered that I don’t hate Matt Ellis.
Least Favorite Sabre: See above
What we’ve learned: When the Sabres hit rock bottom, and everyone is freaking out, and Lindy pulls out his most intense coaching moves (rearranging the stalls), and the Sabres are playing as hard as they can because they’re genuinely upset….they’re exactly as “good” as the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Item representing my love for the Sabres: 3/4ths of a quark.
They gained a half a quark because Ryan Miller stopped a penalty shot, but they LOST a 3/4ths of a quark because of that Sabres power play where the Leafs had control of the puck for fifteen years. Net loss = 1/4 of a quark.
After the 2nd (3-0, Sabres)
Mood: Alright, fine. I admit it. I’m amused. But I still hate these effers.
Favorite Sabre: Meh. Meh. A thousand times, meh.
Least Favorite Sabre: Jason Pominville. Yeah, you heard me. You know what two goals gets you tonight? Nothing. You’re playing against CuJo. Stop acting like you don’t suck. No one on this team gets to act like they don’t suck for AT LEAST a month. I don’t care HOW many goals you score against CuJo.
What we’ve learned: I’m still rooting for the Sabres. I wasn’t so sure I would. I still like it when they score.
Item representing my love for the Sabres: three quarks. One for each goal.
Yes, this represents three times the love I started out with, but PLEASE remember that these quarks are extremely, extremely small. So, I love the Sabre three times a quark. That’s like loving them three times the chance that we’ll ever see Tim Connolly play hockey again.
At the End (4-1, Sabres)
Okay fine. They won. Please remember dear readers (and I say this with your own best interests at heart), this is what they do. They suck SO HARD that you wish you were dead, and then juuuust when you’re ready to swear off hockey for the rest of your life, they pull themselves together and play a really solid, complete game….FOR ONE NIGHT.
You know what they’re doing right now? They’re patting each other on the back in the locker room, and they’re all thinking, “OMG! OMG! OMG! We’re sooooo good at hockey! YAAAAAY!” And Lindy is all, “WOW. I’m a GENIUS! I really sent them a POWERFUL MESSAGE when I moved their stalls!! I’m going to go tell them how much I love them.” They are all SO PROUD of themselves right now, and they are FORGETTING about the last 18 months. Yes, they ARE that dumb. Dear readers, PLEASE DO NOT BE FOOLED. For the LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BE FOOLED.
I’m not going to trust these guys for at least two months. If they play like this for two months, I MIGHT forgive them for the Caps game. Maybe.
Remember yesterday when I was all, “I love watching the game at work with my coworkers! I don’t mind when I can’t see the game! Everything is sunshine and roses, and I LOVE the whole world,”? Remember that? Well, that was retarded. I meant what I said about enjoying the games at work, but yesterday I failed to write about the downside of missing an entire weekend of hockey, which is that I FEEL LIKE THE SABRES HAVEN’T PLAYED IN A MONTH. POSSIBLY TWO MONTHS. THEY MAY NEVER PLAY AGAIN.
I just checked the NHL schedule to see what my non-Sabres options are tonight. Colorado/Detroit, and San Jose/LA. Those….are not appealing options.
I’m bored, cranky and uninspired. I can’t even think of anything funny to write about Paul Gaustad taking a shot from James Patrick to the chin in practice today. There is something funny about that, right? (I mean, considering Goose is okay and all.) I’m way off my game. I need some hockey to watch.
—-
In comPLETEly unrelated news: I just talked to my mother, and she told me she accidentally left her knitting in a bar last night. Heh.
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